dinner at Julio's

I met my buddy Tom for dinner in Jongno this evening. I had been holding his six packages of books for the past few weeks; he had been in the Philippines, and he brought me back four bars of Gillette armpit deodorant that he was able to buy for half the cost of the same product here. We traded items and went to the local galmaegi-sal restaurant, but that place was closed, so Tom suggested we hit a spot called Julio's, another Tex-Mex joint thankfully outside of Itaewon. The place reminded me of how Dos Tacos used to be before that place began to wither and shrivel. I suggested we share a quesadilla as an appetizer; for his main course, Tom chose tacos (pictured below, albeit blurrily). For my part, I got the Nachos Grande, which proved not to be too grande, but was filling all the same. The "bacon" in the quesadilla turned out to be the thick pork-belly cut that Koreans use when making samgyeopsal. The pork was startlingly smoky, and it was easily the most memorable part of my meal. The nachos were fine, and Tom's tacos came out of the kitchen looking bigger than they had looked in the menu's photos. A good meal, all in all, followed up by our ritual ice-cream session over at the local Baskin Robbins. Below are two photos of the meal: Tom's tacos and my nachos (plus part of the quesadilla). The "bacon" wasn't at all crispy, the way we Yanks like it, but the smokiness of the meat more than made up for the lack of texture.

Julio's was good enough to make me want to go back and try out other parts of its extensive menu, so I might be making a trip out there again soon.