mmm-yoso is the name of the blog. Kirk and Cathy and other friends write about food they ate. That's all it is. Today, it's Cathy's turn.
Me again. Thanks for stopping by. The Mister and I were once again driving around wasting fuel and being hungry while running some errands and fondly remembered an incident many, many years ago. It was our first Dim Sum experience. Suddenly, there we were on West Point Loma Boulevard, looking at the place. 
It has been there since 1980 and still doing a brisk business, including a *lot* of take out.
It was a Sunday and they were only doing to order Dim Sum- no carts rolling around, and we looked at the menu
and decided to re-live our early-early dating days back in Ann Arbor and try some favorites.
Well, there it was-Shrimp Toast, 3 pieces ($4.95)
. There is just something about a layer of chopped shrimp on top of a piece of crustless white bread, thickly coated with sesame seeds and deep fried that brings back so many memories. The plum sauce served with was extremely good with pieces of plum and just a hint of heat. Hot mustard in jars were on the table and that added to the flavors.
Of course, more of the memory was helped along by using forks and not chopsticks to eat our food…
We decided to try stuff we knew we should like, again sticking with the original dating experience. Ma Pu tofu (7.95) 
This was the most home made Pa Pu (or Mabo, as most of us know it) we have ever had- twice cooked pork slices (not ground pork , as we usually get) sauteed with mushrooms, water chestnuts, onions and scallions in a great sauce that has a good kick of heat to it. The tofu was soft and flavorful also. We were very pleased with this choice. 
I decided to try the pan fried home style noodles with BBQ pork ($7.95). The pork was not outstanding (could have had more fat marbled in it) but it was sliced into nice, thick chunks and the seasoning on it was good. It was served with a good variety of vegetables-more fresh mushrooms, carrots, water chestnuts onions and green onion tops. The accompanying sauce was great; totally different than that on the Ma Pu. Those noodles were outstanding! Nicely firm and then sauteed to a gentle crispness. Extremely satisfying.
At the end we got our bill and fortune cookies that were not wrapped a la Smart N Final.
The cookies were nice and fresh, there was no charge for the very tasty Chinese Restaurant Tea flavored tea and our fortunes merely told us things we already knew:
You set your sights high and enjoy striving for the best things in life.
Age is a matter of feelings and not years.
Mandarin China 4110 West Point Loma Boulevard San Diego 92110 (619)222-6688 Sun-Th 11 am-10 p.m. Fri and Sat 11 a.m.-11 p.m.
Ah, the rest of the story. The Mister was getting ready to leave on a lengthy (more than 6 month duration ) cruise with the Navy and we met another couple here for dinner- the husband would end up being a roommate with mine and His wife was pregnant with their first child. We all were adventurous and wanted to try this 'new' phenomenon called Dim Sum. (This was a *long* time ago).We were happily ordering just about everything that came by from the nice ladies who had strong accents. One lady showed us something and I said "oh yes!" She said it was "chee fee". It had a red sauce on it. "Chee fee", she repeated and I said, yes. She pointed at something else on the cart that had no sauce and I said "no, I want that". She repeated "chee fee" a few more times and I was starting to get irritated. I insisted. There were four pieces, so each of us took one. I kept looking at it on the small plate in front of me, turning it over and trying to figure out what it was. It wasn't in a bun or steamed in a wrapper. It was something. As I put it in my mouth, I quickly spit it out, screaming " chicken feet! she was telling us it's chicken feet"… we kind of all simultaneously spit out the bony stuff back onto our plates, began laughing hysterically, and then went back and ate them. It was terribly tedious and not that tasty. The sauce wasn't even hot or spicy.