Straight A's

After Friday night's discussion about ideas for where to conduct our restaurant review, I had real a craving for a "football sized construction of guacamole, gobs of melted cheese on a mound of french fries [...] paved with double handfuls of well charred grilled beef." As described by Jonathan Gold in his restaurant review. I found myself calling a few friends after class to see what they were up to on that seemingly boring Friday evening. They told me to head over because they were drinking beers back at home, so I hurried back to the quiet city that I live in, excited about relaxing over a few drinks and talking with friends. As the night went on, we decided we needed something to eat. Usually, it takes a while to come to an agreement on what everybody wanted to eat, but this time, since I had previously described the idea of how satisfying it would be if we went out and got a huge plate of cheesy, spicy carne asada fries down the street at Alberto's in Pomona; Everybody was already running to the car, calling shotgun to see who'd get to sit in front. Halfway drooling, we figure out who was going to drive (of course, the driver hadn't been drinking) and told the driver jokingly to "step on it!" because we were starving.
As we pulled onto the property, all you can see is an Arco's gas station with a snack shop which is split in half with an Alberto's Mexican Restaurant. Your first thought, if you'd never been here before, would be that we're probably getting microwave burrito's from the gas station. But of course, we're not doing anything as disgusting as that; at least not tonight. Now, most people who pull up to this gas station restaurant have no clue about how good the food inside really is. It seems like the setting and location of this restaurant are similar to Jonathan Gold's review about My Taco in Los Angeles. But to locals, this is one of the places they can come to get a good meal for a decent price. It's not like that Taco Bell box for $5 where you get a bunch of processed meats, high fructose corn syrup and sugar. Not that the carne asada fries are any better for your body, but at least the food tastes real and costs about the same.
It was around 11:00 PM and there were only a few customers in the dining area. I placed an order for their famous "carne asada fries with everything on it." I see the one man working the night shift quickly punch in my order and rush off to drop the fries in the hot oil. I hear the familiar sizzling of the fries and the seasoned beef on the grill, take a big whiff and my mouth started watering. I took a step back and reviewed the menu to see what else they had there. This had only been my second time visiting and I already knew that I would be back again. A special item on the menu is their California Burrito which is about a foot long. It is completely stuffed with meats, beans, cheese, guacamole, sour cream, salsa. If you haven't seen it, it's about the size of some people's calves! I couldn't imagine eating that monstrosity along with my heaping order of carne asada fries. As our orders came up one by one, we sat there quietly at the table munching away at our pile of food.
When you think of carne asada fries, you might think gabacho food. But I really think that it is just a spin off of how American's do comfort food. When I walked inside, there was a group of Mexicans inside eating the same thing we ordered, and after we got our food, two men walked inside wearing large cowboy hats with matching colored boots. Oddly enough it seemed like we were all there for the same reason that night, to fill that craving we all had for some heart attack in a basket.