Foodcrawl with Mary & Lynn - Stops 2 & 3: Mexican Bakeries + Stop 4 at Lannboon Asia Cafe

Near Birrieria don Rafa was a bakery I had recently visited with Cathy...

where we were gifted with cake pops from the nice lady at Mexico Lindo...

Takeout from Bane Phonkeo

I almost forgot about this...

while on our way home, on a whim, I asked Bert if we could stop by the Laotian place off Imperial Ave...

More snacks from Bane Phonkeo

A few days ago Bert and I stopped by Bane Phonkeo's before picking up TC...

I wanted some of those flower shaped cookies...

Return to Bane Phonkeo

Still not done with the day after our snack at La Crepe de Bretagne, we made one more stop before picking up TC at her gig...

(painted utility boxes off Imperial Ave and 805 offramp exit)

making another return visit to another place we really liked, Bane Phonkeo, a small Laotian takeout place off Imperial and 47th.

Bane Phonkeo's Food to Go

So far, today was a fun adventure despite the small bit of rain we ran into while driving. I'm liking Saturday mornings more and more since Bert and I have been  finding new places to go. Earlier, we enjoyed our breakfast at Nate's and our coffee from Bay Park. There was this small eatery I wanted to check out before picking up TC...

There is a gray building on the northwest west corner of 47th and Imperial, diagonally from Lincoln High School. It was time to finally check it out...

Yet more changes at Asia Cafe

TC and I were out and about one day and had a craving for Laotian food...

This could only mean one thing...

New favorite dish at Asia Cafe + price hike in their menu

We escaped the parking hell in North Park and headed south to 47th and Market Street...

Yes, to one of our favorites....

Asia Cafe...under new ownership! Oh yeah, plus Lao sausage...

After having had Issan sausage last night from Krua Thai, I had a craving for the Lao version so off we went to one of our favorite eateries...

I had a craving for the Lao version so off we went to one of our favorite eateries...

over in Chollas View, in tha' hood...

Asia Cafe updates their menu

Yesterday before heading over to the hell known as Fashion Valley mall (I needed to look for new eyeglass frames), we had lunch at one of our favorite spots...

Same old exterior, but wait, what's this?

Their menu has been updated after how many years!

Let us compare...

Soup Three Ways

Bert has been sick for one week. He has a cough that just won't go away. To help combat his cold, we went out for some soup at Pho Convoy in Chula Vista...

This week we had soup at a couple of places plus some homemade Filipino comfort food...

New favorite soup

I finally did it...

I tried something NEW at Asia Cafe...haha!

It was about time to get out of my rut and try a new dish here...

Asia Cafe for the bajillionth time...

Last Friday I had the pleasure of dining out with my friend and neighbor across the street. She wanted to take me out for a belated birthday dinner, my choice.

 Lucky for me, she is also willing to try new things, so this meant another long overdue visit to one of my favorite restaurants, Asia Cafe...

Lunch with friends at Asia Cafe

Yesterday,  a planned lunch with N & L was cancelled so we decided to have lunch where we originally planned, Asia Cafe...

This time, we'd have some company...

Off the menu...

This past Friday, which turned out to be the hottest damn day of the year (so far!) took me over to one of our favorite restaurants in San Diego...

According to Kirk of Mmm-Yoso, Asia Cafe was recently featured on "Eden Eats" (along with Sultan and a few other SD places). We don't get the Cooking Channel, so I'll have to dig up that episode online...

Anyhow, it's nice to see this type of national exposure for Asia Cafe, which I'd read about back in  2006 (Kirk's blog of course)...

Return to Sang Dao

Wow, what a miracle! I'm actually posting this on the same day! This will be a quick 'n dirty post. After almost a year's absence, it was time to try some Lao food once again. The occasion? To celebrate the graduation of my former student who recently graduated from a prestigious business school back East. I gave her the choice of Thai (I was planning on Sab e Lee in Santee if she chose that) or Lao (either Sang Dao or Asia Cafe)...

Since she hadn't had Lao food in awhile, I chose Sang Dao. Remember, Sang Dao is closed on Mondays! I still remember trying to come here with some friends, so excited but the happiness was dashed by the closed sign. No worries today though.

Progressive lunch - Asia Cafe, Que Huong and Eclipse

This will be a quick and dirty post...

Today I met up with a friend who was visting home from the Bay Area. This young lady is the one who gave the dynamic speech I raved about back in Spring 2009. I hadn't seen her in about a year and a half when we were on our summer vacation. She's the one who took us and Thane to Sinugba in Daly City in Summer 2009.

I hadn't done a progressive lunch in awhile, so here goes.

Stop 1:
Asia Cafe

That was the Nem Khao, my favorite thing that's NOT on the menu.  Crunchy fried rice with peanuts, green onions, fermented pork sausage and chilis. Below are the greens you eat with the nem khao: lettuce, mint and cilantro...

We also had a few bits of the See Nam Toke - flank steak marinated with fish sauce.

Stop 2 - I was vacillating between Sab-e-Lee in Santee AND Que Huong but in the interest of time, chose Que Huong before our thrd and last stop. We'll have to do Sab-e-Lee 2 next time for the Miang Kum and the Issan Sausage...

I hadn't been here since the infamous "can't get a round table" post (April 2010). To my delight and suprise, Jay the owner was there and greeted us. He still remembered me which was nice. He also comped us ice coffees which was awesome!  We ordered the Jackfruit Salad with Pork and Shrimp. My friend hadn't had any of these dishes at all, so it was fun to have them again and to have her sample these dishes.

Next up was a small order of the Fish Sauce Chicken Wings which we both enjoyed (2 each!)...She's going to enjoy some good leftovers tonight, I tell you!

Stop 3 - Eclipse Chocolat on El Cajon

Some flavors I hadn't seen before were there like Maple Bacon (not pictured) and the Kentucky Bourbon Caramel.

I got the Maple Bacon while she got the Kentucky Bourbon cupcake.

Here she is with our desserts...

Cross section of the Kentucky Bourbon. You could really taste it in the layer beneath the ganache frosting and in the filling.

This was the Maple Bacon with sea salt. The bacon bits were in the filling. I think Bert would really like this as much as I did. I saved half for him. I liked the interplay of salty and sweet.

Despite all the food you've seen, we managed to pace ourselves and have a few bites of each dish. Seriously, this was sooo hard to do!

Believe it or not, I also had a dinner date with my Educator GF's (KD, D and TORC) that evening for KD's birthday. Last year we went to Sab e Lee in Santee. I definitely had to make sure I had some room. In fact, as I blog this, I am waiting for them to ring the doorbell!

Fashion alert: I love this 80's style puff sleeve blouse (the sleeves are also 3/4 length). Tarjay man! It's a dark charcoal which is my new favorite neutral. I have strong and broad shoulders so I think this silhouette looks kinda cool. My hair is getting long too! Yay. Gotta get the left side buzzed again. My spikes are flat.

So yeah, Pho Hiep Grill in Eastlake Villagewalk, here we come...

Return to Sang Dao

Once I get on a roll, I can't stop. 

Thus begins the glut of overdue posts. Except this post wasn't from weeks ago. Those will come soon.  This post was actually yesterday. Surprise, surprise.

After the shitty disappointment of going here way back in March when is was closed (note to self - do not go on Mondays), we wanted to go up North again for some Lao food.  We were on our way to the "Filipinos in San Diego" book launching and decided to have lunch before going to Balboa Park.

We found a spot in the really small parking lot (I've seen worse)...Luckily there were several tables available so we were seated at the corner on in the front, which was perfect for me and my not so surreptitious camera skills. This lunch party had one Asian in their midst. I overheard her explaining what each dish was and how to eat certain dishes with the plates of lettuce and herbs.  Cool - a cultural plunge!

I also had dinner scheduled later that night with my GF's (TORC, KD and Divalicious), so I didn't want to eat too much for lunch even though I was super hungry.

I liked the Thailand and Laos postcards undernearth the tabletop's glass, which were on top of native textiles.

Condiments - I liked how they were labeled. Included was chili oil, crushed peanuts, pickled peppers, chili peppers and chili garlic sauce. Plus you had your usual fish sauce, soy sauce and Sriracha.

Okay, this was someone else's food. I pretended to take a photo of TC but I had the zoom lense on the lady's plate behind TC. They ordered sausage and sticky rice (in the basket). Next time we go here, we have to order that because it looked so good! They also ordered Nam Khao (Lao fried rice), which isn't pictured.

The appetizer spring rolls were huge! The rice noodles in the spring rolls were also thick and round (like Asia Cafe's) but they put 4 shrimp instead of 3!

Here is Sang Dao's Nam Khao (which I supposed is also spelled as "Nem Khao"). The crispy rice bits weren't as crispy as Asia Cafe's version. Their sour sausage was also more meaty with less of the stringy pork skin that's usually attached to the sausage. They also don't top it off with cilantro but no matter, the lettuce and herbs were served on the side.

This was so fkg good, I just had to put in another photo...

We ordered the Fried Fish (tilapia)...

which, as you can see, we enjoyed and pretty much tore apart.

Just a little light lunch...

Remember people! Don't go on Mondays!

The yogurt place across the street is now out of business. When Bert and I went back in March on a progressive lunch adventure with a few friends, we ended up having dessert there (see that post here) after finding out that Sang Dao wasn't open on Mondays.

We took the scenic route to Balboa Park by travelling through El Cajon Blvd...

For old time's sake, here are my previous posts on Sang Dao here and here. 

Next up, dinner with the chicks...

Progressive Lunch - Asia Cafe, Que Huong + Fruity Yogurt

[This lunch occurred last month...but I'm finally posting it now for your food porn pleasure!]

Last month, Bert and I did a progressive lunch with the very cool owner and creator of PNOY Apparel, his lovely fiancee and one of his associates. Check out his new collection, "The Truth Hurts" at his site. I have several of his shirts and they're always either conversation starters, headturners and attention getters. His site is  also one of my links for "Things I like and so should you!"  After talking about food one day, we decided to meet up for lunch during my Spring Break. Turns out none of them had ever had Lao food before, so of course we had to go here...

I love how they taped post it notes "add .50" or "add .75" to their menu instead of printing new ones. The first time we went to Asia Cafe in 2006, this would have been helpful because we didn't realize the menu prices were out of date. When we got the bill, it was higher than we'd calculated. Anyways, I thought this was funny

Since this was going to be a progressive lunch, we didn't plan to have a full on meal here. Just two items. The first was the Nem Khao, crunchy fried rice with fermented sour pork sausage, chopped peanuts, whole dried chili peppers, green onions and cilantro.

The Nem Khao is not on the menu. You have to ask for it by name. The rice is served with a plate of fresh lettuce and sprigs of cilantro. Needless to say, the Nem Khao was an immediate hit. There were no leftovers, put it that way.

The other item was the Lao Beef Jerky which we likened to Filipino tapa, but cut in thick strips. This was still smaller than the Cambodian beef jerky Bert and I had at Sophy's in Long Beach (see that post here). This beef jerky wasn't as "dry" and you could taste the delicious marinade throughout the meat.

As a snack on the way out, Bert bought a ziplock bag of fried pork ears!

Mmm! Tasty! Crack your fillings kind-a crunchy!

And we were off to our next destination. Exiting Market St. back onto the 805, we took the 15 to University and headed over to the neighborhood of City Heights.

Our next stop was Que Huong...

What luck! Jay, the cool guy who was there last time, was here today! He showed us some more "money origami" that his friend made. Last time it was a dragon. This time it was Buddha:

The same friend also made twin money dragons holding a ball. Pretty cool, eh!

Now, after we placed our orders, Jay came out with this complimentary Banh Xeo. He remembered me and Bert from our previous visit and apologized for not having made the rice crepe to high usual standards. Actually we couldn't tell the difference. He told us that the last time we were there, they were using a different rice flour and so he wasn't too happy with how it came out, so he comped us this, which was quite nice.

This is the rice porridge that came with the crepe. It was kind of like arroz caldo - very gingery.

Here is the Banana Blossom Salad with Chicken. This time, instead of plain shrimp chips, Jay served it with the toasted sesame rice paper. Everyone loved this!

We also got a large order of the Fish Sauce Chicken Wings served over a bed of lettuce and green onions with slice tomatoes. The footed dish of salt and black pepper also added another flavor dimension. This item was also a hit.

So here's the aftermath...

Next up was dessert at another Lao place, Sang Dao which was just one street on El Cajon Blvd.  Here we are passing Etna's and in the distance you can see Saigon Restaurant.

Next is Pho Ca Dao...behind that (not pictured) is World Market...

A couple of blocks later, on 54th and El Cajon, was Sang Dao. We wanted to have their sticky rice with mango and coconut milk for dessert.

And in the words of a disappointed and pissed off Filipino uncle, "Gah-dammit, sheeyit!" Sang Dao  was closed on Mondays. I should have checked first but oh well!

Since we'd already found parking in this hell hole of a parking lot, we wanted to just have dessert wihtin walking distance. We ended up going across the street to this yogurt shop called "Fruity Yogurt"...

They had the usual sweet and tart flavors as well as the regular and sugar free...

I was excited by their Taro flavored yogurt!

It was serve yourself and .39 an ounce. Of course, you can add more weight to your yogurt by pouring on extra calories in the guise of these "healthy" and "not so healthy" toppings. This was healthy since it was fruit...

Here's more "healthy" toppings...

And here's some of the junk...this was the candy part. They also had bins that had different kinds of chopped nutz.

I don't even remember whose this belonged to. Wait, it was the "associate's" cup 1. I think that's captain crunch and mochi balls on there.

This was mine and Bert's - Chocolate with coconut and underneath it is the taro flavor. I sprinkled on some sliced almonds (they didn't have "chopped" almonds) and mini mochi balls.

This yogurt was shared by the designer and his fiancee...I don't really remember the flavors but at this point, wtf!!!! She is rocking one of the new designs, which is pretty cool because it looks like a vintage print. It's a female warrior and the word "Malakas" means "Strong"!

It was a fun day with the progressive lunch...too bad about Sang Dao though. Everyone liked the different dishes at Asia Cafe and Que Huong. I thought it was cool that Jay remembered me too. On our way home, we passed by this place on the Northwest corner of 52nd and El Cajon, the Khmer Spirit Cambodia, Karaoke Lounge.

I dug up this mini review Khmer Spirit through and internet search and came up with this mini blurb from San Diego's City Beat:

The Enrique Experience

"Cruise El Cajon Boulevard enough, past the hookers and Cricket Wireless retailers, and you’ll stumble upon a magical land known as Khmer Spirit Karaoke Lounge. The place’s sheets-as-window-treatments and a lone cholo vigorously scrubbing his front bumper at the neighboring self-service car wash at 11 p.m. quickly set the scene. Inside, the repurposing of bed linens continues, as tables are covered with what appears to be remnants of old duvets—the fancy brocade kind you’d find at Ross.

Under a string of Christmas lights, a chanteuse’s wail—a cross between a dying baby dolphin and a Jihadist’s combat chant—was strong enough to overpower the police sirens outside. Donning Cindy Lauper-inspired garb, the would-be karaoke star delighted the crowd with a permanent cat-who-ate-the-canary grin. The bar’s dance protocol was something to behold: It started off with a rhythmic chain full of pomp and regalia that led to the pairing of couples, who would disperse after each song was over. I was mesmerized; then again, they would be, too, if they saw me bust out the Macarena at my cousin’s Quinceañera.

“Cambodian community in San Diego is small. It’s good we have place to go,” owner Peter let me know. He then took me upstairs to his apartment, where a girl in a Jabbawockeez T-shirt kindly offered me a beer.

I hit it off with a toothless man who was sitting next to me, courtesy of the universal thumbs-up sign (our only way of communicating) and later joined him in a room where a middle-aged woman rocking bangs so stiff you’d swear her kids pranked her by switching out her Vidal Sassoon product with Liquid Nails, was selling snacks. Bamboo rice, “pig fritter” and, yes, even balut, an egg with the almost fully developed fetus in it. [my notes - Hey, balut is Filipino!]“Try” he mumbled, lifting up the treat and putting me eye-to-eye with its contents. Brave as I am, I sadly gestured a thumbs-down. Flashbacks starring the poultry that inspired me in my youth—Big Bird, the San Diego Chicken and Talkatoo Cockatoo were too much to bear. To paraphrase the great Meatloaf: I would do anything for this column, but I won’t do that."
(article by Enrique Limon)

Last but not least, I had to get a photo of  the very nicely named Pho King!

I bet they get a lot of crank calls!