Guahan Grill

Everyday during my vacation, I planned something different for everyday. Whether it was with TC, or all of us, or with a friend, there was something  fun to see or do and a good place to eat pretty much every day. This day was no exception. We thought we'd make the trip up to Oceanside to try out a Chamorro place in this strip mall...

Guahan Grill is a bit out of the way for us, now that Yokozuna's (before they turned into Yokoz and sucked completely; they are now closed) and Islander Grill are now gone.

Besides Guahan Grill, the only other Guamanian place is Chamorro Grill on Mission Gorge Road (by the Kaiser Permanente Hospital near Zion).

During our Portland Trip in Spring of 2012, I was chatting with Ed Sabalan, the owner of the Guamanian foodcart, PDX 671 (PDX is the airport code for "Portland" and 671 refers to Guam's area code). He asked me if I'd ever eaten at Guahan Grill and I told him that I never even heard of it, much to his surprise.

I made a mental note to eventually check out that place because I am a fan of Guamanian food. My sister's best friend is Guamanian and whenever they have parties, they always have excellent food!
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You can view their menu online here


Everything looked so good...

It was hard to make a decision...

Haha, I like the name "Belching Beaver"! It turns out they are a local brewery up in Vista. Their tasting room is in North Park near Crazee Burger. Man, Bert and I need to check it out!

It's very casual in here with a bit of an awkward layout.

There is also a small bar where patrons can hang out.

The finadene sauce (soy sauce, vinegar or lemon, chopped green or white onions, and Bonnie peppers)...I'm not sure if they put any peppers in here since it was quite mild. I've not had finadene sauce with chunky cut onions in it either; it's usually green onions. But no worries, the sauce was good and we used it liberally on our red rice...

With the coupon, we got one entree for free.

I got the Guahan Special ($12.75) - a choice of meat (chicken for me), two sides (chicken kelaguen and potato salad), rice (I chose red) and a chicken empanada. This was A LOT of food!

Bert ordered the Chamorro Style Fried Ribs ($10.75) - Marinated and fried ribs with red rice, and one side (cucumber salad).

Lastly, TC's Chamorro Fried Rice with choice of meat (she chose chicken since I'd already made Spam fried rice earlier that week). I was kind of disappointed that she chose fried rice since I can that any time, but oh well. That's what she was feelin' that day.

Here was the chicken kelaguen which was "okay". I still liked the version I had at PDX 671 the best.

I liked how they stuck the empanada into the red rice. Normally I don't like Guamanian style empanadas. The wrapper is made of corn, which I'm not a fan of. However, Guahan Grill's version was just better than the one's I have in the past.

The exterior was nice and crisp and the filling full of shredded chicken. I had to doctor it up with some finadene to give it some kick though.

Bert shared one of the ribs with me. OMG, this was the best thing we had that day! The ribs were marinated in a special house sauce then FRIED!!! This was so flavorful!

There were a lot of leftovers but we came prepared. We brought a cooler packed with ice for our leftovers as well as our anticipated desserts/sweets stash at another venue.

Here is my Portland post where I had Guamanian food in Portland, of all places:
"D Street Noshery - PDX 671, Fuego de Lotus & Bailey's"

Who else went to Guahan Grill?
The ever so knowledgeable Kirk was here just a few months ago.

Guahan Grill
4259 Oceanside Blvd.
Oceanside, CA 92057
(760) 806-4826

guahangrill.com

Dessert would be later. Much later. Since we were in Oceanside, we thought we would check out the Mission San Luis Rey, known as "The King of the Missions". When TC was in fourth grade, they had to learn about the missions in California. We even visited a few missions during our Bay Area road trips in 2009 and 2011 (Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San Buenaventura, Dolores,  Rafael, Carmel, and of course, San Diego). The Mission post might be postponed until a later date so I'll just skip to dessert for the next post.