Asia Cafe for the umpteenth time!

A few days ago, I went to one of my favorite places on our "rotation", Asia Cafe. Actually, my friend and I were supposed to go to Sab e Lee 2 in Santee, but it was closed on Mondays. For some reason I thought it was only the Linda Vista location was that closed on Mondays. Kicking myself for not having called, we headed back down south to Chollas View.  Here's our iced coffees...exciting, eh!

This was the lettuce/herbs plate for the Nem Khao...

I'm sure almost all of my Asia Cafe posts have Nem Khao in them. I love it so much - it's crunchy from the fried rice and peanuts, sour from the pork sausage, and spicy with the herbs and lettuce...My friend ended liking this as well her dad who ate our leftovers later that night!

Since it was only two of us, we didn't order too many dishes. We were also saving room for dessert later...This was the Yum Asia, a "salad" with shrimp, squid, fish cake, thinly sliced cucumber, carrots and who knows what else. The dressing had lime juice and fish sauce and the whole thing was topped with crushed peanuts....

This next item was something I hadn't ordered in a while, the Seen Nam Toke, which is a cheap cut of beef marinated in lemon juice and fish sauce, then grilled until caramelized. The dipping sauce (infused with cilantro) was also quite good with the meat and the Nem Khao.

It was pretty dead at Asia Cafe when we went, just us two  and another table with two other girls. My dinner companion was a former student of mine (we are 10 years apart) and we hadn't seen each other in nearly two years. She recently moved back to San Diego after having lived and worked on the East Coast for nearly a decade. She is an awesome as a public speaker (spoken word/poetry, keynote speeches) and is truly someone who I feel will change the Filipino American community through her efforts at organizing and mobilizing youth.  I've known her for roughly 16 years and over this span of time and am proud to see how she's grown into this confident young lady.

So, the young guys working there, Johnny and Scotty (sons of the owners/cook) seemed amused (or maybe irritated) by our foul mouthed shit talking! We were pretty loud exchanging gossip and all!  But, hey, I like how it's really chill over here...No pretentiousness at all. I'll be back again really soon!