what can i say about the tour de taco? not much riding, lot's of fun and tasty treats along the way. i caught the 1st caltrain headed north and met Adrienne, James and Declan at Four Barrel coffee on Valencia in SF. after an americano i was almost awake and the friendly barista actually had me taste a couple coffees of the single bean style - i guess this is akin to single malt scotch. let me tell you, the Kenya Gaturiri Reserve kicked the Sumatra Blue Batak's ass! thank you for the unsolicited tasting mr. generous barista - you taught this guy a thing or 2 about coffee... Meli arrived and had a shot and a cup to catch up and we were off to catch bart to cross the bay. getting off at the fruitvale station in oakland there were already about 100 riders hungry for tacos listening to the announcements. from what i could gather 1/2 of us were to go one way and the other 1/2 the opposite way around the tour. oh, did i mention this was a tour of several taco trucks in oakland? pretty cool, i had never eaten at a taco truck before. hard to believe, i know. the 1st stop was pretty crowded with about 40 people in line so i just watched some local dude on a scraper do some tricks for us in the parking lot. on to the next truck. i was getting really hungry so had to get in da line for some AWESOME chix quesadillas here. wow, good stuff, yum. Meli got the last of the green sauce but thankfully shared. Adrienne shared some of her sauteed plantains, pretty damn skippy. Declan found a buddy to play with so all was well at this spot. On to the next truck, here I had a couple carne asada tacos w/fresh chopped onions and cilantro, a taste sensation - so good. met Dara riding a very nice early 90's blue lugged steel mondonico and also Stan riding his custom handmade bernie mikkelsen. was just getting used to the pattern of riding, tacos, riding when we rode back to fruitvale for ice cream. had a sample of some unidentifiable fruit sorbet, got to taste Meli's ice cream with rose petals. must say that my palate was jingly with new tastes all day long, more please! all too soon it was time to board bart for the trip back to sf, which greeted us with better (if only temporarily) weather. of course no ride is really complete without beer/coffee so Stan and the crew stopped at taylor's refresher for some, well, refreshment. a horse sounding human, spinning quarters and a guy yelling "taxi?" at us on our way out was the entertainment at the ferry bldg. after goodbyes i raced to caltrain with minutes to spare and dozed on the way home to find it just starting to rain lightly...
Meli's pics here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meligrosa/sets/72157623380802111/
Adrienne's pics here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33353980@N07/sets/72157623367154285/
my pics here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericm/sets/72157623356707297/
'til next time, "have a nice ride"...
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