A little about me...

The following is what happens when you start asking yourself who you are and what you've been doing with your life at 2 o'clock in the morning. When loads of stuff is running through your head and you had a few cocktails. Well here it is about four hours later after off again on again sleeping at the computer, this is what I came up with. Thank goodness for my addiction to caffeine. Good Morning!

Dubbed "the rebel" by his mother, for his rock-star look and blunt observations about the world, life, food, and everything else, Tony Mejia is not your typical celebrity. A 29-year old, veteran of life, food, and writing. Tony knows that one man’s poison is another’s delicacy but he isn’t afraid to poke a little fun at the local fare or himself. He is willing to infiltrate markets and restaurants in order to savor the local cuisine - even if that means chewing on crickets, worms, bugs, eggs with legs, gulping down the world's smelliest fruit (Durian) or polishing off a lamb’s eyeball.

Mejia is currently a senior at the University of San Diego, in beautiful San Diego, California. He entertains and educates with his exotic tales of travel and lessons learned from the trenches. He shares his passion on topics ranging from "Great Cuisines" to "The Celebrity and The Culture of Arguing." He also imparts his drill-sergeant approach to running with whatever life gives you. "The fantastic mix of order and chaos," he says, "demands a rigid hierarchy and a sacrosanct code of conduct, where punctuality, loyalty, teamwork and discipline are key to producing consistently."

In late 1999, Mejia set out looking for, as he puts it, kicks, thrills, epiphanies and the "perfect life." Mejia's travels have taken him across the United States twice with extended stints in Florida and Colorado. He has also been given the distinction of honorary New Yorker by friends in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens. In 2004 Mejia's time was spent in the Orient, Southeast Asia as a matter of fact. Learning the culture, customs, and cuisine, just ask him to tell you about the often outrageous stories from his worldwide misadventures.

Following his wanderlust will take you to far-out and familiar places, from Southeast Asia to Europe and to our very own United States of America. Caveat Emptor (buyer beware), the views and opinions expressed by Tony maybe at times heartless, and even offensive. Usually, he doesn't mean it, but he is quite expressive in how he explains things. Mejia travels the world seeking the authentic experiences that flavor the world's cultures to which he can make his own by the process by which both cultures (immigrant and host) meet and fuse, into an enriched culture.

Mejia gives us some quick info on some culinary experiences; In Southeast Asia there is a saying, "If you can catch it, you can eat it." Shredded pig's-ear spring rolls, civet-cat coffee and Vietnam's most famous food -- pho (beef noodle soup), bun cha (which is Mejia's preference), green papaya salad with dried beef, rice-flour dumplings filled with minced pork, and blood pudding on a stick.

Think Mexico offers nothing more than tequila shots and wild spring breaks? Well try these tacos on for size. But here, the fillings aren't your typical cheese and ground beef; instead, they're pig skin, Tony gets things going by going right after the stomach taco, beef snout and even a few eyeballs, washed down with a cup of beef-head consommé, with chopped tongue. Mmm!

OK, if that doesn't tickle your fancy, then how about right here in our very own Cajun country. Getting a fill of pig feet, chicken livers, some good old-fashioned chitlin's or pig intestines, boiled and then fried in bacon grease. Fried alligator, fried pickles, fried green tomatoes, it all gets dipped in the deep-fryer before being served up. He ate a part of a grouper that rarely shows up on a menu if ever and a mullet fish, which is a bottom-feeding fish that really isn't eaten anywhere else in the country. One thing is certain: In the food-obsessed world, Tony Mejia has carved out a distinct place as a gastronomic Indiana Jones.

Mejia is a contributing authority for Team Gorillas Baseball Blog. His work has appeared in such publications as Blogger, and Word press, and as Team Gorillas Top-writer, culinary adventurer, drinker, smoker, hedonist ... the list of descriptors could go on and on. He describes his work as "Julia Child meets Full Metal Jacket." He also enjoys television shows on Discovery, Travel, History, Independent Film, the Foreign News and Film Network, basically anything that he might learn something from.

He was born and raised in San Diego. After on and off again misspent years at Southwestern and San Diego Mesa Community College's, and now upon returning from Asia, he attends USD, followed by nearly a decade of working with technology. He is fluent as a Spanish speaker, intermediate with Italian, and can understand and speak some Thai and Vietnamese and he wants to learn Tagalog. He lives — and will always live — in San Diego.