We walk into a casa

Casa de Tamales, Fresno, California
The sign was right in front of us: “Bar.” And we were sitting at the bar. But there’s no way around it, we were in a restaurant, not a bar.

Three years ago, when we started planning our cross-country adventure, we knew we wanted to go to a church in every state. Since a year-long trip to fifty states meant we’d be averaging a week for every state, we needed to do something else in each state -- so we decided to visit bars. Bars are places where you can meet and chat with people. When Mindy’s dad, not a fan of alcohol, asked why we couldn’t go to diners or restaurants in each state instead, we tried to explain that, in general, restaurants aren’t places to talk to strangers; they’re designed to be places you can chat with whoever you came in with. So when we go to bars, we try to talk to people.

Mindy saw a Facebook post mentioning that Casa de Tamales in Fresno’s Tower District had $2 sangrias and street tacos. Their website showed a picture of the bar sign, so we drove down.

As we came in out of the drizzle around 6:00 pm, the place was hopping -- which was appropriate because it was ArtHop Night. The art displayed at Casa de Tamales included Amber Dawn Hilton's dinosaurs playing rock music, which is probably the best idea for art since dogs playing poker. The long tables in the center of the restaurant were full of people talking and laughing and having a swell time. At one point, the two tables began toasting each other, and we’re pretty sure they weren’t all part of the same group.

At Casa de Tamales, you order at the counter, and your food is brought to you wherever you sit down. Even though nobody was sitting at the bar, we decided to sit there, which turned out to be a bit of a problem. The bar stools were close to one of the long tables, so people (like the waitstaff) had to squeeze through. Sometimes people elbowed us a little, and sometimes we elbowed them. By the time we realized that we’d chosen our seats badly, we’d gotten our food and our drinks and didn’t think moving would help much, though the seats at the other end of the bar were probably less in the way.

The most important thing to note here is that the food was delicious, the service was friendly and efficient, and the atmosphere was pleasant. The tacos were wonderful, and I want to go back for tamales. The sangrias were fine (and we appreciated having an alternative to beer) though I thought mine had a disturbing similarity to church potluck fruit punch. Casa de Tamales is a good restaurant.

As it turned out, while we were there, no one else sat at the bar. Everyone at the tables seemed to be enjoying the company they were with, so we didn’t want to interrupt them. The staff was busy and didn’t need bloggers pestering them. In other words, we weren’t able to ask the questions we try to ask every week, so for the sake of the blog, it wasn’t an ideal visit.

But my stomach was very happy, and sometimes that’s enough.