“It still smells like vomit in here.”

That’s what I said today, as I walked into my bathroom. But let’s back up to Friday, because I really want to talk about this restaurant Casa Sanchez.

Friday night Adam and I picked out a little tree for my room, and tried to go to Paco’s Tacos, a Mexican restaurant that’s been my favorite forever. We couldn’t find parking, so we decided to skip it altogether and go back near my place and grab some burgers. As we were driving away though, Adam pointed out a restaurant at random, as more of a joke than anything. It was Casa Sanchez. I’d seen the restaurant sign before, but the area there is so dark and uninviting, I never gave it a second glance. I told him we should check it out, if anything so we could eat some Mexican food, which was what I was craving.

Walking along the outside of the restaurant towards the entrance, we noticed that the blinds in the windows were shut tightly, so you couldn’t see inside. We both thought it was strange because that meant that the people inside couldn’t see outside either.

When we finally got to the entrance, there was valet parking and everything was nicely lit. I was not prepared for what we saw when we walked inside though. It was like stepping through the looking glass into another world. There were people everywhere, and a huge lit up Christmas tree adorned the entry way. Pockets of people flanked the entrance waiting to be seated, and there was a fully packed dining room further ahead. I literally said “Wow!” as we walked inside, because all this warm, happy life existed and you’d never know it from the outside.

Right when we went to ask for a seat I figured there would be a long wait, since there were people everywhere. The host said there weren’t any tables available, but that we could sit at the bar, which we were okay with. Right as we were readying to squeeze ourselves onto a couple of bar stools that were tightly cramped since the area was packed with people, a man dressed in a suit came out of nowhere (which I’m assuming was Sanchez himself), and said, “We have room for them in the dining room.” He led us to the only empty table for two. It was the only empty table for anyone! The room was packed with people, but we had plenty of room, and our chairs were comfy. They had soft Christmas music playing in the background and a great candlelit style vibe. As soon as we got our menus, all we could do was marvel at our luck, because the place was so nice and we had a great table, all because of this random impromptu pit stop. We fell down the rabbit hole into a Mexcan food lover’s dream, and we were comfy.

We ordered some margaritas, and Adam noticed at the bottom of the menu that they had live shows there from Thursday through Sunday. We didn’t notice when we first walked in but there was a stage at the front of the dining room. Since nothing was going on, we sipped our margaritas and figured the show was earlier, and that we’d missed it. We were wrong.

Nine or so mariachis soon were spot lit before us, playing CHRISTMAS music. When was the last time you so mariachis playing CHRISTMAS music? I had to video tape. See for yourself below.

It was the most beautiful thing, and took everything I had not to cry, because mariachi music always reminds me of my dad, my abuelita, and my grandpa. It reminds me of my heritage, and just being Mexican in general. I love the Hispanic culture. It just feels so homey and familiar.

Right when our food was served, the man in the suit came out again and said “provecho” which means ‘advantage or benefit’ in the Spanish dictionary, but also ‘enjoy your meal’. I thought that was just superb, because it’s not often that the manager wants to oversee every plate served. Our waiter was super nice too, he was like genuinely happy to serve us.

The show played for about an hour, and I was like a giggly school girl. We kept talking about how much we loved the place, kept comparing Sanchez to Santa, and improvising a years-long feud between the Paco of Paco’s Tacos and the Sanchez of Casa Sanchez that doesn’t exist. If only Paco’s Tacos treated us like this! We really did have a blast, and I can’t remember in my life a better Friday.

Now for the vomit. Let’s just say my company Christmas party was a time of laughter and far too much alcohol mixing. Gin, whiskey, champagne, and bourbon should just always stay in their respective bottles and never in the home of a twenty-eight-year-old’s stomach. They can party, but not together. I had such a blast with all of my co-workers, but ended up leaving early, around 11, on account of not being in the best shape. Luckily we left before anything came up, so I didn’t mortify myself, but you know the night took a turn for the worst when the last thing you remember is hearing your boyfriend say, “You’re throwing up on yourself.”

Not my finest hour. This morning I woke up very confused and well let’s just say I’m airing out my bathroom after a tough bleach scrub and a lit candle. It still smells. There’s nothing positive about that, so I won’t even try to spin it. This entire day has been one of half awake carbohydrate-induced zombie haze. And since I’m certainly not 22 anymore (thank God, what a crappy year), it’ll take me a couple of days to come out of it. Bouncing back from hangovers is not as easy as it used to be. That’ll teach me. Hopefully. But here’s a couple of decent pictures from the night before things got cray.

At any rate, I was somehow able to blog tonight. I hope you guys had a great weekend, my goal is to be a hermit this week and write until my fingers fall off so I can finish that damn e-book! Halfway done still, and I’m really looking forward to getting the design elements worked out. So takeaway from this blog post: may the wind blow you to Casa Sanchez on Centinela boulevard if you’re in LA, and may food stay ever in your stomachs.

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Monique Muro

Monique is an exceedingly happy human from LA. She runs the blog A Novel Quest, and writes. A lot.

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