Loco Lime and NoDa

Lunch went undocumented yesterday. I had lunch with a new acquaintance and didn’t want to scare them off initially by my weird taking-photos-of-my-food habit.

Brad got home around 4 pm from a business trip and we decided to catch dinner at Loco Lime.   Brad had eaten there before and only had great things to say about it, but of course I had to try it out myself.

We started out with your standard chips and salsa, which we immediately dug into of course.  It’s so hard not to compulsively eat the whole bowl.  I restrained myself after a few, knowing what I really wanted was guac, not salsa.

Look who Hurricane Earl blew in from Cape Hatteras!  Erin is one of my oldest friends and was my roommate in college.  She lives at Cape Hatteras, which was the target location for Hurricane Earl.  When they evacuated, she went inland and decided to visit Charlotte.  I was so happy to see her!

Partially demolished guac.

This was so delicious and creamy, just how guac should be.  Loco Lime makes it right at your table and also gives you a spicy tomatillo sauce which I double dipped my chip in with the guac.  I had a couple of Tbsp. of guac then stopped so I would have some for my meal.

Erin got the veggie burrito with a side of plantains that didn’t come out until later.

I had the veggie tacos which had plantains in them!  I <3 plantains so! I put a bit of guac on my black beans and ate it all except the rice.  I can live without the rice.  The couldn’t live without the rest.  These tacos were the perfect size.  Some Mexi places serve gigantic tacos but these were juuuuust right.

Brad had three tacos with chicken and pork.

It was sooooo nice to catch up with Erin.  She has no idea when she’ll be able to go back to Hatteras and had packed her car to the brim with things she didn’t want to get damaged by potential flooding.  After dinner, Erin headed out to meet up with old colleagues and Brad and I went over to NoDa, which is short for North Davidson.  NoDa is an artsy neighborhood in Charlotte that has an eclectic mix of people and places on their main street.

We ended up at Dolce Vita, a really cool wine bar that is usually packed on the weekends.  Within a few minutes, several people from our running group showed up, which we assumed would happen.  The Friday night gallery crawl is a very popular event in Charlotte, so it’s never difficult for us to find people we know on the fly.

Red for me, white for him.

Jessica also showed up with her boyfriend and several other friends, which we had planned.  Brad was tired from traveling so he headed home in a taxi, leaving the car for me.  I stayed a while longer and eventually followed the group over to Solstice, where I hung out a while longer before heading home for the night.

Ingredients
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