As in, yoso-silly, yoso-hungry, yoso-full, or best of all; mmm-delici-yoso!!!!! A San Diego based food and travel blog. An Ex-Pat Kama'aina and Friends explore food, restaurants, and travel from San Diego and points beyond.
With the combination of the record heat and later sunsets due to daylight savings time, we were looking for a nice place for sort of an “happy hour” with a covered patio for JJ. Tanuki came to mind as we hadn’t been there in about a year. So, we headed on out, arriving just as the clock struck 5 , and got one of the treasured parking spots right at the door of the restaurant.
We were quickly seated on the patio and a bowl of H2O was quickly brought out for JJ!
Based on our previous visits, we were pretty sure of what to order and decided to also try the vegetable tempura.
The Wagyu Tataki Ponzu, now priced at $20, was different from what we’d had previously.
It was a leaner cut of meat, at bit chewier, and as you can see, not as marbled. It was also cut a bit thicker, though still quite beefy in flavor, with the daikon oroshi adding the nice pungent “bite”. The nice, almost refreshing taste of the citrusy-savory-soy ponzu sauce was really good on this warm day.
The Toro Wasa ($12) was also decent.
If you understand that it’s leaner chutoro, you’ll do fine. The wasabi “mix”; I’m certain it’s not straight up wasabi does the sinus clearing work…….for some reason, I really enjoyed the brightness the shiso brought to the dish on this day.
They did have Hamachi Kama ($20) on this day.
Which was quite moist, crisp skin and even better than what we’d had before!
I was wanting that Kakiage that we’d had all those years ago, but they no longer have it; so we went with the Vegetable Tempura ($15). This didn’t quite do it for us.
The onions and shisho leaves were quite good. I’m thinking it’s because Tanuki doesn’t seem to fry the veggies for very long and the carrots, zucchini, andespecially the sweet potato was super hard and almost raw.
We did enjoy ourselves; though we did accept that it was going to be pricey, even without drinks, over $60. Still, it was a nice early evening out to beat the heat.
Tanuki 4191 Adams Ave. San Diego, CA 92116 Current Hours: Monday 5pm – 9pm Tues – Thurs 12pm – 3pm, 5pm – 9pm Friday 12pm – 3pm, 5pm – 10pm Saturday 5pm – 10pm Closed on Sunday
Elle, I know you were going to check Tanuki out. Wondering if you ever made it?
Man, it’s so hot right now yeah? Like record heat. So, when I was looking at stuffs I had to post on…well, there was ramen, pho, more chinese food and noodle soups….not quite up to doing those posts right now! So, I thought I’d just do a post on our final meal in HNL during our last trip.
“FOY” XJ and her wonderful husband Mikey recommended a place not too far away, in McCully Shopping Center on the second floor. I’ve always thought of MSC has having some of the skinniest parking spaces around. So, I was happy we could walk on over. Plus, at least when I lived kinda close by, it was kind of a revolving door for restaurants, though Fook Yuen (which my friends had another name for….I’m sure you can guess it!) is still there!
It was a pretty quick walk, even with rush hour traffic on Kapiolani which is no joke!
We didn’t have reservations and were seated at the sushi bar. Looking at stuff online, I pretty much was sure I didn’t want any sushi here.
And of course a beer to start. A nice refreshing Kyoto Bakushu White Yuzu Ale. It seemed to have a mild herbaceous nuttiness to it as well.
We went with stuffs from the Otsumami menu, a couple of daily specials, and a couple of amiyaki (grilled) items.
First to arrive was the Tsubugai (Whelk) Sashimi ($35) something you don’t see on many menus.
Quite crunchy, clean and oceany, with a nice sweetness.
Next up was the menu item that Missus loved; the Pickled Bitter Melon ($5.50).
It was definitely bitter melon, with the puckery bitterness, but was really enhanced with sour and salty tones, with a hint of sweetness. This is what made the Missus request that I make pickled bitter melon at home.
The Missus really enjoyed the Chawan Mushi ($11). Served cold, it was very refreshing.
Topped with Uni and Ikura, this was quite savory with the kiss of the ocean. The brininess of the ikura really gave the cold-creamy, and slightly sweet chawan mushi the kick it needed. A really good dish.
And the, even more Bitter Melon.
Followed by Fried Tofu with Natto ($8).
This was really beany tofu, combined with the pungently “neba-neba” natto, topped with savory katsuobushi and shoyu, this was my kind of dish.
Then the two Amiyaki items arrived; starting with the Chicken Wings ($5). I got the version with tare.
The skin was really rubbery and the meat dry. The tare was overly sweet for my taste. Even a squeeze of lemon didn’t help much.
And of course I had to try the Tsukune ($6.50). Sadly, I ordered this with tare as well.
I’m sure regular readers know that I will often figure out if a Yakitori shop will be to my taste is by ordering Tsukune which, at least to me displays both the kitchen and grilling skills. This was not good, very tough, too lean, and lacking in flavor other than the tare.
Well, these two dishes meant we had to have “dessert”; which was guess what?
So, the meal definitely ended on a high note. In the end, while Izakaya Uosan seemed a level above Bozu, we enjoyed many of the dishes here. If Bozu was in our neck of the woods, we’d probably visit on a regular basis. I’m sure we’ll return!
Bozu Japanese Restaurant 1960 Kapiolani Blvd Suite 209 Honolulu, HI 96826
Thanks for the recommendation XJ and Mikey!
We took our time heading back to the Ala Moana Hotel….we actually went for a walk along Ala Moana Beach for the sunset.
The recent record heat had the Missus craving Thai food, something that doesn’t usually happen until the late spring. She was looking for a specific style, Issan to be exact, and of course we could have headed up to The Original Sab E Lee, which we do need to revisit, but did not want to drive very far. Of course some Lao food would have been great, but our last experience at Spicy Lao Kitchen, after what appears to be some changes was not very good. And then thinking about TOSeL…the “original – original” which opened where Yorimichi now is. Before expanding to locations eastward and northward; with the Linda Vista locale moving across the street to the mall which used to be Toan Ky Restaurant…sigh…guess I’ve been doing this too long? Anyway, we had visited Zab Linda which replaced TOSeL when they first opened, but had only done takeout visits, due to you remember, right? It had always been my intention to return, but things just keeps moving along…… In that roundabout way, Zab Linda came back into focus, and I thought we should revisit to catch up on things. And catch up we did! While not on the level of meals we’d had during the prime of TOSeL, we enjoyed several of the dishes and ended up doing three visits.
Funny thing, I had never gone beyond that high front counter and seen the dining room. The two lovely folks working were quite nice as well.
Since we did three visits and have reordered several dishes during our visits; I’m just going to go from our favorites downward in this post. So here goes….. One more note; we got everything Medium Spicy.
Nam Khao Tod ($15). This was by far our favorite item on the menu. We had it three times. The first time, there wasn’t even crispy bits of rice and a lack of the light flavor of coconut, but the after that, it’s been quite good.
This version has a large amount of sour sausage, which makes for a nice textural contrast to the crisp, crusted rice. Good amount of cilantro, decent sour tones, only thing missing thin threads of pork skin. But we did enjoy it.
Duck Larb ($21.95). We enjoyed the refreshing sour tones, with decent spice on a hot day.
The slices were on the chewier side, but there was a nice portion of it, and it was quite savory-“ducky” in flavor as well. Very good enrobed in cabbage! And even better the next day as the favors got more intense.
Of course we enjoy Naked Shrimp (Goong Nam Pla), though we are cautious about ordering raw “stuffs” and waited until our last visit to order it. We were advised to get the “sauce” on the side and we soon figured out why.
While the Shrimp wasn’t quite as good as the version we had during our first couple of visits to Spicy Lao, it was much better than what we had there on our last visit. The shrimp was on the firmer side; with no off flavors. The slices of pungent garlic was a nice touch as was the slices of bitter melon, which was quite interesting in terms of that numbing bitterness, in combination with the sauce.
Ah yes, the sauce….man, this was spicy, even at medium heat this had me wiping sweat from my brow in no time! The young lady gave us good advice. When I mentioned this to her, she said that she always gets the sauce on the side with this dish. This was definitely Essan in spice level
The Sai Oua ($15), the house made Essan style sausage was very different from what we’d had here before.
That dipping sauce was awesome by the way….savory-sour-spicy-herbaceous. There was a decent amount of herbs in the sausage, which was quite tender, maybe overly so, as it was almost mushy. It came with a huge portion of sticky rice as well. Sovereign still makes our favorite version in San Diego.
The Missus enjoys the Spicy Basil Pork with Century Egg ($21).
The fried basil is a nice touch as it adds the fragrant, sweet-anise flavor to the dish along with some crispness. It’s savory-umami, with an ammonia like finish pidan that makes the dish.
As I will note a bit further down.
The Pad Ped Moo Krob ($21) was a mixed bag.
The Missus enjoyed the egg, some of the slices of fried pork belly was crisp initially, ending with a nice gooey interior, which we loved, other slices were really chewy.
The red curry was a bit too sweet for our taste, but perhaps it was because we were having the potent Goong Nam Pla with this? Also, this dish didn’t keep well as leftovers.
The Nahm Tok ($18.95) was also a mixed bag.
A decent amount of roasted rice powder, not as spicy as we thought it would be, and could have used more sour tones. The beef was on the chewier side as well.
The Missus was wondering how the Spicy Basil Pork ($16.95) would be with out the other stuffs.
The pork was really chewy…and where was the basil? On the bland side and not enough savory or spicy tones. Pass…..
Of course we had to try the Som Tum Lao ($15.95). I have never had a Lao style Papaya Salad with so saturated in sauce.
The crunch was gone and there was so much fermented fish/crab in this that it was super funky….so much so, that the Missus could only eat one spoonful! I did ok, but this was not as good as other version we’ve had locally….even those with fermented crab are superior to this as a whole.
Overall, we enjoyed our visits and am glad that we decided to return to Zab Linda after all these years. The food seems to have changed (see the difference in the Sai Oua from our previous post) for the better. Even though we need to get back up to the Original Sab E Lee, it’s good to have another option that’s not a far drive for us.
Zab Linda 6952 Linda Vista Rd. San Diego, CA 92111 Hours: Mon – Thurs 11am – 330pm, 430pm – 9pm Fri – Sun 11am – 9pm
On one of our Road Trips with JJ last year, we headed up to Big Bear. During our visit, one of our favorite dining experiences was at a restaurant/bar named Club Bombay. The back patio was super dog friendly and the gentleman who served us was wonderful! At the end of the meal, he asked us where we hailed from and we told him “San Diego”. He smiled and said he worked and lived in La Mesa for a while. And said he was a Server at Himalayan Cuisine in La Mesa! Small world, right? Anyway, we enjoyed the food and the service and decided to check out Himalayan Cuisine when we had some time recently. Sadly, JJ couldn’t join us, but I’m sure he’ll forgive us, right??? Well, maybe not!
The restaurant is located in a mall off of ECB and Guava Avenue. In fact, Cathy did a post on this place back in 2008….though it was then Himalayan Cuisine; Indian & Italian (???) Cuisine. I’m not sure what changed other than it’s now serving Nepalese and Indian food.
Even though it was a weekend, the place was really quiet on a Sunday at 11 when we arrived.
I’m guessing it’s usually pretty mellow during this time of the day because it took a while for one of the folks working to notice us. But he eventually did and we were seated in the bar area. The restaurant is pretty large!
We had made the decision ahead of time to get the exact same dishes we’d had in Big Bear and see how the places compared.
Of course we got some Naan ($3).
This was a bit harder and chewier than we prefer. We enjoy our naan to be more crisp, mildly chewy, with a light pillowiness. Nice yeasty-mildly nutty tones though.
We had really enjoyed the Bindi Masala in Big Bear, so couldn’t wait to try the version here ($16). As you can tell, Bindi Masala features okra. We got this medium heat, but man…it was spicy indeed!
The version in BB had tomatoes in it; which added a nice sweet-acidity to the dish, it was missing here. This one was in your face spicy, the okra wasn’t as “neba neba” as we liked. This also seemed to have a lot of tumeric, or some similar spice which made it kind of bitter.
The rice was fine.
If a bit on the drier side.
The other dish we loved in BB was the Rogan Josh, which we also ordered here ($21).
This was pleasantly spicy, though the lamb, while being quite gamey, was on the chewier side. There was a nice almost anise like flavor; the sauce was quite thick with a nice tomato flavor. This was the better of the two dishes to us.
Though to be honest, we thought Club Bombay in Big Bear was actually more to our taste. Still, it was fun trying this place out. And when the gentleman serving us asked how we knew about this place we mentioned our experience in Big Bear. He laughed and said the fellow (sorry, his name has slipped my brain) had worked here for a bit over a year before moving to Big Bear.
Himalayan Cuisine 7918 El Cajon Blvd. La Mesa, CA 91942 Current Hours: Sun – Thurs 11am – 9pm Fri – Sat 11am – 10pm
After relaxing until we reached our destination, we did some snorkeling off the pangas.
Before heading back on board to refresh. After a short break, we headed on board the pangas and did dry landing at Cerro Dragon.
This is Dragon Hill the namesake of the area.
We did a nice hike/walk which got to enjoy the diversity of the Island. Both Marine Iguanas…..
And Land Iguanas….
We were taught to tell the difference. Marine Iguanas have blunt noses and long rudder like tails. Land Iguanas have that yellow-brown color, pointed noses, and some major claws.
If you see an Iguana “blowing snot”; it’s a marine iguana which has a special gland that allows it to “sneeze” out excess salt they get from ocean grazing.
Land Iguanas have sharp teeth and a really tough mouth which allows them to eat prickly pear cactus whole without injury!
It quite picturesque.
We ran into this band of Land Iguanas on the trail. You can’t interfere with wildlife, so we just slowly strolled down the trail.
We were told that in the mid-70’s the Land Iguana population was almost wiped out by packs of feral dogs. This initiated a program by the Charles Darwin Foundation and Galapagos National Park to reintroduce land iguanas and ensure their survival which was a success.
As we continued to walk, this Galapagos Mockingbird decided to stroll down the trail with us!
It displayed no fear, no hesitation as it “joined” the walk! Amazing!
We came across two lagoons, which sometimes houses Flamingos, but none were present on this day.
Even though there were no Flamingos; there were interesting things to see…..
Always under the watchful eyes of “you know who”!
We were back on board by 6pm. After a break while we set off to our next destination, I headed to the deck to have a “cold one”. I enjoyed this American Ale Brewed in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island.
Low IBU, very clean and refreshing. A great beer to have while watching the Sunset.
Soon after, we had our destination briefing for the next day and then it was dinner time. Like I mentionecd in my previous posts, every night was different….we started really gaining an appreciation for the efforts of the kitchen.
On this evening, we enjoyed the Seared Duck Breast, though not so much the Citrus and Grape Sauce and also the tender and super sweet-oceany Grilled Prawns with Garlic Aioli.
I think this was when the Missus and I really started getting into the rhythm of things onboard.
Just in time for our next stop; Fernandina Island!
I had to smile when “FOY” Dereck just commented on my revisit to Taste of Hunan which I did almost a month ago. We have already revisited yet again! But, since I’d recently done a post, I didn’t take any photos of that visit. There was one item on the menu that we noticed for the first time. ToH actually sells La Rou, the Hunan cured and smoked pork by weight! The Missus asked the always friendly Server about that and She was told that it is shipped to ToH from Hunan Province! They don’t always have it for sale, but she went to check and said they had one piece. So, here’s where it gets interesting…..you have to purchase the entire piece, they will not portion it for you. The price is $25.95 per pound. Not cheap, but you really don’t use a lot of La Rou per dish. We really like the La Rou ToH uses, so we decided to get it. The piece came in at 2 pounds! The woman was so nice, instructing us to freeze what we don’t use.
In case you’re wondering what 2 pounds of La Rou looks like.
And that my friends is a full sized cleaver!
What I did is divide up the LA Rou into four, almost equal sized portions, let’s just say a half pound or so.
I kept one portion for current use and the other three went into the freezer. There’s a hard “rind” at the bottom of the piece. When first using the piece, I’ll remove the rind, which also had a good fat layer. This comes in handy later….. We found that one piece can make about 4 dishes…so let’s say about a quarter pound of la rou….and that’s a generous amount!
So, of course first up was what we’ve been making a lot of recently, Clay Pot Rice. Instead of using duck fat or drippings to coat the nabe, we use the pork rind and melt the fat off the piece to lube the baby up!
The Missus loves La Rou with Celtuce (i.e. Chinese Lettuce – Wōsǔn/Wōjù).
So, I cut some fairly thin slices along with the Celtuce.
Adding some dried chilies, garlic, etc….. A very simple dish. No photo of the final product, because as soon as it hit the table, the Missus set out to devour it!
I’ve made a couple of other dishes since then, the Missus loves La Rou with Chinese Celery. Here’s a photo of the La Rou stir fried with Chinese Cauliflower (which I mentioned in the post).
I used Fresno Chilies, dried chili de arbol, and fermented chilies for this. I did a low heat stir fry of the cauliflower first, removing it from the wok, then going for it with the other ingredients and adding the cauliflower back in later.
Anyway….it’s been fun, since the frozen La Rou you get at 99 Ranch Market is horrible!
Some other stuffs……
I needed to use up the last of my beans from Rancho Gordo and only had those huge Royal Corona Beans left. So, I made up a pot of it.
I took half of the beans and made a dish with Merguez, Harissa, and chard from the yard! The Missus took most of it with Cous Cous for lunch and we also had some on toast, which was quite good!
When the weather recently warmed up, I went and made marinated beans with the remainder.
The beans mainly with lemon juice/zest, EVOO, sun dried tomatoes, red onion, garlic, and Italian Parsley. Nice and refreshing!
And just for the fun of it, I recently made this as well.
You know what it is, right? Took me back to small kid time!
After spending a few nights in June Lake, we headed back to Mammoth Lakes. Being a bit early for check in, we headed off to the Twin Lakes area and took a nice walk and got some views of the falls.
When it was time for an early dinner, we headed back to the Emberz BBQ trailer.
We had enjoyed both the Heirloom Tomato salad and the Elk Sausage the last time. So we made sure to order those items.
That tomato salad was so refreshing; still a favorite.
Loved the smokey-savory elk sausage as well.
Didn’t care for the bland beans; though the potato salad was better this time around; not overly dressed as before.
While we were eating; the really nice gentleman came out and handed us some cornbread; gratis.
As I mentioned in my previous post…..so far, Emberz has been our favorite food stop in Mammoth Lakes.
Emberz BBQ 120 Commerce Dr. Mammoth Lakes, CA 93546
We had lunch at Old New York Deli & Bakery which I’ve posted on twice already.
Then the Missus just “needed” to do another hike during the early afternoon, so we did the Crystal Lake Trail.
Which along with the beautiful lakes had some lovely views as well.
Which even JJ appreciated.
When dinner time came along, we headed across the street to the Village. We noticed that there seemed to be an event going on.
Turns out that Mammoth has a yearly Reggae Festival in July and we just happened to be here on this weekend.
Several booths and lots of people enjoying the music!
On our previous trip to Mammoth we had wanted to dine at Vulcania, an Italian style restaurants, but was told that patio dining was not yet available. So, we decided to head on over. This time the patio was set-up and we had a nice table outside here we could enjoy the music.
We ended up getting two apps and one main for dinner,
Seeing Beef Carpaccio ($24) on the menu…well, of course I had to get that, right?
I’d say that this was more of a salad. The vinaigrette was so strong that it overwhelmed the beef. And even more strange was where those french fry looking things at top…they were hash browns! Still, I got my arugula fix, right?
We also got the Mortadella Toast ($23). The bread was nicely toasted, but was just your run of the mill ciabatta…like you’d get at the market.
Standard issue Mortadella, but I liked the Pistachio Mustard, which while nicely pungent, had a nice nutty-savory tone to it and went nicely with the Mortadella and (yet more) Arugula.
For our shared main we went with the Ravioli Bolognese ($30). I was looking forward to seeing how the lamb ragu was going to taste.
This was very over-sauced, so definitely an American style dish, definitely not the “Ragu” like we got in Emilia-Romagna! The ravioli was on the chewy side and the flavor of lamb was quite mild. I know that mint is supposed to go well with lamb, but in this case that was a distraction.
We enjoyed the service and the vibe, but am not sure we’ll return.
Vulcania 6201 Minaret Rd. #240 Mammoth Lakes, CA 93546
We enjoy sitting on the back patio area to enjoy an after dinner cocktail. And JJ likes the shade here as well!
Shelter Distilling 100 Canyon Blvd. #217 Mammoth Lakes, CA 93546
The next morning we had leftovers for breakfast and then checked out of the Westin. We headed back to the Twin Lakes area and went to take a look at the Tamarack Lodge.
Apparently, the Cabins on the grounds are dog friendly, but not the lodge itself. Still…..
And of course we walked along the lakes again and saw this posted on the bridge.
And JJ even had a morning “dip”!
And then we headed back home.
The Missus (and JJ) can’t wait to return to Mammoth!
It’s funny how I sometimes find new places to visit. For example, I was updating “The Big List” and other posts. I sometimes do random checks to see if places are still open and started wondering about Sab E Lee Santee….man it had been how many years since we last visited? It had apparently gone thru a change in ownership and name to Faidang Restaurant, so I added it to my “list”. A few months back, I decided it was time for me to finally check the place out….and oh my, Faidang had permanently closed due to various “creatures”! It was now a Vietnamese restaurant named Sizzling Saigon. Hmmm…… I waited a couple of weeks before actually heading out East on the 52 and back to a locale that was once fairly familiar to me, but where I hadn’t been in maybe 5 years?
And there it was…Sizzling Saigon. Taking a look at the sign gave me a slight pause. Under the name of the place was written “Asian Fusion”? Double hmmm….. Still, I had driven all the way here.
The young man working was very nice as I was seated and handed a menu….which gave me another hard stop.
My goodness, in what universe is pho now almost $21????
And in this alternate universe, Bo Luc Lac is cheaper than the pho???? And the even the Bun Bo Hue is $21???
Well, this mad my decision quite easy; after all the place is named “Sizzling”, right? I decided to go with the Bo Luc Lac ($17.89). My order took awhile, but it looked quite good when it arrived.
I guess I didn’t read the fine print. This comes with fried rice; which, while nothing special in terms of flavor, the rice was fairly evenly coated, the texture fine, and a rather nice surprise.
While the beef was definitely not filet mignon, it was decently tender, nicely marinated if a bit too salty and in need of more complex umami tones; like perhaps a bit more fish sauce and pungency.
My pet peeve with this one is that the bell peppers were basically raw and too hard and crunchy. Not the largest portion, but with the fried rice, not bad at all.
This meal, combined with the really friendly service, had me wondering what that $21 bowl of pho was going to be like. So, of course I made time to return. The same really nice young man was working. I went and ordered the Pho Dac Biet ($20.89). And soon the “tools” and accoutrements arrived…..
I say tools because this was included with the napkins, spoon, and chopstick.
The young man told me that the chili oil is a “must have” for the pho? Hmmm again. As I anticipated, no Ngo Gai; it’s “Asian Fusion” after all.
And then my pho arrived.
At first glance quite impressive that bowl was a molten, bubbling cauldron of broth crowned by a beef rib. Seeing this arriving at my table I was really worried that the young man would spill some on himself or get burned by that stone bowl.
The plate of rare steak, beef flank, noodles was impressive. Though upon further review; it seemed to have all been premade and put in the fridge, because as hot as that bowl of broth was, the plate itself was ice cold.
That portion size of noodles was no joke either. The banh pho was of the “wider” type and because of being pre-portioned was a huge mass stuck together. And the bowl of broth was filled to the top, so you couldn’t put all the noodles into the soup at once. The scissors did come in handy here. At least the texture of the noodles were good.
The actual broth was tongue meltingly hot, but really lacking deviod of beef and any pungent tones. Thus the chili oil I guess. While not overly “San Diego sweet” in flavor, it was very bland. I used all the basil, onions, scallions, and even wishes there was more cilantro. It took me twice the amount of time to taste a spoonful of broth without burning my tongue.
The texture of the beef rib was on the chewier side, but came off the bone cleanly. It was really mild in flavor as well. There was a half a meatball swimming in miasma.
The beef flank was, as expected being served cold, super chewy once heated in the broth, but also lacking in beefiness.
The one blessing of having the broth served so hot was that a single dunk would get the rare beef done. Sort of like a pho shabu-shabu I guess?
Overall, I think of this bowl, much like what is served at Phonomenal to be more of a “marketing” angle, perhaps anticipating an influx of influencers? But, if you like a showy bubbling cauldron of broth, with a large portion of noodles and meat, without caring much about flavor, this might be for you.
At least the Bo Luc Lac wasn’t bad. Though like I said, I prefer the version at Ngon Ngon.
Sizzling Saigon 9159 Mission Gorge Rd. Santee, CA 92071 Current Hours: Daily 10am – 9pm
So, in part 1 of my posts on the newly opened Hong Kong Kitchen & Dim Sum, I went over two visits, that were basically solo because the Missus just didn’t think the place was worth a visit. So, after some not so bad food, I thought the Missus would be all for a visit. Well, She was not! Calvin however, whom I hadn’t had lunch with in a while was up for it! So we met right at the 10am opening time. Seems that Calvin, who lives in Scripps Ranch and has roots in the SGV has been down on the d-sum North of the 8 in town for a while. So, I thought we’d have some fun….he’d pick 4 dim sum items and I’d go with two mains and we’d have some fun.
So, in terms of the dim sum, in ranking from first to worst.
Scallop Dumplings ($9.50). These were by far the best items I’ve had at HK Kitchen thus far.
The wrappers were adequately thick, with a nice mild stretch to them. The scallops were tender and sweet; this was quite good.
Second was the Siu Mai, which I covered in my previous post. This was even better as you can clearly see….
The filling much more tender, decent savory-porky tones, the wrapper tender as well.
Took a bit into the Cheong Fun ($8.50) that Calvin ordered and went “what the heck”? Calvin had ordered the Char Siu version. I guess I expected the shrimp version.
So this was a bit too sweet for my taste. The rice roll was fine; perhaps a bit too brittle. The sauce was overly salty for my taste.
The Turnip Cake with XO Sauce ($14) was a fail. Both of us lamented the lack of the savory-umami tones and mild spice provided by XO sauce.
In fact, there seemed to be a total lack of the savory punch needed for this. The turnip cakes interior was mushy and this was a bit on the greasy side. Which reminds me that the Missus wants me to make my own XO sauce and it’s been a while since I’ve made turnip cake at home.
It was fairly tender; though the sauce was on the sweeter side. The sugar snap peas were nice and crisp.
Of only I knew about the XO Sauce when I ordered the Shrimp with XO Sauce ($25).
While the shrimp was adequately cooked, fairly tender, with a slight sweet-savoriness; there was a lack of XO in this dish. Thus not fulfilling the umami potential of the dish.
Still, this was a decent meal. Calvin mentioned that he’d definitely return for the dim sum here….looking out into the parking lot, we noticed that it had filled by 1115! So, if you’re thinking of going for dim sum; I’d suggest getting there early. You can read about Soo’s recent visit here.
Hong Kong Kitchen & Dim Sum 5375 Kearny Villa Rd. San Diego, CA 92123 Current Hours: Daily 10am – 9pm
My recent visit to Barrio Donas had me a bit shell shocked when it came to prices and had me wondering how much a Huevo a la Mexicana Bolillo was at San Diego Bakery. Surprisingly, it had been over a year since I last visited and over a year-and-a-half since I last posted on the place. So, last Sunday, I decided to head on over to see…..
Just as I drove into the parking lot, another car left, so I managed to get a parking space. The shop was doing steady business when I walked in; like Lucy’s Bakery, all those hard working guys needed breakfast, right?
Looking up at the menu; which, since my last visit has transitioned from the chalkboard to a video display, I saw that the A la Mexicana was now $7.50 (I believe it’s just $6.50 at Lucy’s). It was $6.50 on my last visit here a bit over a year ago and $4.99 back in December of 2023.
Still, it’s less than Barrio Donas which is now $10.50 and with prices these days, this seems almost like a bargain!
The sandwich itself was a bit of a mess; though toasted, crisp, light, and yeasty, the bread was crumbling apart as I opened it.
This was oozy, eggy, cheesy messiness. And those serranos had a “bite” of their own too.
This was actually quite filling for breakfast….at least for me. I do wish there was more beans as there barely seemed to be any. And perhaps less chilies; though it did shake me awake!
With prices these days, it’s good to know you can get a breakfast bollilo or preparados for less than $8. I mean, how much is a banh mi these days?
San Diego Bakery & Café 6959 Linda Vista Rd. San Diego, CA 92111
