I guess if you've been reading long enough you'd have noticed by now that I'm just not a pancakes and French toast for breakfast kinda guy, right? Here are a couple more weekend breakfast stops.
Barrio Donas:
One morning when the Missus had to work; I decided to head into the office to catch up on a few things. On the way up, I decided to take a short detour to see how Barrio Donas was doing. The place was pretty busy for just past 7am on a Sunday morning.
I still can't get over the rather modern; hipster-ish look of the place; such a change from when it was Best Donuts.
I got my usual breakfast torta; the A la Mexicana.
On the good side; the light and airy bolillo roll was still warm as I opened up the sandwich. These days; it seems that there's a lot less salsa and spice, and much more cheese. It's not quite the sandwich that I really used to enjoy….it seems a bit out of balance, a milder and tamer version.
The great thing about doing this blog for so long…..here's the A la Mexicana from Best Donuts back in March of 2017.
Nice acidity and brightness from the salsa, decent heat from the jalapenos, the earthy-nutty-savory flavor of the beans, not too much cheese, mixed with eggs. Doesn't that one look better? It was also $4.99 then; now, while it's not a big deal, it's $6.50. They gotta pay for all the renovations I guess.
Barrio Donas
4714 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92117
Pho Hoa Huong:
On may to do my usual "rounds" on a Saturday morning, I was too early for my next set of stops; Nijiya, H Mart, and Marukai, so I decided to grab some breakfast…..my kind of breakfast. I had kind of enjoyed my last visit to the "fastest pho in the west" and decided to drop by.
Like I mentioned in my last post; the former perfunctory, hovering over you waiting for your order, has been replaced with a more relaxed…..though I can't really call it friendly, atmosphere. What hasn't changed was how quickly the pho hit my table after I ordered it. I set my stopwatch and it clocked in at an amazing 3 minutes 45 seconds…..
Being the consistent (or as the Missus calls it, "boring") person that I am. I went with #4.
Man, look at all that basil, sprouts, and ngo gai. Some of the basil was turning color, but there was so much of it that it really didn't matter.
The broth was darker than on my previous visit, slightly beefy, not overly sweet as is the norm for san Diego pho these days. Perhaps a bit too defatted, but not bad overall. I didn't need lime to cut the saltiness.
The clump of noodles still had a nice pull to them….I guess when you get the bowl to the table in less than five minutes, there's no chance of the noodles getting mushy.
The flank was better this time around; though still too tough for my liking; the tendon decent, and the tripe had a nice crunch.
And like on previous visits, in and out in less than 30 minutes.
Pho Hoa-Huong Restaurant
6921 Linda Vista Rd
San Diego, CA 92111