The weekend forecast was nice, warm and sunny. After a quick stop at the CV Library book sale (wow, children's books were only .10 each!), TC and I had the morning to ourselves. Bert, on the other hand, had the unsavory task of helping his older brother try to extract what he suspected was a dead opposum in their parent's garage. His bro recognized a "familiar" pee and/or dead animal smell in the garage much like the smell he encountered last year in their back yard shed. When they cleaned out the shed, the remains of two 'possums were the culprit behind the odoriferous assault on the senses. Unfortunately, this time, they did not find any 'possum remains, but rather, it's fecal remains. I'm sure that varmint peed in there too. To say the least, Lysol was unleashed in great quantities to rid the garage of the infernal scent.
Anyhow, we all wanted to have lunch out today. We set off to the Chollas View neighborhood. Below was an art project near an empty lot near our destination...
More of the art posters/photos (well, the backside)...
You can't see the place right away. It's behind this oil change place on the corner of 47th and Market Street.
Asia Cafe is in a small and old looking strip mall which has a lot of Lao businesses (food market, coin laundry, nail/hair shop, video and import store).
For inquiring minds, here's a post about
Lao cuisine, and MMM-Yoso's post of Asia Cafe
here along with an old post of mine
here :
I hadn't been here in awhile. This time, we sat on the opposite side of the restaurant (to your right when you walk in). There are 5 tables that seat 4 each plus one long table in the middle that seats 9. There weren't too many people there that day, but they did brisk business with takeout I noticed.
In my old post, I mentioned (or was that an older post?) that their menus were old and the prices were wrong. Well, this time, they redid their menus. These were nice, crisp, new and laminated. The prices also looked updated. Before it seemed like their prices were too good to be true, then you got slammed with a bill that was higher than you thought you paid...At least they got it right this time!
The guy in brown is one of the son's. His parents run the place; his mom cooks in the back kitchen. He's pretty nice (it's either Scotty or Johnny) and mellow.
Condiment tray:
We started off with the fresh Spring Rolls ($3.00) which weren't on the menu. It comes with a side of peanut sauce. TC enjoyed 1 and 1/2 of this...
Cross section of the spring roll. These were of a decent size and quite filling. Fresh shrimp, lettuce, mint and beansprouts. No cellophane noodles in here!
I liked that they brought out Christmas plates for us. People at other tables also had mismatched plates!
Bert and I both ordered Lao iced coffees ($2.00 each):
As usual, I ordered the Nem Khao ($5.50) which is not on the menu. This is Lao fried rice.
The greens to go with the Nem Khao (green leaf lettuce and cilantro):
A close up of that awesome crunchy fried rice! I just love this rice because it has so much flavor and texture from the green onions, garlic, finely chopped peanuts, the sour sausage and the crunchy rice crust! I could eat this every day!
The sticky rice ($2.00) - this was quite a lot of rice! I don't remember having this much of it before, but when I checked my old post, it was the same. This rice will be for dinner later on! TC loves sticky rice because we let her eat it with her hands like you are supposed to.
The Lao BBQ chicken ($5.00). This was an appetizer but we ordered this for TC to eat with the fried rice. She had the drumsticks only. The rest is for us later!
That chicken skin was so good! You could really taste the spice paste they put on there... Wish I knew exactly what was was in it. I could definitely taste the ginger and garlic and I think there was turmeric as well (yellowish color).
Bert's Spicy Noodles with beef ($5.75). You could actually smell how hot and spicy that was. He predicted that this dish would do some internal "damage" within 12 hours.
My Chicken Larb ($6.00).
Larb is the unofficial national dish of Laos.
An overview of part of our table. This was a lot of food. We'd have to take some boxes to go. I don't know why I ordered the Chicken Larb...I remember Lotus ordered the pork larb last year and didn't like it. It tasted a bit fishy which threw me off because it was a ground chicken dish. I did eat one cucumber! But I didn't really like the texture of the larb. It looked like tuna fish.
This must be an old sign...it says to add .50 to any item on the menu. When I checked the menu against the receipt, it matched up.
With our three take out boxes in tow, we left Asia Cafe and headed back to the car. We parked next to the Lao nail and hair place. There was a gangster looking guy smoking right in front of our car. He had long hair, was wearing a wife beater, long baggy jean shorts, white socks and white tennis shoes. He also had a lot of tattoos. I didn't think he would appreciate me taking a snapshot of him. We still had a kid's bday party to attend later that afternoon. At least we know we'll have good leftovers for dinner!
Unfortunately, Asia Cafe was out of their fried bananas in a ziplock ($5.00), so I bought these fried pork rinds in a ziplock instead ($2.00). They'r a little different than the pork rinds I grew up eating. These are long, skinny strips with a thin line of hard meat in them. Instad of just the nice, fluffy skin or occasionally the piece with a bit of meat and fat...mmmmm...I haven't had pork rinds in a long, long, long time!
This place is near the corner of 47th and Imperial. Looks like
Lao Plaza is now Mekong Village:
Heading home to the 805 South under the skinny bridge in National City (47th St):
Anyhow, we all wanted to have lunch out today. We set off to the Chollas View neighborhood. Below was an art project near an empty lot near our destination...
More of the art posters/photos (well, the backside)...
You can't see the place right away. It's behind this oil change place on the corner of 47th and Market Street.
Asia Cafe is in a small and old looking strip mall which has a lot of Lao businesses (food market, coin laundry, nail/hair shop, video and import store).
For inquiring minds, here's a post about Lao cuisine, and MMM-Yoso's post of Asia Cafe here along with an old post of mine here :
I hadn't been here in awhile. This time, we sat on the opposite side of the restaurant (to your right when you walk in). There are 5 tables that seat 4 each plus one long table in the middle that seats 9. There weren't too many people there that day, but they did brisk business with takeout I noticed.
In my old post, I mentioned (or was that an older post?) that their menus were old and the prices were wrong. Well, this time, they redid their menus. These were nice, crisp, new and laminated. The prices also looked updated. Before it seemed like their prices were too good to be true, then you got slammed with a bill that was higher than you thought you paid...At least they got it right this time!
The guy in brown is one of the son's. His parents run the place; his mom cooks in the back kitchen. He's pretty nice (it's either Scotty or Johnny) and mellow.
Condiment tray:
We started off with the fresh Spring Rolls ($3.00) which weren't on the menu. It comes with a side of peanut sauce. TC enjoyed 1 and 1/2 of this...
Cross section of the spring roll. These were of a decent size and quite filling. Fresh shrimp, lettuce, mint and beansprouts. No cellophane noodles in here!
I liked that they brought out Christmas plates for us. People at other tables also had mismatched plates!
Bert and I both ordered Lao iced coffees ($2.00 each):
As usual, I ordered the Nem Khao ($5.50) which is not on the menu. This is Lao fried rice. 
The greens to go with the Nem Khao (green leaf lettuce and cilantro):
A close up of that awesome crunchy fried rice! I just love this rice because it has so much flavor and texture from the green onions, garlic, finely chopped peanuts, the sour sausage and the crunchy rice crust! I could eat this every day!
The sticky rice ($2.00) - this was quite a lot of rice! I don't remember having this much of it before, but when I checked my old post, it was the same. This rice will be for dinner later on! TC loves sticky rice because we let her eat it with her hands like you are supposed to.
The Lao BBQ chicken ($5.00). This was an appetizer but we ordered this for TC to eat with the fried rice. She had the drumsticks only. The rest is for us later!
That chicken skin was so good! You could really taste the spice paste they put on there... Wish I knew exactly what was was in it. I could definitely taste the ginger and garlic and I think there was turmeric as well (yellowish color).
Bert's Spicy Noodles with beef ($5.75). You could actually smell how hot and spicy that was. He predicted that this dish would do some internal "damage" within 12 hours.
My Chicken Larb ($6.00). Larb is the unofficial national dish of Laos.
An overview of part of our table. This was a lot of food. We'd have to take some boxes to go. I don't know why I ordered the Chicken Larb...I remember Lotus ordered the pork larb last year and didn't like it. It tasted a bit fishy which threw me off because it was a ground chicken dish. I did eat one cucumber! But I didn't really like the texture of the larb. It looked like tuna fish.
This must be an old sign...it says to add .50 to any item on the menu. When I checked the menu against the receipt, it matched up.
With our three take out boxes in tow, we left Asia Cafe and headed back to the car. We parked next to the Lao nail and hair place. There was a gangster looking guy smoking right in front of our car. He had long hair, was wearing a wife beater, long baggy jean shorts, white socks and white tennis shoes. He also had a lot of tattoos. I didn't think he would appreciate me taking a snapshot of him. We still had a kid's bday party to attend later that afternoon. At least we know we'll have good leftovers for dinner!
Unfortunately, Asia Cafe was out of their fried bananas in a ziplock ($5.00), so I bought these fried pork rinds in a ziplock instead ($2.00). They'r a little different than the pork rinds I grew up eating. These are long, skinny strips with a thin line of hard meat in them. Instad of just the nice, fluffy skin or occasionally the piece with a bit of meat and fat...mmmmm...I haven't had pork rinds in a long, long, long time!
This place is near the corner of 47th and Imperial. Looks like Lao Plaza is now Mekong Village:
Heading home to the 805 South under the skinny bridge in National City (47th St):
2 comments:
Ah, smart to go AFTER the heat wave! It was really hot the day I went with you and Hot Fudge last year. Yeah, I remember not being crazy about what I ordered but the other stuff was good, especially that pork chop HF ordered.
I think my biggest issue with the food was the chewy fat. I'm just not accustomed to it. I like fat that melts in you mouth, not rubber band-y consistency. Flavors were good though.
Next time, you should ask the thug if he would mind posing in a picture with you...
yeah, it was pretty hot when we went last year. i remember the fan was on but it didn't help. ugh. next time, i'll order the pork chop that HF had.
the chicken larb was actually better the next day. i had some of it for breakfast.
as for the thug, looks like he'd be at home with mr. saliva's friends. ha ha
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