yoso-silly – Page 34

Saturday Stuffs……

August 25, 2007 mmm-yoso Cooking, Mexican Restaurants, yoso-silly

More aimless weekend wandering………

Juanita’s Tamales:

The Missus sent me on a mission early on a recent weekend, She had been craving Barbacoa from La Nortenita. Unfortunately, suffering from some "vapor-lock" I arrived and parked on Imperial Avenue at 8am…..the restaurant opens at 830! So with some time on my hands, I went for a very hot and sweaty stroll. And on my way back, I decided to grab some tamales from the Tamale cart that always occupies the corner of 25th and Imperial.

I ended up buying 2 pork and 2 chicken($1.25/ea) from the funny Lady who laughed at my pronunciation of "Pollo"……

The Missus is the Tamale eater in the family, and She had a Chicken to start:

Her verdict? Nice flavor, decent amount of chicken, but way too dry……

Coming soon to San Diego:

We were driving down Clairemont Mesa Boulevard when a "coming soon" sign caught my eye. I immediately turned into the parking lot of the strip mall that Thai Cafe is located in, and this is what I saw:

It seems that the Hot Pot fad that had hit the San Gabriel Valley is making its way to San Diego. I know it is much too hot to think about Hot Pot right now, but I’m looking forward to this restaurant. From the sign, it looks to be an outlet of Little (Fat) Sheep, a Hot Pot chain. Hot Pot is kinda going out of style in LA, the Hacienda Heights location of Little Sheep closed down a few months ago. You can read about Little Sheep on Professor Salt’s blog here. So let’s see it took 4 years(after moving from LA) for us to get good Sichuan, 6 years for Marukai, maybe by 2010 we’ll see some Hunan food?

From the "making it’s way to San Diego" department……

Some fads hit quicker than others. Remember the post on the San Gabriel "foot fetish"? Well guess what I saw today?

I guess some fads don’t take very long to get here…..might come in handy if you do a lot of Barefoot Running!

From the "What been cooking" department:

This past weekend the Missus wanted me to grill some Hot Dogs, and joy of joys, She even let me know a day beforehand! Since we’d be grilling, I went and picked up a few "goodies" for me. I went to Zion Market and picked up some thick cut Short Ribs for Kalbi:

I decided to do something I hadn’t done in years…many, many years. That would be to butterfly my short ribs. Back home in Hawaii, my friends and I used to call this "Korean-style" Kalbi, mainly because in most of the good Korean Restaurants didn’t serve cross-cut ribs, but butterflied thick cut ribs.

You separate the ribs into sections…"riblets" if you will.

Making sure that one end has a decent thickness of meat on it, you position the rib bone side down and cut across right above the bone, making sure to NOT cut all the way through. You fold that portion over and continue making 2-3 "flaps".

One thing I quickly noticed, I haven’t done this in a verrrrry long time, and am severely out of practice. So basically my cuts sucked….

Still with my usual Kalbi marinade, it tasted pretty good.

Making the most of my grilling opportunity, I went looking for some chicken…but for some reason, I couldn’t find anything satisfactory, so I modified my "half-cup" chicken marinade, and bought a Tri-tip from Seisel’s. Usually, it’s a half cup of Creamy Peanut Butter, Soy sauce, Sugar, Beer, and Miso, with some garlic and ginger. This time a doubled the sugar and miso, and added this:

And some Red Pepper Flakes for zip. The Sichuan Peppercorns I added having tasted Professor Salt’s fantastic Tri-tip.

Turned out much better than I thought it would……..though next time I’m adding even more Sichuan Peppercorns!

Photo of the week:

If this pooch could talk….

He/She’d be saying, "are we there yet???"

Midweek Meanderings

August 1, 2007 mmm-yoso Cooking, Markets & Grocers, Vietnamese Restaurants, yoso-silly

Just a few midweek odds and ends, and other stuff….

Just An Observation

I was having lunch at Pho Hoa Hiep recently, when I gave my Com Tam dish (Com Tam Bi Cha Suon Nuong – $5.80) a "break" and came up for air.

As I gazed across the restaurant, I noticed something. Two-thirds of the customers were non-Vietnamese! During a meal a few days later, I noticed the same thing. I recall that when I first started eating here, almost all the customers were Vietnamese. I couldn’t help but smile…… You see, sometimes when I read that the "Best Chinese Restaurant" in San Diego is PF Chang’s(Pick up Stix is #4!), the "Best Japanese" is Benihana (Todai is #6!), sheesh…. This mild change in demographics tells me that San Diego’s tastes are changing, albeit slowly, and people are trying new things.

I think it’s a wonderful thing….

BTW, the Com Tam was pretty good, the pork chop was moist and tender, if a bit shy in flavor, shredded pork is tricky, this version was soft and moist, not the dry and tough stringy stuff. Not bad at all.

Rice Is Nice!

I don’t know what it is….perhaps withdrawals from doing Plate Lunch Week. But I’ve been craving rice. My rice intake had been seriously cut down since moving to San Diego, but recently…I dunno. I’ve been making stuff like Kimchee Fried Rice.

No recipe, I just use whatever’s on hand. The required ingredients are Kimchee(of course!), onions, Gochujang, and another one of those magical "four letter word" ingredients,(others being stuff like L-a-r-d and P-o-r-k) Spam®! I also like garlic in my Kimchee Fried Rice.

It could have been worse, remember my Spam® Katsu Curry?

Which led me to make stuff like this…..

Just an omelet…..

A fried rice omelet. Some left over Portuguese Sausage Fried Rice as filler……

Marukai Coming to San Diego

Check out this building on the corner of Balboa and Mercury.

No big deal, huh? Maybe a closer look….

There it is….Marukai. This looks like a 99-cent store operation, but all the buildings in the complex are being worked on. Daiso is a large Japan based "100-yen" store operation.

I’d been waiting for Marukai to open up since we moved to San Diego. I sent Marukai Corporation an email, and here’s the response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for contacting us.
We are planning to open San Diego store.
Hopefully non-food section will be open in August 2007 and food section will be in late this year.
We will put our upcoming store information at www.marukai.com.
Again, thank you for contacting us.
We hope see you at our new store soon."

Regards,
Marukai Corporation
Tel: 310-660-6300
Fax: 310-660-6301

So there it is…..

Some other posts on Marukai can be found here, here, and here.

Passionate Eater….

Like I’ve said before, I truly feel blessed to have gotten to know some of the wonderful fellow bloggers and readers of our little blog. It seems like mmm-yoso just started a short time ago, so I was a bit startled when Jay, the Proprietor of the Linkery graciously called me "The dean of San Diego food bloggers", kinda makes me feel really old……. But come to think about it, my San Diego Food Blogs typelist has really been growing, with excellent new blogs starting up all the time. I hope you give them a try.

I haven’t been able to meet one of my favorite fellow bloggers, Passionate Eater, but ‘PE’ as we call her, has always filled her wonderful posts with humor, and Her comments have always been so kind and positive. So when PE broke the news that she was leaving San Francisco, I knew that I needed to do something a bit special. This is not bad news per se, PE will be taking on exciting new challenges in New Orleans(another great food city!). Since PE was the one who requested, nay demanded that Sammy and Frankie have their own photo album, I thought this appropriate:

Good Luck PE!!!

"oh-oh, did I do that?"

In case you were wondering….

June 29, 2007 mmm-yoso yoso-silly

Where I was……here are a few hints.

I know, I know, it’s just a big red barn. But I’m sure all you "detectives" out there will start putting it together….

Nifty architecture, and this one looks really familiar….

But it’s not DC.

Or maybe there exists a food cart expert out there…

I’m not quite sold on sushi from a food cart though….

Here’s a version of a regional favorite….

Here is what it looks like in its more "common" form.

I’m sure by now you know…..so this should clinch it.

The 2007 San Diego County Fair, Part 3, which was part of Part 2.

June 22, 2007 Cathy Festivals & Events, What Cathy Eats!, yoso-silly

mmm-yoso, the blog, had some issues last night. Cathy had some issues by wanting to fall asleep. Kirk isn't going to post anyhow. He probably has issues, too.

Hi. I was trying to finish up the post about the County Fair last night and everything kept freezing up on me. Then it was Friday and I had stuff I needed to do. Here is the last of the post, and some general information.

Yep, the newest culinary sensation offered at the Fairgrounds.

I asked you to look at the skeleton on the front part of the grill in this photo.

I assume all of you correctly identified it as being from a snake, and more specifically a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, or Crotalus atrox to be completely correct.

Yes, the newest food fad is rattlesnake. Farm raised and costing the owners of this booth $41 a pound.

So, since everyone is in business to make a profit, they are charging $9.50 for rattlesnake chili and $12.50 for fried rattlesnake bites (or, Snakebites) served with fried potatoes and fried jalapeño slices.

For some reason, I do not consider chili to be a Fair Food, plus the idea of eating a tomato based sauce in the heat and sun just was not right to me, so , we opted for more fried food. Snakebites.

There ended up being nine pieces of breaded fried rattlesnake and as many potatoes and only those three jalapeños.

The breading was light and crispy and the Snake meat was not too tough or chewy. There were three of us sharing all of this food at the fair and our Friend, Ms. T, said the Snake tasted more like rabbit, while The Mister said it was kind of like muskrat, better than turtle and way better than seagull.

It was not offensive to me. I did like the breading and added some hot sauce for the potatoes.

We then went in search of cooling desserts.

Ms. T got a strawberry hot fudge waffle cone sundae.

The Mister got the ice cream square dipped in chocolate and peanuts.

I, however, still being adverse to sweets, got the "Still only 25¢" Footsie Wootsie and called it a day.

Do try and get to the Fair and maybe think about participating in some of the exhibits. It is part of our (rather large)community, but still always local.

*****************************************************

Hmmm- Cathy is wearing Cowboy Boots…why would she do that?

Yes, I wear Cowboy Boots. I know a little bit about rattlesnakes. They appear in my back yard every year about this time.

I would like to show you why farmed raised rattlers cost so much. Basically they are larger since they do not have to forage for their meals. Wild rattlesnakes do grow and gain a rattle about every year, but are constantly looking for food and are more likely to be smaller/leaner overall. Being farm raised and not having to slither all over looking and hoping for food makes you lazy and fat (remember this the next time you are sitting in a Drive Thru lane).

I know this about snakes. Because, as I said, they show up in my yard every year.

Here are the skins I preserved from two of the five rattlers I killed (no, not The Mister -me- I killed five rattlers) in 2005. You will notice the rattle in the photograph is 13 in number. Not his lucky year.

If I was not wearing Cowboy Boots, I would be permanently scarred by that one big boy; when I put the shovel on his neck, he really whipped around and hit my calf.

Here are my boots, and the rattler who died this past Sunday- June 17, 2007. Only 7 rattles.

As you noticed, you don't eat the skin. You save it. Also, you have to bury the head. You don't want it to be left out, even in the trash. Yellow jackets will eat the whole head, including the poison sac, and then if those same yellow jackets go out and sting you, well, you get the venom. You should just call your local Fire Department, on their non-emergency line and they will come out right away, kill the varmint and dispose of him properly. They will ask if you want to keep the snake and his skin. You could. Here is what you do with it.

First, nail each end onto a board, belly up. (This is a Cedar fence board from Home Depot, it costs about $1.67; if you buy a "Cedar Plank" for cooking salmon on the grill, it is one of these boards cut into 4 pieces)(it seems to cost a lot to make three cuts with a saw).

Then cut gently down the center, peel the skin off and remove the meat.

You can really see in this photo that this snake, despite being older, is mostly bone and not meat. It would be a bother to have to de-bone all of this animal and then what meat would be left would barely be worth your time and effort.

Then you flatten out the skin as much as possible and pour salt over the whole skin, to aid in the drying out. I leave it in the sun for at least a week. The one from this past Sunday is still there.

After the skin is dry, you do not want it to get hard and brittle or it will fall apart in a few years. Rinse off the salt and then coat the skin daily with glycerin (sold in the Pharmacy Department of most stores) for about another week will preserve the skin and keep it pliable for years to come.

That's it. Hope everyone has a nice first Summer weekend. Enjoy the Fair.

I’m Baaaack……

May 26, 2007 mmm-yoso yoso-silly

Yes, I’m back…..we had a nice vacation that consisted of a short trip, and a little "blog-break". I’m sure everyone enjoyed Cathy’s posts!

This vacation was mainly for my In-Laws, and most meals were consumed around various excursions. So there won’t be quite as many food posts.

So where did we go? Here’s a few hints….

This one totally gives it away…..

Of course, we did find time for a few meals…..

So of course they’ll be a few posts in the coming weeks.

Hope everyone is having a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend!

Road Trip-A long drive to eat all I could- Sunset Station Las Vegas- and visit the Pinball Hall of Fame.

May 23, 2007 Cathy Buffets, Las Vegas, Road Trip, What Cathy Eats!, yoso-silly

mmm-yoso is the blog. The bloggers are Kirk and friends. Kirk is on vacation. Cathy took a short vacation also and here is her accounting of a day in her life.

Before I start this post, I would like to take this opportunity to thank whomever thought up/invented the money losing proposition called Satellite Radio.

So, my brother (hereafter referred to as "Mr. Bally", because he asked me to) was going to be in Las Vegas for some sort of business trip two weeks ago. He told me like three days ahead of time. This has happened before.

I asked what day he would be free from business so that we could have lunch together and Tuesday was the day. I left Santee at 9 a.m. , just after traffic had cleared.

I drove. Yes. Here is the usual view when almost out of Escondido and into Temecula, just past Lawrence Welk Land.

I drove, stopped at a Starbucks someplace for coffee and then just drove.

I was alone and so I didn’t want to stop and eat. Besides, we were going to have a late lunch. Mr. Bally was staying at a company paid hotel (read: Holiday Inn Express) and I met him there.

We drove to Sunset station. It is one of the Station Casinos that are popular with the locals in Las Vegas. I do prefer the luxurious Green Valley Ranch casino out of all of the ones Station has to offer when I travel to Las Vegas and stay overnight. Then again, I don’t have an expense account and usually do not bother to stay overnight. (It was a 4 1/2 hour drive one way).

So, anyhow, we ate. Here are photos:

The buffet was $12.95 each (it was dinner time by the time we got there) and there is an option of an additional $6 for your choice of a steak, pound of crab legs or pound of chilled shrimp. We opted for the shrimp:

You will notice there are no dessert plates. I was tired, we were full and I had a long drive ahead of me.

But, there was one place we *had* to go to- Pinball Hall of Fame– It is run by one of the brothers who ran the most popular Pinball Arcades (Pinball Pete’s) in Ann Arbor and East Lansing starting back in 1970. It was very nostalgic for Mr. Bally and I. There are about 200 pinball machines in the building in a sort of run down mall just off Pecos, out of his 1200 machine collection. Photos:

There is a great article in the May 21 2007 edition of Forbes Magazine, describing the operation and its costs and that the Hall of Fame is a 501(c)3 organization (a non-profit) that donates all of the money made from the machines to The Salvation Army.

It was just a fun place to go, re-live some great memories and I got to spend time with my brother and then drive home.

There it is. Another day in my life. If some of you are taking Friday off, I hope you have a nice Memorial Day Holiday and weekend. For the rest of us, I’ll still be posting about something.

Sunset Station Casino website

Pinball Hall of Fame Museum 3330 East Tropicana at Pecos website

Tea Houses- Boba- Snacks? Why has this been kept secret?

May 22, 2007 Cathy Caffeine Fix, Dim Sum, Sandwiches, Stuff, What Cathy Eats!, yoso-silly

mmm-yoso is not on vacation. That is the name of the blog, silly. Cathy is a-blogging and Kirk is taking a much needed rest, and really is on vacation.

Oh, I am sooo the White Girl on this blog…I had no idea exactly how Caucasian I was. Sure, I had the whole "chee fee" incident, and I didn’t know sago were the same as boba and…well, I didn’t know much about boba…and, I had seen "tea houses" and "tapioca drinks" and figured ‘eh, Asian Starbucks wanna-be’s’. Really. I figured those ‘tea’ places served hot tea and those silly boba drinks. Lots of young Asian kids hang out there; I saw some drinks coming out in plastic cups and also figured well…you do know the signs say "Starbucks Coffee", right? So it must be the same- tea and those boba drinks and Starbucks makes coffee and all those frou frou drinks. No big deal.

ANYHOW…Years ago, from the place inside 99 Ranch, I got a tea and milk and ‘pearl’ drink and it was good tasting, although I thought chewing on the giant boba (tapioca pearls) was kind of like chewing on snot, albeit flavorless snot, but the boba part held not much fascination to me…I love tapioca pudding, but the actual boba in a beverage…eh. Well, I liked the tea part, then the milk and there was a lot a lot of liquid sugar…and I don’t like sweet.

Then there was an epiphany. I was having lunch with Mr. C, at Bolsa on Mira Mesa.

and we had our ‘standard’ Pho stuff:

and we started talking about boba drinks. In my mind I was thinking, ‘oh yeah, sweet stuff with snot chewies on the bottom’. However Mr. C has never steered me wrong, and he started telling me that the place in the same mall as Bolsa, Tapioca Heaven, had the *best* milk tea boba of anywhere. So, I was polite. I had the milk tea at Tapioca Heaven and it was *wonderful*. It tasted like …tea…with milk…and there was a choice of boba to put in it- regular brown, small brown, green and strawberry. You could ask for no sweetener. Who knew?

The most fascinating thing I noticed at first inside of Tapioca Heaven was that they had free wi-fi. Hello!

Then I noticed something else, much more important- they have snacks. Fried snacks. Inexpensive fried snacks. But Mr. C and I had just finished a nice lunch at Bolsa and I didn’t want to eat any more, even a snack.

and so, I wrote Kirk a note. "Why haven’t I heard of these places that sell boba drinks with snacks?" I asked. "They are wonderful- so much more fun than a Starbucks, which does fascinating high calorie coffee based beverages and sells some ‘meh’ tasting sweets and sandwiches, but by no means sell fried goodies".

The reply, from The Missus, was "Oh boba, that is so last century".

Ahem.

So anyhow, I was on a quest. Since Mr. C had told me that the boba milk tea at Tapioca Heaven was the best, I decided to make that my standard…to see if any tasted better anywhere else. Of course, I needed to try snacks also.

So The Mister and I went to Tapioca Express. See, it used to be next to Bolsaa-on Convoy. Bolsaa isn’t there any more, so you won’t be confused. It is going to become some Cajun-y place in the summer.

When you walk into Tapioca Express, the wall is lined with the menu of beverage choices. At the register, where you order and pay, were two typewritten pieces of paper with a menu. The Mister and I had to try a bit of everything.

Chicken nuggets, chicken wings, fried squid, all with a choice of no spice, medium or hot. (we tried all three,the no spice was great and the medium was good too, the hot was just a little too much in the sense that you couldn’t taste the chicken as well as with the medium spice). Steamed pork dumplings and also fried donut holes with both whipped cream and also a vanilla cream dipping sauce. Each of these snacks were less than $4 each. This is wonderful snacking- or a meal. I saw one guy with something that looked like loco moco and I will go back to try that.

Next we went to K Sandwiches, got a boba milk tea, hot milk coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice.

Also, since we were at K…I got a pate chaud; its only $1 and so flaky and fresh and filled with a wonderful pork pate mixture. A friend, who was born in France and is working out here, said it is very authentic and good.

We also got a BBQ pork Bahn Mi ( think it is Number 9 on the menu) for $3.69. Here is a cross section view of both.

Snacks, free wi fi and boba drinks. Fascination.

So, the other day The Mister and I went to the Tea Station on Clairmont Mesa. Its in the same mall as Lolita’s and Teri Cafe and that Pho place everyone says they go to.

They have sit down service inside, and a menu .

We sat down and were waited on! At the other places you would walk up and pay and wait for your drink, kind of like Starbucks.

We tried the tea flavored dumplings ($6.50)

The flavors were different between the green ones and white ones both the dumpling and the filling, but you can see in the second photo (click- all the photos enlarge) a cross section and that the dumplings were quite meaty and full, very fresh and I believe one was chicken and the other pork. They were delici-yoso!

We also had to try the fried spicy chicken ($4.50)

Lightly crispy, nice spice (you can tell them the level of spice you want). Fresh. Great. Gosh, it’s adult chicken nuggets!

Tea flavored spiced pork slices ($6.50), served with 3 side dishes, it says…either they figured we could not count because we were White, or rice is one of the sides. Whatever. Plenty of food.

Oh, and we got beverages…

Boba_011

So, anyhow, the secret is out. Tea, milk tea, boba, not Starbucks…all with free wi fi and snacks…fried snacks.

We have now gone to many of the tea places around town, not always with a camera…and we try the fried chicken at least. Nothing has been bad or disappointing.

Some of the beverages are unusual- sesame, lavender, rose, yogurt..just about everything Starbucks doesn’t have. { Snow ice, or snow bubbles are merely finely *fine* shaved ice with flavoring-kind of a Slushee®, for the White folks out there.}

Tapioca Heaven definitely had the most tea-tasting milk tea, but getting any of the beverages without sweetener helps.

Oh, and now I kind of enjoy chewing on those tapioca snot-like things….it’s part of the whole "boba experience"

Tapioca Heaven Cafe 9225 Mira Mesa Boulevard Suite 115 San Diego 92126

Tapioca Express 4646 Convoy, #106B San Diego 92111 (858) 363-9889 website

Tea Station 7315 Clairmont Mesa Boulevard San Diego 92111 (858)268-8198website

“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.

Sunday “Stuffs”

May 6, 2007 mmm-yoso yoso-silly

This past week the Missus and I were invited to dinner, along with Chubby Panda, Cat, and Elmomonster(who unfortunately couldn't make it), by the one and only Beach. We'd been looking forward to dinner with the larger than life, irrepressible Beach, ever since Chubby Panda and the other OC Foodbloggers dubbed Him the "Don of Little Saigon".

The Missus and I had an indication of how unique this evening was going to be when we ran into this caravan, a few blocks from Beach's home.

It was quite a stunning scene, watching tanks roll down the side streets of this upscale All-American residential neighborhood. The soldier was having a blast waving at all of the people staring in stunned silence as they drove down the street.

We arrived at Beach's beautiful home, and was greeted with warm smiles as we drifted into conversation, like we'd known him forever. When we had first arrived we weren't sure that we had arrived at the right place, but once we caught a whiff of the wonderful fragrances in the air, we knew we must be a the right place.

Soon the Kubota Manju started flowing, Chubby Panda and Cat arrived, and we started in on a fabulous meal. Anything I could right would pale in comparison to Cp's post, so please read it here!

I'll just share a few photos, and a few words. Just let me say that the Bun Cha Hanoi that Mr and Missus Beach made was fabulous….it has set the bar for comparisons at a very high level, which I don't think will be surpassed. Pictures speak louder than words….

See what I mean?

I'd been told many times that the best Bun Rieu can't be found in a restaurant, but in the home of a skilled cook. I now understand what was meant by that. Mrs Beach, made an awesome rendition of Bun Rieu….which also happens to be the Missus's favorite. She was in Bun Rieu nirvana.

I think I lost count after the 25th time the Missus said, "this is sooo good!" The one big revelation to me, was how soft, tender, and full of flavor the "Oc" (snail) was. We've stopped ordering Bun Rieu Oc in restaurants because of how rubbery, tough, and flavorless, the Oc usually is. This was delici-yoso!!! In fact, I mentioned that I could just eat the Oc on rice and be perfectly happy!

I found Beach to be a man of "Big"…big smile, big laugh, big portions, big voice, but most of all…big heart! Mr and Mrs Beach, we really appreciated your graciousness and generosity, and of course the food was great.

Oh wait, I think Beach and CP learned that the Missus had something "big" of Her own…. "Big Appetite"!

Thanks for everything Beach!

It was great to see you again CP, and we finally got to meet Cat. Don't forget to read CP's detailed post here.

Some updates.

What was once Osaka Kitchen, is now another outpost of Sushi Deli.

And in the strip mall on Convoy that seems to be undergoing eternal renovation, Bolsaa Vietnamese is gone, and will be replaced by Louisiana Crawfish restaurant.

Made me wonder if this will be one of those Vietnamese Cajun Shrimp/Crawfish places that have sprung up all over Little Saigon. One can always hope!