Post recital dinner at Bamboo Garden + Rita's again!

This past weekend, TC's dance recital went quite well and we were happy to see her perform many new Philippine dances with the other apprentice dancers.

 Her cuisine of choice was Thai so we kept it local at Bamboo Garden over in Otay Ranch...


Joining us were my parents, my bro's boys (nephews #2 and 4) and KD and her daughter. More people means more food photos. Out of us nine, only one person ordered the same thing as another, but not biggie (really it wasn't).

I ordered the Yellow Salmon special...

My dad's salad with peanut sauce dressing:

KDD's Calamari Salad - I don't think she realized the calamari would be like this; she was probably thinking it was breaded and fried. In any case, she ate it. TC shared some of her pad thai with her...

Nephew #4's Pho. Yes, pho at a Thai place. This was the one with combination meats. Don't know how this tasted but he seemed to like it.

This was mine, the #2 special, Salmon with yellow curry, which was served with a side of rice. The salmon itself was pretty good but the steamed vegetables were overkill. I didn't even eat any of it, saving it for later. I liked the potatoes and carrots (soft!) and the curry sauce.

My dad's Garlic Fish - which he liked and shared with half of the table. There were two sizable fillets in there. I remember the last time I got this, it was pretty salty. Not so this time.

TC's standby dish - the Pad Thai with Chicken:

KD ordered the only curry without a chili pepper, the Massaman Curry with chicken:

She'd never tried this type of curry before; the flavor was so good and again, not spicy. She let me try a little bit and I think I would get this next time I'm at a Thai restaurant. I normally don't order curry anything, but this particular type has changed my mine.

Bert's Drunken Noodles with Shrimp (spice level 3); Nephew #2 ordered the same thing but with a combo of meats.

The nephew originally wanted spice level 6 but we talked him out of it. It would have been a shame for him to get all that food and have it too spicy to enjoy.

My mom's Roasted Duck with some sort of sauce.  Yes, there is duck somewhere under all that goop!

I don't really like the taste of duck, finding it to be too gamy. My mom, being the typical Filipino mom, wanted everyone to try her duck and ended up giving us slices from her plate.

"Here! You try this!"  Plunk.

Everyone enjoyed their dinner and we even bumped into an old neighbor, actually the oldest son of my parent's neighbors. He was there with his wife and one of their college age sons. Our families grew up together, although he was much older. Bert's siblings actually knew this family back when they lived on the East Coast. The neighbors are one of the three sets of godparents from our wedding.

After dinner, we took the all the kids(I should say 'teens') to Rita's while my parents went home.

Man, no matter what time of day, this place is ALWAYS BUSY!

Once more, rotated flavors. Unfortunately, they were out of Juicy Pear, KD's first choice.


They didn't have any chocolate or coffee flavors so I went with the Georgia Peach and Passion Fruit Italian ice wth the vanilla frozen custard for my gelati.

My gelati, TC's Blendini (Cotton Candy Italian ice, vanilla custard with Nerds candy), KD's Mango and Vanilla gelati, KDD's Blendini (mango ice with Oreos, yes.....).

Nephew #4's Root Beer gelati with vanilla frozen custard (good choice!):

#2's Chocolate frozen custard cone:

I haven't tried a plain cone or a Blendini yet, but so far, I like the gelati!  Total win for the night, our desserts at Rita's. This coming Friday will be a madhouse for their Grand Opening since they're giving out free Italian ice all day!

Previous visit to Bamboo Garden:
July 2013

Previous visit to Rita's:
April 2014

I still have coupons for this place to use up! I'm still waiting for Rita's to break out with their blueberry Italian ice...