As in, yoso-silly, yoso-hungry, yoso-full, or best of all; mmm-delici-yoso!!!!! A San Diego based food and travel blog. An Ex-Pat Kama'aina and Friends explore food, restaurants, and travel from San Diego and points beyond.
Would you believe we just got back from our 11th road trip this year? Yikes! I guess not being able to take those international trips because of the squirt really got us going huh? And yes, I’m like 6 road trips behind!
Anyway, this last one for the year was a short one, we actually went back to a familiar locale…we were just there in March.
But we thought JJ might enjoy the holiday festivities and he did.
Back in 2022, I noticed that Palomino’s “#3” was going thru a “management change” on one of my shopping trips to Nijiya. Then around September, I noticed that the name of the place had changed to something like “Super Mario’s”? I wasn’t the biggest fan of this location of Palomino’s…in fact the last time I visited was in my pre-blogging days.
And yet, something about the place caught my attention. Perhaps it was the hours. The place opens at 6am during the week! But mostly, I think I got caught up in the signage.
Not the birria….but the menudo. For some reason, I was craving Menudo and thought it would work for a nice pre-Nijiya shopping breakfast. So, on a Saturday I arrived before Nijiya opened and decied to try the Menudo.
The place looks about the same as it did when it was Palomino’s. Except for the prices. Menudo was $15.86. Anyway, the woman working was quite nice and I placed my order.
And then headed over to the salsa bar for some salsa roja. The woman kindly warned me that it was “muy picante”.
I had a seat and the woman nicely brought my Menudo to the table instead of calling me to pick up my tray! It came with the usual fixins’.
Man, those corn tortillas were hefty and held up nicely to the Menudo; I could only finish two of them.
As for the Menudo.
While not as rich and “funky” as the version at Birrieria Y Menuderia Guadalajara, this was better than what we last had at Talavera Azul. Nice kick with some salsa added; acidity from the lime. It could have used a dose of Mexican Oregano in my opinion.
Decent offaly tones and my goodness all the lovely tripe! Prepared nicely, slightly toothsome…varying textures.
With some large chunks of tendon as well.
I wasn’t able to finish all of it and ended up taking about half home with me.
I wanted to have the Missus try it….but She had Her doubts. She finally gave in and thought it was pretty good. I told Her about the other menu items and She wanted to try the Albondigas. So, on my next shopping excursion to Nijiya, I placed a takeout order of the Albondigas ($15.98) and decided to try some tacos, going with the regular size (they have mini tacos for $3.34) Lengua ($6.50) and Al Pastor ($5.98). I did find the prices of the tacos to be on the higher end in my opinion.
Once shopping was done, I got some salsa and carrots, picked up my rather hefty bag and headed home.
Like the Menudo, the portion size for the Albondigas was pretty large.
It filled up the soup bowl with a lonely meatball waiting for attention. This time, the Missus wasn’t able to finish the tortillas. The arroz wasn’t very good, quite dry, and too mild in flavor.
The Missus loved the pickled carrots and those peppers. She made good use of the limes as well.
She thought that the soup was decent, lighter on the tomato side of things than She’s used to, but decent savory and pungent tones. Not as rich as other versions, but passable. And those giant meatballs were good as well. The meatballs had some binder, but were quite tender, with nice savory tones.
She even enjoyed the slices of zucchini.
As for the tacos. Well, they were quite large and full of meat.
Sadly, I didn’t care for them….neither did the Missus. Other than the tortillas, it missed the mark.
The Lengua was strangely bland; missing that rich, bovine flavor.
And because the flavor was very mild; all that cilantro basically took over the taco.
The Al Pastor was actually an Adobada. The pork was really tough.
It lacked that touch of savory – sweetness and depth of flavor and was really in need of a bit more spice and the light smokiness of a decent Al Pastor. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting what we get in CDMX, but this just didn’t do it for us.
All in all; we’ll stick with the Menudo and Albondigas, which, to be perfectly honest, was better than expected. Good thing too, since my recent visits to newer places has been kinda depressing.
This is going to be a “one off” post. You’ll soon see why.
I was in the Poway area recently and was looking for an early lunch. I thought about checking out the new location of HFS, but it was just not poke weather, and I had already tried out Pho Tan in that strip mall. I recalled that there was a “Hawaiian BBQ” place in the mall near North Park Produce, so I parked and took a look. And yes, the place is named Ipo Hawaiian BBQ.
It was on one of those rainy days and I was just wanting a loco moco so I walked on in.
Hmmm…..looking at the menu…
Teriyaki – Garlic Shrimp…….Pineapple-Orange Chicken….Tornado Potato? Fresh Coconut? Seems like what someone “thinks” food “back home” is like?
Anyway, I ordered the Loco Moco, $18.55 from the nice young lady. She kindly gave me a cup for water. Taking a look at the cup, well, it was interesting….
And then looking at the condiments……
No Tabasco….but LKK Soy Sauce…no Aloha Shoyu or even Kikkoman!
And then the loco moco.
It just didn’t look right, that really tarry-dark-black gravy.
The best item on the plate was the mac salad, which still needed salt and had too much mayo.
Still, it was edible.
The rice had furikake sprinkled on it, a plus; but it was cold and on the chewy end of the scale.
That gravy was super thick and had a weird bitter-sweet flavor.
Even worse was the burger patty, just look at it.
While decently seasoned, it was almost burnt, super chewy, and dry.
At least the eggs looked fine, until you actually put that fork into it. It was over cooked and had that “fishiness” that I don’t care for.
There were a couple of stray eggshells in there for (not-so) good measure.
You know, I hate wasting food; but between that gravy, the leather-like burger, fishy-overdone eggs….well, I just couldn’t bring myself to finish this.
There’s a part of me that feels bad about doing this post and perhaps if Ipo was closer to home I’d give it another try. But doing a 45 mile round trip and spending about twenty bucks it’s just not worth it to me. Though perhaps “FOY” SD Julie might have a recommendation for what to get here? Or perhaps one of you out there might know what I should try?
Funny thing; if I recall correctly, “Ipo” means something like “sweetheart” in Hawaiian…based on this loco moco……
Ipo Hawaiian BBQ 12370 Poway Rd. Poway, CA 92064 Current Hours: Daily 1030am – 830pm
