Gary's Groupies At Epoca

The other night we went to another one of Gary's soirees and joined his groupies for dinner at epoca.  I don't know why we keep following this guy around.  Maybe because he is so adorable.

The Adorable Gary


As usual he had quite a good turnout.

Some Of The Crowd


More Of The Crowd


Could This Be The Missing Lorenzo?


Our friends Randall and his wife Andrea were there as well.

Andrea And Randall


You may recall that I met Andrea and Randall at the Fusion Gourmet at another one of Gary's affairs.  That is a great thing about Pureto Vallarta, you are always meeting interesting people and making new friends.  And Gary's little get-togethers are a great way to do this.  You may remember that Randall was playing the mandolin at the art show I went to awhile back.  This Tuesday he is playing out at La Cruz, a small town a little north of Puerto Vallarta.  The Mysterious Chinese Woman and I are going to hook up with him and his wife at their place out by the marina for a cocktail and then heading out with them to see him play.  Now that should be fun.

Of course the Mysterious Chinese Woman was there slurking down her Margarita.  She always complains that my pictures make her drinks look big and are giving people the wrong idea.  I tell her she should order smaller drinks.

But Does She Listen?  No!


And you will notice that her drink is empty.

We got a pretty good deal at epoca, just 165 pesos for a three course meal that included your choice of tortilla soup with panela cheese, avocado and pasilla chili, a sweet potato salad with orange slices, arugula, goat cheese, caramelized pecans and sweet peppers or nut encrusted panela cheese with mango salsa and mixed greens for an appetizer.  Now if those don't make you hungry nothing will.

Our entry choices were mahi-mahi with Veracruz style salsa, rice and veggies, herb chicken with a chipotle-saffron sauce, mashed potatoes and veggies or a braised beef shank in a mild birria sauce, mashed potatoes and sweet corn.  The sweet corn prompted me to descrbe the inefficiency of a pig's digestive system and how Smithfield farms are able to reclaim about 70% of a pigs waste and feed it back to them.  You can imagine where this conversation went.  Let's just say it wasn't pretty.

Andrea And Her Chicken


You can see that the portions were more than adequate and Andrea said it was very good.

I had the braised beef shank and it was very good as well.

Ooh, And It Comes With Corn


And, again, the portions were very generous.  I couldn't finish my meal, but I did save room for dessert.  I had the key lime pie and it was really good.  Plus I love key lime pie.  The other choices were a flan de kahlua and either chocolate, strawberry or vanilla ice cream.

The Mysterious Chinese Woman had the fish but, for some reason, I didn't get a picture.  I think her super-sized margarita was always in the way..  All and all another great time was had by everyone.

Yesterday a bunch of us went to Pipi to celebrate Peter's birthday.  Pipi is always a crazy place and, as you can imagine, everyone had a fun time.

Some Of Us Had More Fun Then Others


But I shall post about that little party another time.