mmm-yoso – Page 394

Road Trip: Little Saigon & Meeting the OC Food Bloggers…..

March 2, 2007 mmm-yoso Dim Sum, Orange County, Road Trip

Last Saturday, I had an appointment with a group of very important people. The meeting place had been predetermined…the location of this chowdown?

Yes, the destination; Little Saigon, Westminster, California. Luckily, I arrived an hour and a half early. I enjoy arriving a bit early as it gives me time to check out the locale, get myself oriented, and breathe in the atmosphere. More importantly, I was able to find a parking spot in Asian Village Center with relative ease.

In Little Saigon you never know what you’ll run into….like a Lion Dance!

Maybe not the most artistic Lion Dance I’ve ever seen; but what was lacking in technique was made up in enthusiasm.

And of course you need a little noise to go with the Lion Dance:

Whoa, that’s my car nearby……….

Having some spare time I was able to take a stroll across the street to the Asian Garden Mall across the street. Well, not exactly a stroll, man does that traffic light change fast…..

I didn’t expect much since it was 9am on a Saturday morning. But of course Asian Garden Mall is no regular mall! The Food Court was alive and buzzing.

From this view, this could almost be any food court in any mall.

You won’t find your local Sbarro’s Pizza here…but if you’re in the mood for a Banh Mi(Vietnamese Sandwich), you’ll find Lee’s Sandwiches.

And instead of the usual stands selling the same chicken with a different sauce, you’ll find dishes such as Bun Mam, Bo Kho(Vietnamese Beef Stew), and Banh Canh.

I was tempted, but stayed the course, and did not give in to temptation……

An entire wing of Asian Garden Mall consists of jewelry stores! I walked to the end of the wing and took this photo:

At the very end is a security kiosk. One of the security guards noticed I was taking photos, and started following me around….thinking perhaps that I was "casing the joint????" At that point I decided to leave. After all I didn’t want to irritate security personnel, and I especially didn’t want to anger these fellows.

Asian Garden Mall
9200 Bolsa Avenue
Westminster, California 92683

I crossed back over to Asian Village Center which was now becoming a never ending circling stream of automobiles. There was an almost constant cacophony of horns blaring….I figured it was just a matter of time until I saw the latest installment of Battle of the SUV’s…… In spite of the mass of metal and humanity in this mall, I knew there was a little oasis of peace in this mall. Having read Wandering Chopsticks fantastic Virtual Tour of Little Saigon, I knew that there existed a Cultural Court in the back of Asian Village Center with statues of Confucius and His Disciples.

Which gave me a nice break. Soon enough it was time to meet the OC Food Bloggers so I walked over, past Duong Son BBQ:

Where I made a mental note to pick up a little something for Da’ Boyz…which I then immediately forgot.

Maybe next time!

I made my way to Dragon Phoenix Palace Chinese Seafood Restaurant, sheesh talk about a mouthful. When the Missus heard the name of this restaurant, She cracked up and said, "all you need is to add, New Golden, to the front, and include Panda after Phoenix, and you’d have the ultimate Chinese restaurant name!"

There’s always a bit of nervousness when meeting a "new" group of people, but all apprehension melted away after meeting everyone; the one and only Chubby Panda, the Epicurious Wanderer, Christian Z of Orange County Mexican Restaurants, Wandering Chopsticks, Deb from Dinner at Six, Elmo of Monster Munching, and Elonweiss who posts on OC Food Blogs, and Her Brother. Joy also made an appearance, but unfortunately Her SO, was caught in one of the inner circles of Dante’s parking hell, endlessly circling the parking lot, and had to leave.

The restaurant itself was the usual bustling Dim Sum restaurant.

I only took two photos of the food. Wandering Chopsticks did a more comprehensive post, which you can read here.

Much of my attention was diverted to the conversation, which ranged from food(what else do you think we’d talk about), to Chubby Panda’s "cheek technique" for taking photos(it’s not what you think). In what was a somewhat novel event, we had most of our language bases covered, from Cantonese(Elonweiss), to Mandarin(CP), to Vietnamese(WC)…I don’t think my Pidgin would have been of much use here.

And two hours went by in a flash. As I got into my car, and somehow made it back to Bolsa Avenue, I couldn’t help but think what a nice group of people these OC Food Bloggers are…..

Thanks again for including me, I am both touched and so appreciative.

And don’t forget to read OC Food Blogs!

Thanh Son Tofu – San Diego

March 1, 2007 mmm-yoso Desserts, Markets & Grocers, Vietnamese Restaurants

**** Thanh Son Tofu moved, then closed

We'd been trying to get to Thanh Son Tofu on El Cajon Boulevard for a while. First off, they are located a bit off the street with one of those psycho-free-for-all parking lots where people seem to define their own parking stalls and rules. In addition Thanh Son seems to close rather early, so I've missed the boat a few times, before we finally made it at about 1pm on a recent weekend afternoon.

We entered the large almost empty shop, and no one was around, and not much food either. There were many, many signs though!

Wow, so Thanh Son does Banh Mi? But I really didn't understand much else.

In the meantime, the Missus had struck up a conversation with a nice young man, who told us that they were out of tofu. In fact, they usually run out of fresh tofu before noon. Bummer. Meanwhile the Missus's short attention span had gotten ahold of Her and She had moved on, and was checking this stuff out.

A large variety of Che, otherwise known as "sweet soup", those very refreshing dessert drinks of which there must be hundreds of variations. These were $2.50 a piece which I thought was on the high side until I noticed a sign over the cash register.

Basically buy 2 get one free! Baaargain city….. So, the Missus hit the jackpot and selected Her Che. I'm not a dessert person, but the one She enjoyed the most had taro and slices of ginger in coconut milk, which I thought was pretty good. Unfortunately, there's no photo since it never made it home. Here are photos of the other two cups of Che the Missus had.

Come to think of it, these were 12oz cups…and were pretty large.

We also got some of the fried tofu we saw(10 pieces for $1.25):

After the Missus talked the young man into giving Her some samples(She is very useful sometimes…) we got the version on the left, it had onion, bean thread, and black fungus in it. Crunchy exterior, nice flavor, with just a touch of salt. The version on the right was a lemongrass tofu which we didn't think had as much flavor, nor the great texture. We were still a bit disappointed that we missed out on the tofu….

At this point, getting some tofu from Thanh Son had become a mission. My mantra became, "I'm going to get me some tofu…or die trying!" I got up at 630am on a recent Sunday, and made my way to Thanh Son. If there is one benefit to arriving at 7am, it's that I had my choice of parking spaces without having to worry about being blocked in. I walked into the shop and noticed three people hard at work making spring rolls and other items. Luckily the same young man who served us the other day was there; the other two people only spoke Vietnamese. I ordered two block of tofu($1.25/ea), and also an order of the noodles that looked really good.

The large container of the noodles cost $3.50, and was okay, just a bit under flavored for us.

Oh yes, and finally the tofu! Now due to communication problems, I'm not sure if Thanh Son sells a variety of Tofu. I was given two large blocks of firm tofu.

The tofu was quite dense, but short on the strong "soy bean" flavor I was expecting. The tofu is well suited for deep frying or various stir fries. I'll probably be back to see if other tofu products are sold. Till then, if you're in the mood for some fresh tofu, you know where you can get it.

Thanh Son Tofu
4616 El Cajon Blvd Ste 15
San Diego, CA 92115

The Buta Kakuni Experiment

February 25, 2007 mmm-yoso Cookbooks, Cooking, Recipes

*** I’ve had a few emails and several comments below asking about the origins of Buta Kakuni…best that I can tell is that Buta Kakuni is based on a Chinese Dish that the Japanese call Tonporo. Which to me means it’s probably Dong Po Rou(Dong Po Pork), if you follow the link, you’ll see that it looks very similar. Dong Po Rou is named after the poet Su Dong Po, you can see a translation of one of His poems here.

The other day, I was paging through a cookbook I had lying around titled The Japanese Kitchen, authored by Hiroko Shimbo. The recipe I just happened upon (lucky me!!!) was for Buta Kakuni, the Braised Pork dish that originated in Nagasaki Prefecture. Apparently, Buta Kakuni is based on a Chinese Pork dish, and Nagasaki was a busy port city where ships from all over the world docked. So somewhere between the sixteenth and eighteenth century Buta Kakuni arrived(lucky us!!!)……..

There are two Buta Kakuni recipes that I have used in the past. In the first recipe, the pork belly is first fried, than simmered for several hours. In the second recipe, the pork belly is first boiled in Okara(tofu lees) for several hours before a short braise in a sake-soy sauce-mirin-sugar liquid. What caught my attention was that Hiroko Shimbo’s recipe first steamed the pork belly, before cooking in the flavoring liquid. And what was even more interesting was that the pork belly was first covered with grated daikon! According to the book, Daikon contains two digestive enzymes, protease and diastase which help to remove excess fat and tenderize the pork belly.

What you see above is the result. I used the steaming technique in the book, but the flavoring is the one I’ve used before from other recipes. I’ve had some recipes from Hiroko Shimbo’s book not turn out really well. Since this was an experiment, I only used a 12oz portion of pork belly, which waaay more than enough for us! Buta Kakuni is pretty rich anyway, and I can only eat maybe 3 pieces….before the extreme remorse starts.

The Buta Kakuni Experiment

2 1/2- 3 Cups Grated Daikon(liquid and all)
1 – 1 1/2 Lb Slab of Pork Belly
1/2 Tb (or more) Grated Ginger
1 1/2 Cup Water
1/2 Cup Sake
1/3 Cup Soy Sauce
1/3 Cup Sugar
4 Tb Mirin

1 – Set steamer over a pot of rapidly boiling water
2 – In a heatproof dish(make sure that it will fit the steamer) place 1/3 of the grated daikon and liquid over the bottom of the dish. Place the pork belly on top of grated daikon. Cover the pork with the remainder of grated daikon.
3 – Transfer dish to steamer and steam for 2 to 2 1/2 hours. I use a bamboo skewer after about 90 minutes to see how tender the pork belly is. Remember to keep replenishing the steaming liquid as necessary.

4 – Once the pork can be easily pierced with a bamboo skewer, remove the dish (carefully) from the steamer. Place the pork belly in a bowl of lukewarm water and gently rinse the pork.

5 – Dry the pork with paper towels, and cut it into 2 inch cubes.
6 – In a pot large enough to hold the pork in a single payer mix together the rest of the ingredients. Place pork in pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to a simmer.
7 – Simmer for 30 minutes, and check flavoring and texture. Make adjustments and simmer for at least 30 more minutes.
* On this day I added slices of daikon and boiled eggs before the last 30 minutes of simmering. Oh, and don’t forget the Hot Mustard!

The Pork Belly was very tender, and the remaining fat was smooth and velvety. The Missus thought it a bit too sweet, but I could have done with something cooked a bit longer, but I think the pork would have started falling apart. Of course, I’ve heard of places simmering their Buta Kakuni for 12 hours or more, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that in the near future.

Lest you think I was living on pork belly alone…..

I made the Missus some Karei Karaage:

And some Chicken Karaage:

And to cut the fatty flavors, some Pickled Onions with Ogo:

And followed it all with a double shot of Lipitor(I’m kidding, of course)! I did have a bit of one of my new favorite sakes, Yaegaki "Mu"…why they would name a sake "emptyness" is beyond me. This sake has a bit of a sweeter profile(not as sweet as Kurosawa), though I think it goes really well with food.

I did wish I still had another bottle of this on hand though!

Road Trip: Giang Nan – Monterey Park(LA)

February 22, 2007 mmm-yoso Chinese Restaurants, Los Angeles County, Road Trip, Xiao Long Bao

**** Giang Nan has closed

*** A short update can be found here.

Since we had managed to make it to Monterey Park during the eve of Chinese New Year, we decided to forgo the food stands at the Floral Street Fair, and take our chances at Giang Nan.

I say take our chances, mainly because we've never been able to get a table at Giang Nan, on every attempted visit there has been a wait list. Giang Nan resides in one of the hundreds of strip malls in the area, this time on Garfield Avenue. The restaurant is tucked away from the road at the rear of the parking lot perpendicular to the street. The restaurant itself is clean and well lit, though not very large. You've got to watch your step…not only are the tables close together, there are several inconspicuous steps that can cause you to stumble if you're not aware.

Looking over the menu, we started with the Roast Duck in Supreme Sauce($4.95):

The photo makes the dish look larger than it was. This was a single, chopped duck leg, roasted with a marinade that tasted much like a "red-cooked" Roast Duck, with that ubiquitous sweet-soy sauce flavor. I did enjoy the sticky salty sweetness.

Because we wanted a very light lunch we ordered the House Special Pork Knuckle(Pork Pump – $12.95) he-he-he:

In this case, the football sized pork shank that arrived was much, much larger than the photo suggests. From what I understand this pork shank(it is called "House Special De-Greased and Braised Pork Knuckle" on the menu) is first fried, than braised in a sauce of rock sugar and soy sauce. This shank was enough to feed six people! The meat was a bit on the tough side, though the fat was a heavenly melt in your mouth creamy, and the skin tasted great as well. We only had three slices before cholesterol remorse got the better of us.

While eating this, the Missus and I got into a interesting conversation:

"You know, you don't have an identity when it comes to New Year….."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you really don't celebrate the Western New Year, and even though you're Japanese, you mainly cook for me to celebrate the Japanese New Year, you go to the Tet Festival, and you have more fun celebrating Chinese New Year…you're obviously confused."
"Well….maybe I'm a man of all countries! Yeah, that's right, I'm a worldly person!"
"Yeah right….if you keep eating all that pork fat, you'll be worldly alright. Waaaay bigger at the equator than at the poles……"

You realize that we couldn't leave without some Xiao Long Bao, right? Here's the Pork and Crab Xiao Long Bao($4.95):

The wrappers were a bit thicker than those at Mei Long Village, and were very delicate in flavor. Unfortunately, a few of the XLB had lost their soup. I liked the ratio of soup to meat, though.

The Pork Xiao Long Bao($4.25):

These had an excellent ratio meat to soup, though I like the wrappers at Meilong Village better. Both the meat and the soup were perfect, and wonderful slightly sweet, rich, umami flavor. My favorite XLB so far. Well….. maybe now I'm not quite sure….perhaps I can talk Ed from Yuma into a XLB "crawl" this summer? Anyone game????

The prices at Giang Nan are very reasonable, the Pork XLB were only $4.25. We'll be back to try some other dishes like the Winded Chicken, The Lion's Head, Smoked Fish, and others…….

Giang Nan
306 N Garfield Avenue
Monterey Park, CA 91755

Baby Back Jack’s Old Fashioned Broiler

February 20, 2007 mmm-yoso American/New American Restaurants, Burgers, Sandwiches, What Howie Eats - Where the Foodie from Foodieview Eats

*** Baby Back Jack's has closed

A few months back Howie, who does A Foodie's-Eye View of San Diego's Best Restaurants mentioned "Jack's Broiler" to me in an email, about a month after, Candice, who posts in Oh-So Yummy mentioned Jack's Broiler as well. So during a recent weekend, we drove on up to Hillcrest and dropped by Baby Back Jack's Old Fashioned Broiler(whew, that's a mouthful) for lunch.

If I remember correctly, this used to be a Yogurt shop. The interior of Jack's goes for a mild "retro-old fashioned" look.

And tunes like Earth Angel and Venus in Bluejeans flow throughout the restaurant.

The menu is small, but covers very familiar territory, with everything from Hot Dogs and Burgers, to Baby Back Ribs.

On this visit, the Missus went for the 1/2 of Jack's "Famous Wild Chicken"($7.95). Check out the "wild chicken"……

Basically, a roasted half chicken that is slathered with BBQ sauce and heated on the grill. The chicken comes with Coleslaw and one "side", in this case the Missus chose fries.

The Missus told me the coleslaw wasn't really that great, a bit on the sweet side for Her…but She did scarf it up. I loved the fries, which were the skin-on natural style fries, with a chili-garlic-paprika seasoning. The Missus thought the fries were a bit on the salty side…but I finished them all up. Never got a chance to use the Ranch-style dipping sauce that was provided.

The chicken was quite large, and the Missus couldn't finish it.

On the good side, the chicken was large, and the meat moist through and through. On the bad side, the interior of the chicken was still slightly cold. And though the dark meat had some flavor, the white meat was bland. The BBQ sauce didn't do it for me either, it had a bit of a neutral BBQ flavor, but had a weird aftertaste, and left a strange coating on my tongue. Overall, this was quite a bit of food.

I had the "World Famous Beef Dip"($7.95):

Just by looking at it, you know right away…this ain't no "Philippe's". First off the "roll" was on very dry side, and the meat looked kinda, well, "grey", and was dry and tough. I enjoyed the "jus", it was beefy, and not overly salty…I used up all the jus and the Horseradish sauce. I think this is a bit over-priced for $7.95.

On a side note…guess how much the soda pictured on the side is? It's $2, for one of those plastic 12oz cups. Luckily, refills are free, but if you're doing take-out, forget about the drinks. The two sodas I ordered put us over the $20 mark for lunch.

But still….I really enjoyed those fries…..

So I returned for lunch when I was in the area recently. And since you just can't order fries…I ordered my fries($1.95) with a side order of a Cheeseburger($5.50).

Thought the fries were not as heavily seasoned as on my last visit, they were still pretty good.

After ordering, I struck up a short conversation with the "cook", who asked me how I'd like my burger, and though I'd usually ask for it "medium", I just told him to make the way he thought was best.

The burger was delivered dressed with lettuce, tomato, and slices of red onions, cooked just a tad on the "well" side, but the meat was moist, juicy, and had a nice mildly beefy flavor. At first I thought there was too much bun for the burger, but the bread had a nice pillowy texture. I wish the cheese was melted a bit better. I'd forgotten to tell him to skip the "sauce", which was a Thousand Island style dressing, but at least it wasn't slathered on, and the sauce was very mild so it didn't interfere with the flavor of the burger. Still, I usually like my burger without dressing. Not a bad burger, it's not going to set the world on fire, but it's pretty good, not as good as some, but better than many. I'd have it again.

As I usually do for "What Howie Eats" posts, I emailed Howie for His input. Here's what he said; "My fries were my favorite thing about the meal. I had the ribs, and they were decent, esp for the price." So there you go….

Baby Back Jack's Old Fashioned Broiler
1290 University Ave
San Diego, CA 92105

Gong Xi Fa Cai – Xin Nian Kuai Le! Happy (Chinese) New Year!

February 17, 2007 mmm-yoso Blog

Just a quick post to wish everyone a wonderful Year of the Pig. Even more important, this is the Year of the Golden Pig, something that happens every 60 years. According to what I understand, children born this year will be prosperous and wealthy.

This healthy looking fellow was found here:

The Monterey Park Floral Street Fair, which run through tomorrow. It was packed and we didn’t spend much time there. But in case you’re interested, click on the link above, starts at the busy corner of Garfield and Garvey in Monterey Park. Not much food on display, but lot’s of other stuff.

So just for the heck of it….some photos of Nian Gao(Chinese Steamed New Year Cakes):

All taken at Yi Mei Deli in Rowland Heights.

Happy New Year!

Road Trip: Deerfield Restaurant – City of Industry(LA)

February 14, 2007 mmm-yoso Chinese Restaurants, Los Angeles County, Road Trip

*** Deerfield has closed

I'd read on Chowhound about a branch of Deerfield Garden that opened in the City of Industry, so recently when we were in the area, we decided to drop by for a light lunch/snack. Now finding Deerfield Restaurant was not that easy; you see the address listed was 167 South Hacienda Boulevard, but the actual location is on the far side of a strip mall that really resides on Valley Boulevard.

This location of Deerfield restaurant is actually two restaurants in one. On the right resides a Chinese fast-food restaurant, with a cast of the usual steam table items. On the left is a sit down restaurant, which is what we were looking for.

The dining area is well lit, and quite clean. And on every table is a plate of appetizers.

I started in on the peanuts, before I remembered to take a photo. We looked over the menu, and on the back page were a few items that got our interest.

Unfortunately, several of the items we wanted like the Vegetable Bao were not available.

I ordered the Xin Jiang Lamb Noodle Soup($4.95):

Now this seemed to be a typical fast food noodle soup. The broth had very little flavor, and the noodles were brittle. The lamb had no flavor, it could have been beef for all I know. I had great hope having read about Xinjiang cuisine, I'm thinking that this is probably not a good representation. Overall, not to my taste.

In need of another item, we ordered the Niu Rou Chuan(Beef Roll – $4.95), something we've seen in almost every Northern style Chinese restaurant. To our amusement, it was on the menu listed as a "Chinese Beef Burrito".

Man, this was pretty large! And not bad at all, the 5 spice beef was moist and had good flavor, and the scallion bread was not too oily, and cooked to a crisp perfection.

Not bad, I'd have it again.

We received very nice service at Deerfield Restaurant, the prices are quite reasonable. It's too bad that they were out of a few items we wanted. The lunch crowd there was quite interesting as well, a combination of local business people eating Americanized Chinese food, and Mandarin speaking Chinese eating Jiaozhi and soups.

Deerfield Restaurant
167 S Hacienda Blvd
City of Industry, CA 91745

Kudo's to Captain Jack!

This is a bit late, but I wanted to send out congrats to my Buddy, Captain Jack, who does San Diego Restaurant Reviews. CJ recently had his 1500 Ocean post published in the Blog Diego section of The Reader. You can read the article here. And there's even a link to Alice Q Foodie to boot!

Revisits to Various Vietnamese Restaurants – Thien Thanh, Saigon, and Da Nang Food to Go

February 12, 2007 mmm-yoso Vietnamese Restaurants

I guess you could say we've been eating alot of Vietnamese food recently…..not much Pho, but alot of other "stuff". It also seems that I've got a terminal case of food photus obsessia, and can't help but take photos of food. I think I need to seek some help for this…what do you think? In the mean time, here's few updates on a few of the Vietnamese Restaurants along El Cajon Boulevard.

Thien Thanh

*** Unfortunately, Thien Thanh has since closed. What a bummer.

I've already posted on Thien Thanh twice, on our first visit, and on another visit when I tried the Bun Bo Hue. I hope you don't mind this third post, which is actually comprised of several visits. I excluded anything that I've posted on before. So let's get started.

The Banh Mi Bo Kho($5.50):

Yes, during our cooler evenings a nice bowl of beef stew with french bread sure hit the spot. The version at Thien Thanh is chock full of herbs and seasonings, I pulled out large pieces of cinnamon and other stuff from the medium thick broth. The oil content was not overly high, and I enjoyed the flavor….I needed another loaf of french bread to help me finish this. Currently my second favorite Vietnamese Beef Stew next to the version at Lucky Pho.

One of the reasons we enjoy Thien Thanh is that along with the good service, the garnishes and vegetables are always fresh. So it almost goes without saying that the Bun Cha Ha Noi($5.95) at Thien Thanh is our favorite.

The meatballs may be kinda tough, but the sauce is nice and mildly sweet. And the veggies are always fresh.

Of course the Missus loves her Bun Rieu($5.50):

As with the Bun Bo Hue at Thien Thanh, the Bun Rieu has a more assertive sour-tangy flavor than other versions, with the pungency level on the low side. The Missus wanted to make sure that I took a photo of the large shrimp-crab cake in the Bun Rieu.

The noodles were okay, on verge of being too soft, but passable.

The Bun Mang Vit(Bamboo and Duck Noodle Soup – $5.50):

The Bamboo was under hydrated and tough, and the duck much too bony. The broth had a decent flavor, but because the bamboo hadn't fully steeped, the earthy flavor that the bamboo brings to the soup was hidden in the background.

Can't beat the garnishes though:

A generous portion of Rau Ram(Vietnamese Coriander) for my soup.

There are still several dishes that I need to try at Thien Thanh, the Bum Mam, Bun Nuoc Leo, De Nuong(goat), and the Canh Ga Chien Bo(chicken wings), so I may end up doing another post in the future. I hope you don't mind……

Thien Thanh Vietnamese Restaurant
4658 El Cajon Blvd
San Diego, CA 92115

Saigon

I'm pretty sure most people know Saigon, it's pretty much a fixture. With the huge menu, and inexpensive seafood it's favorite of many. Here are a few other dishes we've had at Saigon recently.

The Ca Ri De Banh Mi(Curry Goat with French Bread – $7.95):

Too much coconut milk, too little curry flavor, and too watery for my tastes. There was a good amount of goat meat though.

One of our favorite dishes at Saigon is the Thit Nuong(BBQ Pork with Rice Paper – $8.95):

Thinly sliced marinated pork is rolled into a tight "roll" and grilled, it is served on a bed of vermicelli noodles, and with a huge plate of pickles and vegetables, and a plate of rice paper. It's one of those, "make your own spring rolls" kinda thing. All served with Nuoc Mam Cham for your dipping pleasure…we always make a huge mess and enjoy ourselves, though on occasion the pork has been very tough and sinewy, that is the exception and not the rule.

The Bo Bia(Chinese Sausage Spring Roll – $3.25):

This has got to be the tightest stuffed spring roll in San Diego, it should say "contents under pressure", I was sure it was going to explode when I bit into it, but it didn't. Pretty good overall, with a ton of filling.

Now what do you think the Missus ordered? One guess…

Bun Rieu($5.50) of course! The Missus enjoys the Bun Rieu at Saigon, it's tied for second with the Bun Rieu at Thien Thanh. Her favorite is served at Mien Trung. The broth is a bit more fishy in flavor, and the Missus enjoy the seafood cake, which has the texture of almost being steamed. The two things which bring this bowl of Bun Rieu down are the over cooked noodles and the Missus would rather have fried bean curd, instead of the just plain old tofu in the dish.

The Bun Mang Vit($5.50):

My least favorite Bun Mang Vit, from the mushy noodles to the hard bamboo, to the almost flavorless broth. As with most of the soups at Saigon, the Bun Mang Vit had a generous amount meat in it, in this case duck, even though it was mostly bones.

Still, with over 300 items on the menu, you're sure to find something you'll like at Saigon. Though according to this sign, you should make sure that you'll eat it.

My original post on Saigon.

Saigon Restaurant
4455 El Cajon Blvd
San Diego, CA 92115

Da Nang Food to Go

*** Da Nang Food to Go has closed

During a recent conversation with John from Sandwich Emporium, he mentioned that he had heard that the Bun Mang Vit at Da Nang Food to Go was really good. So of course I headed down there as soon as I had a chance. I arrived early(they open at 7am) on a recent weekend morning so I could snag one of the few available parking stalls in the strip mall.

I was amazed at the take-out traffic the place was getting. I looked over the menu and ordered the Bun Mang Vit($5.00), and my garnishes arrived in but a minute.

Pretty much status quo…I felt bad for that lonely chili, all on it's own.

The Bun Man Vit took a while to arrive, but it was piping hot when it hit the table.

It was a very surprising bowl of Bun Mang Vit. Instead of the usual clear broth, this version was quite spicy, in fact it tasted almost like Bun Bo Hue! The coarse ground pepper also added a alot of flavor. I thought that the spicy flavors overwhelmed any of the woodsy-earthy flavor that the bamboo shoots add to the dish, and this ended up tasting like Bun Bo Hue with dried bamboo shoots and duck.

There were some very meaty pieces of duck in the Bun Mang Vit, which tasted fine with the Nuoc Mam Cham that was provided. But still, it didn't seem like I was having a bowl of Bun Mang Vit. Still it was different, and maybe you'll enjoy this version.

On this morning I had a short but very nice conversation with the owner, we mostly spoke about the Gio Lua he makes. Right now he's selling a ton of the stuff because of Tet. I still have to pick some up for my own use…if I can find a parking stall!!!

My original post on Da Nang Food to Go.

Da Nang Food to Go (aka Quan an Da Nang)
4745 El Cajon Blvd
San Diego, CA 92115

Thanks for indulging me(as always), I hope you all didn't mind some revisits.

Hey what's for dinner?

I'm starving!

Say what! Vietnamese again!

DietChiliCheeseFries is right, all you ever eat is Vietnamese! You better get this fixed soon or I'll report you to Aunt Passionate Eater! And she'll fix your wagon!

Sheesh, what does it take to get a dog something good to eat around here?

Maui Maui Hawaiian BBQ

February 11, 2007 mmm-yoso Local Kine Stuffs in San Diego, Loco Mocos, Plate Lunch

*** Maui Maui Hawaiian BBQ is now Sieu Sieu BBQ. You can find an updated post here.

A few months back I noticed that the little Japanese Restaurant in one of the many strip malls on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard was gone. And a few weeks later, a Hawaiian BBQ restaurant called Maui Maui had taken it’s place.

Yikes, another Hawaiian BBQ? Seems like they’re everywhere nowadays, but this is the first one in this area. So on a recent weekend, I decided to check it out.

I like the interior, very bright and clean. The menu is typical Hawaiian BBQ in nature….BBQ Chicken, BBQ Short Ribs, blah, blah, blah…… a typical L&L knockoff menu, I wish I could get some other plate lunch fare….like Beef Stew, and other stuff, but it looks like these Hawaiian BBQ places all want to serve the exact same food.

Maui Maui does offer Combination Plates, mixing items like Lau Lau, Kalua Pork, and Seafood, with BBQ Beef, Chicken, Short Ribs, or Chicken Katsu.

So I decided to try the Lau Lau and BBQ Chicken combination($7.95):

The plate came with the typical 2 scoops rice, 1 scoop macaroni salad, 1 small piece BBQ chicken thigh, and a Lau Lau. The mac salad was not bad…good ratio of mayo to macaroni, perhaps just a bit short on salt.

The chicken was well marinated in a sauce with a higher soy sauce to sugar ratio, almost like what my Mom made, and thus was more on the salty side. The thigh had good flavor, but was on the dry side.

The Lau Lau was interesting, it was served super piping hot, which was a good start, but the luau leaf wrapping was very mild, and didn’t have the nice smoky-rich-green flavor I enjoy. As I tore the Lau Lau open I made one observation that I expected, and one that I did not….

First off, having had my share of Lau Lau on the mainland, I pretty much knew that there wasn’t going to be any salted fish in the Lau Lau, and expected that. But I quickly noticed that there wasn’t even a piece of fatty pork in the Lau Lau, this really made the Lau Lau fall short in flavor, and made it kind of dry. It was probably the healthiest Lau Lau I’ve ever had, in relative terms of course….. But still, even though I thought this was a bit over-priced, it was not bad.

So you know what that means right? Another visit! One this visit, I decided just to grab a "Mini" Chicken Katsu($4.75), all rice(that means another scoop of rice, to replace the mac salad). I got home and opened the styrofoam container up:

Where’s the Katsu sauce? Oh well, I had a bottle in the frig, and it’s usually much better than the really bad, runny, sweet-sour stuff that most of these Hawaiian BBQ places serve. The Katsu was barely okay, dry, and the breading on the soggy side……

Since my first lunch was decent, not really good, but okay, I thought I’d give Maui Maui one more visit, and get…..what else? A Loco Moco, one of my favorites. I suddenly realized that the last Loco Moco I had was on Maui…….. I ordered a "Mini" Loco Moco($4.95). So check out this "loco" and tell me what’s wrong with it?

Yep, it’s pretty obvious…WHERE’S MY GRAVY? Talk about a gravy malfunction…….sigh! After the Katsu Sauce malfunction on my previous visit, I shoulda known to check my food before I left…. Bummer! The mac salad was also pretty bad on this visit…really runny, and the macaroni was mushy. The patty as I expected was preformed, though the egg was okay….I ate 2 bites, and gave the rest to Da’ Boyz.

Man talk about disappointing. Just in case Maui Maui served some kinda really weird Loco Moco(it would still be heresy!), I checked out the take out menu:

It does say "brown gravy" right? And notice the "salted butterfish" under Lau Lau(it’s "Ti" leaves, not "Tea" leaves, BTW)? Hmmmmm….. I thought about taking it back, but I wasn’t going to drive all the way back to Maui Maui, I tried calling but no one picked up…..

Maui Maui Hawaiian BBQ
7420 Clairemont Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92111

San Diego Tet Festival 2007

February 9, 2007 mmm-yoso Festivals & Events, Vietnamese Restaurants

Yes, it’s that time again…time for the San Diego Festival. Just as last year, it’s being held at Qualcomm Stadium. I usually feel really bad after doing festival posts, since most of them have come and gone by the time I do my post, and I always receive email and comments from people who wanted to attend….. So this year, I made sure to drop by on my way home from work, on the first day of the festival, which is today!

I arrived at a bit after 3pm, and found that admission had gone up to $5 this year. One thing that admission brings is a more efficient and clean festival, plus parking is not a problem.

Many of the booths, and displays were still being set-up, and the crowds had not yet arrived when I entered.

As with last year, the "heart" of the festival is the "Cultural Village":

And all of the community information, vendors, and rides:

So there you go…..

Oh wait, what about the food you ask? Well, just as last year, food booths line one entire end of the festival grounds:

I do think that there’s better variety of food this year…more than just the Fried(Cha Gio – Eggrolls) and skewered meat that was everywhere last year.

Like this:

As I passed this booth, I saw a pretty nice looking bowl of soup, so I walked on over. One really great thing about arriving early, before the crowds is that you can always strike up a conversation. So, this is a "famous" pork soup from a specific town called Trang Bang. Nice pork belly, there was some meat on the pork hock, the noodles were not very good, chopped into small pieces and mushy…but who really cares. It’s good festival food. The broth was decent, with lot’s of herbs and green onions, and I was glad to have the little container fish sauce and lime. It cost me $5.

After polishing off my soup I walked over to this booth and was looking over the food and menu.

A lady standing in front of the booth started talking to me about the food. So I asked Her if she was working here, her answer, "no, but I enjoyed the food from here…." So I decided to order the Beef Papaya Salad.

Topped off with Sriracha, this was pretty good. Nice and refreshing.

The thinly grated crunchy papaya was topped with lemongrass flavored fried meat and thinly sliced beef liver, not my favorite thing in the world, but it tasted fine in this salad.

Of course you need the ubiquitous fried item, in this case some Cha Gio(Egg Rolls – $2), which I got from this booth.

These were pretty large, and filled me up.

Completely stuffed, I made my second pass, and bought some food for the Missus.

From this booth I picked up a Papaya Salad($4).

The Missus enjoyed this.

And from this booth:

Some Spring Rolls.

And Egg Rolls:

There are just too many food booths, you can’t possibly try everything.

And in case you’re not in the mood for Asian food, there is the ubiquitous Funnel Cakes and….other stuff. Overall, it is festival food, I think the food is better than last year, though it could be because I arrived before the crowds. Still, I enjoyed myself, and the very friendly people manning the booths.

The San Diego Tet Festival is presented by the Vietnamese American Youth Alliance of San Diego. And in case you can’t make it this evening, the festival runs through Sunday.

San Diego Tet Festival at Qualcomm Stadium.

Friday, February 9th : 2:00pm to 10:00pm
Saturday, February 10th : 9:00am to 10:00pm
Sunday, February 11th: 9:00am to 8:00pm

There are a variety of programs and other entertainment, the schedule can be found here.