Pastries, bolillos & Honey Shrimp

Earlier today I was in the area doing errands and thought I'd stop by to get a few breakfast pastries...

It's nice going in the morning because everything is fully stocked, very fresh, and smells so good...

I ended up having to go here again later that day...


because the dude who bagged my stuff forgot to give me my two bolillos.

I didn't realize they were missing until I got home and did my obligatory food shots. I assumed everything was in the brown paper bag so it was a bit irritating that it wasn't in there. When I called, the guy confirmed that the bolillos were left there in a separate bag. He apologized and said I could come back later to get them. Well shit, I didn't want to come back just for .80 worth of bread, but we figured we woud go back after our lunch and a movie (we saw "Star Trek into Darkness").

Below, four of the five pastries I brought home. One chilindrina (round bun with sugar paste and sugar crystals; the other one was in the bag), one cream cheese danish (for Bert), one Bavarian cream horn (TC's favorite), and one bear claw looking thing filled with pineapple.

I have to remind myself to bring a large plastic ware with me next time I go here. I hate that they dump everything into one bag. All the breads and pastries touch each other and sometimes get smashed and crumbly.

Before we left for our movie matinee, I assembled the marinade for the Honey Shrimp. It was supposed to be for Honey Grilled Shrimp, but our grill wasn't clean, so I improvised by pan sauteeing it later.

All you need is raw shrimp, vegetable oil, soy sauce, honey, garlic, salt and black pepper.

I was going back and forth over which shrimp recipe to make. Coconut shrimp sounded good, but involved dipping it in egg wash and getting bread crumbs, blah di blah blah. Too much work. Another recipe involved more ingredients that I didn't have and I didn't want to go to the store to get it. I found a relatively simple recipe from foodblogger JustJenn who posts all kinds of easy and cool recipes (some with a geeky twist, which I really like).

Mix 1/3 cup oil with 1 tbsp soy sauce, 3 tbsp honey, and two (I used five) minced garlic cloves.  Place your 1 lb of raw shrimp in a ziplock baggie and pour in the marinade. Let it marinate for 4-6 hours.

Fast forward to a few hours later. By then, we'd already watched the movie and then made our way over back to La Concha. The guy remembered me and graciously gave me FOUR fresh new bolillos. That was really nice of him to do that! I thought it spoke well of their customer service. So...with four bolillos instead of just two, we now had one of our main ingredients for our late lunch that day.


After marinating for about 5 hours, I dumped most of the marinade and tossed the shrimp into a sizzling hot pan. The shrimp cook up really fast. There was still oil from the marinade on the shrimp, as well as honey, creating a most delicious sear on the shrimp and a sweet and savory fragrance from the soy sauce, honey, and garlic.

In about 5-6 minutes, the shrimp was done. I added some snipped cilantro leaves for color.

While we were prepping for lunch, Bert buttered some corn, added some pico de gallo spice mix and lemon juice, wrapped it in foil and baked the corn for later. It wouldn't be done during our lunch unfortunately.

I also made use of one last onion and a few green bell peppers by sauteeing them and adding crushed pineapple for sweetness. These would go into our sandwich for lunch.

At La Concha, I also bought three Mexican sodas ($1.50 each). They have other flavors, but these were the only three they had available the day I went.

Our lunch - fresh bolillos filled with sauteed Honey Shrimp, sauteed green bell peppers and onions, sliced cucumbers, tomato and avocado, along with sliced romaine. This was such a nice and fresh meal.

I had to make sure to peel off the tails first before placing the shrimps in the bolillos, which we toasted.

We each had one sandwich and one third of the other (four bolillos, remember?)...

I know it's not hot dogs and hamburgers for Memorial Day, but I wanted to make something different for the family that day.

You can check out the original Honey Grilled Shrimp recipe from JustJennrecipes.com.

Ironically, I neglected to take photos of the bolillos but seeing it as a sandwich counts though!

OMG, just six more days of work and I'm outta there! I'm so antsy!