I’m a stones throw (okay, so about 15 hours north) of my usual lunch. I’m in Portland on a road trip, and I was starving. I stopped into a Mexican takeout type place called Cha Cha Cha in the northeast area of the city. I was greeted by about ten babies. There was what looked like a midweek yuppie mom and kid luncheon, and yes, several of the toddlers moms were in fact pregnant again. Fertile town.

What: two tacos. One carne asada with pico de gallo and one al pastor with pineapple. Yes, I’m a bit of a taco afincionado, perhaps choosing this lunch for an angeleno is tantamount to lunchtime living self sabotage. But I couldn’t see reason through the hunger. I washed it down with a diet peach tea snapple from a gas station in Eugene. Not pictured is a “Mexican” side salad with grilled chicken. It had avocado, orange slices, butter lettuce, in a citrus vinaigrette.

Enjoyment scale: I give this lunch a 7.5. The tacos exceeded my expectations (granted they were about 3x the cost of my LA faves) and i enjoyed my lunch outside on a beautiful sunny day in the pacific northwest. Time to go find dinner!