Just opened! Convoy Noodle House in Chula Vista - Visits 1 & 2

[Palate Cleanser Posts - 3 new ones...then it's back to Canada!!!]

Well, well, lookie here...it's finally open!!!  Pho Convoy Noodle House opened late May and is now in business bringing yet another Vietnamese eatery in the eastern Chula Vista area.

There is Pho Convoy on Convoy Street that we'd always pass by but never ate there. Convoy Noodle House is on Otay Lakes Road, right across the street from Southwestern College and in the strip mall that has the old (and now empty) Henry's Market and the very shiteous Yokoz (formerly known as Yokozuna's). I think this used to be an insurance office and/or pottery place.

It's pretty big inside - kind of like Phuong Trang but not with a bunch of circular tables. Speaking of tables, theirs were nice and sturdy and made of real wood not plastic or formica or whatever!  Their bathrooms are also clean (an added plus) and you will find no need (at least not YET or not EVER) to roll up your pantlegs to avoid any nasty or wet surprises on the floor. Ha ha, unlike some places. By the way, I predict that a majority of the clientele at this new place will be Filipino. Why? That's all there was the first time we went! Not that it's a bad thing, okay! Hey, I'm 2nd gen Filipina American myself! But seriously, there's a lot of Filipinos in Chula Vista and we're always looking for good places to eat.

Their menu is also posted on their front window. It's pretty long too. That's kind of good and kind of bad. Good in that there's a lot to choose from. Bad for the same reason. Especially when you have really old Filipinos that are undecided about what they want to eat. I could totally hear all the aunties and lolos and lolas bickering in Tagalog about what to order.  Their waitstaff must be patient as fk and hide their frustration well! But I'm sure they get that too from other cultures. If you're not used to a typical Vietnamese menu, it CAN be very overwhelming.

This was Bert's iced coffee (we both had one) and let me tell you that filter was huuuuge! Like crazy unhealthy portion huge. The one's I'm used to only fit about 1 cup of water. This was close to twice the size. You know they use espresso right? Well, I was pretty wired that night!

My mother in law ordered the house tea...

TC had the #115, the Mixed Tropical Fruit drink. The fruits were sliced lychees, jackfruit, and pandan jello with coconut strings. There was milk (or cream?) inside as well as a scoop of shaved ice. This is basically the Vietnamese version of Halo Halo.

For our 1st visit, we ordered spring rolls (Goi Cuon, #18, $5.35) with shrimp and pork. Yeah, boring but TC likes them so I deferred my piece to her. Nothing spectacular with these. Standard.

As a twist, instead of the regular fried spring rolls with pork, noodles and mushrooms, we ordered the Cha Gio Sate Bo (#17, 6 pieces/$5.85 Satay beef - "HOT" <---but seriously, it wasn't spicy at all). The lettuce and mint sprigs were a bit sparse though.

Bert ordered the Bun Satay Bo (#62, $6.15, Spicy Satay beef - HOT<----it says that on the menu, but again, it wasn't hot hot). This was a filling dish but I thought the meatballs were too "heavy".  The flavor was also different but I can't quite put my finger on it.

My MIL had the Bun Ga Nuong (#63, $6.15, Char-broiled chicken) which she seemed to like. It was way too much food for one person so she ended up eating only a tiny bit of it. She's not used to eating bun.

TC and I shared the Banh Hoi Chao Tom (#78, Shrimp paste on sugar cane, $9.25). Each order is served with a plate of rice wrappers, green lettuce, mint, sliced pickled cucumbers, carrots, and daikon, as well as thin vermicelli with peanuts and green onions. It was perfect for sharing and we both had fun rolling our own (heh heh) shrimp paste rolls.

A few of the shrimp paste pieces had the sugar cane skewer. I gave TC a piece of the sugar cane to chew but it was difficult because of her braces.

Here's my crappily wrapped roll!

A few days later, my MIL and my bro in law wanted to go out to dinner so we went here again. This was TC's Bun Suon Dai Han (#64, $6.75, Short Ribs). These are beef short ribs (think of Korean Kalbi ribs) over bun served with thinly sliced lettuce, carrots, and bean sprouts (veg on the bottom). That was a lot of meat for one tiny person so we made sure to save the other 2/3 as leftover!

My MIL got the Com Ca (#47, $7.15, sole fish on broken rice). We weren't expecting two big old pieces of nicely battered fish on her plate. I didn't taste this so I don't know how good it was but she seemed to like it. My BIL had a tiny piece and said it was pretty good.

Bert had the large Pho Tai (#4,  $5.95); beef noodle soup with rare steak. He wasn't too happy with this because the meat seemed to stick together in the broth. He also felt that the meat curled up too much? Like it had been sitting in the broth long or something? The broth wasn't as flavorful like at some other places we'd been at.

Lastly, here is my BIL's plate - He got the Com Tam 7 Mon (#45, $9.95 - seven courses of broken rice). Now the 7 courses don't refer to the rice. They were: A) Pork Chop, B) Shrimp Paste on Sugarcane, C) Shredded Pork Skin, D) Char-broiler meat, E) Char-broiler chicken, F) Baked Egg, and G) Bean Curd Sheet with Shrimp Paste (those are the rolled flat things  at the top). Can you spot each item?

I tried a tiny bit of the shredded pork skin (they looked like noodles) and didn't really like the texture. The bean curd with shrimp paste was good though!

And what did I get? Since I liked what TC and I had last time...

I ordered the #79 again! I think this is my new favorite dish. This time there was no threaded shrimp paste on the sugar cane skewers. I must have been ravenous that day becaue I finished most of it!

 

Our verdict - We like it here and plan to make this our "go to dinner" place  for the times we don't want to cook dinner because it's nearby, the food is good and the service is fast and friendly. I'm thinking of excuses to go here again...

Kayaba at Mitsuwa

Here is another "Canada Palate Cleanser" for you all...our recent excursion (separate post) and lunch at Kayaba in the Mitsuwa Marketplace in the Clairmont area.

Next to Santouka is another Japanese eatery. These are located near the front entrance to Mitsuwa.  For other folks' posts on Kayaba, check out  Mmm-Yoso's posts here and here, along with a post by Kirbie's Cravings.

This is the cool fake food in the display window...Bert's choice was this...

While I had my eye on this....

Here's the views of Mitsuwa from our table. Kinda nice when it's NOT a weekend and everyone and their grandmother is here. The aisles were so spacious without a million people walking around.

I had TC secure an empty table while Bert ordered our food. Meanwhile, I made a quick ghetaway to the boxed food section of Mitsuwa where I picked up these items: Urumake Shrimp sushi...

along with a couple of packages of fried oysters (comes with a tiny packet of Tonkatsu sauce, which was hard for me to open because I'm lame like that)...TC loves these!

And...a 3-pack of Curry Croquettes....mmmm, potato curry filling!

Here is Bert's Tenderloin Breaded pork combination which came with miso soup, rice, shredded cabbage, and pickled vegetables (which was red cabbage, blech). Doesn't look quite as nice as the fake food!

TC ordered the Tendon which is a type of rice bowl. Her topping was shrimp. Mine was the same but with shrimp and vegetable tempura. We both really liked the sauce at the bottom of the bowl. There was too much rice though and we barely made a dent in it since we had a lot of other food on the side.

Like this curry croquette! I loved the crunchy Panko coating and the potato filling too!

These were so good, I ended up buying one more package to eat at home later on!  Future posts - our day at the Del Mar, I mean, San Diego Fair! Fried shit galore!

Harar Buffet

Here is a "palate cleanser" for those of you that are weary of my Canada posts!

A few Fridays ago, we went to Harar Ethiopian Restaurant on El Cajon Blvd (check out my previous posts here and if you click on that, there's another older post within that!). This is located right near the Texas St. intersection and also across the street from Denny's. Looks like they got a new sign!

On Fridays, Harar offers an all you can eat buffet. When I first heard about this, the buffet was $9.00. That was a few years ago. I guess it got really popular or something or maybe it's because of the economy, but now the price is $13, which still isn't too bad considering you'd pay way more than that if you ordered all the stuff they offered individually.

I didn't get pix of everything offered in the buffet (too many people in the front room; we sat in the back patio). There were three meat dishes. The circular dish held the Chicken (Yedero wot) while the rectangular dish on top had lamb (Yebeg siga wot); below that was beef.(Yebbo siga). All of the meat dishes were in a red spicy sauce; the beef was my favorite. The chicken was also especially good, like falling from the bone good.

The other dishes were all vegetarian which included red lentils, split yellow lentils, cabbage with carrots and potatoes, an awesome eggplant dish, and collard greens. There was also a huge basket with rolled up pieces of injera  for the taking...

Here is the back patio where we sat. If you clicked on my older posts, you only saw the front room, so now here's the back! There was a mixed crowd that day. There was an older couple next to us wearing what looked like woven rugs with holes cut out for the head to go through. Interesting fashion choice. I'm not sure if it was a cultural outfit or not.  There were also some couples as well as groups of college type students there. Mixed too - Asian, Caucasian, Latino. There were also Ethiopians sitting in the front room. Points for authenticity not like Muzita in University Heights with all the hipster yuppies.

Bert's beer, the Meta which he didn't really like. He said it was too light and didn't have much flavor.

The plates were paper and but the cutlery was real. This was one of our plates...I made the mistake of getting a tiny bit of all the lentils when I really should have been saving room for this (that plate not shown)! The beef and the eggplant dishes! That eggplant must have been magical because even Bert ate it and he normally HATES eggplant.  If you ever go during their buffet night, get the eggplant and also the carrots and cabbage dish. The carrots were so delicious, bordering on savory sweet. TC really enjoyed the carrots and the eggplants

As is customary with Ethiopian cuisine, we ate with our hands (which was also a plus for TC). Even though utensils were offered next to the injera basket, we chose to do it the right way. I'm glad we finally got to try their buffet (no sambussas offered though). It's well worth it especially if you like the meat dishes. If you are a vegetarian, you might also enjoy their buffet since there's about 6 or 7 things to choose from.

Dessert at Chopin

Hey everyone! Yes, all 3 of you! Ha ha!

We're still in the Roncesvalles neighborhood of Toronto...trolling for dessert.  This street is also named Roncesvalles and there are a bunch of Polish places on this street. We just had our awesome home style dinner at Cafe Polonez. Now, we were going to walk a few paces down to Chopin!

It was still light out and the street was quiet...

Chopin is literally just steps away from Cafe Polonez. Chopin, if you don't already know it, is named after the Poland's beloved native son, the brilliant piano composer, Frederic Chopin (that's his face is on the menu, yo). I remember having to play some of his pieces when I used to take piano lessons. My favorite is the "Raindrop Prelude".  He's very difficult to play and I pretty much just play it like I have wooden hands!That's how good I am.   Pause for effect.  Ha ha, there's no way I can play "Fantasie Impromptu"! Give me the simplified version instead!

(from wikipedia's entry on Chopin):

"Chopin's Polish biographer Zdzisław Jachimecki notes that "Chopin at every step demonstrated his Polish spirit — in the hundreds of letters that he wrote in Polish, in his attitude to Paris's [Polish] émigrés, in his negative view of all that bore the official stamp of the powers that occupied Poland." Likewise Chopin composed music to accompany Polish texts but never musically illustrated a single French or German text, even though he numbered among his friends several great French and German poets."

Right on Freddy! Represent for the Poles!

We were only here for dessert...they didn't really have a lot of choices. Sorry this photo is blurry too. That's what I get for not using flash in the dark!  And notice it says "Live Entertainment" on the menu cover?

When we walked in, a waitress came over and told us we could sit anywhere we wanted. So, we chose a table in the back, by the bar and also near a TV where a few patrons were watching bits and pieces of the World Cup. At the same time, a bespectacled little old man wearing a brown shorts pulled high over his waist came slowly shuffling over...

He passed us by, sat himself down and began playing the piano as if his life depended on it. Yes, this man was THE advertised "Live Entertainment"!

In addition to Chopin, he expertly played other more modern/popular songs and intermixed them with the classical music which I thought was quite ingenious! I wish I could remember what he played; it was really cool to hear him play so effortlessly at the piano which was in sharp contrast to his painstaking shuffle. Here is a nice article about the woman who owns Chopin; I included it because it has a picture of the piano player!

So, here is the crepes with cheese that we ordered as our topper for tonight. There were three triangular cheese filled crepes topped with whipped cream and garnished with berries. I felt that the chocolate squiggles were a little too much though since the dessert was already sweet enough as it was.

It was the perfect dessert to share to such a long ass day of sightseeing and sampling different types of foods plus wine. Here's the view of Chopin as we left...

Time to head back to our hotel which was in the Financial District. Bert was able to get us a good rate because of the LuminaTO Festival (more info here). Apparently, this festival was going on that month and the rate was nearly $100 cheaper than it normally was. Well, hot dayumm!

Acording to wikipedia's entry on "LuminaTO":

"[LuminaTO]is a publicly-attended, multi-disciplinary arts festival held annually for 10 days each June in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.



Launched in 2007, Luminato features local, national, and international artists from a variety of genres; including, classical and contemporary music, dance, theatre, film, literature, visual arts, and design. Events take place in multiple indoor and outdoor locations throughout Toronto’s downtown core..."

Luminato 2010 ran from June 11–20. We actually saw stages scattered throughout the city for the festival. However, we didn't see any actual performances.

So, uh, yeah, he told the hotel reservation person that we were definitely going to be there for that!    Not!    On another note, we were fortunate to even get rooms being so close in time frame to the G20 Summit which is happening now as I type this.  So, thank you LuminaTO Festival for we were able to save some $$$!

One of the TTC streetcars...

I have no idea if this place is any good, the Gladstone Cafe. I snapped the shot because the sign advertised "poutine"!

And here's another Tim Hortons...they're all over the place!

I took these shots back at the hotel. These were the Polish candies they gave us with the dessert bill. Actually we haven't even eaten them yet!

I just realized something...these Canada posts are going to take forever! These were just two days worth! If you are patient and don't mind a few palate cleansers now and then (i.e. upcoming posts on Harar Ethiopian buffet and the brand spanking new Convoy Noodle house in Chula Vista), I'll be slowly getting through the Canada posts as best as I can. There is waaaay more to come! Stay tuned!