mmm-yoso – Page 320

Selcuk: Isa Bey Mosque and dinner from Ejder

August 2, 2011 mmm-yoso Selcuk, Turkey, Turkish Food

After grabbing more than our share of food form the Saturday Market in Selcuk we had a well earned nap. Waking later in the afternoon, we headed down the hill to Isa Bey Camii (Mosque) built around 1375, it is one of he few remaining Anatolian Beylik structures.

The Mosque was almost completely destroyed by earthquakes, but after serious refurbishing reopened in 1975. As it is a functioning mosque we approached it respectfully….

I walked up the steep and worn stairs and took a few photos of the courtyard.

Soon enough the call to prayer began, and we decided to leave the mosque to the faithful……. plus, I was getting hungry.

We walked up then back down the hill to the center of town, which is a pedestrian only area…..

Lest you think this a tourist only area, you'd be wrong….this is literally the center of town, and this was where all the older men hung out, drinking tea and coffee, playing backgammon, reading the paper, talking politics and what not……..

After looking around a bit, we decided on a restaurant called Ejder. The owner was very friendly and when the Missus requested a selection of mezes, was happy to oblige.

Seating in the public dining area across the restaurant we were soon joined by some very eager guests.

Can you see the remnants of the aqueduct in the background?

I went with, what else, the Adana Kebab (12 TRY – $9):

The kebab was very moist…. in fact almost all the kebabs we had in Turkey was way more tender and moist than most of what we get here in the states. This one was slightly gamey but not very spicy. The rice was too wet for my tastes. The grilled peppers were wonderful…..the char brought out some sweetness and some were a very sneaky hot.

The Missus's selection of mezes were pretty good, especially the red pepper dolomar (stuffed pepper).

The ezme was too watery and mild in flavor, I liked the beets, but the missus thought they were too sour.

Overall, this was a satisfying meal, the food was far from bland and put me in a good mood. The very friendly owner who came over to check on us several times also made for a pleasant meal. I even gave the cats some of my adana kebab….. I was a bit worried that the spices would be bad for them, but they seemed to love it!

We returned to the hotel full and happy, and had a wonderful night of sleep. We woke early the next morning and headed down the street past the parked tractors……

And caught our train to the airport in Izmir. Of course, no one in Turkey can even think of going a morning without simit (sesame bread), thus the vendor who got the train at one stop walking thru the cars selling bread, then got off a couple of towns later.

Selcuk and the surroundings sure had charm……

But it was time to move on to our next stop……

Stay tuned….

Thanks for reading!

Manic Monday COMC: Izakaya Sakura and Tsuruhashi

August 1, 2011 mmm-yoso Japanese Restaurants

Mostly COMC (Clearing out the memory card) this Monday. I've posted on these places many, many times, so I guess there's not much else to say!

Izakaya Sakura:

I don't think we've quite as many posts on Izakaya Sakura as my fellow food blogger Dennis, but we've done more than our share over the years. Anyway, here's a few more…….

Tako Wasabi:

The Uni – Ikura Don, a special they have every so often:

Perhaps too much of a good thing?

One night I had to get the Oxtail Soup:

Perhaps a tad small for $6.45. This is a pretty deceptive bowl…. it had some kick. There were jalapenos in the broth….and some pretty spicy tiny orange bits that tasted strangely like Habanero….

A favorite of mine, the Gyokai Natto Don ($12), not really on the menu, but you can order it anytime……..

You can get it sans rice as a side dish for $6.45. There always seems to be a decent amount of fish in this, usually hamachi, maguro, hirame, and ika.

Of course there is the Ten Don ($12):

Make sure to request extra donburi tsuyu as it tends toward the dry side.

Last but not least, the Soft Shell Crab Tempura the Missus just had to have…..

Izakaya Sakura
3904 Convoy St #121
San Diego, CA 92111

Tsuruhashi:

Another place I've posted on a couple of times. I mentioned how much I enjoyed the Yukke in my last post on Tsuruhashi. But I found something nice that doesn't have to be put on the grill, and makes for a satisying but light snack or meal:

Yep, it's a rice bowl, but what type of protein tops the bowl?

Here have another look.

It's the Yukke Bi Bim Bap…… a new favorite of ours. Doesn't that raw rib eye look like maguro?

Tsuruhashi Japanese BBQ
3904 Convoy St.
San Diego, CA 92111

Chicago: Franks N’ Dawgs

July 31, 2011 mmm-yoso Chicago, Hot Dogs, Travel

**** Franks N' Dawgs has closed

On my last visit to Chicago, I had an inkling of going to another sausage joint after Hot Dougs. But I was so stuffed (and in major need of a shower) after eating my Foie Gras and Sauternes Duck Sausage and Duck Fat fries, that there was just no room left…..

So this time Franks n' Dawgs went to the front of the line. Picking up my rental at O'Hare, I made a beeline for the Lincoln Park area and Franks n' Dawgs. Really, after hitting up Hot Doug's, how could I not check out the creations of Franks n' Dawgs….. featuring sausages like the China Town Duck ("Chinese 5 spice duck sausage, pickled lotus roots, scallion radish slaw & Mae Ploy chili sauce"), Truffle Mac 'n' Cheese Dog ("Bratwurst sausage, truffle mac ‘n’ cheese with parmesan, brioche bread crumbs & thyme"), Black Sheep ("Toasted black pepper lamb sausage, black pepper oyster sauce, buttermilk vinaigrette, macerated figs, red onions & basil"), and Triple Truffle Fries? The menu will either have you drooling, or scratching your head in wonder ( The "FU" – "Marinated tofu with grilled eggplant relish, caramelized portabellas, Italian salsa verde & chèvre").

Things didn't start out real well for me…..there's a door on the street side, and a note saying to go through the alleyway for an entrance. But there I stood like a dummy trying to figure out how I'm supposed to get in, until I regained my English comprehension skills (at least temporarily) and finally read the sign. I had a game plan with "target sausages" that I wanted to try, but for some reason that all went out the window when I walked up to the counter and read the part of the menu that said "Iron Dawg Competition". Over a period two well known chefs create a "dawg", competing on the basis of sales. If I recall correctly, whomever has the most sales survives and goes on to the next round against another challenger. So I went with one of each…..not cheap since each sausage costs almost ten bucks! This little shop does some major business, and was pretty full, but nothing like the masses at Hot Dougs.

There was one part of my visit that really cracked me up. The really friendly guy behind the counter told me to "pick your photo from the Wall of Shame"……. there are photos with a wooden backing and a strip of velcro on the back. You attach these to your table instead of numbers so the young lady in the dining area can bring you your order. It seemed like all the good ones (like Nick Nolte's mug shot) were taken. The young man, seeing that I was having a problem choosing, told me, "too bad these aren't ready yet, these would be easy choices", and held up photos of Casey Anthony and one we can call "the Weiner". In the end, I chose this famous mugshot:

The first sausage to arrive for this little piggy was This Little Piggy ($9.50):

This looked a bit overwrought with butter pickled red onions, though the remoulade added a nice bit of rich "tang" to the whole thing. The salt and vinegar chip crusted oysters tasted somewhat fishy and seemed out of place on the sausage. I loved the lobster style rolls, they just seemed perfect……richly toasted on all sides and able to stand up to these fairly rich sausages. The sausage, a garlic pork sausage seemed pretty mundane sans all the garnishes and sauce, I loved the casing which had nice snap, but the sausage itself was pretty tough.

I preferred the "Boar'n to be Wild" ($9.95):

This was a wild boar sausage topped with fried onions (it's called tempura onions, but they looked plain fried to me), pieces of fried sweet potatoes and yellow peppers. I could make out the flavor of lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf, and Thai basil. This sausage was more tender and reminded me of a milder Thai or Lao sausage. It wasn't bad, but not great.

I was quite full after this meal, there's a good amount of richness in these sausages. I did regret getting side tracked and not ordering what I had planned. So I'll have to make sure to revisit in the future…. after all I just gotta get those Triple Truffle Fries, right?

Franks n' Dawgs
1863 N Clybourn Ave
Chicago, IL 60614

Sunday Stuffs: Yakyudori in Hillcrest is now Raku, Mrs Rice is now Thai, and other stuff

July 24, 2011 mmm-yoso yoso-silly

Yakyudori in Hillcrest Closed:

FOY (Friend of Yoso) "Yummy Yummy" sent me a text almost two weeks ago telling me that Yakyudori in Hillcrest had closed. About a week later I read the same on SD Urban. Since I was in the area earlier this week….and hey, I must've won the lottery because I scored a parking space right in front of the former Yakyudori. Signage is up for a place called Raku Japanese Tapas:

And no, I don't think this place has anything to do with Aburiya Raku.

3739 6th Ave
San Diego, CA 92103

Mrs Rice is now Dusit Thai Cuisine:

Now when did that happen? I ate at Golden City one week and it's Mrs Rice….I come back the next and it's just what we need in this area…..another Thai Restaurant…of course we can always use a good Thai Restaurant, so we'll see….

5375 Kearney Villa Rd
San Diego, CA 92123

What does this have to do with San Diego (well, kinda)?

I try to catch Ken Kramer's About San Diego on PBS when I remember and have some time. Certain shows have fascinating tidbits….. and at then end of one of his segments he started mentioning famous folks from…..Valley Center. And one of the names he mentioned (nope it wasn't Bill Murray) was Betty Crocker….. well kinda Betty Crocker as the name is a brand name. Agnes White Tizard, a Home Economist who created and tested recipes for the Crosby Washburn Company, and was the voice of Betty Crocker on radio shows starting in 1924. Though we now know Valley Center for Valley View Casino and on this blog, places that Cathy posts about…. I thought it was fascinating to to know that Betty Crocker (kinda-sorta) lived in Valley Center!

And finally…

Do you think Sammy really likes Frosty Paws Bites???

You know….I've been tempted to eat this way on more than one occasion……

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Breakfast at Bay Park Fish Company

July 23, 2011 mmm-yoso Breakfast/Brunch

*** As noted in the comments below Bay Park Fish is no longer serving breakfast.

Recently, when dropping by to pick up some ham hocks at Seisel's I happened to notice a sign in front of Bay Park Fish Company that mentioned breakfast was now being served from 7am to 11 on weekends. A couple of weeks later; the Missus actually got up early enough for us to drive down the hill to have breakfast there. The menu has the standard breakfast fare…the two eggs, meat, potatoes, and toast, but this is Bay Park Fish, right?

The Missus decided to go all out and ordered the Lobster Omelet, at $16, it was the most expensive item on the menu. Seeing that they put cheddar in it….the Missus believes in a light hand when cheesing up shellfish, She ordered it easy on the cheese.

It comes with toast….the Missus ordered wheat, but they gave Her white, and some breakfast potatoes that were on the dry side…. good thing the Missus likes them that way.

There was a decent, but not large amount of what looked like lobster claw meat in the omelet.

The flavor was fine, though what little cheddar they put in there still overpowered the mild lobster flavor. The eggs were nice and fluffy. Personally, not worth $16 in my book.

On the other hand, I thought my smoked fish bagel was worth the six bucks…….

The Missus enjoys the smoked fish from Bay Park, so I shorted myself and saved a couple of slices of the fish for Her. The capers and onions go together well adding some acid, cutting the smokiness of the fish. I wish they'd use better bagels, which were too "bready" for me…….. still, if they'd added some thinly sliced tomatoes (and since I'm making requests perhaps some cucumber?), this would have been a (very) poor man's version of a wonderful smoked sturgeon bagel I had in Boston.

I'm sure if we go to Bay Park Fish for breakfast again; this is what the Missus will order…… And it's good to know that there are some breakfast options in our neck of the woods.

Bay Park Fish Company
4121 Ashton St
San Diego, CA 92110

Breakfast served from 7-11am Saturdays and Sundays only.

Xi’an: Tong Sheng Xiang (同盛祥)

July 20, 2011 mmm-yoso China, Chinese Restaurants, Travel, Xi'an

Our next stop after Nanjing was the city of Xi'an… and boy was I excited! With over 3,000 years of recorded history, along with being the beginning of the Silk Road headed west and of course the Terracotta Army, Xi'an is one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China. And by coincidence we visited three (along with Nanjing and Beijing) of the four on this trip. Also by coincidence, our visit to Xi'an last year was the eastern terminus of the Silk Road….. this year we visited Istanbul (Constantinople) the western end of the Silk Road! What didn't make me so excited was watching this guy smoking a cigarette on the runway in Xi'an….. guys do love smoking in China.

We caught the bus from the airport to a hotel downtown, then a cab to our hotel, the Ibis Hotel near the South Gate of the city walls. Lucky for us, the Missus's Mother had a classmate who had moved to Xi'an right after college. She provided us with great info and recommendations, and one of them was Ibis Hotel, which was one of the nicer hotels we stayed at all trip….it looked new….

And once past the plumes of cigarette smoke in the lobby, the rooms looked sparkling clean……though it reminded us of a Ikea showroom. The best thing? The price at about $17 a night!

There was even a "portable" police station right outside the hotel!

After dropping off our bags we took off for our lunch destination. Xi'an is known for it's Muslim Quarter and the abundance of lamb and mutton dishes. The first thing I wanted to try was Yang Rou Pao Mo….. and we were given a recommendation of Tong Sheng Xiang. Lao Sun Jia is probably more well known, but we went with the local's recommendation.

The restaurant is easy to find…… we walked (it seemed much longer than we thought) to the mall right across from the Bell Tower, which is strangely trapped on what looks like a traffic island.

What made most of our trips much longer were the underground passages across intersections….. you go down the stairs and end up in "Grand Central" with six or sometimes eight different ways to go! We'd always choose the wrong way and end up directly across the street from our destination. After a couple of tries we managed to end up on the correct side of the street. Like many other places we dined at on our trip, Tong Sheng Xiang was a multi-level restaurant.

You enter on the south end of the building, go up a flight of stairs lined with photos of folks I assume are VIPs until you enter the dining area. It looked pretty fancy for a place selling mutton in broth with unleavened pancakes…..

We ordered a couple of other dishes with the Yang Rou Pao Mo. I really enjoyed the Jellied Mutton:

Like a good head cheese, cut with the Black Vinegar and soy sauce.

The Missus didn't care for the Mung Bean Noodles.

Too much sesame paste for Her.

On this trip, if we saw Baihe (lily bulb) on the menu, we'd order it for sure.

Baihe with Gingko is one of our standard dishes nowadays……

As for the Yang Rou Pao Mo…. if you've never had it before it's quite an interesting dish. First a plate of pretty hefty discs of unleavened bread is placed on the table…..

Along with a large bowl……

Your job is to break the bread up into bite sized pieces….. it was pretty tough going at first since the bread is very dense. How much bread? Well, I guess that depends on your appetite…..I saw a young man break up almost the whole plate! Considering how heavy this stuff was, I could only imagine how that would weigh you down after eating….

Bowls of chili paste, cilantro, and some really yummy pickled garlic is placed on the table….

And my bowl was whisked away…..leaving me wondering what evil deeds were being performed on my pieces of crumbled bread.

The bowl returned….. the bread had been covered with a thick broth, almost like gravy, the scent of mutton so thick I could cut through it. Some fatty slices of mutton, toothsome, but oh so deliciously gamey had been placed on the top.

Can you tell that I really enjoyed this?

Hearty and substantial, this would keep you going for a while after a hard day's ride on the Silk Road. Of course I hadn't travelled to Xi'an on camel, but I could imagine, right?

The Missus got a kick out of what came back after we paid our check. We were given change in what She said was "old style money". Pretty neat, huh? Old currency after eating a rustic meal in a historic city at the end of an ancient trade route……

Sichuan Liang Mian (Sichuan Cold Noodles)

July 19, 2011 mmm-yoso Cooking, Recipes

Well, I finally went and did it….. I made Sichuan Cold Noodles at home. I'm not quite sure why I never made this at home…..perhaps it's because I love the version at Ba Ren so much, or maybe I could never find noodles that I thought were worthy… or maybe I was just too darned lazy???

I had really never intended to make Sichuan Cold Noodles….. but like all extreme actions, there was a triggering event. In this case it was Santouka's limited time Hiyashi Tan Tan Mian offering back in June. I had read Dennis's wonderful post on it…. the boiled egg looked so lovely that I left my mind open to trying it out. But when I arrived at the Mitsuwa food court and looked at the folks eating the stuff, I changed my mind. I'm not a big fan of Hiyashi Tan Tan Mian, heck, I've rarely found Dan Dan Mian (担担面) that I consider edible. At that instant, I changed my mind and decided to have the Hiyashi Chuka instead…. until I reached the counter and the very perky young lady told me that I should have the Tan Tan Mian…it was only for a few more days…and they "only make 20 bowls a day!" So I relented and ordered it………

And was severely underwhelmed….. as always, I enjoyed the noodles (this was a pretty small serving), but this was pretty bland and had hardly any spice. The egg looked like one-third of an boiled egg, and I actually placed the yolk back in the white since it was on other side of the bowl. And for some reason, paying over nine bucks for this tiny bowl got to me……. The Missus took a bite and told me, "come on…. really? You paid nine bucks for this? Lettuce and a tablespoon of some kinda meat, with some shredded daikon and carrots? You are a sucker….." I guess the ridicule kinda got me wound up as well…… I guess Japanese Tan Tan Mian is just not my thing.

At that moment I decided that I'd go home and make Sichuan Liang Mian. I had a package of Sun Noodle Cold Udon in the fridge…. I like the noodles… I usually through away the other stuff that comes with it. So long you don't over cook it, the noodles have a nice al dente stretch and pull to them.

Sichuan Cold Noodle Sauce:

1 Tb sesame paste (use a pure sesame paste – like the brand I use for my Purple Cabbage slaw)
1 Tb dark soy sauce
1 Tb light soy sauce
2-3 Tb Chinkiang vinegar
1 Tb white sugar
5-6 cloves garlic minced
1 tsp ground Sichuan Peppercorn
1 Tb sesame oil
Multiple heat sources…… I used what I had around the house:

Some red chilies, ground red chilies, sambal olek, and home made chili oil.

Mix it up, and adjust to your taste…..I ended up adding more vinegar and the Missus thought it could use even more. I dumped the sauce on the noodle, added some sliced cucumber, cilantro, and scallions…….

Actually, if you got some ground pork and preserved vegetable, mixed with some chilies, dumped it into a hot wok with peanut oil, then added a couple of splashes of light soy sauce to this you'd probably have a close approximation of Dan Dan Mian.

Anyway, this stuff is easy to make…. I've made it a couple times since. Once we had a nice meal….. I made the Missus some Karei Karaage and had some smoked duck legs I had in the fridge…..

The Missus told me that sometimes it's "fun getting you all riled up….." Well, I guess this time it was pretty tasty as well.

Selcuk: Lunch from the Saturday Market

July 17, 2011 mmm-yoso Selcuk, Travel, Turkey

We returned from Ephesus hot and tired. A quick shower revived us and we decided to grab some lunch. We'd heard that there's a large market held behind the bus station…. and this being Selcuk, nothing is very far away. We decided to do some "self-catering" and check out the market. We were both quite surprised at the size of the market…. starting from the household goods sold on the streets approaching the market…..

To what seemed like acres of cheese, olive, and fruit stands………

We'd noticed children dressed up in all sorts of costumes…. after asking around we were told it was Children's Day.

You not only had piles of fruit and vegetables to keep your attention…….

But had to heed what was above you as well……..

The somewhat elaborate make-up of various booths made me think about the amount of work it took to set-up, then take apart these booths every Saturday.

We'd covered maybe a third of the place before stopping and deciding to start getting stuff for lunch, otherwise we'd be walking around all day. Of course, this was when all the sampling started. Every olive and cheese stand we stopped at gave us samples….we could have filled up just by mooching! We ended up getting three types of cheese, including a really tasty Cecil/Tel Peyniri, basically string cheese.

Most of the places would try to sell us a kilo and we'd have to tell them that we just wanted a "little bit". So they'd give us the smallest amount that would work for them. In the case of olives….. well, we'd be eating the olives for a couple of days. One of the cheese stands told us "no pay, this is my gift to you!" Which was very nice and typical of the folks in Turkey. I ended up insisting on giving him a couple of Lira…..

We purchased a loaf of bread from this little shop……

Man that was a pretty big loaf; we'd also be eating that for a couple of days as well!

We'd decided to head across the street to the park and have our lunch. Along the way we noticed that outside one of the shops there were a group of women working hard making lavas and selling various items. The Missus immediately headed to the shop watching and wandering around, to the amusement of the women.

This seemed to possibly be the equivalent of a bake sale perhaps? Of course, you'd never get anything like this at your typical bake sale here in the US.

And the kicker was that the park had tea service! A young man walked from a nearby kiosk taking orders for tea. A few minutes later you'd have a nice cup of tea for .5 TRY, about 30 cents.

We enjoyed the sunshine and had a little picnic of sorts…. it was a wonderful end to a great day. And of course there was a nap afterwards to top things off.

Nanjing: Another Dinner and what our T-Shirts said

July 16, 2011 mmm-yoso China, Chinese Restaurants, Nanjing, Travel

I figure I'd better get going with more China posts before my memory really fades…….

After our visit to the Sun Yat -Sen Mausoleum, we caught the bus back into the city. My foot was feeling pretty good, so we decided to walk up to the major shopping district of Nanjing….which was packed to the gills with people. Out of curiosity we even walked through……

Which was quite interesting…..

We soon tired of the crowds and decided to walk back to our hotel and grab some dinner on the way back. We had passed this restaurant earlier, another multi-leveled place…..fast food on the bottom, casual restaurant second floor, restaurant third floor, and banquet area on top….

The Missus and I decided to stop here and have dinner. The place wasn't very busy, and the service here was pretty good. The menu was fairly vast with some interesting looking dishes on it. Like this one……

Because I'd already had sprinkles on a dish during one of our banquets in Beijing it didn't have quite the same effect on me…. but I still found it a bit odd. I'm waiting for the day I'll open a menu somewhere in the SGV and see a savory dish with sprinkles on it! If you can read Chinese you might find the story of the dish on the menu interesting.

We ended up ordering a whopping five dishes of the menu, which varied in quality and taste.

The worst was the grilled lamb rib which was really dry and tough….and had almost no flavor….

I didn't think much of the classic Nanjing dish, the bean curd soup.

If I recall, the true classic version of this is supposed to have vermicelli in it…this one had bean sprouts. The Missus thought it was tasty though.

The Baihe (Lily Bulb) with Celery was passable. Not as good as other versions, but pleasantly gooey….

Of course after seeing the "Scrolls with Treasures" on the menu, we just had to try it!

This was actually better than it looked. The sprinkles were really just a garnish…. call it parsley on the plate if you will, and really didn't interfere with the flavors of this dish. The sweet soy and peanut oil mixture was very tasty. This was very much like the "seaweed roll" you'd see served in dim sum places.

The best dish of the night by far was the minced duck served with cups made of wheat flour……which looked like wo-wo-tou.

First off the duck had a wonderful flavor, and the sauce, a mild fruity-sweet, along with a nice salty-soy flavor went well with the minced duck. The vegetables added some nice crunch and helped to cleanse the palate a bit. The "cup" were wonderful, mildly grainy, nutty, with a restrained sweetness that just brought everything together for us. This was one of the most memorable dishes of our trip.

After dinner we walked back to our room….pass the now brightly lit "Disco Palace"….

To get some rest…… my foot needed some elevation, and the next day we were headed out to Xi'an, a city that I was really excited about visiting…..

What our t-shirts said:

On my last post on our visit to Nanjing I had a photo of sort of matching t-shirts the Missus and I bought. I was surprised that folks wanted to know what the shirts said:

Mine on the left said, "I don't eat, but I do the dishes". The Missus on the right says, "I eat all the food, but I don't do the dishes."

Oh, and the one we bought for my Mother In Law, who is very frugal (and proud of it…she sent us a photo after we mentioned the shirt in our post) says, "I make money, but never spend it!"

A Lomo Saltado Comparison: Latin Chef, Nazca Grill, and Tropical Star

July 14, 2011 mmm-yoso Latin American Cuisine, Peruvian Restaurants

The classic and for many ubiquitous Peruvian dish Lomo Saltado has a special place in my heart. It was the first “Peruvian” (the reason for the parenthesis later) dish that really drew my attention at El Rocoto Restaurant in Gardena. It made enough of an impression, that I headed off to the library (the internet really wasn’t such a large part of our lives in ’97) to try to find out what Peruvian cuisine was all about. There were many aspects of the dish that really resonated with me; the familiar flavors like soy sauce, cooking style, at heart the dish is a stir fry (saltado = to leap) , and yes, the carbs. Coming from Hawaii, many of my friends still say, “it ain’t lunch unless it has at least two carbs!” So I found the combination of rice and papas fritas (french fries) enchanting…… Over the years I’d come to appreciate the history of the dish, a fusion of the cooking of the Chinese that settled in great numbers in Peru (Lima has the largest Chinatown in South America) Spanish (onions, garlic) and ethnic Peruvian (potatoes). Though most every version nowadays has french fries in it, I’ve read that the dish originally used boiled potatoes…. I’ve got to say that I’d probably prefer fried to boiled.

Anyway, a post comparing the lomo saltado available in San Diego has been a long time coming, so here it is:

Latin Chef ($11):

**** Latin Chef has closed

After a rather lengthy respite, I’ve been going back to Latin Chef quite a bit recently. So of course I was bound to have the lomo saltado again…..

Latin Chef used to have a prominent spot on our rotation, but for some reason we just kinda stopped going.

On my recent visits, it seems like the food had slipped a bit (I’ll go into detail in the future post). The lomo saltado here is still my favorite in San Diego. The meat is the most tender, you can make out the soy, there’s a slight tangy flavor, and the rice had always been cooked well. They seem to be depending a bit much on salt and the mild anise-mint flavor of Huacatay is missing. The papas fritas still have crunch which is a plus, as is the amount of sauce. There just seems to be something missing from this dish recently.

Latin Chef
1142 Garnet Ave
San Diego, CA 92109

Nazca Grill ($10.95):

**** Nazca Grill has closed

As the food at Latin Chef seems to be slipping, Nazca Grill seems to be slowly getting better:

The beef here is tougher than Latin Chef’s and the main herb for flavoring seems to be cilantro. Not enough salt and lacking any tangy flavor this version still falls short for me.

Nazca Grill
4310 Genesee Ave
San Diego, CA 92117

Tropical Star ($8.50):

Over the years I’ve come to think of Tropical Star as sort of a Latin American mom-and-pop equivalent of those diners that try to make everything. The menu is vast and not everything is really worth a try. Still, in spite of all my visits to Tropical Star, I’ve always stopped short of ordering the lomo saltado…. there was an inner voice that told me not to “go there”. But you know that I couldn’t go all these years without trying it out. So recently, I finally ordered the lomo saltado, which was the cheapest of the three….. and holy-moley, it was also the largest portion…. of grayish looking meat…..

Really tough meat, full gristle, perhaps chuck…. it gives new meaning to “2 buck chuck (steak)”. My feet also started swelling up pretty quickly as I ate this. I stared at the shelves looking for some kind of packaged lomo saltado mix, since there was a powderiness to the dish as well. Funny, as I walked out, I noticed several jars of Aji-no-moto (MSG) right next to the Aji Panca on one of the shelves….. There are several items that Troplical Star does reasonably welland the prices are just as reasonable. I’d pass on the lomo saltado though…..

Tropical Star
6163 Balboa Ave
San Diego, CA 92111

Typing out this post makes me think we’ll need to be heading back to Peru one of these days……