Flavor Destination: South of Here

Pretty much everybody likes spicy, warm weather-inspired food, right? I mean, except for my grandmother, but she gets to be an exception to many rules.

Anyway, I've had a couple of good vacation-style meals lately, out and about in the Greater Baltimore area. I thought I should share them:

• First up, a couple of really nice meals at Los Amigos on Harford Road. It's fun, not too busy on weeknights, and the salsa is great. Anything with slow-cooked pork is fantastic, too. Plus, totally kid-friendly (and the service is better than Zen West, which is our original go-to Mexican place).
• Havana Road in Towson is cute, small and BYOB (there's a small but very decent liquor store right next door). A few weeks ago, we had a Friday night dinner out there with our neighbors (also known as "the architect who designed our addition + her husband"). I had the lechon asado - braised pork in a citrusy white wine sauce. Great stuff. Apparently you can't go wrong with slowly cooked pig. (I knew this already.)
• We go to Clementine all the time, but last week was our first Tuesday Taco night visit. Cooper's cousin Adam told us it was great, so finally we got it together to meet him (and his friend Maggie) there on a Tuesday. He was right. Tons of food, really great flavors. Guess what I had? Well, it would've been slow-cooked pork, but that wasn't an option, so instead I went with chorizo. Got to keep it in the pig family. As warned, the meat was spicy, but it was really excellent.

Spicy and porky all around. It's nice to have so many spicy, tropical options. Especially if it's going to keep snowing around here.