mmm-yoso – Page 531 – 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.

The Buta Kakuni Experiment

February 25, 2007 mmm-yoso Cookbooks, Cooking, Recipes

*** I’ve had a few emails and several comments below asking about the origins of Buta Kakuni…best that I can tell is that Buta Kakuni is based on a Chinese Dish that the Japanese call Tonporo. Which to me means it’s probably Dong Po Rou(Dong Po Pork), if you follow the link, you’ll see that it looks very similar. Dong Po Rou is named after the poet Su Dong Po, you can see a translation of one of His poems here.

The other day, I was paging through a cookbook I had lying around titled The Japanese Kitchen, authored by Hiroko Shimbo. The recipe I just happened upon (lucky me!!!) was for Buta Kakuni, the Braised Pork dish that originated in Nagasaki Prefecture. Apparently, Buta Kakuni is based on a Chinese Pork dish, and Nagasaki was a busy port city where ships from all over the world docked. So somewhere between the sixteenth and eighteenth century Buta Kakuni arrived(lucky us!!!)……..

There are two Buta Kakuni recipes that I have used in the past. In the first recipe, the pork belly is first fried, than simmered for several hours. In the second recipe, the pork belly is first boiled in Okara(tofu lees) for several hours before a short braise in a sake-soy sauce-mirin-sugar liquid. What caught my attention was that Hiroko Shimbo’s recipe first steamed the pork belly, before cooking in the flavoring liquid. And what was even more interesting was that the pork belly was first covered with grated daikon! According to the book, Daikon contains two digestive enzymes, protease and diastase which help to remove excess fat and tenderize the pork belly.

What you see above is the result. I used the steaming technique in the book, but the flavoring is the one I’ve used before from other recipes. I’ve had some recipes from Hiroko Shimbo’s book not turn out really well. Since this was an experiment, I only used a 12oz portion of pork belly, which waaay more than enough for us! Buta Kakuni is pretty rich anyway, and I can only eat maybe 3 pieces….before the extreme remorse starts.

The Buta Kakuni Experiment

2 1/2- 3 Cups Grated Daikon(liquid and all)
1 – 1 1/2 Lb Slab of Pork Belly
1/2 Tb (or more) Grated Ginger
1 1/2 Cup Water
1/2 Cup Sake
1/3 Cup Soy Sauce
1/3 Cup Sugar
4 Tb Mirin

1 – Set steamer over a pot of rapidly boiling water
2 – In a heatproof dish(make sure that it will fit the steamer) place 1/3 of the grated daikon and liquid over the bottom of the dish. Place the pork belly on top of grated daikon. Cover the pork with the remainder of grated daikon.
3 – Transfer dish to steamer and steam for 2 to 2 1/2 hours. I use a bamboo skewer after about 90 minutes to see how tender the pork belly is. Remember to keep replenishing the steaming liquid as necessary.

4 – Once the pork can be easily pierced with a bamboo skewer, remove the dish (carefully) from the steamer. Place the pork belly in a bowl of lukewarm water and gently rinse the pork.

5 – Dry the pork with paper towels, and cut it into 2 inch cubes.
6 – In a pot large enough to hold the pork in a single payer mix together the rest of the ingredients. Place pork in pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to a simmer.
7 – Simmer for 30 minutes, and check flavoring and texture. Make adjustments and simmer for at least 30 more minutes.
* On this day I added slices of daikon and boiled eggs before the last 30 minutes of simmering. Oh, and don’t forget the Hot Mustard!

The Pork Belly was very tender, and the remaining fat was smooth and velvety. The Missus thought it a bit too sweet, but I could have done with something cooked a bit longer, but I think the pork would have started falling apart. Of course, I’ve heard of places simmering their Buta Kakuni for 12 hours or more, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that in the near future.

Lest you think I was living on pork belly alone…..

I made the Missus some Karei Karaage:

And some Chicken Karaage:

And to cut the fatty flavors, some Pickled Onions with Ogo:

And followed it all with a double shot of Lipitor(I’m kidding, of course)! I did have a bit of one of my new favorite sakes, Yaegaki "Mu"…why they would name a sake "emptyness" is beyond me. This sake has a bit of a sweeter profile(not as sweet as Kurosawa), though I think it goes really well with food.

I did wish I still had another bottle of this on hand though!

Chopstix Too!

February 24, 2007 Vicky (SF Bay Area) Japanese Restaurants, What Vicky Eats

“Hi! This is Vicky posting about her latest meal. She is extremely honored to be invited by Kirk to blog on mmm-Yoso!”

I’ll do a quick short post since Kirk’s done a more in depth post on Chopstix Too already. My friends and I have always loved the ramen and crunchy roll at Chopstix. Ever since our days of being poor college freshmen at UCSD, we’d make our weekly trek out there to get the ever so elusive crunchy roll. In fact, my best friend J who moved back up north after we graduated, made a trip to visit me just for a meal at Chopstix. Most weeks, you’d find a bunch of us grubbing here after the gym. I love their combos that are still on “Grand Opening Special.” We stopped in earlier this week after running a couple miles at the gym.
I love the Crunch Roll/Salad/Edamame combo. I get to minimize my carbs and still get a really filling meal. H tried out their California/Crunch Rolls. In the past when we came with our friends A and H, they’ve ordered the Tonkotsu Ramen which is a bowl of ramen with the milky pork bone soup. That was also really good. The soup had depth and a lot of flavor.

Chopstix is out go to place for a bowl of ramen and Chopstix Too is where to go when you can’t decide what you want! Where else can you get chicken katsu AND crunchy roll for under $6!

Burgers, continued-Islands, a ch-ch-chain, and it was good!

February 23, 2007 Cathy American/New American Restaurants, Burgers, What Cathy Eats!

mmm-yoso is not on vacation. Cathy decided to write something today, and Kirk didn’t want to. Stay, read, enjoy!

So, I am always carrying the camera around with me and pretty much eat something every day, and sometimes it tastes good (that last part was not sarcasm, based on my last few posts). The Mister and I sometimes go to Islands, usually with a gift certificate. So, here we are. Islands.

Burgers. Lots of choices. I got the Big Wave, the basic one ($6.39). 1/2 lb of beef, cooked medium rare (I asked; the menu says medium only..be polite and they may take the burger off the grill before it hits medium in heat). Comes with lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion and mustard… on a white or wheat bun. Juicy, flavorful, excellent. The bun was lightly toasted and fresh.

A side of fries? Sure.

Wow. Enough to be able to take home and fry for breakfast the next morning…fresh potatoes, medium cut, with skin, very fresh, crispy, nice. ($2.95)

The Mister got a Kaanapali Kobb salad ($9.39)(that whole New Years Resolution thing ).

Lots of lettuce, some cabbage, some chopped scallions, grilled chicken breast, chopped tomatoes, chopped bacon, chopped hard cooked egg, avocado, blue cheese chunks and tossed in a blue cheese dressing. Quite a lot also.

Good portion sizes. Fresh made for you.

As we were leaving, The Mister went to grab "Take Out and Fax menu" and there were a few interesting items on it…the primary one category that caught my eye was the "High Protein Platters"..this was not on the menu in our booth. 2 hamburger patties with American cheese and bacon, served with sliced avocado, tomatoes and wedge salad with blue cheese dressing… for $10.25; also 2 chicken breasts with melted swiss and sauteed mushrooms and the same salad with avocados and tomatoes and the same with a 1/2 rotisserie chicken…all are $10.25. Interesting. Must pay more attention.

Surprisingly good food here. I am now sort of happy to eat again, yet cautiously optimistic. Website. Islands, numerous locations in California, Arizona and one each in Colorado and Nevada.

Road Trip: Giang Nan – Monterey Park(LA)

February 22, 2007 mmm-yoso Chinese Restaurants, Los Angeles County, Road Trip, Xiao Long Bao

**** Giang Nan has closed

*** A short update can be found here.

Since we had managed to make it to Monterey Park during the eve of Chinese New Year, we decided to forgo the food stands at the Floral Street Fair, and take our chances at Giang Nan.

I say take our chances, mainly because we've never been able to get a table at Giang Nan, on every attempted visit there has been a wait list. Giang Nan resides in one of the hundreds of strip malls in the area, this time on Garfield Avenue. The restaurant is tucked away from the road at the rear of the parking lot perpendicular to the street. The restaurant itself is clean and well lit, though not very large. You've got to watch your step…not only are the tables close together, there are several inconspicuous steps that can cause you to stumble if you're not aware.

Looking over the menu, we started with the Roast Duck in Supreme Sauce($4.95):

The photo makes the dish look larger than it was. This was a single, chopped duck leg, roasted with a marinade that tasted much like a "red-cooked" Roast Duck, with that ubiquitous sweet-soy sauce flavor. I did enjoy the sticky salty sweetness.

Because we wanted a very light lunch we ordered the House Special Pork Knuckle(Pork Pump – $12.95) he-he-he:

In this case, the football sized pork shank that arrived was much, much larger than the photo suggests. From what I understand this pork shank(it is called "House Special De-Greased and Braised Pork Knuckle" on the menu) is first fried, than braised in a sauce of rock sugar and soy sauce. This shank was enough to feed six people! The meat was a bit on the tough side, though the fat was a heavenly melt in your mouth creamy, and the skin tasted great as well. We only had three slices before cholesterol remorse got the better of us.

While eating this, the Missus and I got into a interesting conversation:

"You know, you don't have an identity when it comes to New Year….."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you really don't celebrate the Western New Year, and even though you're Japanese, you mainly cook for me to celebrate the Japanese New Year, you go to the Tet Festival, and you have more fun celebrating Chinese New Year…you're obviously confused."
"Well….maybe I'm a man of all countries! Yeah, that's right, I'm a worldly person!"
"Yeah right….if you keep eating all that pork fat, you'll be worldly alright. Waaaay bigger at the equator than at the poles……"

You realize that we couldn't leave without some Xiao Long Bao, right? Here's the Pork and Crab Xiao Long Bao($4.95):

The wrappers were a bit thicker than those at Mei Long Village, and were very delicate in flavor. Unfortunately, a few of the XLB had lost their soup. I liked the ratio of soup to meat, though.

The Pork Xiao Long Bao($4.25):

These had an excellent ratio meat to soup, though I like the wrappers at Meilong Village better. Both the meat and the soup were perfect, and wonderful slightly sweet, rich, umami flavor. My favorite XLB so far. Well….. maybe now I'm not quite sure….perhaps I can talk Ed from Yuma into a XLB "crawl" this summer? Anyone game????

The prices at Giang Nan are very reasonable, the Pork XLB were only $4.25. We'll be back to try some other dishes like the Winded Chicken, The Lion's Head, Smoked Fish, and others…….

Giang Nan
306 N Garfield Avenue
Monterey Park, CA 91755

Topping out for Good Eats ~ Tip Top Meats!

February 21, 2007 Vicky (SF Bay Area) American/New American Restaurants, Markets & Grocers, What Vicky Eats

"Hi! This is Vicky posting about her latest meal. She is extremely honored to be invited by Kirk to blog on mmm-Yoso!"

So apparently I get super excited about my food, and totally forget about taking the pictures until after I'm done… Oh well, I'll have to wait until my next trip before taking pictures of the great munchies I had for……..

So we celebrated Asian New Years and I did my best to feed the poor college student that was crashing with me for the weekend. He unfortunately didn't bring anything fancier than a t shirt so my steak loving cousin couldn't take advantage of my generosity since we couldn't go to Donavan's. And besides, where else can I feed a starving college student amazingly good quality steak at less than 10 bucks a plate?! I can't even say that about TGIFridays where you get a mediocre steak for around 20! So on my way up to dropping him off in Orange County, we swung by a North County secret. It's where I drop in when I want a good hunk of steak (before Kirk posted about Siesel's), and it's where I managed to feed my mini army of guy friends who helped me move… I have a ton of stuff, so I had to bribe them with a "steak dinner." *drumroll!* Tip Top Meats!! It's a meat market/restaurant/european specialty deli or market all rolled into one. Here's a picture of the outside, where they write all their specials for their restaurants on the whiteboard:

Wowsers! They even have their daily availability of wild game and goodies to satisfy the pickiest inner carnivore. If you look on the bottom right of the corner to see their "Big John" breakfast, its the craziest entree on their breakfast meal. Their menu describes it as: "Three eggs any style, home fried potatoes, toast, and ALL* of our own delicious smokehouse bacon, pork link sausage, or polish sausage, bratwurst, or ham you can eat." *~Sorry, ALL not valid on TOGO orders (two choices of meats). All that for $5.98! S got that one time when we went shopping at the outlets down the street. They weren't kidding about the all you can eat! It seriously was all you can eat meats!

Tip Top apparently is a wholesale meat market that some of the high end local restaurants use. They have their deli on the end of the market and apparently their mentality is to cut out the middleman/distributor so their meals stay unbelievably reasonable! AND they give you an amazing portion! AND it's amazingly tasty!

But before we get to the prime rib part, more pictures of the place:
A freezer full of random things… (yes if you look at the enlargement, they have "maui ribs…" I haven't quite figured out what Maui Ribs are though… )The scary part of the store is that they have everything fresh in the meat cases AND frozen so it will keep when it travels! How convenient!

Here's a look at the crazy meat case full of meat. They had nearly every imaginable cut and part of meat. The best part was that the prices were kept very reasonable. At the same time, the staff was very knowledgeable. They had everything from veal cutlets to bacon wrapped filets. The sausages are made in house and the bacon is also smoked in house! Unfortunately when we got there around 7, they had already started covering up and cleaning up so that was the only section of the meat case that wasn't covered up or stored away. In addition to being the ultimate meat market, Tip Top also makes a plethora of European pastries…. including…. STRUDEL! Here's a picture of their gargantuan strudel: avaliable in 4 flavors, which they bake in house. They also make a wide variety of German cakes and goodies.

Each strudel was about 7 inches wide and nearly 2 feet long!!! They also carry the strudel cut into manageable serving sizes in the eatery portion. Each strudel will set you back nearly 6 dollars. Goodness… Here are a couple more shots of the marketplace.

When you have German sausages, you gotta have the German lagers and beers!

This picture is for Frankie and Sammy… At first, I just took a picture of the bones in the case but realized how there was no way to really see the size of these suckers so I shall present you my very unflattering wrist and thumb! (And yes, there is probably a herd's worth of cow femurs.) Wow… that is ONE huge bone. I'm sure it would make some amazing stock though… Although I don't know anyone who would have a stock pot big enough to cook it in.

Also available here at Tip Top is a well dressed and re ady to cook Bugs Bunny along with goat. (I recall seeing some comments a co uple days ago from a reader asking about goat availability in San Diego. I'm kinda tempted to ask Tip Top what they DON'T carry.

Along with fresh meats and frozen game, the grocery/deli/market had an amazing selection of goodies.

Here's their "condiment" section, full of every single imagineable imported ketchups/horseradish/and mustards… to go with every single imagineable sausage/wurst/link they make! I was amazed at how much stuff they carried! They even had a caviar section of imported caviars from around the world. So after much perusing and browsing and "stealth" picture taking, I joined up with the guys who were patiently standing in line by the eatery. So the eatery pretty much works like this: you stand in line, you tell her what dish you want, choose your sides – one or two sides depending on the dish, salad or soup, and generally it comes with a roll. So the reason for this visit in the first place is that from 4:30 to 8pm every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, they have prime rib. It's not the meager tough prime rib they serve at the neighborhood buffet place or even the cheap Nevada buffets. I'm talking about the GOOOOOD stuff. I actually prefer the texture of their prime rib over Donavan's! Granted they don't have the white linen tableclothes and it is pretty much a "they call your number" and you get your food and go chow type of place. So we ordered two prime rib plates, which came with 2 sides, soup or salad and a dinner roll. The choices for sides are: mashed potatoes and gravy, baked potato, french fries, sauerkraut, red cabbage, or steamed veggies. I had sauerkraut and mashed potatoes where Cousin H had the veggies and mashed potatoes. We each got a different soup; tonight they had beef barley and lentil. I don't think I enjoyed the soup that much. I'm still trying to get used to thick heavy soups, being that I was brought up on miso shiro and tofu vegetable soup. So we got our soups, and sat down. (H and I were sharing a prime rib plate… hence the two orders. I can never finish an entire plate and I hate dealing with leftovers.) So after a short while, our number was called and we picked up the immense amount of food.

So maybe presentation wasn't their forte…. And apologies for the empty soup dish. Also, I had cut a good hunk out of the top piece of prime rib before H reminded me to take pictures. Yes… it was TWO slices of prime rib on each plate! MMMMMMMmmmm! The prime rib was tender and tasty, perfectly medium, swimming in a pool of au jus served with fresh horseradish. (I'm not a fan of horseradish… maybe that's why I forgot to take a picture of it.) It was straight up European home style cooking, the gravy on the mashed potatoes was divine, same with the sauerkraut. It really helped cut whatever fat/grease was in the meal. All that food for 10 dollars and change!

Most of the entrees are under 10 dollars. The prime rib roast is probably one of my favorites to get there, they also carry a lot of German style foods including sauerbraten, rouladen, holsteiner schnitzel. They also offer veal cordon bleu for under 8! If none of the entrees tickle your fancy, you can go over to the meat counter, pick out your steak and for an extra 2.98 in addition to the market price of the raw steak, they will cook it to your liking and add in sides for a complete steak dinner.

According to their pamphlet, they will order any specialty meat and will cook anything for you provided you give them a three day notice for whole pigs and steamboat rounds.

Tip Top Meats
6118 Paseo Del Norte
Carlsbad, CA
(760) 438-2620

Open Daily from 6am to 8pm

Baby Back Jack’s Old Fashioned Broiler

February 20, 2007 mmm-yoso American/New American Restaurants, Burgers, Sandwiches, What Howie Eats - Where the Foodie from Foodieview Eats

*** Baby Back Jack's has closed

A few months back Howie, who does A Foodie's-Eye View of San Diego's Best Restaurants mentioned "Jack's Broiler" to me in an email, about a month after, Candice, who posts in Oh-So Yummy mentioned Jack's Broiler as well. So during a recent weekend, we drove on up to Hillcrest and dropped by Baby Back Jack's Old Fashioned Broiler(whew, that's a mouthful) for lunch.

If I remember correctly, this used to be a Yogurt shop. The interior of Jack's goes for a mild "retro-old fashioned" look.

And tunes like Earth Angel and Venus in Bluejeans flow throughout the restaurant.

The menu is small, but covers very familiar territory, with everything from Hot Dogs and Burgers, to Baby Back Ribs.

On this visit, the Missus went for the 1/2 of Jack's "Famous Wild Chicken"($7.95). Check out the "wild chicken"……

Basically, a roasted half chicken that is slathered with BBQ sauce and heated on the grill. The chicken comes with Coleslaw and one "side", in this case the Missus chose fries.

The Missus told me the coleslaw wasn't really that great, a bit on the sweet side for Her…but She did scarf it up. I loved the fries, which were the skin-on natural style fries, with a chili-garlic-paprika seasoning. The Missus thought the fries were a bit on the salty side…but I finished them all up. Never got a chance to use the Ranch-style dipping sauce that was provided.

The chicken was quite large, and the Missus couldn't finish it.

On the good side, the chicken was large, and the meat moist through and through. On the bad side, the interior of the chicken was still slightly cold. And though the dark meat had some flavor, the white meat was bland. The BBQ sauce didn't do it for me either, it had a bit of a neutral BBQ flavor, but had a weird aftertaste, and left a strange coating on my tongue. Overall, this was quite a bit of food.

I had the "World Famous Beef Dip"($7.95):

Just by looking at it, you know right away…this ain't no "Philippe's". First off the "roll" was on very dry side, and the meat looked kinda, well, "grey", and was dry and tough. I enjoyed the "jus", it was beefy, and not overly salty…I used up all the jus and the Horseradish sauce. I think this is a bit over-priced for $7.95.

On a side note…guess how much the soda pictured on the side is? It's $2, for one of those plastic 12oz cups. Luckily, refills are free, but if you're doing take-out, forget about the drinks. The two sodas I ordered put us over the $20 mark for lunch.

But still….I really enjoyed those fries…..

So I returned for lunch when I was in the area recently. And since you just can't order fries…I ordered my fries($1.95) with a side order of a Cheeseburger($5.50).

Thought the fries were not as heavily seasoned as on my last visit, they were still pretty good.

After ordering, I struck up a short conversation with the "cook", who asked me how I'd like my burger, and though I'd usually ask for it "medium", I just told him to make the way he thought was best.

The burger was delivered dressed with lettuce, tomato, and slices of red onions, cooked just a tad on the "well" side, but the meat was moist, juicy, and had a nice mildly beefy flavor. At first I thought there was too much bun for the burger, but the bread had a nice pillowy texture. I wish the cheese was melted a bit better. I'd forgotten to tell him to skip the "sauce", which was a Thousand Island style dressing, but at least it wasn't slathered on, and the sauce was very mild so it didn't interfere with the flavor of the burger. Still, I usually like my burger without dressing. Not a bad burger, it's not going to set the world on fire, but it's pretty good, not as good as some, but better than many. I'd have it again.

As I usually do for "What Howie Eats" posts, I emailed Howie for His input. Here's what he said; "My fries were my favorite thing about the meal. I had the ribs, and they were decent, esp for the price." So there you go….

Baby Back Jack's Old Fashioned Broiler
1290 University Ave
San Diego, CA 92105

Eat at Joe’s-if you dare!

February 19, 2007 Cathy Pizza, What Cathy Eats!

For very good reasons, Joe's has closed.

Hi. I seem to have just been having some awful days lately, along with some really bad meals. Here is a post about another one…

The Mister had a coupon thrust upon him at work for this place called Joe's Pizza. and the wording on the coupon is "Because life is too short to eat lousy pizza"…well that sounds like well, maybe they know they have some *really* good pizza…or they are arrogant.

Its the latter.
The coupon was for a meal of a large, one topping pizza, a rosemary chicken, a large salad and a 2 liter soda for $20. OK. Let's begin.

Well, you can't particularly mess up a salad. It was good, plentiful had chopped mushrooms in it, tomato and shredded mozzarella. It came with a good Thousand Island dressing.

The chicken. Small (that is a salad plate, not a dinner plate-see the box of salad next to the chicken?). COLD (as in, it was refrigerated cold). Tasty with rosemary, and with the salad made a nice SUMMERTIME meal. Too bad it was another night of quite cold temperatures, and was not hot with crispy skin I could munch on.

Then there was the pizza.

Looks OK, eh? Wrong. The one topping The Mister chose was sausage. It did not taste like sausage; it had no flavor, but it did have texture AND it was sliced sausage pieces, not crumbled like you usually get. The cheese was *sparse* and had no flavor. Oh and the crust…what can I say? Um…well, the texture was …chewy,cardboardy, thin, in a bad way, like the pre-made crusts you get from pizza in airports…AND it had no flavor…the sauce was without herbs and spices…not salty, not tomato-y…more empty calories…

This, combined with the COLD chicken (The Mister said he heard one worker tell another worker to make sure the chicken was hot when he was getting ready to take it for delivery) which was not supposed to be cold…oh this was so not worth it. You can try it, if you'd like, but I am pretty sure we won't go back.

Joe's Pizza 5583 Clairmont Mesa Blvd 92117 (858)268-0093
website

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Curry!

February 18, 2007 Vicky (SF Bay Area) Japanese Restaurants, What Vicky Eats

“Hi! This is Vicky posting about her latest meal. She is extremely honored to be invited by Kirk to blog on mmm-Yoso!

Hello readers! I’ve been a reader of mmm-Yoso for over a year now and it was probably due to this blog that I started doing Yelp.com last year. I found that maintaining a blog and doing posts took up an immense amount of time that I didn’t have if I were to continually update it. So after 300 some reviews on Yelp, I’m trying out my hand at this posting dealio. I’m still getting used to this so bear with me if my pictures aren’t coming out the best or if my meals don’t seem that interesting. So my little cousin is visiting from UCI, I drove up there to pick him up so I could feed a hungry poor college student for the weekend and we hit up all of our local favorite joints. Being that we’re both Curry lovers, we swung by Curry House tonight on Convoy Street (it’s in the same plaza as Nijiya and Shanghai City). It was our psuedo-Chinese New Year’s eve celebration.

A little background on Curry House; they are operated by the same corporation that makes the packaged cubed curry blocks that you can find at your friendly local Japanese supermarket, but somehow, the food here just tastes a bit better. I’m guessing it is due to the fact that they have an amazing deep fryer in the back and after all, they are called Curry House. I usually order some kind of katsu or fried shrimp… something about paring the crisp panko crumbs with the smooth curry sauce. Tonight, since there was three of us, I ordered a spaghetti dish so you wouldn’t get 3 different pictures of curry.

Cousin H ordered the Hamburger Curry over spaghetti, H had the menchi katsu curry (one of my favs!), and I decided to be adventurous and ordered the Tarako and Ika Spaghetti. Lunch at Curry House is usually around 2 dollars cheaper but the entrees don’t come with a side choice of salad or soup. So we all got the corn potage, which in essence is Cream of Corn soup, which was silky, creamy, yet spackled with the occasional chewy kernal to balance out the texture. It’s one of my favorite things on the menu, I think it goes back to my childhood when we would have corn potage on the cold nights.

One this visit, we did notice a that they added a new item to their menu – Stone Pot Curry, which in essence, is a dolsot-bimbimbap but with curry sauce. S said he would be adventurous and try it out next time. So after a short wait, our entrees came out. The hamburger in the hamburger curry was nice and moist, well flavored with the occasional onion in there. In essence, it was like a meatloaf patty sitting atop a bed of spaghetti noodles.

The noodles were al dente, which was a relief since I ordered a whole plate of it. I’ve found that asian places that offer Asian/Italian fusion tend to overcook their pasta. Thankfully the chefs back there knew what they were doing.

Here’s H’s menchi katsu curry over rice. The menchi katsu was the hamburger/meatloaf that was breaded with panko and fried. It was rich, moist and the panko texture was great against the curry sauce.

Lastly, my tarako and ika spaghetti arrived. Tarako is cod roe and ika is squid. It didn’t sound too appetizing on the menu but I figured since my favorite onigiri is the spicy cod roe flavor, cod roe over spaghetti couldn’t be too bad. I was pleasantly surprised. The ika was cooked well, tender and not too chewy and the cod roe added a nice salty texture to the overall dish. The spaghetti entrees are definately to be ordered with an open mind since they tend to have strong Japanese flavors. In

my opinion, this dish was a wonderful success, combining the cod roe with spaghetti. Service was pleasant, with the servers and busboys coming around to refill glasses and to check up on how we were holding up. With our bill we were given a frequent diner/vip card, which was 20% the entire bill for the next 4 visits. Nifty! 🙂

Curry House – Japanese Curry and Spaghetti
3860 Convoy Street #102
San Diego, CA 92111
(858) 278-2454
Hours: M-T 11:30-14:30 Lunch
17:30-21:00 Dinner
F 11:30-14:30 Lunch
17:30-22:00 Dinner
Sat 11:30-22:00 (open all day)
Sun 11:30-21:00 (open all day)
Curry House Website

Gong Xi Fa Cai – Xin Nian Kuai Le! Happy (Chinese) New Year!

February 17, 2007 mmm-yoso Blog

Just a quick post to wish everyone a wonderful Year of the Pig. Even more important, this is the Year of the Golden Pig, something that happens every 60 years. According to what I understand, children born this year will be prosperous and wealthy.

This healthy looking fellow was found here:

The Monterey Park Floral Street Fair, which run through tomorrow. It was packed and we didn’t spend much time there. But in case you’re interested, click on the link above, starts at the busy corner of Garfield and Garvey in Monterey Park. Not much food on display, but lot’s of other stuff.

So just for the heck of it….some photos of Nian Gao(Chinese Steamed New Year Cakes):

All taken at Yi Mei Deli in Rowland Heights.

Happy New Year!

Ch Ch Chain/Franchise-Red Brick Pizza. Healthy and good.

February 15, 2007 Cathy Italian Restaurants, What Cathy Eats!

Red Brick Pizza has closed.

mmm-yoso is not on vacation. Cathy is back to blogging about what she eats.

Hi. You do know, I am merely researching everything in sight, for your sake. Sometimes The Mister and I go to Starbucks and get some beverage and sit and read for a while. There is a Red Brick Pizza in the same mall as one of numerous Starbucks on Clairmont Mesa Boulevard. This one is near the Registrar of Voters Office (one block east of it). I will admit we have been curious. There were coupons online, so…that clinched it for us. (click here for lots of coupons)

So, the concept is the old brick oven to cook pizza dough…and the Red Brick people have superheated the oven ( I would bet with ceramics) so that it will cook the dough at 1000° in 3 minutes… hmmmm…fascinating. I love the concept of superconductivity. We decided to try a medium Chopped Italian salad ($6.49), which included artichoke hearts as well as salami, mozzarella, olives, tomatoes, pepperocinis, Parmesan and croutons. The lettuce was mostly Romaine and stayed crispy. There was a lot of cheese and meat on the salad. Easily it is for two people and could be a meal in itself. The dressing was a very good Italian.

The Mister decided to try a Fhazani™…a creation of the Red Brick Pizza people. Its a Fire roasted gourmet Italian sandwich basically the fire roasted pizza dough, cooked with toppings and then stuffed with fresh lettuce, tomatoes and served with salad dressings (Italian and a Ranch) on the side…so you can top or dip. ($6.50)
As you can see, its cut in half and seems quite large. The Mister got just the basic cheese Fhazani™, so we could see how it was.
From this view of the open dough, you can see it was stuffed quite well. It was very different, the hot and cold and fresh dough. It was quite good. Unique and tasty.

The best part about Red Brick Pizza is…the Italian ode to dessert- Gelato. They have a selection of about 50 gelato flavors and make 12 different ones fresh a day. This is a one serving cup ($2.60) but with two flavors in it- coconut and green apple.
Both flavors were *so wonderfully* concentrated and rich. I know I will stop in here in the summer just got a cup, if nothing else.

They sell "Party Paccos ™- party packs: A Sides Pacco™ is $9 and has 28 bite size appetizers (Breadsticks, mozzarella breadsticks, and Fire Roast Toast™); The Pizza Pacco™ is five nine inch pizzas with any one topping cut into 20 slices and costs $30; The Salad Pacco™ is a choice of any two chopped medium size salads for $12; The Fhazani Pacco™ is a choice of five Fhazani™'s cut into 20 pieces and the Gelato Pacco™- $12 for fresh packed gelato. All of these Paccos™ serve 6 to 8 people

The "Italian party!" which includes the Sides Pacco, the Salad Pacco, your choice of Fhazani™ or Pizza Pacco and the Gelato Pacco for $60 seems like a great bargain (especially with the gelato)

Red Brick Pizza,website, numerous locations.