One of the wonderful things that has happened in the five plus years I've been doing this blog, is that I've made some wonderful friends. I'm not quite sure how it's happened, but I feel blessed to know such wonderful folks (Note to JohnL…. like I said, "don't let it go to your head", he-he-he). I've often done short posts on meals I've had with friends, so I hope you don't mind another.
Doing the SGV thing:
A bunch of us got together a couple of weeks back, and did a San Gabriel Valley food crawl. Two of them, TammyC and JohnL had done stuff like this with me before. I knew MrC would go with the flow…. but PeterL, well, he was the rookie, and we'd have to keep an eye on him. We sort of just headed out, and I asked questions about what the folks wanted to eat…….. and after ruminating a bit, I decided that our first stop would be Dean Sin World. And of course, Shengjian Bao.
It turns out that none of this group, other than me had ever had Niu Rou Chuan (Beef Roll):
Not the most stellar version, but man did PeterL enjoy this, perhaps a bit too much. John and Tammy know a couple of my "rules" when it comes to an eating crawl. You live in the moment, that is, you don't start counting how many tacos you've had, this will just screw you up mentally. You resist the temptation to have that second or third, or fourth serving of the same item. It will still be here next time…. there's more up the road. Unfortunately, Peter just wanted those two extra pieces of Niu Rou Chuan, and as we walked the few yards to Giang Nan, I could tell the NRC was starting to settle in Peter's belly……
Of course at Giang Nan, we had two orders of each type of Xiao Long Bao.
As well as some of the cold dishes…..
After this I offered up QingDao Bread Food, which is right across a street. The Missus & I will often do Dean Sin World followed by Giang Nan and QingDao Bread Food when we;re in the area. I even offered up Mama's Lu and other places, but these folks were Bao'd and Dumpling'd out. And Peter really needed a break, so we drove to Focus Plaza to stretch our legs, grab some drinks, and do some shopping.
Then it was time for lunch….. enough with the snacks, it was time for a real meal. I offered up Tianjin Bistro or Hunan Chilli King. Since we had MrC, and his asbestos mouth, everyone went with Hunan Chilli King. I even called the Missus on my cell phone and had Her give the Server our order. We had stuff that I've posted on before, except for these two dishes.
A Hunan (not so) Stinky Tofu, and a Hot and Sour Soup.
All told we did pretty good with the five dishes we ordered.
By this time, most everyone had hit the wall, so we went on over to Papa Walk for some shaved ice, then ended the road trip buying some items at Domies Bakery.
Overall, it was good time…. but JohnL sent me a text message later that evening telling me he was hungry again…… such is the life of a growing boy!
A week later we all met at the new Crab Hut in the Gaslamp. As always we had a blast. I ended up taking onle three photos, so you won't be seeing the four dozen oysters, the crawfish, the clams, etc, etc, etc…….
But at least I took a photo of the Sausage Plate.
And one of the two orders of Calamari and Fries…..
After the Seafood Creole……
We were just having too darn much fun that I stowed the camera…..
I left feeling like this…..
Ummm…without the flowers behind my ears of course.
Crab Hut Downtown
1007 5th Ave
San Diego, CA 92101
And here's to making new friends:
I recently had the pleasure of meeting Kayoko of Umamimart. And let me just say I had a blast. We had a bite at The Original Sab E Lee. I had a great time, and hope Kayoko was ok with my "food dorkiness", she sure did put me at ease, and was fun to talk to. Over the years, I've found that fellow food bloggers are some of the nicest people. So please check out Kayoko's post on our lunch, it just seemed to end too soon. Thanks again for the wonderful conversation and a great time Kayoko!