Just a couple of quick things to get us over "Hump day".
Poke at Costco Mission Valley:
I've seen them in Costco's back home in Hawaii, but never in San Diego, until a recent visit to Costco in Mission Valley. Of course, other than gas, I really don't get to Costco that often. It just so happened that I needed enough toilet paper to last until the next millennium.
It looked to be part of the Seafood Fair. Did I buy any? Well, no….heck I don't even buy the stuff they sell in Costco in Hawaii. I did ask the guy if the fish was "gassed", that is, treated with carbon monoxide. They guy looked at me strangely and shrugged his shoulders….whatever that means.
Anyway, I guess Costco now has poke…..
Some new stuff at Nijiya:
I've noticed some interesting new stuff at Nijiya over the last year or so. First, they started selling their bentos with brown rice. I guess the "brown rice revolution" that I first noticed on one of my trips home to Hawaii, now has a foothold. Heck, even Okan offers brown rice as an option with lunch. Then I noticed Shio Koji chicken. And then it was….drum roll please……
And while you'll never catch me eating this stuff….though I've been known to have brown rice on occasion to please the Missus (don't get the Brown Rice Shio Koji Chicken…it's a double whammy), I thought it kind of neat that Nijiya is really working on keeping up with things.
I also noticed Chicken Karaage being sold with various sauces. I do enjoy chicken nanban – basically chicken seasoned with vinegar and, yep tartar sauce, though I try to get the sauce on the side when I remember to. A little goes a long way. I thought a sauce made with kurosu, a brownish vinegar made from unpolished rice might be really good on karaage. I was wrong; the sauce had been thickened too much, it was too sweet, without enough sour tones. Not my thing.
Still, it's quite interesting to visit and see new things, which seem to quite often….I usually grab a bento or something for lunch here about every other week.
Nijiya Market
3860 Convoy St Ste 109
San Diego, CA 92111
Can you guess the restaurant?
Had dinner with some good friends a while back….not my kind of place, though the portions were huge….. Much of it was dry, overcooked, tough, and seemed like it had been lying around for a while. I hadn't been here in ages and now I remembered why.
Enough to feed an army though…. Can you guess where?