For my birthday lunch this year, Dan took me to one of our favorite Tex-Mex restaurants, Mi Cocina.  They have multiple locations around town, many of which we have been to many times.  We each have our preferred items on their menu, but pretty much everything we’ve ever eaten there has been delicious.  Sometimes as a restaurant expands with numerous locations, the quality suffers.  Not so with Mi Cocina — all the restaurants where we have dined offer high quality, perfectly seasoned Tex-Mex dishes with fresh ingredients.  As often as we eat there, we never get tired of it. 

Cheers!  Yup, it’s lunchtime during the middle of the week.  Did I also mention it’s my birthday?  We toasted with a lovely chardonnay for me and Mi Cocina’s homemade sangria for Dan.  Now that I am over a certain milestone birthday (last year) and am officially “in” a certain decade of life, I find it a lot easier to ignore the number and simply celebrate the whole getting older thing.  Wine at lunch also helps.

In our opinion, one of the best indicators of a great Tex-Mex restaurant is the quality of their guacamole.  Mi Cocina’s is among the best — just the right avocado creamy-ness with a little spice from red onion and fresh flavor from cilantro.  “Among the best” is not too shabby, considering that the Absolute Best Ever Guacamole title belongs to a little open-air restaurant at the top of a mountain in Taxco, Mexico that will probably never be beat.

I had the Crispy Chicken Enchiladas Verdes, which is my second-most ordered entree (first is “Gina’s” — a trio of chalupas that I adore.)  The corn tortillas are filled with shredded chicken, then fried and topped with tangy verde sauce, sour cream, crumbled white cheese and chopped cilantro.  So good!

Dan had the Chicken Fajitas “Sunset Style,” which involves grilled chicken fajita meat placed over Mi Cocina’s “Sunset Sauce” and topped with skinny onion rings.  The Sunset Sauce makes this dish (and any other dish it accompanies) with its perfectly balanced cheesy yet spicy flavor.  The best way to eat these fajitas is to load up a flour tortilla with a little guacamole and lots of the sauce, chicken and onions.  Delicioso!

In addition to being able to enjoy a leisurely lunch with my Daniel, I am so lucky to have many, many wonderful family and friends to shower me with gifts and happy wishes on my special day — thanks everyone!  However you celebrate your birthdays, I think those are the two key words — celebrate you.