mmm-yoso – Page 408 – 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.

Cappadocia: The Valleys

November 4, 2011 mmm-yoso Cappadocia, Travel, Turkey, Turkish Food

*** Not much food in this one, so you may want to just drop by tomorrow…..

After two rather damp days, the sun rose on a dry morning in Cappadocia. The Missus had wanted one day to explore some of the valleys in the area. I really wasn't looking forward to this day as the Missus is known for taking me on some major "death marches". Once she gets on a roll….look out. During breakfast, Mustapha planned out a hike for us…it sounded easy enough, a walk to Pigeon Valley which we saw from the scenic area the day before. There was some supposed Roman trail in the valley, which looked paved from up above. The valley leads from the outskirts of the town we where we were staying, Goreme to Uchisar. We made our way down the hill passing a few of our furry neighbors along the way.

The town was farly quiet at this time of the day…….

All the better to enjoy the fairy chimneys rising out of the ground.

I had to chuckle when we passed this hotel……

Yabba-Dabba-Doo!!!

At the end of the road, there really wasn't any real sign, just this on a light pole.

Unfortunately, there were two trails…..so we took the one to the left, which started by going through this tunnel.

And came out the other side.

We walked for a kilometer or two and couldn't find the road…… so we turned back and went down the trail to the right. We found the old roman road and headed into scenic Pigeon Valley.

It is called Pigeon Valley for all the pigeon houses built in the valley. Folks here used to harvest the guano to use as fertilizer.

We walked to the end of one side of the valley and found a rock wall. We walked out to the other trail and found the same. We could here the folks talking at the look-out above us, it almost felt like they were taunting us. But we just couldn't find a trail upwards to Uchisar. Un total, we walked back and forth thru the valley at least three times or more.

At this point, the Missus had built up a head of steam as we headed all the way to the hotel, where Mustapha could only laugh and tell the Missus that he'd drop us off at the beginning of Honey Valley. He was also driving these two really tough looking German women, one of whom snickered at me when I said we couldn't find the way out of Pigeon Valley, "Vvvhat! I come every year…and I have been there many times….never get lost!" No argument from me…she looked like she could body-slam me and make me submit with a figure-four leg lock. We were dropped of at the Goreme end of Honey Valley and our instructions were to hike to the Uchisar end, climb up the hillside ("be careful, it can be slippery") and catch a Dolmar (the local bus). These mini-buses are called Dolmars because of how they used to stuff people into them….just like stuffing a Dolma. Anyway we started off at the Goreme side which was just a dirt trail that led to other trails into the valley. They also call Honey Valley "Love Valley", but I haven't a clue why……..do you?

Eventually, the trails split into several trails headed in every direction, which split into trails that seemed all headed in opposite directions. We passed folks going into the opposite direction and soon enough we saw no one. We decided to head toward the direction of where we thought Uchigar was scrambling through streams and stream beds, sometimes finding trails that would suddenly end.

We walked through pasture and caves looking for footprints and occasionally finding some. Near the end of the valley we could see the road and constrruction above us. We found a pretty steep trails and scrambled up and found ourselves at the Onyx factory we had stopped at yesterday. The view of the valley was very pretty……..

From up here you could see all the trails zig-zagging in different directions below us.

As we headed out to the main road I could see Uchisar across the way. Unfortunately, the Missus was still fixated on not finding our way out of Pigeon Valley and headed off in the opposite direction. So it was goodbye bus ride back to Goreme…..

We made to scenic look-out and tried to figure out where the trail was up the mountainside.

I still couldn't figure it out and at this point I'd had enough of this hiking stuff for today. We still had the 5 kilometer walk back to Goreme…..at which point ourmy rescuer appeared, in the form of an old Renault sedan which smelled, quite wonderfully to me at the time, of cigarette smoke. The white car was driving down the road when it stopped then suddenly reversed twenty yards or so to where I was walking. The first thought in the Missus' mind was that this was some road-side mass murderer and we were his next victims, but this was Cappadocia, so of course it was a very mild mannered young man named Ahmed who pointed down the road and said; "Goreme?" What a nice guy….of course the Missus told me that I looked like I was going to drop dead by the roadside at any minute and that was what alarmed the young man into stopping. Whatever, I thought it a wonderful gesture…you gotta the folks in Turkey! When we arrived at the outskirts of town the young man stopped and starting pointing and asking me something in Turkish……after a second I realized that he was asking me where we wanted to be dropped off! People here were very nice indeed. I just motioned to the side of the road and we got out.

By this time, I was starting to get a bit hungry…..not super starving, but just in need of something to eat. We were right across the street from Nazar Borek where we had dinner the night before, so we thought, hey, why not?

This time we just simply shared a doner kebab…….

Which was really cheap at 2 TRY and ok. But it was house made Ayran that I really enjoyed. It was light, though not as frothy as other versions I've had, this simple drink of yogurt, salt, and water sure hit the spot. It was nice little break and we got to chat with the owner who we found out was a classmate of Mustapha, the owner of our hotel.

We also saw the same mutt as the night before patrolling his territory and searching for scraps.

All of this put me into a good mood…….which is when the Missus told me that She "wanted to see more valleys", sigh……. So we walked back to the Arch Palace, I took a shower, dried off, and we headed back in the direction of Goreme Open Air Museum and Zemi Valley.

And to Zemi Valley. This was the valley the Missus wanted to check out during the deluge with the trail under a foot of water, I guess She was just determined to see the place. Actually, there wasn't much interesting other than one of the small churches in the valley.

The caretaker/ticket-taker/guide/etc of this place was a hoot. The church itself is only a single tiny room, but is quite pretty. The gentleman insisted on taking photos of us. He grabbed my camera and said, "no worry, me here 26 years, me professional already…." and proceeded to pose us at various locations around the church. Most of these churches don't allow photos, so he was sure to let us know that "you take many pictures here….no problem" as he let us in.

As I mentioned before, the Ottomans believed in aniconism, thus most of the eyes on the frescos have been whited out.

The valley was nice, but I was pretty weary at this point……

We took a different trail on the way out and saw this beautiful sight.

Did you know that Cappadocia means "Land of Beautiful Horses"?

I thought this as a wonderful sight, a nice ending to our hiking the valleys…..but no….the Missus pointed across the street. There was still one more valley to see.

We walked down a dusty dirt trail, past Goreme Camping, a sort of RV-camp site, where you could pitch a tent, but restrooms and I heard there's even kitchen facilities and a pool are provided. We took a right past the Royal Balloon landing area and took in the view of Rose Valley.

Though all the ATVs zooming around the valley really distracted one from the beauty of the place.

By this point I was "vallied out" and gladly the Missus decided that it was time for a nap…..which was the best idea She had all day!

Thanks for reading……

Fish Boutique. It is-A boutique, selling and serving fish.

November 3, 2011 Cathy American/New American Restaurants, European Restaurants, Seafood

Fish Boutique has closed

mmm-yoso!!! is a food blog. Writers of this blog include Kirk, ed (from Yuma) and Cathy, among others. The guys are both busy with jobs and such. Cathy has time to blog.

Boutique- a French word for "shop", a Greek word for "storehouse". Usually associated with clothing or such, but since I am literal, those definitions make perfect sense for a place which sells and stores fish, with the bonus of serving meals…'Bistro' is so overused. When I saw the "Fish Boutique" in the Trader Joe's mall in Mira Mesa (just next to Stone Flats) one morning when we were going to 'just get milk' (the euphemism we use when we know we will be spending at least $20)…

I knew I needed to walk up to see what I could see:

A menu on the door. Not inexpensive, not overly extensive, but descriptive and tasty to my brain.

A fish counter…actually two- there is another one to the right, with a take out menu above it. Apparently they serve and sell wine.

A relatively small, un-fussy, bistro-like eating area. The fish counter area is to the right, at the other doorway.

I later learned the owner calls the food here "European modern" and that is an accurate description.

The two areas are separated by the black beaded curtain-you can see the other fish counter in this photo.

We wanted to try 'basics' on our first visit. Fish and chips ($9.50). The fish was flaky, very fresh cod, breaded in a crispy, panko/bread crumb batter (not beer batter) and served with house made smoked ketchup, cocktail sauce, lemony tartar sauce and pepper seasoned shoestring fries. An unusually high end preparation for a more or less 'common' entree. We really enjoyed this.

I ordered the sauteed shrimp sandwich($9.50)- served on a ciabatta roll.

Yes. Six very large, fresh sauteed butterflied shrimp, served on the soft yet hearty roll, topped with goat cheese and balsamic vinegar…and underneath those shrimp- thick pecan smoked bacon slices and mixed lettuces. This was heaven. I took bite with the bread, but ate the rest as a sort of salad meal. It was that good.

Of course, after coming home, we found a two for one coupon and I went back and ordered from the take out area.

Two slices of the crabmeat-spinach quiche. ($4…would be $4 each without the coupon; worth the $4 each price)

This was made of hand picked (none of that pasturized, canned stuff here) crabmeat- both King and Snow Crabs are used. The crust, as you can see, is hand made. The quiche was excellent-filled with crabmeat, spinach and a delightful custard-cheese (and nutmeg?) base. I served one half piece to each of us as a side with a steak meal at home. It could have been a meal in itself. We had to split the other piece for breakfast the next morning and I wanted more…

The fresh fish prices are good, considering the fish is fresh daily…and daily add-on a piece of cooked fish to a salad prices are posted on the door (skate was $6 the other day). As I said, not inexpensive but very much worth it. The chef, the waiters, everyone working here are very knowledgeable and helpful. Excellent European Modern food in an unexpected location.

Fish Boutique 9844 Hibert Street San Diego 92131 (858) 481-0505

COMC: Oodles of Noodles……..

November 1, 2011 mmm-yoso Chinese Restaurants, Japanese Restaurants, Los Angeles County, Vietnamese Restaurants

It's time again for me to C(lear) O(ut the) M(emory) C(ard)….and while doing that I just noticed something. I believe I'm actually eating more noodles than rice nowadays. Boy times have changed. Anyway, here it is, in all shapes, sizes, and nationalities…..

Guess where??

It's Pho King!

This Pho meatfest brought to you by Pho Saigon Star.

Man, I remember when this was like $12.95…..it's now $16.95, as a lunch special! We didn't even get decent service on this visit…sad, quite sad.

From our weekly lunch visit to Izakaya Sakura.

5: Now think of this one as an eye test….which is better…

Number one:

or number two…..

If you picked number one…..well, it was quite obvious, right? Granted, number one is from Lucky Noodle King in San Gabriel while number two is from the newly opened Liang's, but they might as well be galaxies apart. To add injury to insult, bowl number two is $2 more expensive, or maybe more since between my two visits two weeks apart, it seems that prices have already gone up..and they just opened. A post is upcoming.

By the way number one was just ok…….

And a couple more for good measure…otherwise these would have just been deleted.

I know, Chao Nian Gao are stir fried "rice cakes"…… but that's almost noodley, right?

I hope you had a great Tuesday!

Mushroom Risotto

October 31, 2011 mmm-yoso Cooking, Recipes

"Man, that looks kinda ugly….."

"It does look a little bit like natto, huh. But it tastes so good!"

"I'm not sure I can do a post on this one….."

Such was the conversation the first time I made my Mushroom Risotto a couple of weeks ago. I guess it's somehow appropriate to do a post on my kinda fugly risotto. The Missus had been asking me to make this for quite a while. And while risotto isn't really hard to make, it's a pain in the butt to babysit. You don't have constantly stir it, but you do have to give it a mix about every minute or so. Of course, as soon I brought home the arborio rice, the Missus went to work with the content and conditions…. "No butter, absolutely no butter…..no chicken stock. It has to taste very mushroom-my….." and so forth. So what I did was first make a somewhat concentrated mushroom stock. 1 ounce of dried porcini mushrooms in three cups of lukewarm water. Luckily, I had been making quite a bit of mushroom dishes and had about a pound of maitake, oyster, shiitake, and other trimmings stems and such in the freezer. To this I added about a pound and a half of chopped crimini and white mushrooms. First thing I did was take a leek (sorry, couldn't help that one), actually two leeks, half an onion, and five cloves of garlic which I chopped rather roughly. I softened the onions and leeks in a good amount of extra virgin olive oil, then added all the mushroom parts and lightly stirred over medium heat until the mushrooms started giving off it's juices. I then added 1 cup of white wine and let the thing bubble away for a few minutes. I strained the porcini liquid saving the porcini for the risotto. I added the porcini liquid (make sure not to add any grit) to the mushroom mixture along with seven cups of water. Two tablespoons of concentrated tomato paste, a dash of Worcestershire, two bay leaves,two medium carrots chopped, fresh cracked pepper, dry oregano, and some dried thyme (believe me, I was trying to figure out how to use leek and thyme in the same sentence), and all I had to do was bring it to a boil, lower the temp to a simmer and leave it to reduce for about three hours or until it reduces by about a third. After it had reduced enough, I gave it a taste, it should taste good enough to eat on its own, adjusted the salt and let it sit overnight. Of course, with nothing much else to do, I decided to peel five bulbs of garlic and make garlic confit.Instead of olive oil, I used canola oil this time around.

The next day I strained my stock, which ended up being just a little over six cups. While I warmed this on the stove I chopped the porcini, minced the other half of the onion, and shredded about one-third cup of aged parmesan cheese. The really neat thing about risotto is that you're basically using the starch from the rice to thicken the rice to the consistency you desire. I prefer mine with not too runny and with the rice being nicely al dente. Things start out with adding some extra virgin olive oil combined with some of the oil from the garlic confit and adding the onions and five cloves of confit garlic which you can mash with a spoon. When the onions soften I added the rice (didn't measure – about 1 1/2 – 2 cups) and mixed to coat well then in went half a cup of white wine letting it bubble away for a minute or so giving it a couple of good stirs. Then in went 1 cup of water to get things started. I then set my kitchen timer on twenty minutes. I'll give everything a good stir about every 30-45 seconds or so. Stirring creates friction which causes the outer layer of the rice (the endosperm) to dissolve away in the liquid. This also causes the rice to absorb some of the liquid, but using an unlidded pan also means evaporation takes place. I'll add a ladle of the warmed mushroom stock as necessary. You'll be doing this over medium heat, so be careful to stir well…scorched risotto is not good eats! At about the 18 minute mark I'll start tasting, both for texture and flavor. when it looks like we're headed down the home stretch I'll add in the cheese, porcini, and adjust the salt and pepper. You'll end up using about six cups of liquid And there you have it. The first time I made this, I was juggling the risotto, doing a pan saute of some halibut, and making a tomato ragout….talk about a three ring circus! Meanwhile, the Missus, forgetting how much time was involved was getting ravenous. By the time everything was composed….well, She went through the dish faster than Sammy and Frankie would a pata bone. So with just a bit of it left and no photo opportunity, we had that little discussion above.

Later that night, as I heated up the remaining risotto, the Missus had an idea. Guess what? "Why don't you put a poached egg on top of the risotto?" Duh….. And it was pretty darn good…..so of course the Missus wanted me to make it again this weekend.

Topped with fresh cracked pepper, sea salt, some grated aged parmesan, and of course, white truffle oil…..

Here's the requisite running egg shot…..

Man this was good………

Even if it did look a bit like poop…….. or natto…..

Bargain City: Lee’s Deli

October 30, 2011 mmm-yoso Vietnamese Restaurants

*** Lee's Deli has closed

I was doing some shopping at Minh Huong Market recently, when I noticed that a new shop had opened up in that always packed to the gills strip mall across the street.

Curious, I crossed the street and walked into the tiny little take out place.

And I do mean little. There are three tiny tables in the place, that look like they could barely hold a cup of espresso.

The woman running the place was very friendly and chatty, telling me what were the best sellers on the menu in between the stream of take-out customers, almost all older men. When she handed me the menu I almost fell down…….

Three-fifty? For bun? For Beef Sate noodle soup? She told me that I could have regular or broken rice (which is ironically usually more expensive)for the same price. I just had to find out what a $3.50 Char-broiled pork with Com Tam would look like….. ready?

Here it is.

It was actually not bad. In terms of portion size, this looked like what I grew up eating…..some protein, lots of starch. The pork wasn't too bad either, good flavor, it was actually better than what I had recently had at the San Diego location of Com Tam Thuan Kieu. The rice was decent, not too dry, the nuoc mam cham wasn't watered down……a nice deal for $3.50. It's not going to win any James Beard awards, and I'll for the inevitable ridiculous comparison of "it's not as good as xxxx" which will be three times the price and supposedly specializes in Com Tam. You know what I mean, right? Talk about lack of perspective…..

Anyway, I think this was worth $3.50, what do you think?

Lee's Deli
4748 University Ave #B
San Diego, CA 92105

Open Daily 8am – 10pm

Sort of Çılbır and the Missus’s latest egg-normous obsession

October 27, 2011 mmm-yoso Cooking, Recipes

Ever since I made the mushroom ragout with poached eggs, the Missus, already an egg lover has been requesting poached eggs at every opportunity. I've been trying to oblige though I sometimes wrack my brains trying to come up with stuff on the fly. Here's one of those on the fly recipes. Çılbır is a Turkish dish that features poached eggs on a bed of yogurt. I know it doesn't sound very appetizing to many and frankly I don't think my pictures do the dish any favors….I often have less than 10 seconds after plating the dish to get my photos taken.

A bit too much white on white, not quite the poster child for the National Egg Society or whatever it's called. This is a sorta recipe because I took what I believed was a base recipe and adjusted it to what I had on hand.

First off, you can't have that little oozy delicious poached egg lying in a bed of cold, hard yogurt, can you? We've been trying different brands of yogurt, and though nothing comes close to what we had in Greece and Turkey, I think Voskos plain is decent. Make sure you get something full fat with no starches or gelatin or other hardening agent in it I warmed the yogurt to almost room temperature using sort of a double boiler method. One eight ounce container of yogurt is enough for two (or more eggs). I added three mashed cloves of garlic confit (don't ask, that's another story), though perhaps I should have used raw garlic for a more pungent dish. Sage or some other dried herb is often used, but I don't usually have that on hand so I thought dried dill would be nice. I added about a half teaspoon of that to the yogurt sauce and simply made my bed of yogurt.

I also made an smoked paprika oil, it's usually kirmizi biber a ground chili in Turkey or Aleppo peppers. Also, butter is usually used, but the Missus has some personal problem with using butter in savory dishes…in pastries and baked goods its fine…..but no butter in anything I make. So I used a combination of extra virgin olive oil and some of the oil from the garlic confit.

Topped the whole mess with more dill and a touch of truffle oil and made even a bigger mess…..

Pretty delicious if you like runny eggs and yogurt.

Here's a gallery of the Missus's latest egg-nourmous obsessions…..first up are poached eggs on rosemary-olive oil bread from Con Pane. It's topped with porcini mushrooms, aged parmesan, and a bit of truflle oil.

This one is poached eggs on crispy polenta with a tomato ragout…..

I really should have made my own polenta, but this was a weeknight, so I went with the tube stuff. I used extra virgin olive oil and oil from my garlic confit, salt, pepper, you name it……it still was mediocre. The Missus loved the ragout though. Roma tomatoes helped by some double concentrated tomato paste, basil, sugar, garlic confit, and onions. Had barely five seconds to take this photo……it was history.

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a great week! Any big cravings recently?

Asia Cafe- As good as ever

October 26, 2011 Cathy Asian Fusion/Pacific Rim/Hawaii Style Fusion, Chinese Restaurants, Lao Restaurants, Thai Restaurants, Vietnamese Restaurants, What Cathy Eats!

Thanks for stopping in to look at mmm-yoso!!!, our food blog. Kirk is not blogging today, nor is ed(from Yuma). Cathy is sharing another meal she has enjoyed.

The first time I went to Asia Cafe, I met up with ed (from Yuma), who drove to San Diego for a visit. It was as wonderful as Kirk had described in his three posts in 2006 and I immediately understood why ed(from Yuma) would drive in (from Yuma) and make Asia Cafe one of his first stops here. Asia Cafe became part of the 'rotation' for me and The Mister. I realized the other day that that part of our rotation had somehow fallen away, probably because the wonderment which is Lao-Thai food showed up walking distance from our home in Santee, in the form of Sab-E-Lee.

Located in the corner of a small mall anchored by a Laundromat, on Market Street and 47th, Asia Cafe is easy to miss or just overlook; There's a car repair shop in the middle of that mall. However, business has always been booming, either

with most of the six tables with 28 chairs filled, or just with people picking up phoned in orders.

The menu, written in Thai and English, is only 3 pages long, has sections including Pho, Com and Bun as well as stir fried meats and fried rice dishes right next to a section of larbs, Lao-noodles, soups and curry dishes. I must say that each item I have had here is very well prepared and tasty.

So, we started this visit with deep fried spring rolls- (6 for $3.75). These were filled with pork, vegetables and clear noodles and did not have an excess of spring roll dough and were fried perfectly. Served with lettuce leaves, mint and cilantro-which complimented the Lao sweet and spicy sauce (fish sauce with a kick), these are better than average. I don't think any place else serves cilantro with fried spring rolls and the flavors seem so right together.

The other two dishes we ordered, both of which I craved, were (top part of photo) the Crying Tiger ($5.50). Beef larb, basically with at first a heat/spice level you may not have expected…but at some point the lemongrass, lemon juice, onions and fine powdery rice coating on the meat becomes so satisfying and you realize that you can taste all the flavors. This is addicting.

The bottom dish in the photo is chicken cashew nut ($5.50) A simple version of stir fried chicken, onions, straw mushrooms, scallions and cashews. The sauce is a bit sweet, but needs to be in this dish. Steamed rice is $1.50 and sticky rice is $2. One order is enough to share.

I'm so glad that Asia Cafe is still here and that the food, prices, owners and even the interior is unchanged. I do like consistency.

Asia Cafe 4710 Market Street San Diego 92102 (619) 527-1917

Closed Tuesdays. Open 10:30-6:30 M-W-Th-F, 11:00-6:30 S-S

Mariscos Monday! – Negro Durazo – a revisit

October 24, 2011 Cathy Mexican Restaurants, What Cathy Eats!

mmm-yoso!!! is a food blog and sometimes Kirk writes, sometimes ed(from Yuma) writes and sometimes Cathy writes here. Today, Cathy is writing.

Background of this post: The Mister and I were born seven days apart. This year, those days were on a Monday. He gets to choose what he wants to eat the first three days, we have to agree on what to eat the middle two days and then I get the last three days. No discussion, just a statement of what or where and for which meal. This year, we each chose Negro Durazo- for three meals. Because we really like it here.

Yes, I wrote about Negro Durazo earlier this year. Great mariscos in Lemon Grove, right off the 94 freeway. It's convenient for us when we are out that way and the food is really good.

Here is a close up of some of the outside signage.

Standard of what is brought out to the table before ordering: fresh salsa, fresh chips and cut limes.

The interior here is quite large, has menu specials displayed along the walls, has televisions and music and can get very loud at dinnertime and on weekends.

Standard tabletop condiments include an array of hot sauces, tostadas in packages and saltine crackers.

As with Mexican seafood (even mariscos trucks) your meal is preceded with a cup of seafood broth.

The Mister ordered the whole charbroiled fish ($10.95). It is a white bass (not tilapia, which is fried), cut in half, seasoned mildly and charbroiled, served with the salad. The fish is fresh, moist, flaky, smokey (in a good way) and extremely good.

I ordered the Negro Durazo tostada($6.95)…piled high on this salad plate.

Really- a lot of seafood. Raw shrimp (sliced in half), octopus, squid and cooked shrimp – marinated and cooked fresh in lime juice and mixed with tomato, cilantro and onion. So fresh and so good on a hot day.

We went back, in the same week, and ordered essentially the same items- the whole charbroiled bass (better photo)(there is a head, cut perfectly in half under the salad)…just as good…so fresh and quite large.

and the Negro Durazo coctele ($13.95)

Octopus, squid and shrimp in this… more (a lot more) seafood than on the tostada…and in a lime-ketchup(by that I mean sweet)-spicy sauce, which also had cucumber (and no onions) along with the tomatoes, cilantro and avocado. A little different and also very refreshing…excellent birthday meals.

I did say three visits during our birthday week. As you can see, there is a breakfast menu at the front door. I'll save that post for later.

Negro Durazo 6954 Federal (at Broadway and the 94) Lemon Grove 91945 (619)240-7148

Website

Sunday Sandwiches: Mercury Grill

October 23, 2011 mmm-yoso Burgers, Hot Dogs, Sandwiches

*** Mercury Grill has closed

Here's another in my series on little sandwich shops. Mercury Grill is located in the same strip mall on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard that houses Aria Cafe and Pho Fusion among others. After passing the place several times, the bright red, white, and blue sign finally got me to check the place out.

The interior is full of checkered table cloths and the menu features everything from salads to chili to pizza.

One thing I noticed right away were the prices which seemed pretty reasonable.

One my first visit I went with the Horsy Roast Beef ($4.55) and added in a drink and some fries for $1.75 more.

This was a pretty decent sandwich, not over dressed. The basic horseradish mayo added a nice bit of "bite" to the whole deal. The roast beef was decent quality and the bread was fine. The fries were you standard issue SYSCO/US Foods stuff….

And this was a perfectly adequate lunch. I felt I got my money's worth and left satisfied.

The next week, I happened to be close by during lunch and deciding to move "up the food chain" as it were, I went for the Mercury Burger ($4.25 + $1.75 for fries and a drink).

Again, this wasn't anything fancy, a simple grilled patty topped with a very mild cheddar, tomato, shredded lettuce, and thousand island dressing. I've had much worse over the last couple of months……

The burger wasn't particularly large and this suffered a bit from TMB (Too much bread) syndrome, with the roll being a bit on the dry and crumbly side. On this visit, I noticed two of the guys who work at one of the car dealerships nearby had the Bacon Dog. So on my next visit that's what I decided to get.

The Bacon Dog (sans ketchup) costs $3.49 which seemed very reasonable. With fries and a drink it was about $5.50.

The first thing I noticed was that the cheese wasn't, or would never be melted. I enjoy the texture of melted cheese. This also told me that the temperature of this was going to be lukewarm at best. Second, I wondered where the bacon was…….this was when I noticed that the dog had been split to cook quicker on the griddle. As for the bacon? Well, as I took a closer look, I found pieces of crumpled bacon and not much of it. In fact, there was so little that it really didn't add anything to the hot dog. Also, a good part of the griddled onions were burnt which added an unpleasant bitterness to the hot dog. I removed as much of it as I could.

Well, I guess as Meafloaf says "two out of three ain't bad." Mercury Grill serves up reasonably priced basic sandwiches for the working crowd. The food is simple and unpretentious….though I'm not sure I'm going to order what they call a "pizza" here after I saw one. The breakfasts seemed priced right at $2.75 – $3.90. The hours are rather limited being open from 7am to 3pm Monday to Friday.

Mercury Grill
8046 Clairemont Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92111
Hours: 7am-3pm Monday – Friday

Cappadocia – Goreme: Selime Cathedral and dinner at Nazar Borek

October 22, 2011 mmm-yoso Cappadocia, Travel, Turkey, Turkish Food

The final stop on the "Green Tour" was Selime Cathedral and Monastary which is dug into the hillside outside the town of Selime.

The location up a slippery (there's no stairs) hillside protected and probably helped preserve the ascetic lifestyle of the monks.

Most of what I've read says that the monastery was carved out of the hillside…more like a mountainside by monks in the 13th century. Though I've also been told that Christian Monks escaping from Roman rule first settled here in the tenth and eleventh centuries.

With all the diverse rock formations, I'm thinking Cappadocia must be a Geologists dream. The "Fairy Chimneys" give the terrain an otherworldly look. In fact, this was one of the area's scouted as the home of the Sand People in Star Wars. One look around you and you can easily see why.

As I mentioned, there are no stairs, you basically scramble up slippery paths up the side of the mountain…this is Turkey, there's no OSHA, handicapped access, or any of that. Many of the paths seemed to have been made by running water leaving tiny round mable like stones which sometimes make the going interesting. I also wondered how folks made it up here at night!

This kept several of the people on the tour grounded. I'm not a big fan of heights, but I wasn't going to miss this….even the ambulance I saw in the parking lot (I'm told it's always there "just in case") and the lack of railings or the prospect of the sheer drop wasn't keeping me form this one. To my surprise, I saw an elderly gentleman who used a walker at the top! Of course, going up is much easier than going down….

I was vastly rewarded for making my way up. The chambers, many of them blackened by smoke and soot had a strange and haunting quality to them.

The cathedral itself has a strangely haunting appearance.

You can easily make out the columns and some of the ornate artwork. You lose perspective and don't quite remember that you're in a cave until you turn around….

Looking closely you see the remnants of the frescoes and artwork……

All of the frescos and paintings that still remain have either the eyes whited out or the faces removed. The Ottomans, in accordance with the laws of Islam of the day practiced aniconism, which prohibits the depiction of the human form. So when the Ottomans took over……

All of the passages between the rooms had me regressing to childhood as I was having a great time exploring……

Of course, eventually we did have to make it down back to terra firma where I learned the answer to an age old question:

Why did the cow cross the road?

Well, to avoid the paparazzi, of course. Kinda corny I know, but this kinda tells you how far out in the country we were…..

Overall, the Green Tour was a very nice way to spend a day……you went from the depths of an underground city, to a walk along a gorge, to climbing up to a centuries old monastery carved into a mountain. And the ever changing topography was fascinating as well…..

We arrived back at our hotel pretty worn out and not in the mood for anything long and drawn out for dinner. In fact, just wanted something small and light. Mustapha suggested Nazar Borek Cafe and gave us instructions on how to walk there. Goreme is pretty small so it's kinda hard to get lost around the square, up in the hills perhaps, but not around the square. In fact, we saw at least eight of the people who were on the tour with us while we had dinner. The restaurant was packed when we arrived and the owner, a classmate of Mustapha's was very apologetic. But things had cleared up over the day, so dining al fresco suited us fine. The Missus decided to start with a glass of the loca wine, which she enjoyed.

As the name states, this place specializes in the stuffed pastries called Borek, of which there seemed to innumerable variations in Turkey.

The Missus actually went with a Gozleme……

She went with the Patatesli Gozleme which is filled with potato, onion, and mint which cost 5 Turkish Lira, less than $2.50 US at the time of our visit.

Remember the really lousy Gozleme was had in Istanbul? This was hundreds of times better and really quite filling.

I got the real winner of the meal when I decided on getting on of the Cigara Boregi.

I got the most expensive version, the lamb at 10 TRY (a bit less than five bucks US). As the name implies, this is a cigar shaped filled pastry and when it arrived it looked just like, say, lumpia…..

It doesn;t look like much, but the light, filo like pastry was very crisp and the lamb was well spiced, but still nice and gamey. It was quite rich and three of these filled me up.

We really enjoyed our evening here. We struck up a conversation with a young man who "works" (a very broad definition – his brother was actually working real hard. He just sat down and chatted) here during te evenings. During the day he is one of the ice cream vendors at Goreme Outdoor Museum. We asked him to do his call for ice cream and he shouted out; "Iiiii….SCREAM….Iiiii….Scream!" When we explained why we found that so humorous, he cracked up. We also found out a bit about life in the area and about him. He was a former soldier in the Turkish military who had seen quite a bit of action around the Syrian border and in other areas. He seemed to be glad to be home and we were happy to have him as company during our dinner.

We also watched the self appointed sidewalk "security guard" as he made his rounds……

He checked out everything in his area…if he didn't like you he'd start yapping. Quite a character!

We drowsily made our way back to the Arch Palace Hotel. The Missus was going to a take a loooong hot shower in the best shower she had on the trip, so I made my way to the terrace and had an Efes Beer even though my previous experience with it was terrible. And heck if it wasn't half decent. I dunno, maybe because this was the bottle version, or maybe because this was Cappadocia, land of fairy chimneys, underground cities, and monasteries carved into the hillsides.

Or maybe it was the view….cause that wasn't so bad either!

Thanks for reading!