Tortilla Coast, Washington, D.C.

Most people don't know that back in 1912, Hellmann's Mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment, scheduled for delivery in Veracruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after its stop in New York. This would have been the largest single shipment of mayonnaise ever delivered to Mexico. But as we know, the great ship did not make it to New York....the ship hit an iceberg and sank on April 15, and the cargo was forever lost. The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise and were eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss. Their anguish was so great, that they declared a National Day of Mourning that they still observe to this day. The National Day of Mourning occurs each year on May 5th and is known, of course, as Sinko de Mayo.

We observed Sinko de Mayo by going to Capitol Hill to Speaker Pelosi's formerly favorite Mexican restaurant, Tortilla Coast. It was a crazy thing to do on such a popular tequila-drinking holiday, and even stopping by ahead of time, we still waited about an hour for a table. Soon after our arrival, a big, black party bus pulled up, and out came a mariachi band.....just what we needed in an already too-loud restaurant! We'd gotten a prime window table with a view of the Capitol dome and the street—where that bus was parked—and we noticed all these young women in too-short, cut-off, blue jean shorts and little straw cowboy hats get off the bus at intervals one by one and come into the bar/restaurant, where they circulated, making some of the young men, shall we say, feel more festive. They'd drag the guys over by the band and dance with them...and, no doubt, encourage them to buy more tequila! LOL...straight boys can be so stupid and manipulable!

It was so noisy, we had a hard time ordering and hearing our waiter. We ended up, somehow, with a pitcher of lime-strawberry swirl frozen margaritas and a bowl of chile con queso dip. The cheese dip, for a Tex-Mex place, was pretty tame and definitely needed a few jalapeño peppers in it.


When it came time for food, we managed to order standard stuff, and we were particularly happy to note that it was "enchilada night," with enchilada entree dishes priced at only $5.99. Robert got the steak enchiladas and I got the beef Tex-Mex enchiladas. They look very similar in the photos; his came with ranchero sauce and mine came with "Tex-Mex beef gravy." Much like the queso, I thought mine tasted okay, but they lacked zip and Texican spice.



Ian wanted a chimichanga, but those aren't on the menu, so he picked a burrito, which is basically nothing but an unfried chimichanga. He got the "sunset burrito"—chicken, rice, and beans wrapped in a tortilla and covered with "spicy sunset sauce".....but we aren't really sure what the sunset sauce was.


For dessert, both Robert and Ian ordered the "Xango," a banana flavored cheesecake in a tortilla wrapping, deep fried, and served with cinnamon ice cream.....very, very similar to the fried cheesecake dessert Ian almost always orders at IHOP. Since I'm trying to get back into those 32x38 Wranglers in my closet, I declined dessert.


As mentioned, it was a very festive night. We got visited by a young lady with souvenir shot glasses promoting Sauza Tequila. Whatever was in them, Ian liked it. Had we ordered and paid for a margarita with the Sauza, we would have gotten big, fancy, souvenir margarita glasses. A lot of people had Mardi Gras bead necklaces with Dos Equis logos on them, but we didn't drink any beer, so we couldn't have any.

After leaving the restaurant, we wandered over to the Capitol grounds to look at the azaleas, one of the few places in town where the azaleas haven't already started turning brown. The place was teeming with tourists, even at that hour of night!

And that's how we celebrated Sinko de Mayo.