Trevi Ristorante

Last Sunday we wanted to eat at Bonnie Jean's Soul Food place but for some reason, it was closed. It was 12 noon too. I figured it would be open especially as a lunch destination for those leaving church or something. Anyways, it was closed. I remembered seeing Trevi Ristorantein an old restaurant review a few years ago and always wanted to go there. When I followed my friend a couple weeks ago to Bonnie Jean's, I spied the restaurant which is on Federal Blvd, near a corner in a really run down looking area. So....since Bonnie Jean's was closed, Bert, TC and I went here. It was raining when we got there and during the course of our meal, it was pouring pretty heavily. Click here for the Yelp reviews. This was the shot I took as we left (below):
Menu cover (kinda blah):

Their take out menu:

When we got there, it was empty and unfortunately it remained empty during the hour or so we there there. We were greeted by a young girl (a teenager) and a woman whom I believe was her mother. It looks like a family run operation. The interior is pretty nice though with terra cotta sponged walls and a huge wall with a painting of the Trevi fountain (didn't take a photo of it).

The restaurant was spacious with lots of tables as well as booths on the side and facing the window towards the front.

Our young server gave us garlic bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. As you can see, the bread was burnt. I didn't really like it. The bread tasted cheap, like cheapass french bread from Vons or Ralphs.

We ordered the Calamari Fritto appetizer. The marinara sauce was piping hot and it had capers in it. This was a nice touch. The squid pieces were cut kind of strange and there were two pieces with tentacles. I actually like the tentacles, but gave them to TC for novelty's sake. They were cute, like a mini Kraken.

We also ordered their signature Trevi Salad, which are mixed spring greens with strawberries, grilled chicken breast, candied walnuts and strawberry dressing. I thought the portion was a bit small for the price ($9.50 I think), but I loved the dressing which is saying a lot because I'm not a salad dressing person. I liked it because because it was sweet and light tasting. No heavy oily taste or vinegar flavor.

We shared the salad as well as our main entree, the Vegetarian Pizza. As you can see, the toppings seem a bit sparse. There were chopped olives, slived green peppers, mushrooms, and really thinly sliced red onions. I thought the red onions were sliced way too thin. They were not pleasant to eat because they got caught in my teeth (insert nasty joke here). I ended up picking mine off. The toppings didn't seem evenly distributed either.

A shot of our lonely pizza with parmesan cheese sprinkled on top and also before we put on the hot pepper seeds.

Okay, I can cross this place off our list. We had decent service. The girl was not very well versed with speaking with customers. "Do you want dessert?" . Uh, yeah. No. No other customers were there. One lady did walk in, but she came in to talk to the lady working there, then left. Maybe this place is happening at nights?

Rubio's

On St. Patrick's Day, I met up with Bert for lunch. We had just gone to our daughter's school to watch her class perform a play, "Pandora's Box". She portrayed one of the "Miseries", which was "Pain". Nice. Actually, the kids did a great job. So, before going back to work, we went to Rubio's. We saw this sign advertising their new salmon offerings:
Over the years, Rubio's has spiffed up its look. Back in college, I used to go to the Rubio's near SDSU. The older location in Chula Vista (on Broadway near H) closed and relocated a few years ago across the street to the Chula Vista mall.

View from our table - we sat by the corrugated tin wall.

The salsa bar - mild, tomatillo, roasted chipotle and the picante. There are also sliced limes, lemons, and pickled jalapenos with carrots.

Bert got the grilled salmon burrito with chips:

I got a couple of fish tacos - for those of you not from San Diego, Rubio's Fish Taco is one of San Diego's signature fast food places. The San Felipe inspired fish taco is a lightly breaded portion of fish served with shredded cabbage and a white sauce. Pretty good. The portion is a bit bigger here than at Fin's (a Rubio's offshoot). This is a crappy photo by the way. We used a different camera and it kind of sucks or at least the settings I used weren't right.

Cross section of that grilled salmon with lime and roasted corn and cabbage. There was also guacamole in there - nice and creamy. The roasted corn was a nice touch as well as the citrus flavoring. The chips were blah though.

I like making ghetto lemonade. I usually order just water then put in lemon and/or lime slices and put in sugar packets (or Splenda). Until next time!

3rd Year Blogaversary

(image courtesy of jonesprimavera's photostream on Flicker, found during a Yahoo image search)

It's been three years since I've started this blog! Happy Blogaversary to Pink Candles at Ridgemonth High. The name, if you can't figure it out, is a combination of my three favorite movies, "Fast Times at Ridgemonth High", "Sixteen Candles" and "Pretty in Pink". The moniker was thought up by Lotus since I couldn't think of anything three years ago. If you haven't figured out, my name is what Grandpa Fred calls his drunk "Chinaman" Long Duk Dong from the John Hughes' teensploitation classic, "Sixteen Candles"...."Whew! Canine Cologne!" . If you didn't know this reference already, you're either too old (over 50) or living in a cave or under a rock.

Anyways, what started out as a way to post my ramblings on music, food, and whatever is still pretty much the same. I didn't start adding photos until the summer of '06. I didn't start foodblogging until a few months after I started. I remember looking up Ben's 1615, a fusion Filipino place in National City. The blog that had the review was Kirk's MMM-Yoso blog. After reading his posts and looking at his links, I was hooked. I thought, "Hey, I could do that". I've been taking pics of my food even before I knew about food blogging. It's the obsessive compulsive streak in me to document my food. Anyhow, the food blog seems to make it seem almost normal.

A lot has happened to me over the past three years as well, especially last year. It's been about oneyear since I felt the lump in my left breast and got it checked. Unfortunately since it was cancerous, I had to go through a lot of shit like the mastectomy and chemo, but the good thing though is, it's all gone! My mammogram on my right breast came back all clear! Since last fall, my hair has been growing back and people think I just have a cool haircut instead of looking like Sinead O'Connor. I've been back at work for the past two months and it's like I never left. I don't stress out as much as I used to and I am just more "chill" than ever, which is saying a lot, since I'm very Type A. Now, I'm Type B-!

Enough of that! I have two more weeks until Spring Break. Then, we're off to Portland, Oregon!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Here's one of my favorite snippets from "Wayne's World":


and here's a little something from "The Simpsons:

and while not entirely related to St. Patrick's Day, here is another video snippet of "Whacking Day ", from the Simpsons, in reference to a made up holiday created so people could beat up the Irish. Here's Homer practicing Bruce Lee style on snakes:

Bonnie Jean's

My friend and I were planning to have lunch at Asia Cafe today. Unfortunately, it was closed, which was disappointing since I wanted to introduce her to the joys of Nem Khao (Laotian fried rice). However, a good thing came out of this. My friend suggested a soul food place a few miles away. My mind was racing...Ooh, soul food. Never been in a soul food place before. Fried food! Hell yeah! Gotta blog it. I'm hungry! Oh my gosh! Soul food! My churning internal monologue lasted a mere five seconds. My mind was made up - forget everything else!

After following her car up Market, passing Federal and Euclid along the way, we ended up 54th St. There it was, Bonnie Jean's Soul Food Cafe, located in a really run down looking strip mall straight out of the 60's. To be honest, I'd never been in this area before. Maybe driving through when I used to take the surface streets to State, but yeah. This was all new to this Filipina chick from the South Bay. No glitzy signs. No chain restaurant logos. Handpainted windows advertising the specials. This was my kind of place! Click here to see their website. Reviews from Yelp are here .

You can't see it but there was a car on the far far left that was a shiny maroon Cadillac Seville with some killer silver rims. Yes, my friends, it was a Pimpmobile. Its owner was this guy wearing a black turtleneck in a black leather jacket with wide and pointy lapels (think of Lamont Sanford's no good shifty friend, Rollo). He must not have been a very rich pimp since he was using a pay phone!!! Shouldn't successful pimps be sporting a Blackberry or an iPhone? Okay...maybe he wasn't a pimp for those of you that think I'm stereotyping. Maybe he was just a cell phone-less stylin' guy with a cool car. Yeah...
Ooh, chicken and waffles! Must try that next time since the closest Roscoe's is in LA. Hot wings for 50 cents? Hmmmm...
The store front:

Oops, this picture should have been a few pics later. Well, walking in, it doesn't even look like a restaurant. It looks like a combination of someone's store and living room. The wall on the left when you enter had beveled edge square mirrors. Kinda 70's. Like the family room in my parents' house. The other walls are painted a deep red and covered with posters of famous African Americans, like Billie Holiday and Miles Davis (both were also featured in their bathroom). There were also posters of President Barack Obama and African American themed artwork. If you look on that shelf below, there was a black Angel. I really liked seeing that. Most angels are depicted as white with blond hair and blue eyes. It was nice seeing an angel of color. There was also a shelf that had board games that you could play while waiting for your food. In fact, the young couple who sat near us were playing Connect Four.

Originally, we sat in a small table for two in the back, next to this wall. We ended up moving because the table was wobbly. I liked this wall - it had (I assume the owner's) family photos giving this place a nice and homey feel. The atmosphere was very chill. We were greeted right away by a super nice lady. She gave us time to look over the menu.

Here's the view from our relocated table. You can see a rack of greeting cards - they had handmade cards with African Americans featured in their designs; some were religious in nature. There's that mirrored wall! In the foreground is a table were you can play chess. It wasn't too crowded today. It was Saturday afternoon and we were having a pretty late lunch, around 1:15'ish.

This is the view when you walk in. There's a bookshelf (books are 50% off by the way). Behind the gift souvenir display was the cash register. This place also sold these really cool bags that were handmade out of reall vinyl records. The two that I remember were George Benson's "Give Me the Night" and Peabo Bryston (forgot the song). One side of the bag had the vinyl record while the other side had the album cover. Both sides were shellacked and riveted with metal studs. There was also a sturdy net that formed the sides and bottom of the bags. Those were going for $65. Near our table, they had mouse pads for sale which featured African Americans playing golf, plus memorabilia from Historically Black fraternities and sororities (key chains and such). Very cool indeed. Click photo for closer look at the menu:
I was craving the catfish and upon learning that the $5 special was catfish, (this changes daily by the way), decided to get that. In fact, we both got today's special, thus only one photo of the complete meal which consisted of breaded cornmeal catfish nuggets, rice and gravy, a bread roll and a side of green beans with potatoes. The beans were kind of blah - the canned variety. They were also kind of cold. The rice was very soft which I didn't like. The grains were kind of mushy and didn't stick together. Maybe this was Uncle Ben's or something. OMG, if it was, please pump my stomach now like Rod Stewart!!! The gravy was all right, but I would have preferred to eat that with mashed potatoes. I don't like my rice to be wet. I didn't really finish the rice but polished off the catfish!!!

Close up of the goodass catfish nugget which you must try if you ever go here:

The hot wings were 50 cents each. I could have eaten a whole bowl of these. I was reminded of Chris Rock's line in Keenan Ivory Wayan's classic blaxploitation spoof , "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka"" when he's ordering food from Isaac Hayes(the rib chef was NFL star turned actor, Jim Brown).



"C'mon, just one riiiib!"

Here's my friend reaching for the hot sauce, which wasn't really hot:

Our cutlery was mismatched. That in itself wasn't a very big deal. As long as my utensils pick up food, I don't care what I'm given. Today was different. I was very excited because the knife pattern was our wedding flatware pattern!!! That, my friend, is Oneida's Pacific Tide pattern. I bet it's discontinued now. I chose that in 1994 after Bert and I got engaged. We liked it because of the wave like pattern and also because it matched our China, which was Mikasa's Wedding Band Platinum pattern. Because our Filipino relatives were "kuripot" (aka 'tight', 'cheapasses', 'stingy'), we never got any settings for our wedding gifts. Instead, I returned all the crap I didn't want (like 4 other slow cookers, platters I never registered for and whatnot) and used that money to buy a complete set of the flatware and accompanying hostess set and all at the Mikasa Outlet. So yay! Pacific Tide spotting! At a soul food restaurant of all places!

One last look at the window:

Picked up this post card before we left, but the photo was taken at home:

Mmmm...I saw the reviews on Yelp and those fried mac and cheese nuggets were referred to (more than once I might add) as "Fried Crack". That descriptions makes it all the more enticing to me.

Next time we go, we're definitely getting this Soul in a Bowl! Everything just sounds so good! I want to try the chitlins. Yes, I know what they're made of. If Filipinos can eat "bulaklak" (which literally means "flower" but are really cut up and fried intestines; also known as "bituka"), then I can eat chitlins. And I want to try the fried gizzards too. My mom used to make that stuff. when we were small. Those and fried livers with onions. My dad, who used to be a Navy cook, knows how to make soul food. Most Filipinos and blacks were stewards back in the early 60's. That's how my dad can make American food as well as a few soul food dishes (ham hocks with black eyed peas and collards for one). My next target - Sister Pee Wee's (another soul food joint) and Magnolia's.

OMFG!!!!!!!!!

Read the article here . It's actually pretty good, not that insipid teen beat type fluff that most magazines printed during the Twilight craze back in November. The writer was pretty witty and sarcastic. There was actually new information and not just a rehash of what's already been said. Plus Pattinson's quotes were priceless. Here's one (on being told that he broke up Camilla Belle and that dude from the Jo Bro:

"I F**ked Joe Jonas" (!)

Lack of media training alert! It's great! No canned Disney answers!

And OMG! The pictures are this slideshow are also TRES CHAUD! MUY CALIENTE Y GUAPO! Check out the hotness here!

Muzita Abyssinian Bistro

We actually ate here Friday Night, on the 13th...cue scary Michael Myers) music here. Pause. Michael Myers the hockey masked serial killer, not Michael Myers) from the sucktastic "Love Guru". I replaced my 3/12 post (the GQ one) with this one, so the GQ one would come up first! So, no, I did not use the flux capacitor and go back in time like Marty McFly. After reading the article in Night and Day's restaurant reviews, we decided to try out the new "Abyssinian" place in this neighborhood. I learned that Abyssinian also refers to the area that is Ethiopia, but Muzita's owners are Eritrean. This place opened in October 2008 and is named after a relative.
University Heights near dusk:

Muzita is a cute converted cottage located near the University Heights sign, across nearby is the gaylicious Lei Lounge. Here is the review from The San Diego Union Tribune's Night & Day, which prompted me to make reservations after reading it. Here are some other reviews from Urban Spoon and Yelp. I thought we'd try the place and since it was Lent, we could go for Vegetarian items on a Friday night. Luckily I got reservations at 6 pm. We got parking around the corner near Lancer's Bar.

It wasn't crowded when we got there. My first impression was, "Man this place is small!" and "They have nice decor here". Here is the view from our table; we were seated near the front door by the outdoor patio:

View sans groovy curtain. Nice wooden floors and beautiful photographs adorning the walls. One thing I noticed was that we were the only Asians (Filipinos) here. Wait, I take that back. There was a couple sitting on the front patio that looked to be Asian (not sure of the exact ethnicity). There were a few African Americans (our server and a couple of bartenders). Not sure if they were of Eritrean/Ethiopian descent. Not that they had to be. We didn't see the owner or his wife (as described in the Night and Day article); he would have been easy to spot since he has dreadlocks. This place was pretty yuppified, i.e. urban white hipster. That also means that this place would be pricey. It's in a neighborhood that's rapidly becoming a getrified haven. Not that I think that is wrong, mind you. I'm glad to see more diversity.

Menu cover made of cork. When I first saw it, I almost thought it read "Mualta" because of the wierd font.

Appetizers:

This was the Teff Encrusted Bamya (teff is the grain used to make their unleavened bread called "Injera", "bamya" is okra). Those are microgreens garnishing the dish along with snipped chives. Okra tastes so much better fried. The sliminess factor is lessened. The coating was crunchy in parts; some sections were soaked in the yellow pepper emulsion. We really liked this appetizer because it was sweet, crunchy and earthy (due to the roasted vegetables) at the same time. We used our hands (after they gave us sealed and warmed wet wipes, nice!); no forks here.

Drinks:
My "Mess" (honey wine) and Bert's Meta Beer. He'd already tried the other types of Ethiopian beers at the other places we'd been. He'd also tried Hinano which is a Tahitian beer (during our honeymoon eons ago). I liked my glass of honey wine - it was pretty sweet. I could've downed it quickly but I wanted it to last. I've chosen to stay away from alcohol after having gone through treatment last year. You know, exercise more, eat healthier, etc. But I figured, a drink once in a while won't hurt me.

The other appetizer we ordered were the Sambussas which came with three and were cut in half. We ordered the meatless sambussas. Nice presentation, eh? They were half moon shaped, not triangular like in the other places, and much bigger too. The fillings were also substantial. They looked kind of nice, standing on the flat side, propped up like Busby Berkeley chorus girls interspersed with lightly dressed lettuce leaves and microgreen garnish. Lovely and tasty too!

Spinach & Collards Sambussa. FYI - My nail polish is called Gothik by Sephora; it's a dark, smoky gray (kind of like gun metal!). I've switched from my dark purple to this new color recently. Very rocker chick.

Stewed vegetable Sambussa. Look at that filling! This was pretty substantial. No thin filling. Still, we felt something was missing...

Bert and I realized that the sambussas needed to be kicked up a bit. We asked for hot sauce and the host brought some out. They call it Awaze sauce and it's potent in a slow and sneaky way. Kind of reminds me of Harissa sauce.

Lo and behold, our entrees which came family style:

Uncovered:

Vegetarian entrees:
Our two entrees were combined and included a green salad in the middle. There were only two rolls of injera so we asked for more. We ordered the Hamli (spinach and collards) with a side of Timtimo (red lentils) along with the Prawns Kilwa and the side of alitcha (stewed vegetables):

Seafood items:
Closeup of the Prawn Kilwa which was really delicious. There were about 5 or 6 large prawns in there. Thankfully, they were shelled. They were so tasty with the awaze sauce. TC had a few bites but preferred to eat the vegetarian items on the platter instead. A Caucasian couple who were sitting at the bar earlier, were seated next to us for dinner. It was also their first time at Muzita as well as their first time trying Ethiopian food. The man said, "This is a departure from our usual Mexican". Something tells me that they don't go out for ethnic food very much. Ya think? We found out that they live in the Kensington area and that they have a four year old girl who isn't a very adventurous eater. They ended up ordering a beef item and the prawns. The wife ended up using a fork while her husband used his hands (right on bro!).

TC had suggested that we have Ethiopian a few weeks back which was another reason why I wanted us to try this place. I'm glad that she's willing to try new things. That and the fact that she enjoys utensil free eating! After we got our food, the restaurant started to get really crowded. A couple with a small child came in and they happened to be friends with the couple next to us. "We're on our date night...with our child" said the woman. Unfortunately, they did not have reservations and since the restaurant was fully booked inside and outside, they had to be turned away.

After our dinner, we asked about desserts. Here were the choices: Tiramisu, Creme Brulee and this - the Tangerine sorbet with fresh berries. If I may say so, the desserts weren't really "Abyssinian" at all. I was disappointed by their offerings. I was expecting more authentic choices. Like what? I have no idea, but I wasn't expecting "tiramisu"! As you can see by the photo, we got the third choice to "cleanse our palates". Ha ha. I just wanted to write "cleanse our palates". The sorbet was quite tangy and fresh, but I wasn't a fan of the sour stuff, so Bert and TC happily polished it off.

The damage for tonight was $71 (sans tip). Yikes! Now, if we ate at Harar, Awash, Red Sea, or even Asmara (which is the nicest out of the first three mentioned, but I actually like Harar the best), our bill would have been cut in half. Okay, maybe $40 total. That's the price to pay when eating in an a relatively new and yearning-to-be upscale new restaurant. I'm not spraying Haterade on this place, ok? Not at all! We liked it and I'd probably go here again to eat that okra! But...(and there's always a 'but'), it lacked the authenticity and grittiness of the other Ethiopian places, which I really like.

The service here was really good - the host was pretty cool and accomodating, as was our waiter. Remember the basket cover on our food platter? I originally wanted to take a photo of that before he uncovered the food, but he did it too fast. Bert asked him later on to bring it back so I could take a photo. I was kind of embarassed but took the photo anyways just for this blog. Anyhow, our server was really cool and answered all of our questions knowledgably; he was very friendly and attentive.

I knew what to expect demographics wise when we came to Muzita, but you know the saying about eating at an ethnic restaurant...If you don't see any people of that ethnicity eating there...turn around and walk away". Well, we weren't going to walk out! It's kind of a double edged sword. It's good people are wanting to try new things. More power to them (we're part of that crowd as well). But the very people/culture to which the restaurant pays homage weren't frequenting the place. Well, maybe they do, but they weren't there last night. No worries. It was good to see the place jumping. The restaurant seemed to be doing pretty well - it was packed when we left.

Here's the view leaving:

Heading home via El Cajon Blvd:

But not before stopping by Eclipse Chocolat for a more substantial dessert. That sorbet didn't do it for me. It was too sour (which Bert and TC loved). I got the Salted Caramel Cupcake (the salt is infused with Lavender) which we've had before. I like that combination of sweet and salty. The lavender I could actually do without though.

Cross section of the cupcake. You can see some of that oozing caramel. TC and I shared this since Bert has sworn off chocolate (as well as meat and rice) for Lent:

After savoring this decadent dessert, we finally headed home. It was pretty fun going out to eat, although the check total was a bit more than we were used to paying (but we knew it was coming). We'll be trying out some other places really soon...