May 2007 – mmm-yoso

Return to Vien Dong III Part 1 – The Email

May 31, 2007 mmm-yoso Markets & Grocers

*** Vien Dong Market is now Thuan Phat Supermarket. You can find post here.

Part 2 Can be found here.

A few weeks ago, I received the most surprising and (for me) amazing email. It was very professional, and cordial, but most of all, it gave me hope. Why hope? It seems that trying to get things done, like a simple refund, takes an executive order. Remember our canceled vacation, and the promise of a refund? Well it took almost 4 months, countless emails and phone calls to what seemed like an outsourced customer service representatives(I'm putting that in lower case on purpose) who all have "no last name", I eventually got fed up with the glad-handing and after doing some research found a "real" person through a professional associations website, and finally got this online travel service to refund our money….4 months later! Everyone was nice, but you could tell what the state of customer service was like…..you knew they were just "trying to get rid of you" and hoping you'd give up, and they wouldn't have to refund your money, which I believe had already been refunded by the Airlines and Hotel we were to stay at. You see, I'm becoming a cynic already!

Sorry for the long diversion, back to the story. In January of last year I did a little post on Vien Dong III Supermarket, made a few observations, and went on my merry way. I was a bit sad that the hot food was gone, and did make mention of the "pungency factor", as did someone in the comments. There were some other interesting comments as well.

So a few weeks ago, I get this email, that starts with, "Dear Sir or Madam"…and my mind goes "oh-oh, somebody's really ticked off…." But as I read the letter, a smile broke out over my face, and I felt really good….I don't know why, but I did. So I got permission to print the letter in it's entirety(I'm inserting a few photos):

Dear Sir or Madam (mmm-yoso),

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dan and my family owns/operates Vien Dong III International Supermarket. I'm also a reader of your site for about a year now. I had been meaning to write you for some time regarding your review of our store. I thought it was very good and wanted to thank you for your interest. It was very refreshing to see people put stuff up on the web about us and we truly appreciate it. We also wanted to let you know that since your review we have done a lot of renovating and would be really honored if you would come by for another visit and see for yourself.

-The pungency factor is no longer a factor
-Resurrected the food to go + deli and bakery area
-Raised our ceiling added skylights and brighter energy efficient lighting
-Renovated the seafood department with newer more accessible tanks and freezers.
-Upgraded checkout system for quicker processing and visability
-Expanded produce department to include wider variety and volume of produce
-Increased small business/restaurant customer servicing

Regarding the comments on live seafood, our core customers have always preferred to select their own product; picking the biggest and the freshest seafood currently available. Many other Asian supermarkets do not allow customers to select their own seafood and as a result people are always concerned about getting mis-serviced with damaged or dead product or overcharged by water/ice weight packed by the market. So it has always been or policy to welcome customers to pick and pack for themselves and letting product go out on a first come first self serve basis and letting customers pick exactly what they want. Of course our employees are always more than willing to assist anyone who need help.
Regarding the comments on the checkout lanes, we have configured them that way in order to foster a more social service environment. My dad came up with the idea when we first switched to the PC-based checkout system with large screen computer monitors. By pairing up the checkout stands, the cashiers can communicate and assist each other better by working in pairs and at the same time be more physically accessible to the customers. The large screen monitors would also be more accessible to the customers to view and physically point at particular line items. The additional benefit of pairing the checkout stands was that the grocery bagger (my old job) would be more accessible to more customers as well.
If you have any other questions or comments on how we can improve the store your input would mean a lot to us. We'd also really appreciate it you could give us your input on new individual products. I look forward to hearing back from you.

—
Best Regards,
Daniel M. Tran

Vien Dong III International Supermarket
6935 Linda Vista Rd.
San Diego CA 92111 tel: 858 292 8110

Wow, maybe one little post from our humble little blog, with everyone's input(comments!!!) can make a difference? I dunno…….. There are very few points that I'd have issues with. The only item, was that I (we) do reviews. You'll find that I never, ever say, I do restaurant, or food reviews….I leave that to the Naomi Wise's, and the other"food writers" and experts, I'm just a "food eater", and share my experiences on this blog. I think it's a much more intimate, and a more personal experience, and heck, I'm not much of a writer anyway.

I need to thank Daniel, for allowing his email to be part of a post(and making sure the hot food was back), but you know I'll be following up…which is what part 2 will be!

And more importantly….what do you think?

Hong Kong BBQ & Dim Sum – A quick Dim Sum Survey

May 30, 2007 mmm-yoso Chinese Restaurants, Dim Sum

A little over a month ago "LoriA" sent an email asking about the Dim Sum at Hong Kong BBQ & Dim Sum, a little restaurant located inside of Vinh Hung Market in Mira Mesa. She was looking for take-out Dim Sum for an event and asked if I’d ever had a chance to sample the Dim Sum. In my reply I mentioned that we had attempted to eat there once, but let’s just say that the Market was not having a "good day". It was a pretty hot summer day, and we were met with some very strong "fragrances" emanating from the meat department, which proceeded to snuff out any appetite we had. Since that day, just the mention of this restaurant would send waves of nausea pulsing through the Missus. So it looked as if I’d never get a chance to check out Hong Kong BBQ and Dim Sum.

Finally, overcome with curiosity, I decided to do a quick Dim Sum breakfast at HK BBQ. Solo, of course. My apologies to Lori, for taking so long, as I fear that the date of your event has passed.

I’ve been told that Vinh Hung Market had once been a movie theater, and you can tell by the set-up, that the restaurant has been built over the structure of a theater snack bar…right down to the lights!

Hong Kong BBQ & Dim Sum opens at 9am every day, and it seemed that most of the business is of the take-out/steam table variety. The Dim Sum is stacked in a metal tray on the steam table as well, not a promising sign.

I grabbed a seat, and after a few minutes, the harried Young Man that was working both the steam table and waiting tables handed me a fairly large menu (200+ items), and a Dim Sum card. The Dim Sum prices were the same whether you did take out or ate at the tables, and ranged from $1.95 to $2.95. There was a category for "Weekend Special", but when I asked I was told, "no, there are no specials", even though it was the weekend.

Right after placing my order, the Server walked up behind the counter and placed 2 metal containers on a tray and grabbed some Wu Gok with his bare hands, (which kinda grossed me out since he had just been handling money) laying them on a plate and pretty much dumped them on my table.

Pork Siu Mai:

Not only were these cold, but they were pretty tasteless as well. Also, all those greasy yellow spots looked like the Siu Mai in the containers above these were draining on the Siu Mai below.

Har Gow:

The Har Gow were pretty good, nice shrimp flavor, but the wrappers were a bit dried out, again from just lying in the metal pans without adequate heat and steam to keep them moist.

While I was deciding whether I could manage to eat a second Siu Mai, my Beef Tripe arrived:

This was by far the best item of the day, crisp tripe with a nice ginger-green onion-chile pepper flavor. Pretty good.

Wu Gok (Deep Fried Taro Balls)

As you can tell by the blistered appearance, these have not been fried properly and tended to crumble very easily. However, the filling of the Wu Gok was very moist, but very bland, and lacking in flavor(after further thought, I’m thinking it’s the pork). I could only bring myself to eat half of one, and took the rest home. The Missus took one bite and said, "this has no taste", and proceeded to return said item to the container, never again to see the light of day……

The service at Hong Kong BBQ was indifferent, but efficient to be honest, the poor guy was running like crazy. As you can tell the prices are on the inexpensive side(total damage, around $11 with tea), but the Dim Sum seems to be very uneven. The roast duck did look pretty good, so maybe….maybe I’ll try the Chinese BBQ next time…maybe.

Lori, if you did purchase Dim Sum from Hong Kong BBQ, I hope you had better luck than I did. And in what I though was the Coup de Grace, they couldn’t even spell "Dim Sum" correctly on the sign!

Hong Kong BBQ & Dim Sum
10550 Camino Ruiz(Inside of Vinh Hung Market)
San Diego, CA 92126

Sun-Thurs 9am-9pm
Fri-Sat 9am-930pm

Tokyo Sushi Loha on El Cajon Boulevard- which is not the same place as Tokyo in El Cajon

May 29, 2007 Cathy Japanese Restaurants, Sushi and Sashimi, What Cathy Eats!

Welcome to the blog called mmm-yoso. Despite the fact that it is an Asian restaurant, Kirk is not blogging about it; Cathy is. It’s OK. She knows if food is good or bad.

Hi again. A few people told me about this sushi place near SDSU, and that I should try it. I didn’t think about the name of it. The Mister and I went there for lunch the other day…I saw the name was Tokyo Sushi Loha…sounded…well…heck, I had blogged about Tokyo in El Cajon, and remember one comment, from Mike, who said he went to Tokyo all the time and their sushi had the best prices in town…and well, if you read that post, you can see it was part of my string of bad meals (and actually, generally bad days) I was having back in February. It came full circle when I was eating in this lovely restaurant.

I really think Mike was talking about this place, which is on El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego and not in El Cajon. This place is good. The sushi bar is very large and always busy.

As you can see from the menu (click on any photo and it enlarges) they have lunch specials, a variety of items for dinner and sushi and rolls.

There are only 13 tables inside, 12 seats at the sushi bar. It was almost full at 1 p.m.. The menu covers are made of bamboo, and so are the paper wrapped chopsticks. When they bring you the menu, they also give you the sushi and roll menu and a pen, so you can order that way if you wish. We decided to not go with the specials and ordered some crazy things, oddly, no rice was involved in any of our dishes. {Actually there was a reason for my eating no carbs, and you’ll find that out in a future post}

We read the sushi and roll menu and decided on the very last one listed- "Monkey Brains"- ($6.95)

Hush.

Deep fried spicy tuna with mushroom. Well, the idea of a deep fried mushroom sounded like County Fair Food and we both enjoy that as one of our treats when we do go to the Fair, as well as we wanted to try some spicy tuna…so we chose it. There were those four half tennis ball sized pieces as the serving- and then the cross section- spicy tuna, a layer of real crab and then a flavorful portobella mushroom cap on the bottom, deep fried. The description did not say it had crab, but I did notice that ‘crab’ was spelled correctly all over the menu, so I was happy. The melding of the flavors was perfect. The tuna was a nice spicy hot, the crab and mushroom both flavorful, the crunchies, fish eggs and green onions left over helped with our other plates and the sauce on the plate had a nice blend of sweet and heat. The fried crust was nice, light,not oily. Sure, nothing traditional, but we have established that I am the Caucasian person from East County blogging here…It tasted good and was fresh.

We decided to try the sesame chicken appetizer ($5.95) as opposed to the sesame chicken lunch special, which would have been $1 more and had less chicken, but would have had rice, a piece of tempura’d onion, salad, and 4 pieces of California roll. This was all chicken in a not too sweet teriyaki sauce and sesame seeds, served with daikon (and a piece of broccoli) This was a good 3/4 pound, easily, of dark meat chicken and was cooked well- the meat was juicy and flavorful. I did end up dipping it in the hot sauce from the ‘Monkey Brains’, just to get rid of some of the sweetness after eating a good portion of it.

We decided to try the Seared Albacore Salad ($7.95). This was a good choice. The albacore was cut in chunks and not thinly sliced, as it would be for sashimi, but it was only lightly seared, still raw in the center of each cube and served on a bed of mixed greens with a nice spicy dressing, daikon, radish sprouts and, as you can see, surrounded by a border of thinly sliced tomato. It was just a beautiful, as well as flavorful, presentation. There was a lot of albacore on this salad, as well as the token piece of burdock, which seems to be included on every salad in every Japanese restaurant we go to.

There were many Caucasian people eating lunch here. All the workers were Japanese. I heard the owner is Korean. Everyone was helpful and friendly and willing to answer questions. It is a small place. MY ONLY COMPLAINT WAS THE MUSIC WAS TURNED UP FULL VOLUME THE WHOLE TIME WE WERE THERE. Five television sets, two set to basketball and three set to Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera ‘live’ concerts.

Tokyo Sushi Loha Japanese Bistro 6784 El Cajon Boulevard, Suite D San Diego 92115 (619)644-8600 fax (619) 697-1937

Lunch Mon-Sat 11:30-3:00 Dinner Mon-Sat 5:00-9:30 (10:00 on Fri-Sat) Dinner only Sunday 4:00 p.m.-9:30 p.m.

Pho Saigon Star-Pho to go, Pho to eat in, and other good stuff!

May 28, 2007 Cathy Pho, Vietnamese Restaurants, What Cathy Eats!

mmm-yoso is not on vacation. mmm-yoso is the name of the blog. Today, Cathy is blogging, Kirk is doing something else, most likely eating and photographing the food; it’s what we do.

Hi. Cathy is back… so, one day a few weeks ago when it was raining, The Mister called me and was going to be leaving work earlier than I had expected and I hadn’t even thought about dinner yet. "Bring something home" I told him…figuring, since it was a Tuesday, he’d get one (or three) of the $1.99 Tuesday only specials from KFC. {There is a poster, on one window only of your local KFC- look for it.} {It is an exceptionally good deal-2 pieces with one side and a biscuit}{which is why we usually get three meals} {sorry, digressing} Instead, he brought home pho!

Now, you must understand,we never had actually done pho as a take out item before. We have seen many people walking in and picking up at just about every place we were, noting how much toppings we could see were given in the bags (a lot of bean sprouts)…but still, we always just ate in.

In late March we saw a coupon online at Get 1 free dot com and we were going to meet there for dinner, but Pho Saigon Star wasn’t open yet. However, that night when The Mister went, it was open- and joy of joys-they had fried shrimp tofu as a side order on the menu.

Pretty much the only places that have fried shrimp tofu are Convoy Noodle House and Pho Pasteur Anh Hong (the place with tablecloths in the mall with K Sandwiches). I got it once with Bun and was hooked. It is just a shrimp paste inside of tofu skin that is fried. Crunchy/crispy and the shrimp paste tastes like shrimp mixed with some sugar and fish sauce… it is just something I crave.

Oh, and as a side (or "appetizer" as I like to call it) it’s only $3.

Oh, here is the menu, along with a photo of Tip Top’s paw as she waited for a precise moment to walk over it. For some reason, the website does not have prices. OH-THE NEATEST PART…look closely (click onto any photo and it will enlarge) or, go to the website- The menu is written in Vietnamese, English AND Spanish. I have never seen it this way, but it is neat. Therefore the fried shrimp tofu is, in Vietnamese: them chao tom hoac tau hu ky and in Spanish: adicional tofu de camarones.

So, anyhow, The Mister brought home Pho Tai (raw steak)(filete raro). (Small $ $5.50). Thinly sliced raw steak that cooks in the pho broth. The broth was rich, slightly oily, and not too overly anise-y/5 Spice-y. It was still very hot, to the point that when the meat was dropped in, a nice boiling effect came up from the soup. We live about 7 miles from this place, with quite a few lights between here and there. As you can see, the accompaniments of basil, jalapeños, one lime wedge and sprouts was plenty. The noodles were under the raw meat in the take out box. This was a *lot* of food. The large bowl is only 50¢ more and easily could feed two people.

We got an order of the fried spring rolls (cha ngo)(taquitos fritos de puerco) ($5.50) which also came with a fair amount of accompaniments-there could have been more mint- There was enough sauce though. Some chili is in the sauce, so there is a kick to it. The filling is quite a meaty ground pork as well as having daikon and carrot in it. The ‘to go’ packaging was perfect- they cut off a corner of the Styrofoam box, so that the thin egg roll skins stayed crispy.

Then, my meal- Bun. How I so crave Bun sometimes. Inside a restaurant, it is served in a large bowl with the lettuce/cabbage/basil/mint ‘salad’ on the bottom, noodles over it, then the toppings, shredded carrots, cucumbers, peanuts and whatever topping (I have had it with the fried shrimp tofu, at Ahn…#123D I think) this time, BBQ pork (thit nuong)(fideos de arroz con puerco de la barbacoa),

($5.99). It came in this Styrofoam take out box, and I had to dump it into a mixing bowl (as we had to do with the pho also) so as to get all the flavors mixed in…the noodles are under all of that BBQ’d pork which was *excellent* in flavor and cooking. The salad as nice and crisp and flavorful with the herbs in it.

So, the other day, we were hungry. It seems to happen a lot. I thought we should try Pho Saigon Star again and eat in. We were the *only* White people. This is always a good sign. This restaurant is located where Friars Road turns into Mission Gorge, near Kaiser Hospital, in the curved strip mall with the Starbucks, Jamba Juice, Petco, Coco’s, Rubio’s, Einsteins, Carl’s Jr. You know where. You’ve seen it.

Very nice, clean interior. Very friendly young men waiting on the tables. Very much family owned and run. everyone seemed to know everyone. … and there I was, White Girl with Camera. Oh well, they never asked me what the heck I was doing. It seemed that whenever they came around to fill up water, each person did ask us if we had any questions and were willing to give us information.

We decided to try the papaya salad with shrimp and pork ($5.99) It came with the sauce on the side. Unusual, but we saw the table next to us get it that way also. The sauce had a good amount of chilis in it, and we put the sauce over the portion we had placed onto our plates and it tasted great. I saw a lady at the table next to us adding sugar to the sauce. I thought it was fine. I tasted the papaya, shrimp and pork without any sauce and each ingredient had a good, fresh flavor on its own.

When The Mister was picking up that one day, he saw someone having curry and he had wanted to try it. He got rice with chicken curry (com cari ga)(arroz con curry de pollo) ($5.99). You could get it with noodles or French bread also, same price. The curry was sweet, with coconut milk and not very hot (spicy hot I mean). It had an excellent flavor, the chicken pieces were dark meat; flavorful. There were potatoes and hot onions and cilantro served with it. The sauce was not overly thick. it was good, tasty, but not like a Japanese curry sauce, which is thicker. You needed to put the rice into the curry to eat it.

I decided to try Sir Fry crispy noodles, with everything ($7.50) (mi xao gio thap cam) (never mind Spanish). You can get crispy egg noodles, soft egg noodles, pan fried noodles or rice… with beef, chicken, pork, shrimp, broccoli, celery, bok choy, carrots, mushrooms, onions, cilantro…and a nice brown sauce. Great flavors- and a *lot* of food.

But, we got dessert anyhow: the three colored one: pudding/sweet bean/green agar with coconut milk and ice ($3)

Nice and fresh. We were asked if we wanted it with our meal or as dessert. We asked to wait and the nice Young Man brought it out when he saw we were finishing up everything else. The pudding (yellow part) was wonderfully flavored, the beans were not mushy and had good flavor, the green agar strips were..chewy…and the coconut milk was *so* nice. It was a perfect ending.

Oh- the tea. It is $1.50 per pot. It is Jasmine. It is loose tea with a tea ball inside the pot. It is great.

..and, the weird thing. The ‘muzak’ was in Asian style- those echoing stringed instruments. But there were only 3 songs that kept repeating and one of them was *definitely* "Numb" by Linkin Park. Every subtle note of it. I kind of found that strange….just an observation.

Pho Saigon Star 10450 Friars Road , Suite E San Diego 92120 (619)640-2985 Open 7 days 9 a.m.- 9 pm. website

The LSU San Diego Alumni 19th Annual Crawfish Boil

May 27, 2007 mmm-yoso Cajun, Southern, and Soul Food, Festivals & Events, Seafood

Now what better way to spend part of your Memorial Day weekend, than to attend a honest to goodness crawfish boil? Very few things in life top good food, people in a festive mood, and really bad sunburn! First off, nope we’re not LSU (that would be Louisiana State University) Alumni, but managed to snag 2 tickets from a friend who somehow managed to get a whole table. Not an easy task, there are "only" 2500 tickets sold for this yearly event. Tickets aren’t cheap, either, 50 bucks a head…but you’ll see that it’s worth it!

The event was held at the Qualcomm Stadium practice field…which I think is now a rugby field, and is put on by the San Diego LSU Alumni Club.

We arrived just before noon, and the party was already in full swing.

Must be the great music, right?

You’d be partially right, the music was great, and the mood festive, but I think it’s what’s written on the sign to the right that also motivated those with parrot hats and flamingo sun glasses to get "their groove on". On a serious note, the sign "Free Beer" always concerns me, but I really need to tip my hat(without parrots or flamingos on them) to the organizers of this event; it is a family event, everyone was having a great time, and we never saw any hint of any trouble at all. There was a line of "shuttle buses", limos, and we even saw two taxi cabs arrive as we were leaving.

I counted 3 booths serving up Red Hook, Bud, Bud Light, and Bacardi Ice, so there was never a long wait.

Having never attended this event before, we really didn’t know what to expect…so note to myself for next time; the crawfish isn’t served til 130pm. Also, I saw several people bring in fruits and various appetizers, though no outside beverages are allowed. Worried about dehydration? That’s covered…there are tubs of of iced bottled water and sodas located in different locations.

At that moment in time, I wasn’t worried about dehydration, and it felt much too hot for beer, but man I was hungry! Luckily, I saw the sign….."Thibodaux Bayou Boyz"

While standing in line contemplating what to eat(the Missus said she was "waiting for the good stuff"), I saw the interesting "tub" pictured on the right, hmmmm…….

"Spicy Cajun Eggs"($2.00), I just knew I had to check it out.

These were your basic pickled eggs with Cajun spices thrown in. I happen to really like good pickled eggs, and though these eggs had not been pickled long enough, I thought these were rather good. The Missus decided to have a taste, and found that She didn’t care for pickled eggs. I loved the look on Her face, though! The Missus loves boiled eggs, but I don’t think She’ll be grabbing for the jar of pickled eggs anytime soon!

I also got the Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya($4.00):

I was a bit underwhelmed at the "look" of the Jambalaya, but it turned out to be pretty good, with lots of flavor. Even the Missus(who was still holding out for the "good stuff"), enjoyed some of it.

Just as I was finishing up we noticed that the line waiting for the crawfish was getting kinda long, so we divided up our resources. We had the "beer team" go out and grab some beer, before the 2pm deadline, the "table team" used the provided newspaper and masking tape to cover the table, and also tried to consume the liquid refreshment as fast as the beer team to bring it to the table. We went and stood in the crawfish line.

The drill was simple. Each table was provided with a "table ticket" which was used to get a box of crawfish and fixins’.

You could smell the crawfish boilin’ as you stood in line. At 130pm the line started inching along.

The crawfish had been cooked in those large vats, and than separated into boxes to be carried to each table. Sam, who was waiting in line with me was worried that we wouldn’t have enough crawfish….

Our time finally arrived and we carried our box to our table. Now I’d heard the weight of 50lbs bandied about as the amount of food in the box, I’m not quite sure but as Sam and I carried the box to our table, it felt a bit lighter than 50 lbs.

But any doubt that this would be enough food evaporated when we dumped the crawfish out on the table.

Also provided were two large bags, one which contained some of the sweetest corn I ever had, and the other potatoes.

Ayaka could hardly contain herself!

What a spread….now this is food porn!

By this time the Missus had already started in on Her "bugs"……. but I had to take one more shot of Scott, aka, "The King of Crawfish", or was it "the Baron of Brew", or maybe "the Rajah of Red Hook"?

Whatever he called himself, he sure wasn’t the "Emperor of Eating", the Missus easily ate twice as much as he did…..

I’d been told that the crawfish was trucked in from Louisiana. True or not, it was good eating, we did find that the smaller "bugs" had much more flavor, especially the heads…man suckin’ dem heads! In what was a double bonus, several people didn’t eat the heads, so they gave them to either Sam, the Missus, or yours truly. And we kept eating, until we were stuffed and ready for a nap.

This wasn’t our table, but it was a good facsimile of what most tables looked like as we were leaving. We did notice that they didn’t eat their corn, and the thought of grabbing the bag of corn and making a run for it entered our heads….

As we left, we made sure to "reserve our spots" for next year. As the Missus made the turn out of the parking lot(She had not imbibed, so She drove), She told me, "well, that should be enough for at least a whole year!" After a short nap, She looked at me and said, "you’ll find this funny, but I could eat another few pounds of crawfish!" Sigh……

We both enjoyed this event, it is well organized, and all details are planned out well. It also dispels the belief that free beer means trouble. Though a competitive game of Bocce Ball…well that’s a different story!

I’m Baaaack……

May 26, 2007 mmm-yoso yoso-silly

Yes, I’m back…..we had a nice vacation that consisted of a short trip, and a little "blog-break". I’m sure everyone enjoyed Cathy’s posts!

This vacation was mainly for my In-Laws, and most meals were consumed around various excursions. So there won’t be quite as many food posts.

So where did we go? Here’s a few hints….

This one totally gives it away…..

Of course, we did find time for a few meals…..

So of course they’ll be a few posts in the coming weeks.

Hope everyone is having a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend!

The Steam Table at 99Ranch- dinner!

May 24, 2007 Cathy Chains, Chinese Restaurants, Markets & Grocers, What Cathy Eats!

mmm-yoso is the name of the blog. Welcome. Cathy is talking about food while Kirk is on vacation. I think he’ll be back tomorrow, though.

Hi. Me again. Kirk is still away. I imagine since this is the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, most of you are away and not reading this post until you are back at work. Hope it was nice for you.

It appears, through the magic of blogging, that The Mister and I pretty much wander about town with a camera and eat out a lot at sit down waiter/waitress type places. Actually, The Mister and I cook at home a lot, and Kirk and His Missus cook at home also…look at the recipe index at the bottom of the left column of this page.

Then there are the lazy days. Pick it up and bring it home…or pick it up and eat it there. 99Ranch has that steam table area of the store. We were there tonight.

Two bags of steam tray food. It is three meals for the two of us, easily.

The whole fried or soy sauce chicken is on sale this week for $3.99. They will chop it up for you. This is the fried one. The skin wasn’t as crispy as I would like, but the chicken meat is moist and flavorful and…it is only $3.99. It comes with a sauce that has 5 spice in it.

We got a two item combo($4.25) 99ranch_002 with steamed rice

The spicy salted fish and the soy sauce pork with soy sauce hard boiled eggs. The spicy salt and pepper crust is wonderful, light and crispy, as is the (mostly boneless) flaky fresh fish. The pork had a nice layer of fat on it , was soft and tender and flavorful and was not overly soy-sauce salty. The egg was nicely hard boiled and fresh and not salty either. A good, deep, rich soy flavor. I just got an email from Bill and he said it may be brown sugar sauce with fish sauce, which, upon opening the fridge and tasting it cold (at 4:40 in the morning) tastes very slightly sweet and again not salty. So it couldbe brown sugar and fish sauce. Let’s just say it is good pork and hard boiled egg in a thin brown colored sauce. The meat is tasty as is the egg and we liked it.

The combos come with soup (they gave us two- it was almost closing time). Today it was egg drop, with for some reason, one piece of corn in each bowl, and the requisite spork to use for both the soup and meal, although chopsticks are available.

We also wanted to try the chicken roll ($3)

Ground chicken and rice with light spices wrapped in fried tofu skin. Very nice here. It comes with a spicy sweet and sour sauce.

We also got the 4 piece ‘summer roll’ from the bakery area ($3.99) . Rice paper wrapped around chilled rice noodles, shrimp, lettuce and mint with a peanutty dipping sauce- always refreshing.

That’s it. Not too exciting a post, eh? Well,you know, sometimes I just like to eat some fresh food without having to cook. Not everything in my life is overly interesting, although I do share with you when it is.

There are Monday-Friday specials for $2.29 at lunch. Oh and breakfast specials also. Always fresh. There is a large eating area adjacent to the steam tray line. Across from the steam trays they sell beverages and soups. All of the 99 Ranch markets have a steam tray food area. Try it. It’s good.

Again, have a good Memorial Day weekend.

99 Ranch Market 7380 Clairmont Mesa Boulevard San Diego 92111 website

Road Trip-A long drive to eat all I could- Sunset Station Las Vegas- and visit the Pinball Hall of Fame.

May 23, 2007 Cathy Buffets, Las Vegas, Road Trip, What Cathy Eats!, yoso-silly

mmm-yoso is the blog. The bloggers are Kirk and friends. Kirk is on vacation. Cathy took a short vacation also and here is her accounting of a day in her life.

Before I start this post, I would like to take this opportunity to thank whomever thought up/invented the money losing proposition called Satellite Radio.

So, my brother (hereafter referred to as "Mr. Bally", because he asked me to) was going to be in Las Vegas for some sort of business trip two weeks ago. He told me like three days ahead of time. This has happened before.

I asked what day he would be free from business so that we could have lunch together and Tuesday was the day. I left Santee at 9 a.m. , just after traffic had cleared.

I drove. Yes. Here is the usual view when almost out of Escondido and into Temecula, just past Lawrence Welk Land.

I drove, stopped at a Starbucks someplace for coffee and then just drove.

I was alone and so I didn’t want to stop and eat. Besides, we were going to have a late lunch. Mr. Bally was staying at a company paid hotel (read: Holiday Inn Express) and I met him there.

We drove to Sunset station. It is one of the Station Casinos that are popular with the locals in Las Vegas. I do prefer the luxurious Green Valley Ranch casino out of all of the ones Station has to offer when I travel to Las Vegas and stay overnight. Then again, I don’t have an expense account and usually do not bother to stay overnight. (It was a 4 1/2 hour drive one way).

So, anyhow, we ate. Here are photos:

The buffet was $12.95 each (it was dinner time by the time we got there) and there is an option of an additional $6 for your choice of a steak, pound of crab legs or pound of chilled shrimp. We opted for the shrimp:

You will notice there are no dessert plates. I was tired, we were full and I had a long drive ahead of me.

But, there was one place we *had* to go to- Pinball Hall of Fame– It is run by one of the brothers who ran the most popular Pinball Arcades (Pinball Pete’s) in Ann Arbor and East Lansing starting back in 1970. It was very nostalgic for Mr. Bally and I. There are about 200 pinball machines in the building in a sort of run down mall just off Pecos, out of his 1200 machine collection. Photos:

There is a great article in the May 21 2007 edition of Forbes Magazine, describing the operation and its costs and that the Hall of Fame is a 501(c)3 organization (a non-profit) that donates all of the money made from the machines to The Salvation Army.

It was just a fun place to go, re-live some great memories and I got to spend time with my brother and then drive home.

There it is. Another day in my life. If some of you are taking Friday off, I hope you have a nice Memorial Day Holiday and weekend. For the rest of us, I’ll still be posting about something.

Sunset Station Casino website

Pinball Hall of Fame Museum 3330 East Tropicana at Pecos website

Tea Houses- Boba- Snacks? Why has this been kept secret?

May 22, 2007 Cathy Caffeine Fix, Dim Sum, Sandwiches, Stuff, What Cathy Eats!, yoso-silly

mmm-yoso is not on vacation. That is the name of the blog, silly. Cathy is a-blogging and Kirk is taking a much needed rest, and really is on vacation.

Oh, I am sooo the White Girl on this blog…I had no idea exactly how Caucasian I was. Sure, I had the whole "chee fee" incident, and I didn’t know sago were the same as boba and…well, I didn’t know much about boba…and, I had seen "tea houses" and "tapioca drinks" and figured ‘eh, Asian Starbucks wanna-be’s’. Really. I figured those ‘tea’ places served hot tea and those silly boba drinks. Lots of young Asian kids hang out there; I saw some drinks coming out in plastic cups and also figured well…you do know the signs say "Starbucks Coffee", right? So it must be the same- tea and those boba drinks and Starbucks makes coffee and all those frou frou drinks. No big deal.

ANYHOW…Years ago, from the place inside 99 Ranch, I got a tea and milk and ‘pearl’ drink and it was good tasting, although I thought chewing on the giant boba (tapioca pearls) was kind of like chewing on snot, albeit flavorless snot, but the boba part held not much fascination to me…I love tapioca pudding, but the actual boba in a beverage…eh. Well, I liked the tea part, then the milk and there was a lot a lot of liquid sugar…and I don’t like sweet.

Then there was an epiphany. I was having lunch with Mr. C, at Bolsa on Mira Mesa.

and we had our ‘standard’ Pho stuff:

and we started talking about boba drinks. In my mind I was thinking, ‘oh yeah, sweet stuff with snot chewies on the bottom’. However Mr. C has never steered me wrong, and he started telling me that the place in the same mall as Bolsa, Tapioca Heaven, had the *best* milk tea boba of anywhere. So, I was polite. I had the milk tea at Tapioca Heaven and it was *wonderful*. It tasted like …tea…with milk…and there was a choice of boba to put in it- regular brown, small brown, green and strawberry. You could ask for no sweetener. Who knew?

The most fascinating thing I noticed at first inside of Tapioca Heaven was that they had free wi-fi. Hello!

Then I noticed something else, much more important- they have snacks. Fried snacks. Inexpensive fried snacks. But Mr. C and I had just finished a nice lunch at Bolsa and I didn’t want to eat any more, even a snack.

and so, I wrote Kirk a note. "Why haven’t I heard of these places that sell boba drinks with snacks?" I asked. "They are wonderful- so much more fun than a Starbucks, which does fascinating high calorie coffee based beverages and sells some ‘meh’ tasting sweets and sandwiches, but by no means sell fried goodies".

The reply, from The Missus, was "Oh boba, that is so last century".

Ahem.

So anyhow, I was on a quest. Since Mr. C had told me that the boba milk tea at Tapioca Heaven was the best, I decided to make that my standard…to see if any tasted better anywhere else. Of course, I needed to try snacks also.

So The Mister and I went to Tapioca Express. See, it used to be next to Bolsaa-on Convoy. Bolsaa isn’t there any more, so you won’t be confused. It is going to become some Cajun-y place in the summer.

When you walk into Tapioca Express, the wall is lined with the menu of beverage choices. At the register, where you order and pay, were two typewritten pieces of paper with a menu. The Mister and I had to try a bit of everything.

Chicken nuggets, chicken wings, fried squid, all with a choice of no spice, medium or hot. (we tried all three,the no spice was great and the medium was good too, the hot was just a little too much in the sense that you couldn’t taste the chicken as well as with the medium spice). Steamed pork dumplings and also fried donut holes with both whipped cream and also a vanilla cream dipping sauce. Each of these snacks were less than $4 each. This is wonderful snacking- or a meal. I saw one guy with something that looked like loco moco and I will go back to try that.

Next we went to K Sandwiches, got a boba milk tea, hot milk coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice.

Also, since we were at K…I got a pate chaud; its only $1 and so flaky and fresh and filled with a wonderful pork pate mixture. A friend, who was born in France and is working out here, said it is very authentic and good.

We also got a BBQ pork Bahn Mi ( think it is Number 9 on the menu) for $3.69. Here is a cross section view of both.

Snacks, free wi fi and boba drinks. Fascination.

So, the other day The Mister and I went to the Tea Station on Clairmont Mesa. Its in the same mall as Lolita’s and Teri Cafe and that Pho place everyone says they go to.

They have sit down service inside, and a menu .

We sat down and were waited on! At the other places you would walk up and pay and wait for your drink, kind of like Starbucks.

We tried the tea flavored dumplings ($6.50)

The flavors were different between the green ones and white ones both the dumpling and the filling, but you can see in the second photo (click- all the photos enlarge) a cross section and that the dumplings were quite meaty and full, very fresh and I believe one was chicken and the other pork. They were delici-yoso!

We also had to try the fried spicy chicken ($4.50)

Lightly crispy, nice spice (you can tell them the level of spice you want). Fresh. Great. Gosh, it’s adult chicken nuggets!

Tea flavored spiced pork slices ($6.50), served with 3 side dishes, it says…either they figured we could not count because we were White, or rice is one of the sides. Whatever. Plenty of food.

Oh, and we got beverages…

Boba_011

So, anyhow, the secret is out. Tea, milk tea, boba, not Starbucks…all with free wi fi and snacks…fried snacks.

We have now gone to many of the tea places around town, not always with a camera…and we try the fried chicken at least. Nothing has been bad or disappointing.

Some of the beverages are unusual- sesame, lavender, rose, yogurt..just about everything Starbucks doesn’t have. { Snow ice, or snow bubbles are merely finely *fine* shaved ice with flavoring-kind of a Slushee®, for the White folks out there.}

Tapioca Heaven definitely had the most tea-tasting milk tea, but getting any of the beverages without sweetener helps.

Oh, and now I kind of enjoy chewing on those tapioca snot-like things….it’s part of the whole "boba experience"

Tapioca Heaven Cafe 9225 Mira Mesa Boulevard Suite 115 San Diego 92126

Tapioca Express 4646 Convoy, #106B San Diego 92111 (858) 363-9889 website

Tea Station 7315 Clairmont Mesa Boulevard San Diego 92111 (858)268-8198website

Grillions Homestyle Grilling-Healthy, Mediterranean or American Style- your choice!

May 21, 2007 Cathy American Restaurants, Mediterranean Restaurants, What Cathy Eats!

Grillions has closed.

mmm-yoso: the name of the blog. Kirk: the main guy who writes here. Cathy: one of the friends who helps out when Kirk is on vacation, or just doesn't want to write or writes when she has something to say. Today: Cathy writing because Kirk is on vacation…but she also has something to say.

Good day, and short week before the Memorial Day weekend. Hope all is going well for you. I'm fine and have a new place to tell you about. This place has only been open a week as of today, as a matter of fact. It's called "Grillions" and we like it! Saturday, when The Mister and I were having a late lunch at Wired, we walked out and saw a "Grand Opening" sign on what used to be Daily's, the heart-healthy restaurant at Renaissance Towne Centre Mall, just southeast of UTC .

Daily's had been around more than ten years, started by a UCSD Cardiologist, to give his patients and friends tasty, heart healthy meals and it was quite popular. I am not sure what happened, but it is gone, and Grillions is now here. The Mister went in, grabbed a menu and said it wasn't very crowded. Next door, Le Peep was overcrowded with large tables of people using the over-saturated Le Peep coupons for their Saturday brunches. We saw a few curious people looking into Grillions but not eating there.

So- the menu:

BBQ chicken and ribs, BBQ'd burgers, grilled veggies, chicken fish, kebabs…whoa! and side dishes that could be various single grilled veggies (tomatoes, home style potato wedges, baked potato, corn), grilled home style potatoes, home style beans, coleslaw, rice… well, heck, we could do grilled or BBQ'd chicken and/or ribs with slaw and baked beans OR have a burger, OR have a kebab served with rice, pita and grilled vegetables…the combinations are endless!..and yet seemingly quite healthy.

We went back on Sunday, the next day. It still was not busy and Le Peep and Wired were. But that was OK. We asked. They had opened last Monday. Word hasn't gotten out. I hope you are reading this. It is *good*. You walk in, pay and wait for your number to be called. They grill it up right there under that menu. We ordered simply: I got the beef kabob plate($8.95)

It is served with rice, grilled veggies topped with a tzatziki-yogurt based sauce, pita bread and served with a sauce on the side that is vinegar-garlic-cilantro and goes quite well with the beef- and on top of the rice later.

The beef was plentiful, juicy, excellent flavored, and grilled, of course. The vegetables were delightful with the grilled bits to them- broccoli, cauliflower, onions, red and green peppers. The rice was more basmati/not sticky, but fresh and good.

The Mister tried the stuffed grilled chicken breast ($8.49) that comes with two sides- he chose the Home Style beans and Garlic Grilled Tomato: Grillions_004

The garlic grilled tomato was wonderful tasting and I wish we had more. I am going to have to try to duplicate this one at home. The beans are *excellent*, very much home made- the skin on the beans was strong, not mushy, meaning this stuff was definitely not from a can, made with a nice spicy sauce. The chicken, oh the chicken! A good sized breast, stuffed with goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes and basil and grilled. So moist, tender, tasty! Quite unexpectedly good.

We were quit full, but again, knowing I was blogging and 'taking one' for all of you, well, there it was on the menu- a grilled banana split ($3.50). One of my most favorite desserts. I once got a banana split cake (not an ice cream cake, mind you, just banana cake with thick chocolate frosting, strawberries and pineapple in the frosting with whipped cream and nuts and a cherry on top) for my birthday and the *only* thing I get at Dairy Queen is the Banana Split Blizzard… um, sorry, digressing again…

This is made with frozen yogurt that does not taste like yogurt- it is creamy, vanilla without any 'tang' of yogurt. The banana is so *so* very nice when grilled…not with butter, so not quite a Banana Foster taste, but yet, that burnt carmelization…mmm-yoso good! The nice lady brought it to our table and asked if that was enough chocolate sauce! It was perfect (since I am not a choco-holic and all).

The Mediterranean foods are not quite Greek or Persian (no lamb or gyros or hummus on the menu) but are excellent, fresh and by being grilled, healthy. Next time, I will try the BBQ ribs and chicken, which we saw someone else getting, along with the cole slaw and beans, which I think would make a great combination.

Do try it. The photos on the menu correspond to the numbered menu items. The wraps look large, as do the salads. As of yesterday, the only people working were family members, although someone walked in and asked and I heard one of the owners tell the person they had retained some of the Daily's staff who were available to work .

Grillions 8915 Towne Centre Drive San Diego 92122 Phone(858) 457-1204 Fax (858)457-1179 Mon-Sat 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Sun 11 a.m.-6 p.m. website