One week later, we were back at Pho Anh in the Southland Plaza strip mall in the South Bay. It's considered San Diego, not quite Imperial Beach. We sat in the back this time instead of near the front. It's a pretty long and deep place, but narrow.
Bert told me those (fake) plants were called "Creeping Charlies". I guess they aren't spider plants after all. There were A LOT of those plants in here.
We got the fried spring rolls. They were stingy with the accompanying vegetable/herbs. There were about two leaves of lettuce and two sprigs of mint. No cilantro, just some shredded carrot, which I didn't think served any purpose except as a garnish. I was disappointed in this. The fried spring rolls looked too lumpia-ish to me. They tasted okay, but we've had way better and with more lettuce/mint/cilantro.
I ordered the Grilled Pork Chop with Rice plate. I really liked this - the marinade on the pork chop was smoky and sweet. The pork chop was also cooked just right as well. It wasn't dried out. I loved the bits of fat on the edges too. Mmmm...I barely made a dent in this- I ended up saving half of it for dinner later. Ooh, look at the cucumbers. Fancy! 
Sorry this is ugly looking. I actually forgot to take a photo of Bert's dish. He had already started eating it and put in Sriracha sauce. Well, this is Bun with Grilled Chicken. Exciting huh. I did't bother taking a photo of TC's dish which was the same shrimp soup with rice noodles from the week before.
Other than the pitiful amounts of greens with the spring rolls, we were happy with our orders at Pho Anh. We got served again by the chef. The crowd eating there was mixed. We saw white, Mexican, African American, and some older Filipinos (heard them speaking in Tagalog). There's not a lot of Vietnamese people here in the South Bay. At our local Vietnamese place, Pho Hiep, it's pretty mixed too, but most of the "Asians" tend to be Filipinos. Pictured below is my new favorite dessert to make - Blueberry Strudel, courtesy of my cute nurse friend (she's appeared before in writing in my blog - I saw "Twilight" the 2nd time with her and we went to 59th and Lex in December).
Filling:
Here's what you do:- Preheat oven to 375 F.
- Defrost the puff pastry on a parchment-lined baking sheet and keep cool.
- In a medium bowl, combine the softened cream cheese, 1/2 cup of sugar, 2 tsp of vanilla and 1 of the egg yolk.
- Gently fold in the blueberries.
- Spoon the filling down the long side of the puff pastry.
- Brush the edges of the pastry with beaten egg yolk.
- Fold over and seal well. (I like to turn it over so you don't see the "seam")
- Make 3 or 4 slashes on top of the pastry to allow air to escape.
- Brush the top with extra egg yolk.
- In a small bowl, combine the softened butter, 1 cup of sugar, and almonds until the mixture is crumbly.
- Press the topping into the dough.
- Bake for 35-45 minutes.
- Cool.
- In a second small bowl, combine the remaining 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 tbsp melted butter, and lemon juice.
- The icing should be runny (if not, add a little milk): drizzle it over the strudel.
NOTE - Make sure you seal the sides of the pastry very well. And when putting the crumb topping on, press firmly so the pastry is encased in the sugar topping. The first time I made this, it came out quite well. The second time, I used a different puff pastry, the Pepperidge Farm (which my friend uses, but her version is better than mine). It was totally fkd up because I melted the butter for the topping which was a mistake. I beat the filling a little too much so it was too runny, thus is spilled over and was hard to seal. Since the Pepperidge Farm sheets are smaller, my fkd up filling overflowed because I didn't seal it well either. It opened up and ended up looking like Lard Ass Davy Hogan's barf after the blueberrie pie eating contest. If you are pop culturally challenged, are over the age of 70, or have lived in a cave or under a rock for the past twenty years, please watch this heartwarming movie clip from Rob Reiner's 1984 movie classic, "Stand by Me" if you don't get my reference.
And to drive the point home even further, please enjoy this subtle homage, nay a paean to "Barf", if you will, from "Family Guy" :
These are the two strudels I made. This is attempt #3. I didn't take pictures of Attempt #2. I meant to bring it for my co-worker's birthday, but I was pissed off because it opened up and didn't look "pretty". We kept one and gave the other one to our neighbor across the street who loved it. Since I didn't bring the strudels to work that morning, Bert saved the day by getting a fruit strudel at the Hans and Harry Bakery in Bonita. I told my colleagues that I refused to serve them something that didn't measure up to my standards. They told me that they didn't care and would have eaten it no matter what it looked like as long as it tasted good. I knew it would still taste good, but I wanted it to be perfect (because I am anal).
A close up of one of the pieces with the sugar glaze...
I'll be making this again really soon! A new favorite!
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