Chinese Restaurants – Page 69

Flaming Wok- Mandarin and Szechuan in Santee

June 27, 2007 Cathy Chinese Restaurants, What Cathy Eats!

Flaming Wok has closed

mmm-yoso, the blog, is what you are reading. Kirk is still not feeling like posting and Cathy does feel like posting.

Hello again. We were hungry, did not want to drive, yet had a taste for something Asian. Down the street, next to Albertsons, for more than 17 years.

Flaming Wok used to be kind of really neat to walk in and watch. The woks were right there behind glass, with flames. Kind of why they named it that way.

They have remodeled. There goes that photo. Now it is just the name of the place.

Nice, decor, but, what is wrong with this photo?

FORKS!!!!

OK. I am done. Just a little pet peeve. The food is good.

I like how the menu has superimposed drawings of the general categories- chicken, shrimp, eggs, cow.

We started with our usual, three ingredient sizzling rice soup. ($6.95) It comes in a large bowl and is ladled out into the smaller bowl seen here. We each got about 3 small bowls of soup from the large one. Sizzling rice squares, a rich chicken broth, shrimp, chicken nd beef, along with water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, mushrooms and pea pods. The peas were crispy fresh and the meats were juicy and flavorful, with the shrimp being quite large and sweet.

I got the vegetable egg foo young ($7.25)- a huge portion, kin of ended up shaped like it was cut on the bottom of the wok, filled with bean sprouts, shredded onions, shredded carrots , crispy crust on the outside and light and fluffy on the interior. Served with a sauce that was gelatinous/made from beef bones. Not salty, but deep rich in flavor. All of this reheated well the next day.

The Mister wanted noodles. Special Upside Down Pan Fried Noodles ($9.75). Thick rice noodles, cooked and fried until crispy.then placed on top of the stir fried beef, chicken, pork and shrimp in a thick gravy with broccoli, carrots, onions and water chestnuts. The noodles had a nice "bite" even when drenched in the gravy.

It is a nice, local, delve into good fresh Mandarin Chinese Food without the drive to Convoy Street.

Flaming Wok 9888 Magnolia (at Mast) Santee 92071 (619)596-3749 open 7 days 11:00 a.m.-9:30 p.m.

Hinh Ky Mi Gia

June 13, 2007 mmm-yoso Chinese Restaurants, Vietnamese Restaurants

**** Hinh Ky Mi Gia is no longer

Want to meet the Missus’s favorite “duck” of the moment? Well, “hang”(like a roast duck) in there……

Hinh Ky Mi Gia is located in the same strip mall as Pho Ca Dao, right next to World Foods Supermarket on El Cajon Boulevard. In fact it’s kinda tucked away in a corner and pretty easy to miss.

As you can tell by the sign, this used to be an outpost of Tan Ky Mi Gia. Apparently an ownership change occurred back in October….I’m sure there’s an interesting story behind this! This is a bare bones Mom and Pop operation, as you can see it’s now June, and the Tan Ky Mi Gia sign still hasn’t been replaced. The interior of the restaurant is bright and pretty clean, and though we’ve never seen the place packed, there always seem to be at least a few tables occupied, and a stream of take-out orders.

We first visited Hinh Ky a few weeks back, when it was still unseasonably cool for May. I was in the mood for some Egg Noodle Soup, and as you can tell by the name (Mi = Egg Noodle), this is one of those Chinese Vietnamese Soup joints. Which usually means decent portions at low prices…..

As we grabbed a seat, the Missus noticed that several older gentlemen were all having the same thing. With typical aplomb, the Missus asked the Owner, a really nice guy, “what are they eating?” He pointed out the dish on the menu….and this is what She got, the Egg Noodle Soup with Roasted Duck ($5.50):

Well that’s the soup portion, nice medium broth, not overly salty, with a mild hint of seafood (i.e. slight almost shrimp like flavor). The noodles were serviceable, nice and crunchy, but will get slightly softer as time passes…so the Missus’s solution? “You have to eat faster if you want crunchy…o-KAY!!!”

Want to meet the Missus’s latest duck obsession? This is the duck that came with the noodles:

Not the most beautiful roast duck, the skin perhaps not as crisp as I would like. But, man this duck had some flavor! It was also doused with a good amount of “drippings” making it extra moist. The flavors of five spice were very “upfront”, and the fat to meat ratio was good. I don’t know if they make this inhouse, but whomever makes it sure knows what they’re doing. This was a very pleasant surprise, especially for less than 6 bucks.

I decided to order the Beef Sate Egg Noodle Soup($5):

When this bowl hit the table, I thought this was going to be really good. It wasn’t bad, but very weak in flavor, and not the least bit spicy. The beef was nice and soft, and had a decent flavor, but this was overshadowed by the duck.

I’ve detailed the Missus’s “obsessions” in an earlier post, so in typical fashion we were back a few days later.

This time I tried the Dumpling and Won Ton Egg Noodle Soup($4.75):

The broth was the same as the Duck Noodle soup on the previous visit, the Char Siu had good flavor and was pretty tender. The dumpling and won tons were not as good, I’m used to dense dumplings in Mi Gia restaurants, but these were extra hard, and lacked flavor. Still, I find it very difficult to complain about a good sized bowl of noodle soup for under 5 bucks…..

This time the Missus ordered one of the “most expensive” items on the menu. The Roast Duck on Rice ($6).

Along with the nice plate of duck on fragrant jasmine rice, and little bowl of “broth”(same as the noodle soup) arrived. And a few seconds later, a bowl of duck drippings with lily buds. The Missus enjoyed this, to the last bite…to the very last bite, I’m talking about every bite. In other words, I never had a shot at it. She did tell me it was good…….let’s see, “good”, “wife”, “duck”, all very nice four letter words, but believe me I could add a few four letter words of my own!

So on to our next (yet another!) visit. The Missus had Her Duck on rice, which She said was not quite as good as on previous visits(so I actually got to have some), but also asked the Gentleman if we could just have a side order of the Five Flavor Duck. By this time he was used to seeing us, so he smiled and said, “yes, yes, anything you like, we make for you……..”

This was just ok, basically a soy sauce duck, nothing really special. Lacks the rich flavor of the Roast Duck.

I ordered the Beef Stew Rice ($5.75), which was a nice bowl of Beef Stew.

As Beef Stew goes this was just okay, I thought the flavor of the stew was very mild and lacked “richness”, though the beef was soft. The generous amount of tendon was just a tad too hard. It was still a good amount of food.

So on our most recent visit(still with me out there???), the Missus had Her Roast Duck Egg Noodle Soup, but I had to try something new, and decided on the Pork Rib Egg Noodle Soup($5):

I really enjoyed the broth, flavored with tomato, beef stew seasoning, and colored by annatto oil. The broth also had a mild touch of spice. The pork ribs looked kind of strange, very pale, and I expected the ribs to be tough, but they were pretty soft. The ribs did not have a great deal of flavor though. The shrimp, were well, shrimp in soup…….

In case you were wondering what the Missus’s strategy is: “In these types of Asian restaurants, I look to see what the older men are eating” Why, you may ask? She will look directly at me and say, “most times, older men are losing their sense of taste, and will order stuff with lot’s of flavor……just like you, heee-heeee-heee……”

So our suggestion? Try out the roast Duck here, I don’t think it’s for everybody, because the flavor can be on the strong side, and it’s the fatty drippings that really contribute much of the flavor, but the Missus loves it. This is a real Mom and Pop shop, run by a very nice couple, there are times when a Young Lady who I assume is their daughter very, very, reluctantly helps out. It cracks us up. The Ladies in the kitchen are also very nice. Once one of them came out to tell us they were out of something and apologized! What can I say about the prices…………

Hinh Ky Mi Gia(The business card I have says Hing Ky Mi Gia)
5237 El Cajon Blvd
San Diego, CA 92115

Open Daily – 8am-8pm

This story always “quacks” me up:

The Missus actually used to believed that ducks naturally had the roast duck five-spice flavor. Really! Because that was the only way She had ever had duck, Chinese Roast Duck or Peking Duck, so She thought that all ducks tasted that way! After having duck in a “European” restaurant, She still believed that most ducks tasted like roast duck. So what was the difference? She told me “must be because it’s free range!!!” he-he-he

I hope everyone is having a great week!

Hong Kong BBQ & Dim Sum – A quick Dim Sum Survey

May 30, 2007 mmm-yoso Chinese Restaurants, Dim Sum

A little over a month ago "LoriA" sent an email asking about the Dim Sum at Hong Kong BBQ & Dim Sum, a little restaurant located inside of Vinh Hung Market in Mira Mesa. She was looking for take-out Dim Sum for an event and asked if I’d ever had a chance to sample the Dim Sum. In my reply I mentioned that we had attempted to eat there once, but let’s just say that the Market was not having a "good day". It was a pretty hot summer day, and we were met with some very strong "fragrances" emanating from the meat department, which proceeded to snuff out any appetite we had. Since that day, just the mention of this restaurant would send waves of nausea pulsing through the Missus. So it looked as if I’d never get a chance to check out Hong Kong BBQ and Dim Sum.

Finally, overcome with curiosity, I decided to do a quick Dim Sum breakfast at HK BBQ. Solo, of course. My apologies to Lori, for taking so long, as I fear that the date of your event has passed.

I’ve been told that Vinh Hung Market had once been a movie theater, and you can tell by the set-up, that the restaurant has been built over the structure of a theater snack bar…right down to the lights!

Hong Kong BBQ & Dim Sum opens at 9am every day, and it seemed that most of the business is of the take-out/steam table variety. The Dim Sum is stacked in a metal tray on the steam table as well, not a promising sign.

I grabbed a seat, and after a few minutes, the harried Young Man that was working both the steam table and waiting tables handed me a fairly large menu (200+ items), and a Dim Sum card. The Dim Sum prices were the same whether you did take out or ate at the tables, and ranged from $1.95 to $2.95. There was a category for "Weekend Special", but when I asked I was told, "no, there are no specials", even though it was the weekend.

Right after placing my order, the Server walked up behind the counter and placed 2 metal containers on a tray and grabbed some Wu Gok with his bare hands, (which kinda grossed me out since he had just been handling money) laying them on a plate and pretty much dumped them on my table.

Pork Siu Mai:

Not only were these cold, but they were pretty tasteless as well. Also, all those greasy yellow spots looked like the Siu Mai in the containers above these were draining on the Siu Mai below.

Har Gow:

The Har Gow were pretty good, nice shrimp flavor, but the wrappers were a bit dried out, again from just lying in the metal pans without adequate heat and steam to keep them moist.

While I was deciding whether I could manage to eat a second Siu Mai, my Beef Tripe arrived:

This was by far the best item of the day, crisp tripe with a nice ginger-green onion-chile pepper flavor. Pretty good.

Wu Gok (Deep Fried Taro Balls)

As you can tell by the blistered appearance, these have not been fried properly and tended to crumble very easily. However, the filling of the Wu Gok was very moist, but very bland, and lacking in flavor(after further thought, I’m thinking it’s the pork). I could only bring myself to eat half of one, and took the rest home. The Missus took one bite and said, "this has no taste", and proceeded to return said item to the container, never again to see the light of day……

The service at Hong Kong BBQ was indifferent, but efficient to be honest, the poor guy was running like crazy. As you can tell the prices are on the inexpensive side(total damage, around $11 with tea), but the Dim Sum seems to be very uneven. The roast duck did look pretty good, so maybe….maybe I’ll try the Chinese BBQ next time…maybe.

Lori, if you did purchase Dim Sum from Hong Kong BBQ, I hope you had better luck than I did. And in what I though was the Coup de Grace, they couldn’t even spell "Dim Sum" correctly on the sign!

Hong Kong BBQ & Dim Sum
10550 Camino Ruiz(Inside of Vinh Hung Market)
San Diego, CA 92126

Sun-Thurs 9am-9pm
Fri-Sat 9am-930pm

The Steam Table at 99Ranch- dinner!

May 24, 2007 Cathy Chains, Chinese Restaurants, Markets & Grocers, What Cathy Eats!

mmm-yoso is the name of the blog. Welcome. Cathy is talking about food while Kirk is on vacation. I think he’ll be back tomorrow, though.

Hi. Me again. Kirk is still away. I imagine since this is the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, most of you are away and not reading this post until you are back at work. Hope it was nice for you.

It appears, through the magic of blogging, that The Mister and I pretty much wander about town with a camera and eat out a lot at sit down waiter/waitress type places. Actually, The Mister and I cook at home a lot, and Kirk and His Missus cook at home also…look at the recipe index at the bottom of the left column of this page.

Then there are the lazy days. Pick it up and bring it home…or pick it up and eat it there. 99Ranch has that steam table area of the store. We were there tonight.

Two bags of steam tray food. It is three meals for the two of us, easily.

The whole fried or soy sauce chicken is on sale this week for $3.99. They will chop it up for you. This is the fried one. The skin wasn’t as crispy as I would like, but the chicken meat is moist and flavorful and…it is only $3.99. It comes with a sauce that has 5 spice in it.

We got a two item combo($4.25) 99ranch_002 with steamed rice

The spicy salted fish and the soy sauce pork with soy sauce hard boiled eggs. The spicy salt and pepper crust is wonderful, light and crispy, as is the (mostly boneless) flaky fresh fish. The pork had a nice layer of fat on it , was soft and tender and flavorful and was not overly soy-sauce salty. The egg was nicely hard boiled and fresh and not salty either. A good, deep, rich soy flavor. I just got an email from Bill and he said it may be brown sugar sauce with fish sauce, which, upon opening the fridge and tasting it cold (at 4:40 in the morning) tastes very slightly sweet and again not salty. So it couldbe brown sugar and fish sauce. Let’s just say it is good pork and hard boiled egg in a thin brown colored sauce. The meat is tasty as is the egg and we liked it.

The combos come with soup (they gave us two- it was almost closing time). Today it was egg drop, with for some reason, one piece of corn in each bowl, and the requisite spork to use for both the soup and meal, although chopsticks are available.

We also wanted to try the chicken roll ($3)

Ground chicken and rice with light spices wrapped in fried tofu skin. Very nice here. It comes with a spicy sweet and sour sauce.

We also got the 4 piece ‘summer roll’ from the bakery area ($3.99) . Rice paper wrapped around chilled rice noodles, shrimp, lettuce and mint with a peanutty dipping sauce- always refreshing.

That’s it. Not too exciting a post, eh? Well,you know, sometimes I just like to eat some fresh food without having to cook. Not everything in my life is overly interesting, although I do share with you when it is.

There are Monday-Friday specials for $2.29 at lunch. Oh and breakfast specials also. Always fresh. There is a large eating area adjacent to the steam tray line. Across from the steam trays they sell beverages and soups. All of the 99 Ranch markets have a steam tray food area. Try it. It’s good.

Again, have a good Memorial Day weekend.

99 Ranch Market 7380 Clairmont Mesa Boulevard San Diego 92111 website

“Dude, Like Where’s All the Asian Food….”

May 15, 2007 mmm-yoso Chinese Restaurants, Dim Sum, Pho, Vietnamese Restaurants, yoso-silly

So sayeth an email I received yesterday. You gotta love those emails…… Funny thing is, the writer of the email is correct; just by coincidence it does seem that Cathy and I have done a little role-reversal! I've been doing burgers and tacos, and Cathy has been doing Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino food! How odd……

I'd just like to say, that the Missus and I are still eating up a storm, and I've got the photographic evidence to prove it. These are all revisits, so I won't bore you…I'll keep the writing to a minimum. So let's get started, shall we.

Dim Sum at China Max:

I've done posts on the Dim Sum at China Max before, just like to say, that on this visit the Dim Sum was not quite as good. As noted before, Dim Sum here is served "menu style".

The filling for the Sharkfin Dumplings was on the tough side, and the sides of the wrappers were soft and mushy, probably due to improper steaming.

The Pan Fried Shrimp and Chive Dumplings were probably the best items we had.

The contrast between the crunchy fried portion and the chewy pull of the remainder of the wrapper was excellent.

The filling of Shrimp Dumplings were fine, but the wrapper was tough and dry.

The Dried Shrimp Cheong Fun tasted a bit "off", and overly fishy, like the dried shrimp wasn't prepared properly.

We ended with simple Soy Sauce Noodles, one of my childhood favorites.

No complaints about this…so simple, but so good…..

My previous posts on China Max can be found here, here, and here. I'm pretty sure that this is just a little blip on the radar screen.

I'd also like to dedicate this post to Captain Jack, for only reasons he knows…..

China Max
4698 Convoy Street
San Diego, CA 92111

Palabok from Tita's Kitchenette:

This Missus had a craving for some Pancit Palabok, those wonderful seafood flavored noodles. Tita's Kitchenette makes Her favorite version, so I picked some up on a recent morning.

I'm not quite sure what happened, but these tasted really "flat", lacking any flavor. I dunno, any ideas?

Tita's Kitchenette
2720 East Plaza Boulevard
National City, CA 91950

Pho Dac Biet and Hu Tieu from Lucky Pho:

Every once in a while I need to recheck and verify…so when we were in the Mira Mesa area recently, I decided to grab a bowl of Pho from Lucky Pho. And I was again reminded of why I really enjoy the Pho here.

It's mostly about the broth, which is to my taste with hints of different herbs and seasonings. The Missus, not a big fan of Pho even had a taste, and said it was pretty good.

She ordered the Seafood Hu Tieu(Rice Noodles)

Nothing to write home about, really……..

My previous post on Lucky Pho can be found here. Along with a Pho retrospective.

Lucky Pho' in Lucky Seafood Supermarket
9326 Mira Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92126

A Quick Meal at Luong Hai Ky:

**** This location of LHK has closed

On this visit, I had the Missus in tow. I wanted Her to try the Won Ton and Dumpling Soup.

She enjoyed the broth, and agreed with me, that there was a hint of seafood flavor in it, though it's always been denied when I ask.

I tried out the Beef Sate Noodle Soup, and really didn't think much of it.

Nice bit of spice, but very weak in flavor overall. I rather have the version at Tan Ky Mi Gia. Still, as with most of these Vietnamese-Chinese Noodle Soup restaurants, the prices are very reasonable.

Here's my previous post on Luong Hai Ky.

Luong Hai Ky Restaurant
4633 Convoy St Ste 107
San Diego, CA 92111

You Gotta Love Filipino Parties!

A few months back we attended a party at a friend's house. It was a combination Birthday(two of us) and House Warming, Karaoke party. You can imagine the fun.

Here are some photos I took.

We brought a combination tray from Da' Kitchen half Teriyaki Chicken, half Korean Chicken.

Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings are required at these types of parties. Though this one was not from Royal Mandarin, Golden Chopsticks, or Mandarin Canton. Of course any Salt and Pepper chicken wing aficionado could tell you this by just looking at those wings.

Where is it from….stay tuned!!!

Of course you need Lumpia:

The Missus's favorite, Filipino style Empanadas. She enjoys these the best. She ate at least 5 of them….

And you must have Pancit Bihon.

There was much more food, but about that time it was my turn to sing my really, really, bad version of Love Potion Number 9. And after that, I totally forgot to take any more photos…..but you get the picture, right?

Last, but not least:

Here's something that will warm the coldest pork lover's heart:

What is it? It's a dish called Golden City Roast Pork($10.95), and it's made with Pork Belly. How can you resist?

I think I already have too many posts on Golden City, so I'll stop here.

So to answer your question Eric; "Dude, all that Asian food is like in my stomach!" LOL!

One final item(I promise). We'll be off on vacation for a few days, trying to complete our aborted vacation, I hope we make it this time. I may pop in, for a bit, but otherwise mmm-yoso is in the fine hands of our favorite "Chee-Fee" eater, Cathy. See you in a week or so!

Mandarin China- The first place I ever had “chee fee”

May 13, 2007 Cathy Chinese Restaurants, What Cathy Eats!, yoso-silly

mmm-yoso is the name of the blog. Kirk and Cathy and other friends write about food they ate. That's all it is. Today, it's Cathy's turn.

Me again. Thanks for stopping by. The Mister and I were once again driving around wasting fuel and being hungry while running some errands and fondly remembered an incident many, many years ago. It was our first Dim Sum experience. Suddenly, there we were on West Point Loma Boulevard, looking at the place. It has been there since 1980 and still doing a brisk business, including a *lot* of take out.

It was a Sunday and they were only doing to order Dim Sum- no carts rolling around, and we looked at the menu

and decided to re-live our early-early dating days back in Ann Arbor and try some favorites.

Well, there it was-Shrimp Toast, 3 pieces ($4.95). There is just something about a layer of chopped shrimp on top of a piece of crustless white bread, thickly coated with sesame seeds and deep fried that brings back so many memories. The plum sauce served with was extremely good with pieces of plum and just a hint of heat. Hot mustard in jars were on the table and that added to the flavors.

Of course, more of the memory was helped along by using forks and not chopsticks to eat our food…

We decided to try stuff we knew we should like, again sticking with the original dating experience. Ma Pu tofu (7.95)

This was the most home made Pa Pu (or Mabo, as most of us know it) we have ever had- twice cooked pork slices (not ground pork , as we usually get) sauteed with mushrooms, water chestnuts, onions and scallions in a great sauce that has a good kick of heat to it. The tofu was soft and flavorful also. We were very pleased with this choice.

I decided to try the pan fried home style noodles with BBQ pork ($7.95). The pork was not outstanding (could have had more fat marbled in it) but it was sliced into nice, thick chunks and the seasoning on it was good. It was served with a good variety of vegetables-more fresh mushrooms, carrots, water chestnuts onions and green onion tops. The accompanying sauce was great; totally different than that on the Ma Pu. Those noodles were outstanding! Nicely firm and then sauteed to a gentle crispness. Extremely satisfying.

At the end we got our bill and fortune cookies that were not wrapped a la Smart N Final. The cookies were nice and fresh, there was no charge for the very tasty Chinese Restaurant Tea flavored tea and our fortunes merely told us things we already knew:

You set your sights high and enjoy striving for the best things in life.

Age is a matter of feelings and not years.

Mandarin China 4110 West Point Loma Boulevard San Diego 92110 (619)222-6688 Sun-Th 11 am-10 p.m. Fri and Sat 11 a.m.-11 p.m.

Ah, the rest of the story. The Mister was getting ready to leave on a lengthy (more than 6 month duration ) cruise with the Navy and we met another couple here for dinner- the husband would end up being a roommate with mine and His wife was pregnant with their first child. We all were adventurous and wanted to try this 'new' phenomenon called Dim Sum. (This was a *long* time ago).We were happily ordering just about everything that came by from the nice ladies who had strong accents. One lady showed us something and I said "oh yes!" She said it was "chee fee". It had a red sauce on it. "Chee fee", she repeated and I said, yes. She pointed at something else on the cart that had no sauce and I said "no, I want that". She repeated "chee fee" a few more times and I was starting to get irritated. I insisted. There were four pieces, so each of us took one. I kept looking at it on the small plate in front of me, turning it over and trying to figure out what it was. It wasn't in a bun or steamed in a wrapper. It was something. As I put it in my mouth, I quickly spit it out, screaming " chicken feet! she was telling us it's chicken feet"… we kind of all simultaneously spit out the bony stuff back onto our plates, began laughing hysterically, and then went back and ate them. It was terribly tedious and not that tasty. The sauce wasn't even hot or spicy.

Chow King- Great Filipino Fast Food in San Diego

May 9, 2007 Cathy Chains, Chinese Restaurants, Filipino Restaurants, What Cathy Eats!

mmm-yoso!!! is the blog. I am one writer of the blog. I am Cathy and I am *so* Caucasian as is The Mister. Kirk and His Missus are Asian; they can describe stuff better than I can, but still, I know what I like. Here goes!

Hello one more time. Chow King is the #1 Oriental Fast Food chain in the Philippines. It has been around since 1985 and in 2000, became a wholly owned subsidiary of Jolibee, the *other* major fast food chain in the Philippines. In fact if you Google "Chow King" The first things that pop up are the Chow King website, Wikipedia with a description of Chow King and Jolibee.

Of course, being as Caucasian as I am, I had not heard of Chow King before seeing it in front of Seafood City.

So, it is fast food. Bright, happy, formica’d tables and chairs and a nice menu above the cash registers.

Here is a take home menu you can use to phone in an order so you can just walk in a pick up.

We decided to try a bit of everything basic. The Mister tried the "personal size" beef noodle soup with a pork Siopao. ($5.25)

The noodles were eggy and not overcooked; the beef was tender, had some fat on it (which we like) as in stew meat ; the broth was rich and very nice, and the vegetables were put in at the end, so were still crispy fresh/not mushy.

The Si0pao was:1. Huge and B) tasted fresh with lots of shredded pork on the inside. I forgot to take a photo of the cross section. It was not a skimpy fill at all. A nice, slightly peppery (not very sweet) sauce came with the bun and complimented the flavors, but was not necessary.

There were some large ads by the cash register for a new "hot" beverage- a Taho- ($2.99 for a "classic"- I had ube added for another 25¢). I thought when I saw "new" and "hot" it just meant a neat drink. It was a hot drink- hot soy, with boba on top and sweet ube on the bottom. It was really nice and I got my soy fix for the day. Yes, I said "hot" and "boba" in the same sentence; we will explore the entire concept of boba in a later post.

Anyhow..so I wanted to try the fried chicken, called "Mandarin fried chicken". Just a two piece box, with rice and a choice of sides( Bihon, Canton {egg noodles}, egg roll or pot sticker) I wanted to see how the Bihon (rice stick noodles) were prepared here. ($4.95)

Oh my- that fried chicken is great!. A light batter, crispy with mild spices, the chicken meat has such flavor and is moist. If this place was closer to home, I would be buying the ‘party pack’ every chance I got, and eating it in the car on the way home (and I drive a manual transmissioned car, which would not be a good thing). The rice was good, the Bihon was fresh and good with several small shrimp in it- a nice surprise. This two piece meal was quite filling.

A lot is offered in "party pack" or "value pack" sizes, which say they are good for up to eight persons. There is also a Breakfast menu- part of which is only available from 7-11 a.m., but another part which is available all day ( I know Dale was talking about longanisa at a good price in a note to Kirk the other day- the all day Kings Breakfast for $4.75 includes 2 main items, plus scrambled eggs, plus rice and longanisa and boneless bangus {milkfish}).

The Mister and I decided to splurge and see what the Halo Halo here was like for our dessert.

Excellent- only $3.25 and made with crushed ice, ice cream, a nice blend of canned sweet beans, canned fruit, coconut gel and what seemed to be toasted rice. It was one of the better Halo Halo’s I have had.

All in all, I was surprised at how fresh and non-Sysco’d the food was, even though it must be in some way standardized. I know there is a Jolibee just down the way, also on Mira Mesa Boulevard and another set of Jolibee/Chow King restaurants in National City {both are on East Plaza Boulevard}, so I would imagine the supply truck hits all of them with the same or similar stuff regularly.

The Mister and I were the only Caucasian people in the restaurant and, even though it was a busy Sunday, the Manager came by several times to ask us if we had any questions and was extremely friendly and helpful as was the Gentleman who took our order at the register. It was a very enjoyable experience, with food, that did not seem to be fast food at all.

Chow King 8955 Mira Mesa Boulevard (right next to, with a door into Seafood City) San Diego 92126 (858) 653-4977 Open 7 a.m.-9 p.m. 7 days Click here for website.

Midweek Dim Sum-mary…. Silver Ark and Jasmine

April 18, 2007 mmm-yoso Chinese Restaurants, Dim Sum, Xiao Long Bao

We recently had a hankering for Dim Sum, and during the course of one week revisited a few places we've posted on before. So I'll keep the verbage to a minimum.

Silver Ark

*** Silver Ark has closed

I recently received an email from "TerryY" telling me that Silver Ark had a new Dim Sum Chef, and that the prices had been lowered for some items. I recently had a weekday off, and we happened to be in the area. Like a previous visit we arrived on the late side(130pm), so I took that into consideration while eating.

Due to our late arrival there was only one cart, and a fairly limited selection. One lady wanted Char Siu Bao, and was told it would be a 15 minute wait.

Here's what we got. The Shrimp and Chive Har Gow:

Unfortunately, these were cold, and the wrappers too thick. Nice flavor, though.

Bean Curd Roll.

This was served piping hot, and overall was probably one of the better items we had. Nice flavor, moist, great textures.

Shrimp and green onion dumpling.

This was also pretty cold, the wrapper was too brittle, though again the flavors were decent.

Shrimp Cheong Fun(this was a "special" $1.99 – thanks for the recommendation Terry).

Noodle a bit too thick and gummy, very large shrimp, sauce too watery, but not too bad.

We tried finding something else we liked, but the selection was on the scarce side, so we finished up with Har Gow:

Not bad, at least these were hot. Nice plump shrimp, wrappers were a bit too thick.

Still, all of this came out to just $13, with tea. Not bad at all! To be fair, the room is on the smaller side, and we arrived a bit late in the day, so I think a revisit on a weekend is in order. The service at Silver Ark, has always been very nice and accommodating, and that's one of the reasons we'll keep coming back.

Silver Ark
8993 Mira Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92126

Jasmine

For some reason, that same weekend the Missus had a craving for Dim Sum……and wanted to go back to Jasmine again. On this Saturday morning, we decided it to give it a go mainly because it was early enough (10am) to beat the crowds. As we entered, Jasmine was fairly empty, and we were whisked away to our table without a word, and water and hot tea were silently delivered(this will be interesting later on). Soon enough the carts arrived, and though the selection was not as large as during peak periods, the Cart Ladies were in a good mood, smiling and even somewhat chatty. And we started on our way.

The Tripe.

Possibly the best item of the day. The tripe was crunchy, yet not hard, the flavor was a nice condensed chicken and mild ginger. I usually enjoy a little chili in my tripe, but this was very good.

Shrimp Cheong Fun.

The Cheong Fun was excellent, neither too thick, nor too thin, soft and velvety. The shrimp may have been on the small side, but the sauce was just about perfect, not too sweet, not too salty. Good stuff, best I've had in a long time.

The Pei Dan Jook(Congee with Duck Egg).

Singularly, the most bland, boring, and thin Jook I've had in a long time. Very, very runny, with hardly any preserved duck egg in it.

The Dried Scallop Jook with Xiao Long Bao.

If there was something even blander than the previous dish, this was it. It was not as thin and runny, though there was barely a whisper of scallop flavor. And when will I learn…never order Xiao Long Bao in a Dim Sum restaurant? Barely any soup, the filling tasted like regular pork dumpling filling.

Chicken Feet.

These "jumbo size 13 chicken feet" were well flavored, with just a touch of chili. The skin was soft, and perfect for sucking all the good connective tissue and such. The size of these made me wonder if they are now raising specially bred chickens just for their feet!

About this time it started getting a bit more crowded, and you could start to feel a palpable tension in the air. The Cart Ladies had also started getting a bit more testy, as in, when asked about a certain dumpling, they'd reply…."it seafood, it all seafood, okay!!!"

Well the Bean Curd Roll was "not" seafood.

The broth was fabulous, but the bean curd was on the hard side. It was also falling apart, and a bit messy.

The Shrimp and Chive Dumpling.

Dry wrapper, but very nicely flavored filling.

The Shrimp Dumpling.

The shrimp in these were very large, and the flavor excellent. But just as on our last visit the wrappers were really gummy and stuck to every thing. Hey, isn't this where I came in last time?

All in all, not bad. The damage? $33. Here's an interesting tidbit, I noticed that every table had tea delivered to it whether it was ordered or not. We had tea and ice water delivered without asking, it just arrived. Now we would have ordered tea, but I thought that was interesting, mainly because most Dim Sum restaurants in San Diego would ask if you wanted tea. Even more interesting was an automatic $1 charge per person for tea. So tea is automatically delivered, and you automatically pay. I have no problem paying for tea, mind you, I expect to be charged. In this day and age, not everyone has tea with Dim Sum, so I've always noticed that Dim Sum restaurants in San Diego ask if you want tea, or even better what kind of tea you want with your meal. Or maybe this is just the first time I've noticed?

Service was professional, if a bit curt, but I expect that from Jasmine.

Jasmine Seafood Restaurant
4609 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111

My previous post on Jasmine can be found here.

Road Trip: A & J Restaurant – Irvine(OC)

March 19, 2007 mmm-yoso Chinese Restaurants, Niu Rou Mian, Orange County, Road Trip

Don't you just hate it when you drive 80 miles to your destination, and find that the restaurant is unable to serve you because of a water pipe break? Well, it's no one's fault, just one of those things….but here we were in Irvine, trying to think of a plan B. The only place that came to mind was A & J, right off the Jeffrey Road offramp.

I thought it was going to be my lucky day when I immediately found a parking stall in the packed to the gills mall.

When we got to A & J, I knew my luck had run out…there was a wait, which lasted about 20 minutes…

When our number was called we were hustled to our table, and a paper "order sheet" was flung on the table…I guess we weren't that far from San Gabriel after all! The Missus was looking over the sheet, and the Server came by again, and impatiently asked the Missus if she understood Chinese…while the Missus was reading the Chinese order sheet. By this time we'd been waiting for a while, and really didn't feel very hungry any longer, so we just ordered a few things.

We started with the Si Xi Kaufu(aka Szu Hsien Kaw Fu – Four Happiness Wheat Gluten – $1.95)

Unlike a few people we know, we don't mind the spongy texture of wheat gluten, which has the ability to absorb flavor, well, like a sponge. The four items included lily buds, soy beans, tofu, and carrots. We both thought this was fairly good, nice sweet-soy flavor. But I don't think it was much better than this stuff:

The Jiang Niu Rou($3.75):

This wasn't quite as dry as it looked, but fell far short in flavor…except for the over-powering flavor of sesame oil that was drizzled on it.

Deciding to share a noodle soup, we got the combination Beef and Tendon Noodles Soup($5.75):

First the good, the tendon was perfect, soft, and full of flavor. The Beef was okay, soft, but with a bit less flavor. We opted for the thin noodles(you have a choice of the thin or thin noodles), which were pretty good, with a decent pull, and slight chewiness. Where this bowl fell really short was the soup, it was super oily. Now if you've read other posts of mine, you know that I like a decent amount of oil in my broth, but this layer of oil must've been a half inch deep. You can see the sheen of oil covering the noodles in this photo:

The broth lacked depth with only the bit of spiciness, and almost no beef flavor. We finished the meat, tendon, and noodles, and left all of the broth.

I dunno about this place…..check out the crowd as we left.

While writing this, I kept wondering what ChubbyPanda thought about the Beef Noodle Soup at A & J. I didn't recall seeing a post. So I did a quick google search, and found a mention of the NRM at A & J on another post, which you can read here. To quote; "I've eaten niu rou mian at every Chinese place in Irvine that serves it. I know whereof I speak. The only contenders that are close are A&J across the street, their's is too oily and thick…." Good ol' CP got it right….though I didn't think it was that thick. So remember to trust your inner Panda!

A & J Restaurant
14805 Jeffrey Rd Ste D
Irvine, CA 92618

A Bunch of Revisits and Updates: Ba Ren ,Golden City, Shanghai City, and Emerald

March 17, 2007 mmm-yoso Chinese Restaurants

I’ve posted on all of these places before, so I’ll try to keep the verbiage to a minimum.

Ba Ren:

*** Ba Ren has closed

I think it was Joseph who asked if there was anything new at Ba Ren. And yes, there’s a new seasonal placard.

We tried a few dishes recently – this is the top item on the placard – Dry Cooked Short Ribs($15.99):

Cross cut beef short ribs are used in this dish.

Lot’s of flavor, heat from dried chilies and a good amount of Sichuan Peppercorns. The short ribs could be a bit more tender, but the juices created from this low oil style of cooking were really good. Good contrasting textures from the mung bean sprouts and chinese celery.

Twice Cooked Beef – the last item on the placard($9.99):

In this case it’s brisket. A bit too salty for me.

A dish called something like Fish Filet with Mountain Peppers – second to the last item on the placard($10.99):

The pickled green chilies in the dish are known as “Mountain Chilies” (ye shan jiao).

Man was this dish hot, and the vinegar in the dish made it even hotter. As usual the fish was prepared perfectly, soft, yet keeping shape.

Here’s something from the regular menu that I don’t recall posting on before, mainly because it’s so rich I can only bring myself to eating it about once a year. It’s also one of Ed from Yuma’s favorites. It’s innocuously called Sichuan Pot Roast ($13.99) on the menu, and it is indeed served in an earthen pot.

It’s a pork shank slow cooked, along with a Lions Head meatball, boiled egg, and Lily Buds. The “soup” is very rich and hearty, not spicy at all.

Links to all my posts on Ba Ren can be found here, here, here, and here. I was initially going to do this as my 500th post, but that occasion just came and went in a flash.

Ba Ren
4957 Diane Ave
San Diego, CA 92117

Speaking of pork fat….ummm, we were speaking of pork fat weren’t we? We were having lunch at Golden City recently, and had ordered the usual suspects….when the Missus decided to order another item from the lunch specials…something like Steamed Pork with Minced Preserved Vegetable ($6.95 – lunch special price). And when we arrived we were a bit shocked.

First off this was quite a bit off food…..and I don’t think the Missus thought it was pork belly! Better for me, I say….. Minced preserved vegetable in a think brown “gravy”, the pork belly was tender, but very mild in flavor.

All my other Golden City Posts can be found here, here, and here.

**** Golden City has closed

Golden City Restaurant
5375 Kearny Villa Rd.
San Diego, CA 92123

Open Daily 11am – Midnight

Shanghai City Updates:

*** Update: Shanghai City is no more.

We recently had another one of our regular breakfasts at Shanghai City and quickly noticed something…..all the prices had been raised. It’s reflected on the updated placard.

So now everything is $5.95, I guess it was inevitable, the Niu Rou Mein was a great weekend bargain at $4.95.

On this day the Missus had her Eel Noodle Soup.

But I decided to try a few other items. I ordered the Beef Roll – Niu Rou Chuan ($5.95).

For the price I expected a bit more. The bread was very flaky and oily, and there were but two slivers of mildly flavored beef in the roll.

Pass.

“Alex” commented on a previous Shanghai City post that the Shanghai Chao Nian Gao is worth a try, so I ordered it.

The flavors were quite good, nice soy with a sweet edge. I still think that Shanghai City over cooks it’s rice cakes a bit.

My previous posts on Shanghai City can be found here and here.

Shanghai City
3860 Convoy St
San Diego,CA 92111

Finally, here’s a few photos from a recent visit to Emerald. For Dim Sum…..

The most interesting item was this:

I’m pretty sure that the chicken and shrimp in this “roll” was wrapped with Bamboo Pith Fungus (zhu sun)…..especially after tasting it. The Missus, who loves Bamboo Pith Fungus, loved this.

As usual, the items ran the gamut from the mediocre:

to pretty good:

I was glad that nothing suffered from sticky wrapper syndrome, where everything gets stuck. But for some reason it seemed that some of the wrappers were on the really thick side today.

Still, it sure hit the spot.

My previous posts on Emerald can be found here and here.

Emerald Seafood Restaurant
3709 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111

Hope I didn’t bore you all too much. We’ve got some new stuff coming right up.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!