Thai Restaurants – Page 11

Supannee House of Thai (Point Loma)

July 31, 2014 Cathy Thai Restaurants, What Cathy Eats!

mmm-yoso!!!, a food blog sharing a meal or two with you just about every day of the year. Today, both Kirk and Ed(from Yuma) are out and about and Cathy is sharing.

It's been almost a year since Kirk wrote a post about Supannee House of Thai on Point Loma. I was curious then…and things happened and I forgot about it. Just a few weeks ago, I saw that cc had finally gone here. Again, curiosity was forming.

Last weekend, cc and I had planned another road trip …and I was impatient and drove up to Glendora early on Thursday. Since she and I still had the day free, we decided to see the sights around San Diego and one of many of the planned and spur of the moment stops of the day was here. Located in a small mall at the corner of Shelter Island Drive and Scott Street, the corner storefront looks plain. However, the interior is bright, clean and modern. The regular menu has a page explaining the philosophy (It's Farm to Table Thai!) and care used in the ingredient sourcing and the special/limited menu caught our eye. Hot tea ($1.50) was brought out in this heavy cast iron pot along with a heavy cup.

The house made Essan Sausage appetizer ($9.50) was, as both Kirk and cc stated, excellent. No filler, coarsely chopped pork, plenty of fresh herbs-lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, garlic, shallots and crispy deep fried with just a touch of crispy pan fried burn, the sides of lettuce, peanuts, ginger and Thai chili were complimentary to this wonderful sausage.

CC and I both like to eat whole fish when dining out. This was a perfect way to try out the special fish of the day- a Rockfish (small, 2.5-3 lb size, $25). The beautiful presentation lent itself to having the entirety of the fish skin crispy. Tamarind, garlic, chili, pepper, mushrooms, an array of Thai spices, that fried shallot and fried basil on top…all were complimentary to the meaty firm fish.

Usually our respective husbands are there to clean the carcass.But I think we did a pretty good job. I can't wait to go back and try more of the menu.

It turns out that CC just posted her Point Of View of this same meal. Her photos and other posts relating to our busy Saturday are a nice photo-diary.

Supannee House of Thai 2907 Shelter Island Drive San Diego 92110 (619)795-THAI Mon-Thurs 11-3, 5-9; Fri 11-3, 5-9:30; Sat Noon-9:30; Sun Noon-9 Website

2015 Rose Parade Rose Parade float road test #1-and a food road trip

June 8, 2014 Cathy Bakery, Breakfast/Brunch, Festivals & Events, Los Angeles County, Markets & Grocers, Orange County, Road Trip, Stuff, Thai Restaurants, What Cathy Eats!, yoso-silly

mmm-yoso!!!, a food blog with posts centering around food, sometimes sharing the process which the acqusition of said food occurred. Kirk is busy, Ed(from Yuma) is busy and Cathy is writing.

More than a month ago, friend and fellow food blogger, cc, asked (another friend and food blogger) CAB and I to accompany her on a celebratory (beginning of vacation) food crawl 'Up North'. CAB unfortunately had a change in plans and couldn't make it. I discovered on Wednesday before our scheduled crawl that the first Rose Parade float road testing was also going to be held that Saturday morning. Checking out the road testing is something The Mister and I do and share here on the blog ( I also share decorating and other 'behind the scenes' posts about float consruction). I felt guilty, A) Because The Mister wouldn't be able to come with us and 2. For asking for a slight change in 'plans'. Except our plans included and lot of 'maybe here and maybe there' places to visit and eat..so I added one in. Of course it had to be the first thing we did that day, because testing begins at 7 a.m.. In Pasadena.

At the end of this epic day (I was at cc's home at 5 a.m. on the dot and got back to my home at 6:35 p.m.), I was exhausted, had driven 314 miles and had 327 photos on my camera (many were the same subject from different angles) and so this post is mostly photos. Details in future posts.

First the 2015 Rose Parade. The floats tested this day were all sponsored by service (volunteer) organizations. The theme of the Tournament of Roses parade is "Inspiring Stories". The Grand Marshal will be Louis Zamperini, WWII POW, Olympian and the subject of soon to be released movie, Unbroken. Each float is the interpretation of the theme by each participating organization.

Rotary International (the color coded float, depicting a wishing well and candles). Lions Club International (in it's rebar and partial coccoon stage)(can you see a wave of water and surfboards?).

Odd Fellows and Rebakahs, their float is depicting the Unknown Soldier Tomb.
Kiwanis International (being parked back into the Phoenix Decorating Company barn)(the doorway is the maximum height and width a float can be, or collapse down to, to be able to pass under street and signal lights along the parade route).
Lutheran Hour Ministries. This float is titled "The Bible, God's Story".

This will be the Donate Life float. It's in the basic stage of construction and testing. Those detailed butterflies are just so beautiful. You can see the float driver in this photo.

Now, to the food portion of this post. In order: what we ate and did. One photo from each place.

Yep. We did a LOT in a few hours. It was fun, educational, tasty and only slightly exhausting. The details will be revealed in future posts. Feel free to guess or ask questions. Hope you are having a good week!

Where we ate: First photo (Cream Pan) 2nd photo (Jones Coffee) third photo (Euro Pane) 4th photo (Galco's) 5th photo (Mae Ting's) Next photo (LAX-C) Next few photos: Velveteria, Chinatown, Queen's Bakery, Brodard, 85C, The Snowflake Factory, and finally The above photo, a Jesuit.

Krua Thai Cuisine – Sab E Lee’s legacy spreads to the South Bay

May 5, 2014 mmm-yoso Thai Restaurants

A couple weeks back, "Rik" sent me an email telling me that a new Thai Restaurant had opened in Chula Vista and was serving up Issan style dishes. Which sounded great to me. I finally found time in my schedule to head down to Broadway and check out Krua Thai.

The place is a tiny hole-in-the-wall that you'll miss if you blink while driving past Halsey Street.

The tiny place, a couple of tables and a counter, with no A/C reminded me of Sab E Lee, circa 2008. And to my extreme surprise, when the cook came out front….we both stared at each other and laughed; it was one of the cooks from the later version of the Original Sab E Lee!

Sadly, looking over the menu, I noticed few Issan dishes; I was told that there's no customer base in the South Bay for Duck Larb, Koi Soi, Nam Tok and such. Still I ordered items that I thought would give a good indication of flavor, spice, and technique.

Starting with the Yum Nuea, the beef salad.

I ordered this at a heat level "7" and it did bring it on. The base flavors were there; mild sweetness, pungent fish sauce and garlic. Protein was pretty scarce and I didn't take to the iceberg lettuce, no cabbage and really tough beef makes this lean more on the "no bueno" side.

Issan Sausage (of course).

This was very dark and the casing a bit over-fried. Flavor the same as TOSEL, after all, it's the same sausage. No cabbage, ginger, chilies, and cucumber makes this kind of fall short. The wilted cilantro made the dish look sad….but the sausage was fine in spite of how dark the casing looked.

My usual test of the cooks wok skills, Pad See Ew (with shrimp).

This lacked the color and "wok hey" that I look for in Pad See Ew. I did appreciate that the noodles weren't over-cooked. The shrimp were also done right. The flavor was good, if a bit too sweet. This one just missed the mark.

The service was very friendly and mellow. I was told they'd make me anything from Sab E Lee's menu if I ordered ahead, so you might try and do that if you visit. This place has potential, the dishes are so close, just barely missing the mark. I'm sure I'll have a better meal next time. Nice folks here, I hope they do well.

Krua Thai Cuisine
686 Broadway
Chula Vista, CA 91910

So this meal got me thinking. I hadn't been to TOSEL in a while…..as much as I've written about the place, it seems that they've kind of "jumped the shark" over the last year or so. Many of the dishes I've gotten have been uneven and some of the young folks there seem to be somewhat blase' these days. Perhaps that's what success brings…..but I really do miss Koby and the tight ship he ran.

So I decided to drop by and order the Issan Sausage and the Yum Nuea.

You can see the difference, though the Beef Salad flavors were pretty close, the meat was more tender and there was just more of it. I will say, this is not the same as the version I enjoyed back in 2008. It seems like the flavors of some of the dishes here have been somewhat diluted, probably just as the talent pool of cooks is. Sad to say, TOSEL is just not on my rotation anymore……

The Original Sab E Lee
2405 Ulric St
San Diego, CA 92111

Though I haven't been to Sab E Lee Santee in ages…….

Roadtrip: Yai Restaurant (Los Angeles) 7 years later

April 7, 2014 mmm-yoso Los Angeles County, Road Trip, Thai Restaurants

We left San Bruno at a bit after 5am the night after having a wonderful meal at Wakuriya. We decided on grabbing lunch in LA, then doing a couple of errands, then heading straight home.

We stopped at "fragrant" Harris Ranch for gas and bought some stuff for Da' Boyz. What was really funny was that the Missus had never been back to LA this way…..so when I turned off at Gilroy, She asked me "why the hell are we taking side streets!!!"

Now if you recall, this was during the first weekend of December, which was the coldest of the year. The Missus told me to take a break and She'd drive until we reached Castaic. I dozed off, but awoke when the Missus told me, "hey, check this out!" We were on the Grapevine at the Tejon Pass and my god, it was snowing……..like sideways snow. Now you have to remember, I'm a kid from Hawaii, the Missus didn't learn how to drive until She moved to the US……in LA. We don't drive in snow…..

I looked ahead……I told the Missus, "you see those vehicles in front of us? Those are snowplows!" Yep, at the Northern tip of LA County……snowplows….

This was something very different for us…..and yes, the Missus was actually fascinated by the experience.

We were very lucky, they had closed the Tejon Pass about 15 minutes later. A few minutes more and we'd had been caught in a traffic jam. Here's what it looked like in Castaic…..

We made it to our lunch destination right on time; a shade after 11am. We'd been wanting to return to Yai Restaurant for a while. Alot of water had passed under the bridge since that visit in 2006; we'd been to Thailand, Laos, had our favorites in San Diego, and were wondering if our impression of Yai would be the same.

Yai resides on the outskirts of "Thai Town". It's a no frills, no pretense, simply furnished joint. I kind of believe that what Yai does best is are Chinese influenced Thai dishes.

We ordered the two dishes that really made an impression years ago and went with one I was interested in trying.

One of the dishes that we really enjoyed was the BBQ Duck with Chili and Garlic ($10.95).

This was definitely not visually appealing. It did have that wonderful sweet-garlic flavor, though it was a bit on the greasy side. The duck was also on the chewy side, but had a really nice flavor.

The Black Egg Pow ($8.95)

So good, just the way we recalled. I don't ever recall seeing this dish anywhere else. Preserved duck egg is deep fried, then combined with a wonderfully sweet and savory sauce that captures classic Thai flavors.

The fried basil leaves add a crunchiness and a mildly sweet-herbaceous flavor to the dish. The preserved eggs have a wonderful texture, the exterior crunch, yields to the firm egg, then gives way to a creamy center. There's a slight sulphuric – musty finish that I find pleasant in a strange sort of way. This is one of my "desert island dishes".

This is simply called Roast Pork with Chinese Broccoli ($8.95) on the menu and is actually crisp roast pork with gailan. But this dish is more than just a description. I'm not sure where they get that roast pork, but it is simply wonderful. It almost melts in your mouth.

This was a nice way to end our roadtrip….it's always gratifying to visit places you really enjoyed years ago and find they're still putting out good grub.

Yai Restaurant
5757 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Green Shallots Thai Gourmet Express

March 30, 2014 mmm-yoso Thai Restaurants

**** Green Shallots has closed

Yes, even though I noticed this place back in August of last year, I took my time checking it out. For osme reason, the "Thai Gourmet Express" portion of the name made me think of bad mall food court Thai…..

Gladly, this was a "steam-table free" zone. It seems to be using the now somewhat redundant "fast- casual" model…the Chipotle-ness of the world continues. And yet, Thailand has some of the best of what I'd consider "fast food/food court" cuisine. I mean Khao Karr Moo – stewed pork shank, in a Hospital Food Court?

There was a wok station where an older gentleman did his thing….the place was shiny, clean…..

I liked the menu; it's simple, tight, poultry driven. They even sold Thai BBQ Chicken by the piece, so I started with that ($2).

I pretty much got what I expected……standard rotisserie chicken with some lemongrass flavor. It was moist, the skin a bit too rubbery for my taste, lacking the complex, nuanced flavor of good Kai Yaang; garlic, cilantro, fish sauce, sweetness from sugar and perhaps a bit of honey or something similar. The flesh was "American soft"; I actually enjoy a more toothsome and flavorful bird for dishes like this.

Seeing Roast Duck on the menu, I decided to get the Roasted Duck Thai Fried Rice – medium spicy.

The guy working the wok looked like he knew what he was doing, but the rice was on the mushy side. There was a nice amount of roasted duck, which was on the mild side in terms of flavor, but was passable. Not enough fish sauce, lacking in sweetness, the heat was one-dimensional coming via crushed red pepper flakes. Just average.

The gratis soup……well, I'd rather do without.

I wanted to give that wok chef another shot so I returned and ordered the ever so deceivingly simple Pad See Ew with Shrimp($8):

This was not terrible, at least the noodles weren't overcooked and mushy. It did lack enough color, soy sauce flavor, pungent white pepper and the very mild sweetness I enjoy in Pad See Ew. Also, the shrimp 41-50 in size were cooked to death and very rubbery. I also wasn't thrilled that they didn't use Chinese broccoli, at eight bucks for a rather small portion, I think they could have at least done that.

Overall, this isn't the Panda Express of Thai Food, but in my opinion, its bit too "gringo" for my taste. The food is prepared fresh to order. I didn't expect Sab E Lee and this place was definitely not. Like I said about J & T Thai Street Food, "I usually don't go to Chipotle when I'm craving Mexican Food, but I don't hold it against those who do."

Still, the couple on one of the tables was ooooh-ing and aah-ing about the Roast Duck Larb….so maybe someday.

Green Shallots Thai Gourmet Express
5447 Kearny Villa Rd
San Diego, CA 92123

Koon Thai Kitchen revisited

November 19, 2013 mmm-yoso Thai Restaurants

It seems like I do a post on Koon Thai at just about one year intervals…so I guess it's that time again! Before things got really busy around these parts, I managed to grab lunch with two of my co-workers, Stephanie and Lily, who are wonderful eating companions. Both of them have been to Sab E Lee before, so I thought it would be nice to drop by Koon Thai.

There have been a few changes since the last time I visited. There's some new specials and sadly, some items, though still on the menu, like the Nham Khao Tod are no longer served. On this day the Kha Pao Moo Krob and the Pad Cha Pla Tod were a no go as well.

Still, we managed to order more than enough food. Here's a round-up.

We started with the Nam Tok – Beef ($9.95):

I could tell by the color and the fragrance, or lack thereof, that this wasn't going to be a great dish. The beef was fairly tender, but the flavors were really lacking….not enough lime juice, not enough heat (at a 7), not enough fish sauce, just not enough……

I was never a fan of the Pad See Ew here, but thought I'd give it another try. So we ordered the chicken version ($8.95):

The was mediocre at best…to mushy and watery, not the best display of wok skills for this simple dish that is deceptively hard to execute well. Not enough heat, needed a bit more of the caramelized soy sauce-sugar flavor. The chicken was prepped decently.

Things began looking up when the Ka Na Moo Krob (Crispy pork belly with Gailan – $9) arrived.

The pork had a nice chewwy-crunchy texture, the flavors (mild garlic-sugar-soy-fish sauce) were nicely balanced, and the gailan were cooked perfectly.

The Pla Sahm Rod ($12) was even better.

I may complain about the wok technique, but these folks sure know how to fry. Crisp, light, and moist, along with what many would think of as classic Thai flavors.

Of course I had to order the Khao Karr Moo ($7.99).

For some reason, this dish always takes us back to a Hospital Food Court of all places in Thailand. This simmered pork shank dish, obviously Chinese influenced, is just plain hearty comfort food. Lily told me this reminded her of something her dad would make…….

In the end, thought not everything went over well; there were more good than bad dishes, making Koon my second favorite Thai restaurant in the area.

Koon Thai Kitchen
3860 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111

Chopsticks Inn Restaurant-La Mesa

October 30, 2013 Cathy Asian Fusion/Pacific Rim/Hawaii Style Fusion, Chinese Restaurants, Japanese Restaurants, Thai Restaurants, What Cathy Eats!

mmm-yoso!!! is a blog. Centered mostly around food, we (Kirk, Ed(from Yuma) and Cathy) write about various places, recipes, ingredients. Here's a post about a place, written by Cathy.

As mentioned in another post, frequently I meet clients for an exchange of paperwork and often they offer to buy me lunch. I let them choose the location, asking them where's a place they enjoy- knowing they might not be as adventurous as I- and also they are aware of the price point, since they have offered to pay.

Chopsticks Inn has been in the corner of this storefront area in La Mesa since 1988. It's the same corner and shares the same parking lot as La Mesa Bistro & Bakery . The owner of Chopsticks Inn was born in SouthEast China, moved to Hong Kong where she grew up with her Grandmother and eventually moved to the US, learning Japanese and Thai cooking along the way. As you can see from the signage, a multitude of Asian cuisine choices are available.

The interior of the restaurant is decorated in a higher end Asian look. The waitstaff is friendly, efficient and knowledgeable.

We both ordered lunch specials, which came with a choice of soup. Hot and Sour and Egg Drop were our choices. When we were first seated, the fried wonton strips and small plate serving of a sweet/vinegar 'duck' sauce were brought to the table.

The Red Curry Chicken lunch plate ($7.55)- came with the soup, an egg roll (all vegetable), cream cheese fried wonton, steamed rice and a very good size serving of red curry chicken-made with fresh mushroom, red and green bell peppers and celery. Yes, celery, which was very complimentary with the flavors.

The Kung Pao chicken ($7.25) was also accompanied by the same sides, as this was also a lunch special. You can see it also had fresh mushrooms, celery and is topped with peanuts. It wasn't very spicy-hot, but was made with very fresh ingredients and tasty…had just a bit of heat, which was nice.

Fortune Cookies were brought out with the bill. I haven't seen packaged Fortune Cookies in a long time and it was fun reading and exchanging our predictions. (Hot tea was $1 each).

This was a very nice, quality meal. I noticed the Dim Sum is a la carte as well as available as platters, that Bento boxes are available at lunch and dinner prices and many noodle and rice dishes are available along with Chinese "Family" meals (priced per person). A new item they were promoting were Boba beverages.

A very interesting restaurant in an unexpected location.

Chopsticks Inn Restaurant 8687 La Mesa Boulevard La Mesa, CA 91942 open Tues-Sun 11 a.m-9 p.m. (619) 466-4470 Website

Yuma: Red Rose – Sang Chan – A Touch of Thai

September 18, 2013 ed fromyuma Thai Restaurants, What Ed Eats -You too can be like Ed!, Yuma

Believe it or not, it is really Ed (from Yuma) with another post about Yuma. I'm happy to be posting again after getting overwhelmed with work and family/health issues etc. Jeez, sometimes it's nice to have my main worry being what to eat!! It's also nice to be writing about a real Thai restaurant in Yuma AZ. How cool is that?

I was meeting Greg for lunch. "Where d’ya wanna go?" I asked.

"How about the new Thai restaurant in Foothills?"

"Huh? Where? What?” That was how I learned about Red Rose, which has morphed from a food cart parked in a lot by Fortuna Road last winter into a real brick and mortar restaurant in Pioneer Plaza. Of course, I was game for some Thai food – but skeptical, all things considered.

The restaurant occupies the space that once housed Kodiak Seafood:

The interior of the small place is tastefully furnished, but it is small with only 2 large tables and 5 or 6 smaller ones:

In the last week, I (with Greg, and with Tina) have been able to sample a variety of the dishes on the Thai part of the menu, which includes over 50 items. Tina and I started one meal with deep-fried spring rolls ($7):

These were served fresh from the fryer too hot to handle. Although no lettuce leaves were provided to help one pick them up, the accompanying ketchup based sauce was a nice balance between sweet and savory. While just a little greasy to the touch, each crunchy wrapper contained a nice selection of thinly sliced vegetables and clear noodles:

The papaya salad ($9) provided an excellent contrast:

The perfectly fresh, shredded papaya came with shredded carrot, tomato slices, Thai chilies, and a generous topping of peanuts. All of us loved the flavors, the very fresh crunchy papaya shards balanced by sweetness, spiciness, and touches of lime and savory. While I missed mashed long beans, everything else I would expect in a papaya salad was there. This is also probably a good time to mention that Red Rose will prepare dishes very spicy, if you request it. I suspect they would be happy to serve something "Thai spicy" on request though I have not been feeling that courageous recently.

The larb (available only with chicken) ($9) was also a hit with everyone. This dish showed off the tender sweetness of the chicken balanced by a deep funkiness in the sauce. While there was not much dried rice powder, this was a very satisfying item:

The yum woonsen ($9) cellophane noodles were another good and satisfying item for a hot day in Yuma:

Available with either ground chicken or ground pork, we liked the cool clear noodles highlighted with citrus flavors and spice. The sliced red onion and diced green onion provided contrast.

The Tom Yum seafood soup ($14) was generally excellent. I liked the range of seafood, 3 or 4 good sized shrimp, tender chunks of squid, sea scallops, and mussels (no fake krab anywhere). All were complemented by the savory funky spicy seafood broth, with tomato, chopped green onion, and various slices, chunks and leaves of Thai spices:

I've also had the chance to try two different curries. The yellow curry (ordered with tofu as the protein choice) ($9) was the less impressive. The mild sweet curry sauce didn't seem quite flavorful enough to make up for the numerous bland potato chunks and the cubes of fried tofu. Perhaps if we had ordered it very spicy or chosen a different protein, the results would have been better:

On the other hand, a daily special, the green curry with avocado (with chicken as the protein choice) ($14) was a hit with all of us. The green curry sauce was nicely balanced with sweet, tangy, and hot spicy notes. We also liked the mix of vegetables – the asparagus was a good addition to the peas, carrots, and sweet peppers, – and the abundant avocado chunks were smooth and buttery:

Similarly, the spicy scallop stirfry ($14) was quite good. The scallops were very fresh and not overcooked. The whole dish contained deep savory flavors. In addition, we liked the green beans and the fresh garden peas still in the pod. In fact, the presence of actual fresh peas in this dish and in the green avocado curry was a nice touch at a time when so many restaurants fall back on the convenience of frozen peas:

We also had to try a noodle dish, and I know that Kirk often has pad see ew when he goes to a new Thai restaurant, so that seemed like a good choice for us as well ($9):

Again we were impressed. The shredded fresh veggies added crunch and the cooked vegetables were al dente, another good texture addition. The sweet soy flavor of the dish was appealing, but the noodles weren't drenched in sauce. We were also happy to see some wok hey, evidence of a properly hot wok .

The restaurant has several beverage choices, including Thai iced tea:

Even better, they have an Arizona BYOB license so that customers may bring their own wine or beer.

Overall, I think Red Rose does very well. While not the best Thai food I have ever eaten, it is certainly the best Thai food that I have eaten in Yuma. Better than a lot of Thai food I've eaten in California. I'm impressed by the range of the menu, the consistent freshness of ingredients, the balancing of flavors, and the willingness to prepare dishes spicy. I also should mention that perogies (Ukrainian style) and a hot dog (keep the kiddies happy) are on the last page of the menu. But for right now, I'm sticking with the Thai food. My only worry is that this tiny restaurant will be so overcrowded by December that I won't be able to get a table anymore.

Red Rose – Sang Chan – A Touch of Thai – Thai Ukrainian American, 11274 S. Fortuna Road, Pioneer Shopping Center, 928-342-7777. Open Tuesday – Sunday from 11 am to 8:30 pm.

What we ate during the hottest 2 weeks of the year: Revisits to Izakaya Sakura, The Original Sab E Lee, Grandma Tofu and BBQ, Manila Fast Food and Desserts, and Champions Mariscos Truck

September 5, 2013 mmm-yoso Filipino Restaurants, Food Trucks, Japanese Restaurants, Korean Restaurants, Mexican Restaurants, Seafood, Sisig, Thai Restaurants

Man, the last two weeks have been brutal….call me a soft San Diegan, but I've been feeling the heat and humidity. I told Cathy that I wish it would just storm like crazy so this weather would break. No such luck so far!

Well, regardless of the weather, you've got to eat, right? So here's some of what we had during the last two weeks.

Izakaya Sakura:

It had been a while and I was craving some Ebi Kakiage cold noodles, so Izakaya Sakura it was.

This time it was the cold udon version, which hit the spot.

This really hit the spot!

Though I could have done without having to listen to Wilson Phillips Greatest Hits throughout my meal….

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

The Original Sab E Lee:

**** This location of TOSEL has closed

Spicy Thai food is a natural for us during hot muggy weather…..not sure why.

The usual suspects at the Linda Vista location.

Man, that Grilled Duck Larb just hit the spot…right between the eyes.

I swear, I recall TOSEL having A/C? Well, not on this day. The result of spicy food with no A/C had me wondering if it was the Salted Fish Fried Rice….or was it me?

The Original Sab E Lee
2405 Ulric St
San Diego, CA 92111

Grandma Tofu and BBQ:

I wanted some Bibim Naengmyun, but Buga was closed for renovation (they've since reopened). So I ended up going to Halmouny…Grandma Tofu and BBQ.

Love the flavors….bracing and refreshing. The noodles however, seemed were really rubbery, like rubberbands, I mean, naengmyun is always rather elastic, but these just would not give way!

Grandma's Tofu & BBQ
4425 Convoy St.
San Diego, CA 92111

Manila Fast Food and Desserts:

I was up in the area and decided to grab lunch. I hadn't been back in here in almost 9 months or so.

A quick look at the steam table made selecting what I wanted easy.

The Beef Mechado was much more tender than the last time I had it. The flavor was also better, much more tangy flavor and decent salt. It was on the greasy side though.

The sisig was not bad; nice pungent, sour, spice, salt….. would have been nice to have a bit of crispness in it since it was typical "SD Sisig", left-over lechon kawale. But overall; no complaints, better than I've had recently.

Manila Fast Food and Desserts
8979 Mira Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92126

Champions Mariscos Truck:

So, just as in the previous four weeks, I broke out the smoker during Labor Day weekend. I needed something fairly close by before I started the ribs, so I headed over to Champions Mariscos Truck in the parking lot of Toys R' Us on Morena.

Consomme might seem to be a bit much on a scortching day, but I can never turn it down. This was a bit too water for my taste, with a bit too much celery flavor. Not as good as my previous visits.

I went with the Arrachera y Camaron…the surf and turf taco. Not enough caramelization on the beef, but it was decently tender. The shrimp were moist and flavorful.

I decided to go with the Taco de Marlyn again.

Man, they really loaded this thing! Unlike my previous visit, it didn't seem to have too much queso…perhaps due to the amount of filling! All this "stuff" seemed to water down the flavor of the smoked fish though….but this wasn't too bad.

Champions Mariscos Truck – In the parking lot of Toys 'R Us on Morena Boulevard

So there you go….we may be overheatin', but we're still eatin'. Hope everyone is staying and keeping cool!

COMC – Places you know: Que Huong and The Original Sab E Lee Rancho Penasquitos

August 27, 2013 mmm-yoso Chicken Wings, Thai Restaurants, Vietnamese Restaurants

So a bunch of photos ("Clearing Out the Memory Card") from two places you know well if you're a regular reader of our blog.

Que Huong:

**** Que Huong has closed

Boy the place looks a lot different from when we first started coming here in 2005.

To me, a meal at Que Huong is not complete without the Fish Sauce Chicken Wings.

Like the decor, these have gotten better and better since I first tried them, as a recommendation from my good friend "YummyYummy" all the way back in 2008. I've been pushing those wings in every forum available to me since then. I was told they go through a thousand pounds of these a month, so it's no surprise that they end up on lists like Thrillist's Best Wings in San Diego.

Que Huong Restaurant
4134 University Ave
San Diego, CA 92105

The Original Sab E Lee – Rancho Penasquitos:

Yes, it's a bit out of the way for us, but the drive is worth it. Plus, the crew here have more of the originals, from the originals, they remember us, and it's nice to catch up on things.