Asia Cafe has slowly made it’s way onto our "rotation". Apparently it has become a favorite of Ed from Yuma as well. You can read about His latest experience on Chowhound. On my previous posts on Asia Cafe, I noted the location, and ambiance.
Asia Cafe is really about good Laotian Home Cooking, and for Her fifth day of feasting, after the visits to China Max, Izakaya Sakura, Sushi Komasa in Los Angeles, and Ba Ren, the Missus was in the mood for some good home cooking.
We started with the Missus’s favorite, the Nem Khao.
With this wonderful rice crust – sour sausage dish, you experience the best of both worlds. When wrapped in a lettuce leaf, and garnished with cilantro and mint, you have wonderful flavors along with a crunchy texture.
The Missus also went with the Yum Asia.
This seafood "salad", is served with a refreshing sweet, fish sauce based dressing. We always order ours with "clear noodles". Yum is right…..
Asia Cafe also makes very good sticky rice. One order is usually enough for the both of us.
One of my favorite dishes at Asia Cafe is the See Nam Tok:
A very simple sirloin or similar cut of beef, marinated, and pan fried, and served with a fish sauce based dipping sauce.
Today we ordered something a bit different. We asked about the whole fried fish we had seen on a previous visit. Though like the Nem Khao, it’s not on the menu, the Fried Fish was available today.
Simply salted and deep fried to crisp perfection, the item that made this dish was the dipping sauce, consisting of (what else!) fish sauce, garlic, some chilies, and green onions. Very nice!
When we entered, the "Chef", the Wife of the Husband and wife team that along with their two sons make Asia Cafe "tick", greeted me with a "Hi, I haven’t seen you in a while!" And while we were eating, Johnny, one of the sons brought a plate of noodles over, and said "We’re doing some catering tonight, so my Mom wanted make sure you tasted some of this."
He called it Mee Lao, very tasty simple noodles stir fried with soy sauce and bean sprouts and topped with fried egg.
The damage? All of the dishes above with a pot of tea(Jasmine) for $27. Needless to say, we had a ton of leftovers.
I once asked a friend of a friend why there weren’t more Laotian Restaurants, and he told me that everyone believed that their Mother made the best Laotian food, so why eat out? Well, since I can’t call on a Laotian Mom to make great home cooked dishes for me, I’ll have to rely on Asia Cafe, my little gem of a restaurant on the corner of 47th street and Market street for great home style cooking.
Asia Cafe
4710 Market St
San Diego, CA 92102