Kona Pacifica Kafe

[Closed several years ago and is now Mea Kwan Thai restaurant as of 2011]

After our brunch at Villa Capri, we walked a few storefronts down to:
The website on their business cart wasn't working (wtf man). We were curious to try this place out. The owner is the lady who does Kona Kakes which is in Mission Valley next to that really lame Vietnamese restaurant behind Hooters. Well, she owns this place and it just opened last week and you could tell they didn't have it quite together yet. The place was bright and airy with tropical scenes galore on the walls. The photo below is their (empty) sushi bar area.

There was a cash register up front with a display case. The one on the left was a bit sparse. I was expecting the owner's famous tropical cakes, but instead there were prepackaged macadamia nuts in baskets. The display case in the middle had assorted cold drinks and the last one on the right was empty.

We sat near this wall. There was a huge lunch party towards the back.

The service was spotty. There were three waiters helping us but I think there were too many fingers in the pot. No one knew what the other was doing. I know they were probably trying to be helpful but shit, one guy asked us if we got our waters yet when it was clear by our EMPTY tables that we had NO water, which had been ordered more than 10 minutes ago. So, we finally got our waters. We also got free cake samples. This was a big let down because the samples were served on paper plates. We also got plastic forks (not pictured), For such a new and relatively upscale area, you would have expected regular plates to go with the silverware, even if the food was supposed to be "island style". Lest you think I'm a big grouch for griping about this, when I took my earlier photo of the display cases, I glanced over at the neighboring tables and saw people eating from clear plastic takeout boxes and they weren't just leaving either. Very tacky. Okayyyy, I know this place is new and maybe, just maybe, they didn't buy plates yet! Maybe they didn't want to wash any fkn' dishes or something. But eating from a to-go box? Not classy at all.

Anyhow, the cake samples included Tropical Splash (pineapple and macadamia), pineapple, plus Chocolate "Dobash"pudding cake. Here's another gripe...I asked one of our waiters why the chocolate pudding cake was called dobash. He said he didn't know, but would find out. He later came back after I reminded him that I was really curious about knowing and he did follow through. He said it was "semi sweet chocolate pudding cake". Well, that's one of the ingredients. I asked him how "dobash" was spelled and what the origin was. He spelled it the way you see it written here but didn't know of the origin and guessed that it was Hawaiian! Not! Then, he said, "Maybe it's Russian?"!!! Aargh! Idiot!

Ohhhh my God! I wanted to shout, "Get out of my face dude!". Hence, since I couldn't rely on the ig'nant staff, I resolved to look this up at home. There were a lot of entries for "dobash", which if spelled in French should be "dobache". Turns out that it's a bastardization of the word "doberge" (taken perhaps from "D'Auberge). Here's Wikipedia's entry on Doberge cake. It's supposed to be a thin, multilayered cake with pudding inside. Here's a recipe I found for Chocolate Doberge Cake. According to the many entries I saw about this type of cake, it's a New Orleans thing.

Our birthday recipient ordered a slice of the guava cake served in a...yes...a plastic to go container. Way to go people. I didn't care for this because I'm not a guava fan. My friend said it was okay. Another friend who tried it liked only the cake but not the filling or the frosting (buttercream).

Here was mine...the Chocolate "Dobash" or "Dobache" or "Doberge" whatever! It was actually pretty decent but nothing so spectacular that I would rave for days on end. I had a tiny bit and saved the rest for Bert and TC to sample later.

The Tropical Splash... none of us could taste the macadamia nut in here. Maybe it was ground up? Not pictured was the Kafe's most popular cake, the Caramel Macadamia Nut. It looked the same, but the cake was lighter in color. It sounds like it would be super sweet, but it wasn't.

I think this place needs to work on better service, more informed waitstaff and better dinnerware! Plastic boxes look cheap cheap cheap! Spend some money on some china! It's fine if you want to take your damn leftovers home, but to eat out of these seems really tacky. We're in Eastlake, not the trailer park. Maybe I'll check this place out after a few months and see if they get better.

Villa Capri

Our regular lunch bunch was again revived after a summer hiatus. This time, all four of us were present to help celebrate the belated bday of one of the group members. She chose to have lunch at the new Italian place Villa Capri which is in the Shops at San Miguel Ranch on the corner of Proctor Valley Road and East H Street. It's way the hell out there, near the San Miguel Ranch housing development. And to think that only a decade and a half ago, it was all a scary dirt road...Yes, Proctor Valley Road. For those that live in the South Bay, that was the place to go joy riding and telling scary ghost stories. Supposedly freaky things happened out there too. Urban legends I'm sure. But I digress...
What you see when you first step inside. Pretty and very earth toney.
The patio. We were the second group there at 12 noon.

Some of the brunch items...

Our view from the patio - the parking lot plus some mountains. You can't see it, but Albertson's, which is the main anchor of this shopping area, is to the right.

The prix fixe business lunch menu ($13 average). Comes with a soup or salad or in my case, something fried, an entree plus a dessert. I didn't think they would serve this on a weekend. I was bummed because I scoped out their menu online the night before and I wanted to try their version of linguine with clams.

Our bread which we sopped up with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar and a splash of salt.

The appetizer for my lunch, called, "Sorrento" was the Calamari Dorati - fried squid with a spicy marinara sauce. The sauce really wasn't that spicy going down but going out is another story. It was either this or minestrone soup. I'll take fried anything over soup.

Fried squid.

Delicious tentacles...excuse my ratty nails and dry skin! Ugh.

My Gnocchi al Pomodoro, which I'm sorry to say, sucked. It was too doughy and thick. I saved it for later. But as I type this, it's Monday evening and I still haven't had the desire to eat the leftovers...

Close up of the gnocchi...Doesn't beat Thor's favorite dish, the Gnocchi Quattro Formaggio with Pancetta at Buon Appetito in Little Italy. Now THAT was good gnocchi!

Our other friend's Prosciutto Foccacia sandwich which had fresh mozzarella, tomato, arugula, olive oil and (although the menu didn't mention it), prosciutto. You'd like to think that they had it in there, eh! She enjoyed hers lunch and pretty much polished it off.One of our companions had the Frittata Melanzana which was an omelet with eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, mozzarella cheese and basil. I tried some of hers and it was pretty good. It was served witha side of jelly, buttered bread and a side of fruit. I didn't want to order an omelet at an Italian place however. The guts of my friend's omelet:

Here's the dessert that came with our meal. Two cannolis. I didn't care for the filling so I just broke mine apart and ate the shell. My friend on the other side was the opposite, she just ate the filling. The chocolate dipped strawberry was a nice touch.

Despite having dessert with the fix prixe lunch, we still wanted to go next door for dessert...

Mom's bday dinner

Friday was my mom's bday so we went over for dinner. I brought mini roasted potatoes, crisp with olive oil and seasoned with sea salt and fresh ground black pepper...I served this with my wanna be aioli. I cheated by using ready made mayo, but I added sea salt and garlic that I hand smashed in my mini mortar and pestle dealy-o. These were really good if I may say so myself!
Of course my mom cooked a lot of food. Among the dishes were pinakbet (no bagoong in here) with Chinese sausage...My mom put in the usual - Japanese eggplant (the long skinny kind), okra, kabocha squash, dried shrimps, and yes...bittermelon (my favorite) from the backyard. No bagoong here or pork shoulder or even tomatoes.

and sotanghon noodles with shiitake mushrooms and chicken. This was a departure from her regular birthday dish of pancit noodles for long life. Well, these were still noodles, so I guess they counted. There were also sauteed shelled shrimp and grilled rib eye steak (not pictured), and of course, rice. I really liked the noodles that she made. She normally makes it with ginger, garlic, soup and chicken. The mushrooms were a new twist.

That steak was pretty good too. Scavengers that we were, we cut up the soft parts first. I had dibs on the fat crisped edges. Poor Bert who came late from a long commute, ended up with the well done parts. : (

Chula Vista Nature Center

Oh my gosh, I'm actually posting this on October 25th. I had the draft back in September and just found it. Here's the tram ride to the Chula Vista Nature Center where I took TC on our day off.
A sign we saw in the tram:

The marshland...that's the Nature Center in the distance:

TC loves hands on exhibits. Here are some shells:

The California Halibut...I wonder if this tastes good?

The Garibaldi - a territorial fish found off the coasts of Southern California. Bert saw these once when snorkeling in La Jolla. They zoomed close to his face and darted in and out of his personal space while making aggressive "clicking" noises .

Rosy Boa:

"No Dumping":

Who else but me would take a photo of a rusted propane tank?

View of Mount Miguel:

The Manta and Bat Ray Experience:

The back part of the Nature Center (facing East):

Burrow Owls:

While we were looking at the animals outside, we spied the tram on its way back. It makes runs every 15 minutes.

Turkey Vulture factoids:

There were a number of benches with mosaic designs.

Before going back, we decided to take the trail out to the coast. This was the sign we saw! TC was scared at first but since it was an overcast and cool day, I figured the reptiles wouldn't be out sunning themselves.

Wildflower:

View of the Coronado Bridge from the marsh. For someone like me who hates to be dirty or go out on nature walks, this was something else. Yeah, I'm a wimp when it comes to nature. Hiking is not my idea of fun, not like this was a strenuous hike or anything. But I enjoyed walking out here with TC and seeing the sights.

The shoreline with the Strand in the background :

Front view of the Nature Center:

A Cactus Barrel:

A fun day off spent with my daughter...