Swap Meet – Food, Freaks and Tires

I was going through dirt mall withdraw last night and decided that a trip to my flea market meet was in order for this morning. This place is well-known in my area and it spans a 1-2 miles of paved parking lot directly next to the busy freeway, just look for the gigantic SWAP MEET sign and you are sure not to miss it. If you have a hard to find item in mind – say, a Mall Madness game that your mom sold at her last yard sale? This is the place to find it, if they do not have what you are looking for, they will know someone who will. I think some of these people would actually perform acts of bloodshed to procure a particular product if the price was right.

Due to the recent push from the dollar decreasing in value, admission to this junk mecca has increased to $1 (it used to be 50 cents when we first moved here). I was able to scrape this out of the cup holders in the car without too much trouble, and after waiting in line for a short time, we found ourselves inside the gated walls. Hunger was our immediate concern, as we had not been able to procure nourishment prior to leaving due to the disheveled state of our kitchen. I tried to look at a few knick knacks being sold by a woman whose main business was in various ceramic handicrafts, the ceramic skull being my number one pick, but my stomach cut the visit short and we pressed on in search of calories.

I felt like Anthony Bourdain on a quest to find the best kept secret within this immense community of pack rats and bargain thrill seekers. There was a stand called the Weenie Queen, and while I found the name to be quite delightful, I had not paid a $1 entrance fee into little Mexico to eat some barely cooked hot dog with sun rotted condiments thrown on top. I tried a local Tijuana favorite during my last adventure, called Tostilocos, and while I was intrigued by the mixing of ingredients that definitely should not share the same meal, much less the same bag, I had to pass on a second helping (see end of post of for list of ingredients for Tostilocos).

For all the men that get drug along to the swap meet unwillingly by their wives, there is a watering hole at the far end of the sale creatively named, “The Beer Garden”. They had some typical bar food offerings like hamburgers, french fries and peanuts, and some not so usual beer foods, my favorite being the advertisement for “hot soup”, which, once you looked at the banner a little closer, was actually a Cup O’Ramen. Hey, at least they were being reasonable and only charged $1.00 for it.

It was adjacent to the beer hideout that we found what we were looking for, an all stainless food truck with a hand-written poster of their menu offerings. The choices were simple, you could have tacos, nachos or papas fritas (thick french fries) in small, medium or large. They only had one kind of street taco – Carne Asada, and this was the only meat topping available for the papas fritas and nachos. Butterfinger and I got 2 tacos and one medium nachos with EVERYTHING – cheese, beans, guacamole and carne asada for $8.00. They had fresh toppings located at the front of the truck including tomatoes, onion, cilantro, pico de gallo, hot sauces and jalapenos. The tacos got loaded up, but we left the nachos as they were for fear that they may topple with any additional add-ons.

Here is the deliciousness:

The day was cloudy so the color in the pictures did not come out as vibrant as I would have liked it to, but you get the idea. About 2 pounds of melty cheese, crispy chips, perfect steak, tender beans and fresh avaocado – I could have eaten the whole thing myself given enough time and the proper seating arrangement, in fact, I later made Butterfinger take the stuff away from me – I am similar to a puppy in that I will eat everything in front of me if allowed. The street tacos were perfect in their own way. Handmade corn tortillas stuffed with meat and loads of fresh fixins, now I can understand how people can bear to live in Mexico. If I were constantly in a food coma I could probably ignore all the crime, filth and dejection, at least for awhile.

Properly fed we were able to focus and sniff out the deals of the day. Seeing as we are closing up shop here in the next week I did not really plan on buying anything other than maybe some socks or bandannas for the dogs, but Butterfinger’s radar was on and he managed to find the deal of the day. Awhile back I ran over a screw in the little car and busted the tire. There is a full-sized spare so it was not a major problem, but now the front tires are bald and the spare needs to be repaired. So what do you know, amongst used cans of paint and uprooted trees, Butterfinger finds two of the tires we need, for $45!

The tires quickly burned up the swap meet budget, but they were money well spent. Brand new those things would have set us back $100 a piece, easy, even with Sam’s Club prices or a Firestone discount. I guess I will have to wait and get my cheeseburger lawn ornament, bleeding Jesus face t-shirt and marijuana sweatband on another outing. For right now all I have is two dirty tires and a full belly, and that is just fine with me.

Tostilocos:

• 1 cut open bag Salsa Verde Tostitos
• Jicama
• Lime juice squeezed over top
• Salt and Cayenne Pepper
• Tamarind (very, very sour fruit)
• Fried Peanuts, Japanese Peanuts
• Cucumber
• Chamoy (hot sauce, kind of sugary)
• Salsa Picante

Here is what they look like: