Long lines at Sonic = Fail, so Plan B was Pho Mai Cali & Grill

This past weekend we thought we'd give the new Sonic in National City a try...

Here it is in the morning...while we were on our way to drop off TC at a dance function. No lines...yet!

There are only about 8-10 car port spots. This was around 9 something. It would be a way different story later that afternoon...
Fast forward to 1 pm. Prime lunch time hours. I was beginning to regret this decision.

There were signs like this that said, "Line Begins Here" as well as directing cars to separate lines.

There was a super long line for both!  I implored my husband for us to escape while we could so we hightailed it out of there and drove through the El Super lot to get back to Sweetwater Road where we ended up here...

It's right next to Kyoto Market...Those of you that are familiar with the South Bay will remember this place as the old location of Da Kine's back in the late 90's.

We hadn't tried this place yet so we thought, "Why not!"...

To be honest, I didn't have high hopes, but just wanted to make sure TC was all right. She had a performance earlier that morning and hadn't eaten since breakfast.

Spring rolls were the first snack to come out. Earlier that morning Bert and I had a meeting for an upcoming Filipino American community event.

The peanut sauce was pretty dark and had more onions (wth) than peanuts. I was more interested in the groovy love beads, which I texted a pic to Astroboi. His parents had something similar hanging in their house.

Our entrees - TC's pho with tai (she is a creature of habit)...

Bert's noodles with mixed seafood (shrimp balls, shrimp, squid and fake Krab sticks, and steamed vegetables.

His dish, while bland, was actually quite healthy. There was a small dish of nuoc cham to pour over it, but he didn't use it. We both enjoyed his noodles and vegetable dish.

I was still full from our snacks earlier that day (a hot dog bread from Paris Baguette and an empanada from Gemmae Bakery, from our meeting). This was the Papaysa salad with pork and shrimp that we all shared...

I loved the Thai basil sprig as garnish and how finely shredded the papaya was.

The papaya salad was quite refreshing; the dressing was on the lighter and sweeter side as well. I really liked it and the leftovers were enjoyed for the next few days. We were pleasantly surprised by this place. The service was all right, although typical of most Vietnamese places. You get your food and then you don't see the server again unless you flag him/her down. None of this, "How is your food?" or "Still working on that?". I prefer to not have those questions asked of me when I'm eating.

Pho Mai Cali & Grill
3905 Sweetwater Road
National City, CA 91950
(619) 477-0677

There is no website here but here are the mixed bag of reviews...

Since Sonic just opened to much fanfare last week, I expect it will be quite busy and packed non-stop. Once school starts up for nearby Sweetwater High School, this place will be even busier!  For now, I'm content to wait it out, after all, it's just a burger with the added option of having someone serve it to you on roller skates. I'm just, "Eh...whatever dude!"...