It's a nice feeling to have helped facilitate a good time for so many on Saturday. Really, most anyone can work some magic when provided with:
- a venue with quality products;
- an owner/manager/chef with passion and love for his art, as well as respect for his customers;
- an assemblege of sensitive, friendly, and articulate participants who know how to enjoy themselves and appreciate a good thing when they see, smell, taste...experience it;
- a smidgeon of history-based perspective to craft a dinner's group size and starting time.
With quality materials & people, good attitude, and opportunity, all we needed was to arrange timely proximity, and Convivial Critical Mass occurred. Perhaps you can see in
G Wiv's second photo--where I'm mooning him in my own special way--that I was aglow at how nicely our dinner unfolded. Of course, that glow also was partly fueled by
petit pois' peach lambic,
Cynthia's Argentinean sparkling cider, and
Bill's tequila. So, yes, overall I was pretty well-lit.
They tell me the food was decent, too.

No, seriously, Carlos and his staff delivered a series of complex, satisfying, and complementary flavor juxtapositions, with admirable execution in a full house. (Plus, he deserves credit for
not serving what didn't seem to be "right" for us at the time, e.g., the other mole's or the pasilla-sauced short ribs.)
This SdM dinner's success builds opportunity for more good dinners. I'd be pleased to find out what's in Carlos' new menu (coming in September, I think.) Maybe there'll be something with that guava mole'
Hammond and I have been looking forward to. He's also been talking about sets of specials progressively highlighting all 32 of Mexico's states.
Finally, I want to encourage other folks to jump in and help put together another small dinner--at SdM
or elsewhere. I'm continually impressed by the depth of LTH members, both old-timers like
eatchicago and
stevez and brand-new faces like
Tasty, whose membership is only days-old. We've got a lot to share.
--Matt
"If I have dined better than other men, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants...and got the waiter's attention." --Sir Isaac "Ready to order NOW" Newton
"You worry too much. Eat some bacon... What? No, I got no idea if it'll make you feel better, I just made too much bacon." --Justin Halpern's dad