As in, yoso-silly, yoso-hungry, yoso-full, or best of all; mmm-delici-yoso!!!!! A San Diego based food and travel blog. An Ex-Pat Kama'aina and Friends explore food, restaurants, and travel from San Diego and points beyond.
I hope everyone is having a dry Sunday…this one has been a cold one!
I dropped by Izakaya Sakura this past week and they were closed. They had this sign posted:
I guess the place suffered some smoke damage from a fire next door….. I hope they reopen soon!
**** This location of TOSEL has closed
About every two weeks or so I drop by the Original Sab E Lee for take-out. I decided after my seventh post on the place in April 2010 to cut back on posting about the place. Over the course of the last year and a half, we had some really take out meals and some that weren't quite as good. I found that it's all about who is in the kitchen. Last week, the Missus told me that we should drop by the place and actually have a meal there……….which turned out to be quite nice.
There's something about getting everything fresh from the kitchen……
The Original Sab E Lee 2405 Ulric St San Diego, CA 92111
This past weekend, I happened to be in the National City area at around 10 or so. I thought I'd drop by Pinoy Fiesta since I hadn't been there for a while.
So here's the two item combination…. Menudo(which tasted like Mechado) and Sisig.
Breakfast of champions……
The menudo was nice and tangy, the beef was fairly tender, there was a nice bit of pepperyness to it. The sisig was like before, gummy, waxy, bland, and this time ice cold to boot. I'll make sure to show some restraint and pass on it next time. Like everywhere else, prices have gone up and is now in the high six dollar range.
In part 1, I went over some background info and the rules for "The Graze". Things started heating up pretty quickly. Team 'Q' and Ange went straight for the Blue line along with team XiangJiao and Trang. John decided to go along with XJ and T while I waited with YY and Peter for the Orange line. By this time Peter and Kim had made out their first stop, item # 3 Spam Musubi. The hint for this one was, "who is the father of Geometry?" Well, it's Euclid. And there happens to be an L&L right on Euclid. I was surprised to see XJ and T jump on the trolley after two stops….it turned out that they didn't read the instructions completely and went to Pho Xpress downtown for the Pho. Unfortunately the rules stated that "all of the places listed have to be on either the Orange line East of 25 & Commercial or South of the Barrio Logan stop on the Blue line." so they had wasted a bit of time. As everyone got off at Euclid, I stayed on….well….because I was getting hungry. The clue for item #5 –Braised Oxtails, Beef Pattie, Jerk was a song by the Nguyen Le Trio called "Encanto". Guess what the next stop was?
While I was waiting for my Oxtails from Caribbean Taste, I decided to send a clue out and took this photo and sent it……
About that time, I received a text from Q and Ange, attached was a photo of them eating a fish taco from place #4. The hint for that stop was the song by the GooGoo Dolls…..titled "Iris". It was a hint for the Tacos El Paisa Y Mariscos truck. Which happens to be located right across…ready now, the Iris avenue trolley stop.
Meanwhile I notice two individuals running up the parking lot…it's Peter and XiangJiao! They are actually racing to Caribbean Taste. They come running in to take a look at the menu and take a photo, without noticing that I'm sitting at one of the tables! Finally XJ sees me and starts laughing and since Peter is blocking her access to the menus she takes a photo of me as "evidence". Crazy, huh?
It seemed like the teams had a good handle on the location based on the various hints…except for #1, the Pho. The clue I sent out was a sample of Hungry Heart and I was getting worried when I started hearing "Spring Street" and "Spring Valley" mentioned. The objective was a fun and stimulating time and I didn't want to be sending out search parties. Most folks knew that #2 – the Sesos, Buche, Suadero Tacos was Tacos el Gordo, even though my hint, a sample of the 1978 hit "Bluer than Blue" (yes, I actually have that song on my iPod…laugh away my friends, I even have Don't Give up on Us Baby, ok!!!) by Michael Johnson was pretty weak.
So I jumped on the trolley, with take-out orders of food from Caribbean taste (I knew folks would be pretty hungry when they finished) and headed down to the Imperial Transit Center to get on the Blue Line. I was a couple of minutes too late for one of the funniest moments of the graze, when all three teams ran into each other at that very stop!
I headed down to Iris avenue then got back on the Blue line North to where the Pho shop I had in mind was located……..
The song Hungry Heart is by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band! and the place I had in mind was this…..
I'm thinking the grazers were pretty thankful they didn't have to eat here!
I then headed back up the line and went to Crab Hut to get us a table. It was 1325, I had estimated a 4 hour "graze". At 1341 I saw Peter run into the door of Crab Hut….I never knew Pete was so competetive! So the team of Peter/YY/Tammy C took the title, and 90 bucks! At 1357 Xianjiang walked into the restaurant……their downfall was hunger. By the time they hit Tacos el Gordo team XJ and T were so hungry they decided to stop and eat! Right at 1401 Q and Ange came strolling in…..and they had skipped two stops, a penalty of two hours. The reason? Well, they decided it would be fun to eat at each stop and after three stops was too full! They paid for the the mega-beer on the right. It's called a "shipwreck" and at Crab Hut you can request any draft beer to be part of your "wreck", so we had 96 ounces of Ballast Point Yellowtail ale. Man were we good or what? All the teams finished right around the estimated time of 1400, great job!
What I found interesting was that every team went for the extra points at the Lemon Grove stop. Though the photos were kinda interesting, like this one of Peter….that little thing that looks like a peanut in back of his giant cabeza is indeed the Lemon Grove lemon! It was a nice little study in human nature….and I think we got to know each other a little better!
In the end it was a fun time for all…with more stories than there is time, to tell. Now the question is….what's next?
I'm not quite sure, but I'm getting a bit of inspiration from this rendition (of a part of) one of my favorite Jeff Beck songs done by Lee Ritenour and Mike Stern:
I've got a great bunch of friends, every once in a while we'd plan some outing or fun event…..always with food in mind. Earlier in the year, PeterL and I started talking about doing something with the trolley. Some in our group had never ridden the trolley and we thought it would be great fun and folks would get to parts of San Diego they usually wouldn't. Still, I couldn't quite figure out how to tie in the food thing. One one weekend, JohnL and I spent a good part of our Saturday riding the trolley and an idea started to form. Why not do something along the lines of a scavenger hunt? Instead of gathering items, folks could gather food? And so the Amazing Graze 2011 was conceptualized and the call went out:
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Still, how would we involve food in this? Then it came to me, there are places we've been to, and a few I know of close to trolley stops. We decided that about 2 blocks would be tha max for places. I took John to a few locations, dealt with the "how the heck did you know about this place?" And came up with five sets of food items.
1. Pho
2. Sesos, Buche, Suadero Tacos
3. Spam Musubi
4. Fish & Camaron Tacos
5. Braised Oxtails, Beef Pattie, Jerk
We decided to remove the known and determined that as part of the rules all stops were to be found on either the Orange line East of 25 & Commercial or South of the Barrio Logan stop on the Blue line. Aaah, we had a plan! A week later, I spent an afternoon on the torlley determining a timeframe. We didn't want anyone to die of exhaustion, this had to be fun. And then I came across this as well.
Lemon is food, right? I really wanted to integrate this in the whole thing and our bonus round was born!
We started sending out clues; I sent out 4 music samples, of course no one knew what we had planned so the "grazers" just had to know the songs. Each had something to do with a stop, location, or line. But none of them knew that at the time. I had to think of a location to start and one to end…..I thought America Plaza would be great since it is one of the areas where the Orange and Blue lines cross.
A few folks in the group just aren't human without their Starbucks and there's one of those at that stop.
On the day of the "graze" everyone (minus one, more on that later) met at Starbucks and JohnL handed out his masterpiece:
Boy was I impressed at his work. Within this pamphlet was all the rules and clues of the Amazing Graze. John had integrated the MTS trolley map as well.
The buy in was $10, with the winner getting everything. Loser bought the first round of beer at our final destination. John and I would referee. Using a deck of cards, teams of two were selected. Because there was an odd number, the person who drew the joker could pick which team they wanted to be on. YY picked the joker and selected her team. TammyC was stuck in traffic, there was a terrible accident on the I-15 on that day so she was assigned the last card and ended up with PeterL. YY decided to join PeterL and the absent Tammy's team.
All else can be read…….
We'd even found out how to put the "lemon into play".
Take a photo in front of the lemon and you'd get an hour taken off your total time.
The divisions were interesting, sister against sister, husband against wives, cat-lovers against dog-lovers, peanut butter versus chocolate…… We were good friends all, but as soon as the clock got ticking it was every team for themselves as you can see by the spacing at the trolley stop!
The first problem was buying trolley tickets since a few of these folks had never ridden the trolley before! And then there was TammyC who eventually caught up with her team on the Orange line….once she had gotten off the trolley at a stop, only to see YY and Peter get on the trolley and leave! Actually, I had my money on the team of XiangJiao and Trang……
So using the list of food items above, can you figure out what the places were?
Remember:
All of the places listed can be found on either the Orange line East of 25 & Commercial or South of the Barrio Logan stop on the Blue line.
The list is not in any specific order.
All the places indicated are within 0.2 miles of a MTS trolley stop.
Were you one of the 5 millionpeople who were unwilling participants in "dark Thursday"?
I was driving on Balboa avenue at 340 pm yesterday afternoon when I noticed that all of the traffic lights went out….then I noticed all of the lights everywhere were out. It was a bit chaotic getting home; the usual 15 – 20 minute drive took twice as long and I know folks whose drive home took 3-4 times as long as usual.
We had made tentative plans for dinner, but didn't think it would be a great idea to go out and decided to just stay home as we sent text messages (for some reason voice calls wouldn't go through, but texts worked just fine) to our friends to make sure everyone was ok. So it ended up being Spam and Egg sandwiches for us……
I later went to the nearby strip mall to see what was going on…….. the supermarket, Rite Aid, and all other businesses were closed…except for the liquor store where a line stretched all the way across the strip mall:
Funny thing was, it looked like folks were buying a whole lotta beer…and not much anything else! Strange priorities….and like one of my co-workers told me: "If last night was the zombie apocalypse, we'd have been dinner….."
Man, without all that white noise it sure did seen quiet, but the moon sure did look beautiful, though my photo didn't…..
And in the end I joined all the folks who would have become zombie fodder……heck, I couldn't let those two cans of Tecate go to waste, could I?
Like they say…."when you have clamato…you make Micheladas". The overall vibe was not nearly as crazy as the last time we had anyrhing close to this and I was glad for that.
Today, I'm sorta feeling…well, outta-synch might be the best description, so we ate at home again.
FOY (Friend of Yoso) "Yummy Yummy" sent me a text almost two weeks ago telling me that Yakyudori in Hillcrest had closed. About a week later I read the same on SD Urban. Since I was in the area earlier this week….and hey, I must've won the lottery because I scored a parking space right in front of the former Yakyudori. Signage is up for a place called Raku Japanese Tapas:
And no, I don't think this place has anything to do with Aburiya Raku.
3739 6th Ave San Diego, CA 92103
Mrs Rice is now Dusit Thai Cuisine:
Now when did that happen? I ate at Golden City one week and it's Mrs Rice….I come back the next and it's just what we need in this area…..another Thai Restaurant…of course we can always use a good Thai Restaurant, so we'll see….
5375 Kearney Villa Rd San Diego, CA 92123
What does this have to do with San Diego (well, kinda)?
I try to catch Ken Kramer's About San Diego on PBS when I remember and have some time. Certain shows have fascinating tidbits….. and at then end of one of his segments he started mentioning famous folks from…..Valley Center. And one of the names he mentioned (nope it wasn't Bill Murray) was Betty Crocker….. well kinda Betty Crocker as the name is a brand name. Agnes White Tizard, a Home Economist who created and tested recipes for the Crosby Washburn Company, and was the voice of Betty Crocker on radio shows starting in 1924. Though we now know Valley Center for Valley View Casino and on this blog, places that Cathy posts about…. I thought it was fascinating to to know that Betty Crocker (kinda-sorta) lived in Valley Center!
And finally…
Do you think Sammy really likes Frosty Paws Bites???
You know….I've been tempted to eat this way on more than one occasion……
A couple of months back, the Missus requested Little Sheep for Her B-Day dinner. I took some photos as always, but never posted them. A couple of days ago, I got an email from one of my favorite FOYs (friends of yoso) who kiddingly dared me to do a hot pot post….. even though I enjoy spicy food on hot days, Sichuan Liang Mian, a good Koi Soi… man, hot pot would be pretty tough, for me. What about you?
Of course I'm expecting a comment from Ed from Yuma telling what he'd go for huo guo anytime, even after walking over cactus and tangling with gila monsters in the 120 degree Arizona heat running backwards uphill both ways….. (just joking Ed!)
Me on the other hand, I'm not so sure….. even though I know folks looove hot pot in Sichuan and other areas of China during summer.
Anyway, here's to hot pot, but maybe not on a week like we just had. I hope you enjoy the photos!
Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot & Grill 4718 Clairemont Mesa Blvd San Diego, CA 92117
The Missus just peeked over my shoulder and told me, "why are you doing a post on Little Sheep, are you nuts???" He-he-he…maybe a bit crazy from the heat?
mmm-yoso!!! is a food blog. Kirk is busy, ed(from Yuma) is busy and Cathy has some free time.
The other day, after posting about America's SPAM⢠Championship at the County Fair (at the bottom of the post), I was wanting more than a simple SPAM⢠breakfast, even though I now had some ideas for a more complicated use of the delightful canned pork and ham product.
The Mister and I were at Westfield Parkway Plaza, out here in East County. I saw this sign at Hula Hawaiian BBQ, in the Food Court. $1 for SPAM⢠musubi. I think there were restricted days or hours. Anyhow, I was in the right place at the right time and ordered two pieces (the regular price is two pieces for $3).
The warm rice topped with a nice teriyaki sauce, topped with a thick slice of grilled SPAM⢠and wrapped with a strip of seaweed- a perfect combination of flavors and texture and great food at a crazy inexpensive price. Satisfied my craving… Until two days later, when I went with a friend to ChopstixToo and was told to order "anything I craved". So, I chose the tofu salad ($4.25) (A very good size lettuce salad with par-boiled broccoli and shredded carrots and red cabbage as well as chopped tomatoes topped with about half a pound of a very silken tofu. There is salad dressing on each table here and I added it to the lettuce after enjoying it plain.) as well as SPAM⢠roll ($3.95) (apparently a 'log' of raw SPAM⢠with radish and avocado rolled in seaweed then rice and sesame). This was excellent, and exactly what I wanted.
I hope everyone gets to fulfill a craving when they are out and about. It's a great way to live.
Chopstix Too 4380 Kearny Mesa Road San Diego 92111 (858) 565-1288
I've been kinda bored with things lately, so over the last week I decided to play with my food a bit. My pantry is a bit too heavily stocked so I picked an item or two to liquidate, a would pick up some ingredients on the way home….often with little idea of what I was going to do. This is what I ended up making.
Cha Soba Tororo:
I enjoy Cha Soba, basically soba with green tea powder added. I enjoy the flavor; it seems to have some inherent saltiness with hint of green tea in the background.
A little actually goes a long way. I only made half of the bundle which was enough for two small servings. I know you can't see it but there's a bed of grated yamaimo(mountain yam) adding some refreshing…. well, snottiness to the whole dish. I picked up some ikura and benishoga on the way home. Both were on sale at Mitsuwa.
A bit of mustard and a drizzle of Chiba Shoyu and this was good to go…. the Missus didn't think much of it at first, but really enjoyed it.
I finished up my smoked duck legs, added some hiyakko tofu and konnyaku sashimi, and I had a nice refreshing summer meal.
I had also picked up some quail eggs, but really didn't know what to do with them. So I decided to take the easy way out and made some:
SPAM® Katsu Curry……something that I've posted on before. A while back Marukai had SPAM® Singles on Sale. And while the internal me cringes at how expensive this stuff actually is compared to a can of SPAM®, at least I won't feel obligated to eat the whole can of SPAM® after I open it…… wait a minute, I'm going back to cans after this!
Anyway, 1 package of singles cut in half made two panko breaded "cutlets" if you will. Two packages of Japanese Curry from the pantry, benishoga, and four quail eggs later….. You got crunchy breaded and fried SPAM® over rice appropriately formed by my musubi mold on a bed of curry, topped by some fried quail eggs.
Not something I'm particularly proud of…….. but it was tasty….. and one of my favorites. Hey maybe if Curry House had served this, they might still be open in San Diego? Nah…..
At least that's what the sign says. So now you can get a Banh Mi to go with that Durian fro-yo. I guess I'll be checking them out soon. Actually, I enjoy the lychee and coconut more than the durian yogurt here……
Flavaful Yogurt/Avian Fresh Drinking Water 6937 Linda Vista Rd San Diego, CA 92111
What I had for dinner:
I really wasn't up to going out tonight….so I made due….
Some Sun Noodle Cold Udon.
Earlier in the day I smoked some duck legs on my stove top smoker. I tried them straight out of the smoker, searing off the skin, but really didn't think the texture was too great.
I decided to deep fry the duck leg, which turned out quite well, along with some hiyakko tofu…..
I've been using my stove top smoker quite a bit recently…..
I hope everyone;s having a great Father's Day weekend!
When your spouse requests that you make something; then refuses to eat it? Well, when you have lemons……
The Missus wanted me to make Melitzano Salata; basically an eggplant dip. So being the way I am, I selected a recipe, and made it as directed, something that I'll do just to see how it turned out.
It just so happened that I selected a recipe from a Greek Cookbook that I have, and this version, in addition to the standard lemon juice, garlic, and olive oil, uses Greek Yogurt and finishes off things in a blender. It actually tasted delicious. But the Missus wanted a chunky version, and I guess just as you wouldn't give someone who wanted chunky peanut butter, smooth…. She just plain refused to eat it. And told me that, "you better finish every drop…."
So while the Missus stuck with Her oven roasted vegetables…..
I had to figure out what to do….. bread and melitzanosalata got pretty old pretty quickly. But I soon had an idea. On the way home, I bought free range chicken leg cut for karaage, which cost me all of $1.79. I smeared a good amount of the eggplant on a plate, poured some olive oil (they call it "liquid gold") we brought back from Crete on it, and brought it to room temp.
Meanwhile, taking the Ali Nazik Kebab, as my point of reference, I seasoned the chicken with sea salt, fresh cracked pepper, oregano, ground chili, and a pinch or cumin and seared it off. I placed the chicken on the bed of eggplant puree….
Served with roasted fingerling potatoes, thin slices of onion (love the bite of onion, it cuts the richness), and some sliced tomatoes (ditto the acid)…. this turned out to be pretty good.
So good, that the next night I bought some lamb loin chops on the way home and did the same……
Which was even better….. the Missus loved the lamb chops, but of course She wouldn't touch the eggplant. After all, it was a matter of principle and all that…..
Which leads me to the question. What have you made that you thought was a major flop, but in the end turned out to be delicious? You gotta love those blessed mistakes……
