Return to E & Drink

Now that Zion is open, the crowds seemed to have abated at Ranch 99. It also helped that we went before the lunch hour and on a weekday...

Otherwise, I wouldn't have even attempted going here!  Right now, Zion is the "shiny new toy" and it's not even busy there yet.

Lunch was on our minds...

Parking was plentiful, but there are still @#$%'s who don't know how to park within the lines here.

This is where we ate that day, E & Drink.

The sign was so cute!

As Cathy from Mmm-Yoso noted in her recent post (linked at the end), they finally had signage here.

We knew what we wanted...okay, I wanted, heh heh. My tween just went along with the choice!

Ooh, can't wait til they start offering brick toast here!

It was still pretty early, hence the lack of customers. We got a window seat.

We shared the "mini" Seafood Hotpot ($10.99/included either hot or cold green or black tea). You have your choice of either vermicelli noodles or rice.

The hotpot was bubbling away and I  felt like one wrong move could upend this onto my lap (I had on shorts). It was chockful of seafood (clams, shrimp, squid, fish, dumplings, fish case, and probably a few other things I can't remember) and vegetables (enoki mushrooms, napa cabbage, potatoes, and radish).

It also came with two small saucers (not pictured) with soy sauce and chili sauce.

I wasn't too crazy about the cold green tea. It was such a large amount too.  It was also amazing that what seemed like a small portion of vermicelli totally expanded in the broth. It was so filling. TC and I really enjoyed the seafood broth and picking through the ingredients to get what we wanted.

We actually polished it off!

Before we left, we also ordered one of their egg waffles, which is a popular street food in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

There's the egg waffle contraption...

We were curious to try E & Drink's version, as compared to the ones we tried at Eggette's in the Sunset District in SF.

The texture looked a bit more "brown" and spongy. It only comes in one flavor here too, which is plain.

So we tried it and found it lacking. Save yourself some calories.

Before we left, I wanted to check a certain item (soy wrappers). We marveled at the fresh jackfruit here...

Trung Nguyen is our favorite type of Vietnamese iced coffee. I used to drink it a lot a few years ago but have laid off the caffeine.

Past the cash registers were these huge jars of pork sung, a dried pork powder popular in Chinese dishes and snacks. I'm not really a fan of the taste though. People must really like this though because there were quite a few pallets of the stuff in the aisle.

It was time to head out to our next stop...

I was happy that I found the wrappers I wanted. Faye recently used them in her previous post for Spicy Salmon Poke.

Only $2.69 for a package of 5. Each wrapper is a differnt color and flavor. I was recently at Kyoto (a Japanese mini store) today and saw the same package for $3.99!

Previous visit to E&Drink:
August 2012 where the Educator GF's and I celebrated D's birthday

Plus revisits from fellow SD Foodbloggers:
Kirbie's revisit in late January  where she also had the seafood hotpot, spicy beef, as well as the lamb
Plus Cathy's revisit earlier this month.

Our next destination was just down the street. So far, everything we'd gone to was on Clairemont Mesa Blvd. I like to be efficient like that. That's how I roll, eh.

Up next, another ethnic joint down the street!