Inmate: James, Carwood Jones

Inmate number: 2435-235

Location: New Mexico State Prison

Crime: Triple homicide, robbery, failing to signal while changing lanes.

I wanted to get one last good “ef you, world” in before my execution, so I decided to have Mexican food for my last meal, because, let’s be honest, a stomach full of beans and salsa in combination with an electric chair certainly would make for a messy end. For my last meal I had flautas at El Tapatio in Sioux City, Iowa.

The restaurant is located at the old Palmer diner and hotel on Gordon Drive, which seems like a decent location for a small hole-in-the-wall Mexican place. On the inside, it was decorated with some quasi-Aztec looking wall ornaments and painted with some south-of-the-border looking colors; very stereotypical Mexican restaurant. It was strangely ironic that they also played Jennifer Lopez and other latin pop artists over the radio.

Tasteful Mexican decor

As a complementary starter like at most Mexican restaurants, they served us chips and salsa. They were very typical, though the salsa did seem to have an extra spice to them than normal. I ate about a full basket to myself. Their beverage selection was very Americanized, minus their main beer which was Corona (nothing out of the ordinary).

Their food menu, too, was very ordinary. It had the typical burrito, taco, and enchilada dishes as well as chimichangas, carne esada, flautas. They also had large dinner options like steak and seafood. I ordered steak flautas with beans and rice.

It didn’t take long for the food to come out. It looked and smelled, again, like the typical Mexican restaurant food. I took a bite of the flautas, which was basically seasoned steak wrapped in a fried tortilla with enchilada sauce on top. It was a little over-seasoned, but wasn’t bad otherwise. Again, pretty run-of-the-mill. The rice was cooked just right and had a little bit of a nice lemon flavor to it. The beans were refried and kind of runny with a little cheese sprinkled on top but not bad otherwise. I find that a lot of times the food is too hot temperature wise and not hot enough spice wise but this had a good balance between both. It was easy to eat and was at a fair price to boot.

Steak flautas with beans and rice

Overall, the meal was enjoyable and not over-filling. It seemed like a friendly place to have a quick lunch. It was your cookie-cutter mom and pop sort of Mexican joint, but you get what you expect. Also, the patrons eating must have gotten word that I was coming, as one of the men at a booth behind us was carrying a pistol in his back pocket. With a killer like me at a family friendly place like that, though, can you blame him?

Also, I wish I could see the face of the warden when they light me up on that chair. Those beans and hot sauce will do something awful to that small execution chamber. I hope they come prepared. Muhahaha!