Mother's Day 2016 - Pho Hiep Grill Chateau + Halo Halo & return to Char House and Paris Baguette

This morning...

my walnut waffle breakfast from Bert and TC...

Bert even broke out with our good wedding china and flatware.


Waffles were made by Bert using the Belgian waffle maker he gave me last Christmas (knowing that he would most likely be the one using it).  Breakfast was light and delicious because we would soon be having Mother's Day lunch with my sister at Pho Hiep Grill Chateau.  My mom was originally supposed to be there but she was not feeling well so we visited her after church before heading off to lunch.

I'll spare you everyone else's lunch (com tam with whatever meat plus pho). I ordered my favorite item here, the Banh Xeo which is always crisp and delicious. They do not skimp on their lettuce and herb platter either, which I like.



Theres pork and shrimp in there under all of the bean sprouts.

Dessert was nearby at Halo Halo, since my sis and her boys hadn't been there yet. This was TC's mango ice cream (this was a small).

And here is the flavor I said I'd get the last time I was here, Langka and cashew (jackfruit and cashew).  I have to say that their small scoops are quite generous.

Nephew #3's Ube and coconut:

Bert's Buko Pandan (with rainbow gelatin and coconut strips):


After relaxing and napping at home, we headed out for dinner. The original plan was to go to the Rose Wine Bar in South Park, but due to their rules/liquor license, we could not dine there because TC was under 21. I didn't even know that her age would be a restriction in dining here. I liked the brunch my friends and I had during my birthday crawl last month and was looking forward to dinner here.  Sooooo....we thought maybe Buona Forchetta would be another place to go. Crappily, the lines were long and we found out there was a 3+ hour wait. What!  Well, this is what happens on Mother's Day when reservations are not made.

Normally we don't even go out for Mother's Day dinner but this year we did and I was kind of dreading it.  We usually do lunch somewhere that isn't crowded.

I remembered seeing a Mother's Day special at Char House on IG and thought we could give it a try. This is what the parking lot looked like at 5:15 pm.

Notice, the Bernie Sanders billboard.  Last month when I went here with Kirbie, it was a "Jesus died for your sins" billboard (since it was around Easter Time).

Only five cars in the lot. Literally ten minutes later the lot was filled.  I guess we came at a good time.

The Mother's Day special was 10 skewers for $10 (excluding their fancier ones, the filet mignon and the sugarcane shrimp, which I didn't like anyways).

We chose the beef, pork belly, chicken wings, shrimp (with head and shell) and shrimp without, octopus, pork, chicken, okra and mushroom.

Empty now but filled ten minutes later.

Bert's Kirin and TC's Thai tea with boba. No special drink for me today.

TC's brisket and flank pho.   she thought the soup was pretty good. Bert had pho as well (with rare steak). I tasted the broth and it was quite nice (beefy with anise notes) and not too salty.

Our skewers.  The beef was puny, the pork belly as good as the first time, the shell on shrimp was a pain to eat because you had to peel it, okra was just okay and the pork was all right.


I think the skewer on the left was pork, followed by the tender octopus, two small chicken wings (I wasn't sure how they'd present wings on a stick), plus the shrimp and the mushroom caps.

It was a good thing these skewers were $1 each. I wouldn't have paid regular price for some of them, especially the vegetable ones (which TC chose since we didn't want to eat gizzards or liver and no one wanted to try the chicken hearts except me).

Remembering the grapefruit salad we had the last time, I wanted to try another salad. This time, it was the mango salad with calamari.  The salad had slivered green apples and initially I thought it lacked the mango.  I didn't realize that it was green mango (or unripe). For some reason, I was thinking of the orange fleshed mango.

So when I asked the waiter if the mango was subbed out, he didn't understand and thought I was not happy with the food but I wasn't.  I just wanted to know if there was any mango in it at all because it didn't seem like any was in it.  He seemed flustered and said he'd ask the chef and would come back but he didn't. Bert joked that he was afraid of me because of my tone (which wasn't really bitchy but more like questioning in my opinion).  After he left, we realized that there was mango after all, but not in a big quantity.  Their menu description should be changed to include "green apple and mango salad" instead.

We liked how refreshing the salad was with the tartness and crunch of the fried shallots peanuts and the fruit (which was 80% green apple, wtf).

The calamari pieces were pretty meaty. This must have been from a giant squid as there were some pieces of tentacles in there (which almost looked like octopus but it wasn't). Our poor waiter didn't come back and someone else gave us our check. Damn, am I really that much of a bitch? Wait, don't answer that.  As you can see, we didn't order too much since we had lunch plus dessert earlier.  I know that for a future visit here, we will try more of their salads (except for this one).

Dessert was here at Paris Baguette in Zion. We did some grocery shopping (mostly prepared food from their deli so I wouldn't have to cook today) and picked up a few desserts to eat at home later.

TC's soft cheesecake, Bert's coffee danish and my pain au chocolate (which had an end piece dipped in dark chocolate). I hadn't seen this particular pastry before and let me just say that they should make this EVERYDAY.


Bert and I finished this right then and there int he food court. Lovely braided chocolate bread with more chocolate within.


Mother's Day last year:
2015 + lunch at the newly relocated Sab e Lee

Previous visit to Pho Hiep Grill Chateau:
March 2015, although we've been here many times, we usually order the same stuff and didn't see the need to post it

Previous visit to Halo Halo
May 2016 with my BIL's and their kids

Previous visit to Char House:
May 2016 with Kirbie

Previous visit to Paris Baguette (in Zion)
May 2015 with Astroboi

It was a nice Mother's Day spent with my family.  TC was so sleepy after serving me breakfast that she ended up sleeping at the foot of our bed.

I'mm glad we did a revisit for Char House despite the misunderstanding on my part.  We liked their offerings and now that we've tried most of their skewers, know what to get (or to avoid) in the future. I can see this as a "new" favorite place to go.  Until our next visit(s)...