I hate tequila. But we'll deal with that later. This story starts with tacos. Once upon a Thursday night, during a particularly dismal performance on the Beirut table by the Lush, a terrible craving struck. The Lush's entire group of friends was seized by an unshakable desire for tacos - half beef, half chicken if possible. No one knows why, no one knows how, but the craving just would not go away. The sacred Friday Night Taco Night was born.
We awoke the next day in our respective rooms, in various stages of morning-after pain. Some were dehydrated, some were queasy, some vowed to never drink again, but all had tacos on the brain. Throughout our various Friday schedules, whether heavy or light, attended or blatantly skipped, we were consumed by thoughts of consuming tacos.
But we had to wait; Game 3 was on. These tacos would be celebratory, we told ourselves, for tonight the Red Sox would turn the tables and show those White Sox what the 2004 World Champions could do. But we all know how THAT turned out ...
So we set out, with the world a little sadder, the air a little colder. It was tacos that drove us to Rudy's that night, but it was baseball that drove us to the bottle.
Luckily for the Lush, Rudy's, located in Teele Square, is one part delicious Mexican restaurant, one part drown-your-sorrows (and your liver) tequila bar.
We arrived, our hearts still heavy, our party having grown to the obnoxiously large (for seating purposes) number of eight, and, therefore, were forced to wait for a table. Thirty to forty minutes? Eternity when you want those tacos. What could possibly comfort us now?
Our team had lost. Our tacos seemed out of reach. There was only one thing to do. We had to drink ... a lot. A silent pact was made, to get wasted and to do so with gusto. The Lush was criticized early on for being too slow with the drink order, but in my defense, what was I to do with the 20 varieties of margaritas? I wasn't even touching the 37 varieties of tequila boasted by the extensive bar menu.
Upon the suggestion of my neighbors, Rudy's veterans that they are, I settled upon Ol' Blue - tequila, lime juice and blue curacao - one (or three) of which is a certain cure for the no-taco blues (get it, blues?). My roommate tried the Calientes Margarita, which yours truly unwittingly sampled, not realizing that it had jalapeno juices in the mix. I have been called the whitest person alive on more than one occasion, and let's just say, it took an entire Ol' Blue just to heal my poor, bland cuisine-loving tongue.
By the time we were seated, we were all three margaritas in and definitely in full-on obnoxious drunk mode. Call me crazy, but I got a feeling the waiter was used to tequila-induced stupidity. He patiently and accurately took all of our orders, even though half of them were shouted at him rapid-fire by my neighbor Ken, who revealed a hidden, savant-like ability to memorize girls' taco orders and confuse the waiter by ordering them all at once. The server gets high marks for being quick with not only the food orders, but more importantly, with the margaritas.
The food was excellent, no surprise there, but two things most enhanced the Lush's dining experience. The first was realizing that half of the table had blue tongues (three or more Ol' Blues will have that effect), which we may or may not have taken to sticking out at passersby on their way to use the bathrooms. The second was discovering that the menu included a margarita entitled the Horny Toad, made with Hornitas tequila, and which a particularly giggly member of my group found hilarious - "because it says horny!" - and spent the rest of the meal trying to convince someone to order it.
But we never got that far with the Horny Toad, because dessert happened. First of all, let it be known that the Lush cannot have a typical dessert. The Lush requires something special ... cake? Fried ice cream? Tequila.
I wasn't lying, I really do hate tequila. But peer pressure is a nasty mistress and Rudy's is what one might call an enabler. The menu offers a large selection of tequila "flights." A tequila flight is a sampling of three tequilas, one Blanco, or "white," one Reposada, or "Rested," and one Anejo, or "aged." In theory, the flight consists of two ounces in total and is meant to be sipped, enjoyed, appreciated and otherwise savored by the tequila connoisseur.
Yeah right. Giving in to the pressure of my seven drunk companions, I asked the waiter to bring me his finest and cheapest flight. Our tequila-expert-in-residence admonished the Lush not to order by price, but as we recall from last week's column, the Lush is cheap, and for a mere $11.95, I procured a flight of Herradura (which is decent as tequilas go, apparently).
Finding that the menu underestimated the amount of tequila served in a flight and faced with three full shots, I was daunted. I have a confession to make: I was a coward. I gave one of my shots away, the "rested" tequila if memory serves (which it may not). And I tried to sip, I swear I tried, but I had to just down them. Like I said, I hate tequila. It should be noted that the MVP award goes to my neighbor Josh for sharing his Key Lime Pie. It was a better chaser than you could possibly imagine.
As the flights were finished - both Josh and Ken deserve honors for finishing theirs without help - the check arrived. We were a little torn. You see, our food cost exactly 37 cents more than our alcohol. We didn't know if we should be proud that the plate conquered the bottle, much like the White Sox conquered my beloved Red Sox only hours before. The Lush, for one, was ashamed.
But then, we realized that we had already paid our bar tab before we sat down to eat. Our alcohol bill had trounced our food bill. It was the proudest moment of our night. We staggered the three blocks home, standing tall. The world was right again.
Jillian Harrison is double majoring in history and archeology. She can be reached via e-mail at Jillian.Harrison@tufts.edu, just not on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Tuesday nights.
