Here you are, reading mmm-yoso!!!, a food blog. Cathy is writing today because Kirk is busy doing fun stuff this weekend before the long Independence Day weekend.
After reading Kirk's recent post about revisiting Tim Ky, The Mister and I headed out that way, but decided to stop on the 'other side' of the construction in the parking lot- the Tom Cat Bar & Grill.
When the Tom Cat first opened, Miramar Naval Air Station was the military base nearby. Close to the Pacific Ocean, the base housed aircraft and squadrons which were assigned to aircraft carriers stationed in San Diego. Among those aircraft was the F-14 Tomcat, hence the bar was initially a hangout for Active Duty and Retired military. The base also was home to TOPGUN, the nickname for what was the Navy Fighter Weapons School. (There was a base realignment in 1993 and in 1996, TOPGUN moved to Fallon, Nevada, while the various Naval aircraft, squadrons and training were relocated to several bases and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar was made official.).
So now, the Tom Cat is a Sports Bar.
A simple, two sided menu is available. We did notice a chalkboard with some specials, at the bar.
We decided to order the fried mushrooms ($9.25) from the appetizer menu. The serving is quite large and very well made- light cornmeal based batter, surrounding large, meaty mushrooms, properly fried. It's served with an excellent Ranch dip.
Then we ordered the Tom Cat Signature Wings ($13.25). There are eight flavors to choose from and "Tom Cat Style' (grilled green onions and fresh jalapeño slices) has the highest spice level, three chilis, but the nicely crisp wing breading was not spicy if you didn't eat the fresh jalapeños. Four large flats and four large drums and a lot of carrots and cucumber, this was certainly a meal in itself.
The Cobb salad ($14.95) was nice to share. Bacon, turkey and Blue Cheese crumbles, a hard boiled egg along with other vegetables and lettuce (as well as a squaw roll) in this deceptively large (deep) bowl made this also a quite large meal.
A nice place for lunch, dinner or a weekend breakfast.
Soo was here in 2021
Tom Cat Bar & Grill 9388 Mira Mesa Blvd San Diego 92126 (858) 566-5300 Open daily 11-11 Website
The front gate is crowded just past the metal detectors at 11 a.m.
The Midway, with rides and food booths
There's Chicken Charlie, checking out a couple of his food booths as the Fairgrounds opened!
The Fun Zone, with Carnival Games, is a typical American Fair activity.
Home Made, Gems & Minerals, Design in Wood
The Paul Ecke, Jr. Flower Show,
along with the Paul Ecke, Jr. Garden Show with the entry from the San Diego County Model Railroad Museum
The Future Farmers of America were preparing to show goats..
Walking outside the Livestock Barn is an informative area sponsored by Hollandia Dairy. Dairy cows were on display and a small booth was selling chilled bottles of Hollandia Dairy milk for $3. There was signage indicating that these bottles were also being sold at 
There are three adult-only 'Specialty Booths' at the fair-The Beer Experience,
The Wine Experience,
and "Destination Unknown", a sort of Speakeasy (you need to tell the password to the elevator attendant who will whisk you up to the rooftop bar overlooking the Race Track).
The Texas Style BBQ booth offered a 'BBQ Sundae'- mashed potatoes topped with plenty of hickory smoked meat, some bark, some BBQ sauce and topped with a grape tomato. Tasting this BBQ absolutely made both of us want to order a full plate.
A 12 ounce Aqua Fresca at Ricos Manjares Mosita (cucumber lime flavor) was worth the $5 and so refreshing.
San Diego's Original Fish & Chips offered clam chowder fries. French fries topped with a lovely, thick chowder filled with clams, some potatoes and topped with crumbles of bacon. Definitely a chowder I would order if it was cooler.
The Texas Donuts offered their plain glazed donut for $5 (regular $7) and it was kind of perfect. We've always thought this booth has reasonable prices. 
OH MY! Dipping Dots 'taste' was a five ounce root beer float. Wonderful tasting root beer. Topped with vanilla Dipping Dots, it really was a different type of 'float'.
On our second visit, we saw this Rowdy's Root Beer Float booth and it was also offering a $5 taste. We had to. Ten ounces of soft serve ice cream and not as much root beer; memories evoked and well, soft serve.
This blurred out booth,'Eat At Joe's' was selling various fried items (zucchini, chicken strips, curly fries) the Taste of the Fair special was cheese curds! The curds didn't 'squeak' when biting in, but were very tasty…as batter fried cheese should be.
Maddie's Churros was offering one made-to-order churro and it hit the spot. You know, fried dough rolled in cinnamon sugar…
The Squeezers Lemon shaped booths are always part of the Fair and this year offered a 'Sour Apple Lemonade', small size (12 ounce) as a Taste. First, the color. Second- the flavors. The mix of sour apple flavor and fresh lemons was really unique. Another refreshing beverage.
The Pan Fried Chicken booth offered two fried wings, hot sauce, carrots and celery with Ranch dressing for $5! One drum, one flat and quite large. Another mini-meal.
We saw the Freeze Dried Candy booth last year but never stopped. This time we did; I've been curious for a year. Quite nice and different.
Of course, when leaving, we stopped here, as almost everyone does- always see people carrying large bags of Kettle Corn out the main gate. The small sample of Kettle Corn made it home and even lasted a few days. It was great; large, mushroom shaped popped corn coated in sugar and salt. A Perfect treat.
One thing we will pay regular price for is a turkey leg ($22). Since we seem to only find raw turkey eggs (weight about two pounds) for $9/pound, it is worth it for us to purchase a large leg already smoked.
We brought this one home, cooked some corn (3/$1) on the grill and had a nice dinner.
The generous portion fish has a mild smokiness, wasn't too salty, and wasn't fishy in the least. Think of it as "bacon of the sea". Not a big fan of the queso on the fish, but I really enjoyed and appreciated the layer of melted cheese on tortilla which ensured that things wouldn't fall apart. I do enjoy the onions and peppers and the tortilla was pliable did the job.
The fish was fried nicely, crisp, the flesh moist, no off flavors. The issue would be how skinny it was. There was so much cabbage and crema that it kind of overwhelmed the poor guppy….. Well, at least the tortilla held up, but I probably won't be getting this again.
So yes, this was scalding hot. Did I notice a difference? Well, 6 wings were now $9.99 and it seemed to have much more black pepper and was even saltier than I recalled. Also, the coating got soggy quite quickly. Not sure if it was just my imagination, but it seemed that way. The wings were of decent quality, it was moist, but again really high on the sodium scale for me.
I appreciated the way things were packed though I told the woman I'd be eating this close by. There were containers of spicy vinegar and a decent chili oil (which I used) included in my package.
Which led to an interesting concoction. The duck was breast, quite lean, a bit more chewy then I enjoy, with a touch of five spice seasoning, not bad at all. The fried shallots added a nice savory and crunchy texture. The broccoli really gave off "Panda Express" vibes but at least I got some veggies.
Knowing what kind of mess I'd be making, they kindly provided a knife to slice the sandwich and a ton of napkins. I truly had my doubts, thinking the flavor of the fonduey cheese mixed with beer and other seasonings might interfere with the sandwich. But, it actually made it better, adding more savory tones, and a pleasant creaminess to things.
We ended up getting a couple of gifts for folks. Downtown Los Alamos is basically a four block stretch, so we left our car parked on the street and walked on over to Bell's a block away.
And I proceeded with my "standard process" of mixing the dish to my satisfaction. I quickly noticed that there wasn't any "sauce" at the bottom of the bowl, it was merely a touch of sate sauce squirted over the egg noodles. This was not nearly enough to coat all the noodles and would not provide enough of that savory-nutty-pungent flavors for the dish. I ended having to add a rather large amount of the broth on the side to the bowl creating more of a soup, which kind of defeats the purpose of things. Also, the broth was quite MSG heavy, but at least wasn't bland. It was good in a soup spoon with a slice of meat and onion in it. The noodles were also undercooked and hard as well.
The was a definite difference in the soup, it was way lighter and thinner than what I'd had here in the past, really lacking in savory tones; more like white pepper-salt water. There were 2 won ton and 3 dumplings….yes, I counted. The wrappers were very soft and tender; really enrobing the fillings. In fact, doesn't the won ton look like brain matter?
The fillings, while being more chewy than I recalled, as nicely flavored, porky, hints of seafood, sesame oil, and so forth. The char siu was hard and very tough and weak in the sweet-porkiness I enjoy.
The pieces of karaage were large, the batter slightly crunchy, the chicken was on the tougher chewier side. It was also fairly bland in terms of seasoning. Not my favorite version of this.
The broth was interesting, a lot lighter than I would expect for Hokkaido style ramen. It did have a good amount of saltiness and based on what I'd read, there's supposed to be a savory-seafood based component to it, like how Santouka is in Japan. I was looking forward to that, but I really couldn't make that out. As a whole, the broth lacked complexity.
The noodles were nice and springy, of the slightly thicker variety, much like what we'd had at 
Man, check out that chashu. It looked different from the version I'd had on my previous visit. It was still the same overly lean cut, but was also super salty. In fact, I wasn't able to finish it!
The one bright spot were the perfectly textured, springy noodles, that did a great job picking up the broth. Now it would have been great if it wasn't so salty….and I like salty foods!
