paladar latin kitchen & rum bar - annapolis

I had the pleasure of celebrating one of my best friend’s birthdays at Paladar Latin Kitchen & Rum Bar (Annapolis, MD) this weekend.

I know what you are thinking. Is she really writing about eating in a chain restaurant? Oh the horror! Well if you don’t like this, you are really going to hate when I write about the Doritos Locos Taco I had on the way back to Richmond. Sorry folks, a girl’s got to eat!

We picked Paladar because of our mutual love of guacamole. They are currently running a promotion titled “It’s a Guac Off”. (If you are a fan of the movie Zoolander, you understand this.) The deal was, you pay $11.95 and get three different types of guacamole. Then you go online and vote for your favorite. If the guac you voted for wins, you get a free order on your next visit. The tagline is “Guacamole….so hot right now.” As a marketing person, this is the stuff I live for!

The three guacamoles we tried were Caramelized Onion & Balsamic, Mango & Roasted Garlic and Heirloom Tomato Basil. All three were good. I voted for the Tomato Basil, so you should immediately also go online and vote for it so that we all win guacamole in Annapolis, MD. Don’t worry, if you can’t use your coupon, you can send it to me and I will shower my Maryland friends and family with guacamole gifts and be the best friend they ever had. That is of course, if you want to and have five seconds of time to spare, which you clearly do, since you are reading this whole ridiculous rant.

After consuming what I can only guess-timate to be three whole avocados each, dinner was not really that important. Plus we were way too busy drinking our carafe of Strawberry Sparkling Sangria and gossiping about our friends. We got to catch up on work, dating, married life, family and everything else that you talk to your best friend about when you live cities away from each other. A meal can easily turn in to three hours, even when all you are eating are avocados and a pretend salad*.

*A pretend salad is a salad that has absolutely no nutritional value, but makes you feel better about yourself because you picked it over something delicious like a burger or tacos. But in actuality it probably has the same amount of calories because of the insane amount of salad dressing you had to put on it to make it taste like anything. You may or may not also have wanted to impress people with your amazing self control in the face of caloric temptation, but then forgot that you just ate three whole avocados with chips, of course, and 3 glasses of Sangria, so you might as well had just ordered the braised beef.

Happy Birthday, Jen!