mmm-yoso!!!, a food blog, is being written by Cathy today.
Yes, it's that time of the year. In two days, the 2023 San Diego County Fair opens.
The opening gate looks a little different, going with the theme:
'Explore the outdoors and get s'more of what life has to offer' is the idea behind the simple entrance decor.
The Theme building, to the right when you walk in, has a friendly looking entrance.
Not much was set up as of last Wednesday. The rides and food booths had been at the Los Angeles County Fair during most of May until Memorial Day and all had been packing up for the move to San Diego.
The only 'special food' for this Fair that I have seen is Chicken Charlie's is selling a 'deep fried s'mores on a stick' (batter dipped and fried marshmallows topped with chocolate sauce and graham cracker crumbs).
Home Made (formerly Home and Hobby, formerly Home Arts) was setting up.
Displays are finalized after judging, so as to focus on the Competition participants and winners.
Collections, needle arts, preserved foods, baked goods and cake decorating will all have ribbons displayed when you get to the Fair.
Home Arts and animal auctions are why we have County Fairs; farmers and their families proudly showed off the fruits of their year of labor.
2023 San Diego County Fair June 7-July 4. Closed Monday and Tuesdays in June. Website (tickets and parking are cashless and available online)
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Last year, I only wrote one post about the County Fair.
The Theme of "Heroes Reunite" was a continuation of the canceled 2020 Fair with the "Heroes Unite" theme. 
Decor around the Fairgrounds had capes and various heroes depicted.
There was something The Mister and I noticed when we attended on a Thursday.
It turns out that every booth on Thursday had a $3 special. There were pieces of paper, most handwritten, with a $3 Thursday special listed and taped to the booth behind the cash register. There was nothing written on the Website nor on the Daily Fair Events handouts listing this pricing. I highly suspect the same will be happening on Thursdays during the Fair this year and will update asap. If you notice, most of the $3 specials are small (battered veggies, mini cream puffs, mini Dole Whip, fried pineapple and fried Oreos), but that fried pineapple from Chicken Charlie's was the whole $9 item! I hope that remains the Thursday special. (Remember there are five Chicken Charlies booths; each had a different special).
Of course, we also purchased our 'regular' items, which included fried pickles, grilled vegetables, the artichoke sandwich and an apple tower.
In the meantime, I hope you can Get Out There and enjoy the San Diego County Fair!
I enjoyed sitting right outside the shop. The view of the plantation style houses reminded me of our trips to Honolua "small kid time" to see my grandparents.
We had enjoyed the fact that everything from the pasture raised beef, to the brioche buns, to the mushrooms in the mushroom burger is local. The Missus had really enjoyed the mushroom burger the last time and of course, this being Parker Ranch territory, I needed to have that Big Island Beef Burger.
This was cooked a bit past that, but the burger was so beefy! I requested just a touch of mustard, which combined with the wonderfully sweet and acidic tomato really helped to balance out the beefiness. The beef was a bit toothsome; but that's the deal with pasture raised beef made from cuts like chuck and brisket.
This was actually not bad. The large salad did have some brown leaves, but while the rice looked dry, it wasn't.
A generous plate of fresh-looking bun, basil, mint, et al was provided. The nuoc mam cham was on the sweeter side of things. The sauce for the Bun Cha was on the sweeter end of things but wasn't too bad. Loved the pickled veggies, which helped to cut the sweet and saltiness. There were two good size pork patties, which were on the chewier end of things. The actual pork slices were much more flavorful in my opinion.
While it arrived on the typical sizzling plate….well, it wasn't sizzling. The dill and onions were soggy and wilted, and the fish cold. This was quite strange. Totally a far cry from 
I got my plate with Red Rice instead of white. The rice was done quite well, moist, good texture, there was another scoop of rice hiding under the eggs. There was a good amount of Portuguese Sausage, which was really crisp and hard, almost like it was deep fried! While I do like the exterior of my sausage crisp; this had taken it a bit far. The sausage was dry. The eggs were a nice easy-over and that egg yolk flowed beautifully over the rice. No off flavors: though I needed to get some salt as it seems that they don't season the eggs. I also like my eggs crisp around the edges.
The coconut crust was a bit too sweet for us. There were also spots where the coconut was burnt, adding a rather unpleasant bitterness to the dish.
The Missus loved Her coffee and wanted to buy a bag. So, we went in and took a look around and could not find the coffee. So we asked Brian who told us he had two bags left behind the counter. He sold us one. It was $95! The Missus just absolutely loved this coffee.
We were interested to see what effect the "time of Covid" had on Suisan and it was soon evident. Gone are the tables out front. You wait in line in front of the shop, there's a limit to the amount of folks they let into a shop at any one time.
And to be perfectly honest, I was interested to see what the price of the Gyro Combo was these days. And the sign said the combo was now $15. In case you’re keeping score, in 
Upon opening up the Gyro, I quickly noticed that things had changed. This was no longer marinated pork cut from a spit into thin slices. This was more like chunks of marinated grilled pork shoulder. Along with being chunks of pork, the meat was a lot darker in color than what I’d had previously. It was also tough and dry. In terms of flavor, this was on the salty side.
On this morning the parking lot was empty. I walked on over and took a look at the posted menu and noticed the opening time was noon. I also noted that there were donburi and ramen lunch specials going for as low as ten bucks! In these days that's a bargain. I decided that I'd return on another day and check the place out. As I started walking away the "open" sign came on and the really friendly gentleman who runs the front of house waved me in. My lucky day I guess.
I would go on record to say this was more sausage than tsukune. It was hard, rubbery, tough…..I'm sure there are more synonyms I could come up with given time. Not much flavor at all….I guess that's why salt was provided.
And my worries were well placed. Ok, so since the ownership is under Olleh, my expectations were low, but this was even below that!
The chashu wasn't bad, nicely marinated, tender, decent porkiness. The noodles were standard issue, curly, a bit overcooked and mushy…which did nothing to enhance the dish. It had me thinking….at ten bucks what should I have expected?
I loved the presentation. And overall, I enjoyed this dish the most. Nothing fancy, just a by the book beef bowl. The beef was on the chewy side, flavors were quite typical, soy sauce – mirin – sake, which is not bad at all. A generous portion of rice….I wish there was more egg, but this was a decent donburi.
Nothing fancy mind you; but for a ten buck for lunch…I wouldn't pay $15 to have this for dinner, this might work out fine for you. After all, how much is a bento from Nijiya these days?