Return to Ali Baba Family Restaurant - D's Birthday Lunch

It's been a super hot and sweaty August, hasn't it?  The Educator GF's and I celebrated D's birthday three weeks later. As usual, they let me do the planning because I'm a control freak they trust my judgement.

I was debating whether or not we should even drive to the East County where it would be ten degrees hotter than our hometown of Chula Vista.  It was Labor Day weekend and I sorely wanted to avoid the beach areas, tourist hot spots, and places where we'd been before...

Another criteria was that the place had to have air conditioning (that took Asia Cafe off the list). When D gave me carte blanche to pick, I narrowed our choices down to this place...

Sammoon Bakery & Restaurant

Sometime last week, I ventured out to the east county to have lunch with Cathy...

at an Iraqi place she highly recommended...

Anniversary Lunch at Nahrain Fish and Chicken Grill

We wanted to have a low-key lunch for our wedding anniversaryNothing fancy but nothing totally crappy either.

After asking a few foodblogger friends for recommendations, we decided on an small Iraqi restaurant in El Cajon that Cathy from Mmm-Yoso recommended (link at the end).