Micho'z Fresh Lebanese Grill

It had been awhile since I last saw Dennis of A Radiused Corner...

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of sharing lunch with him at Micho'z Fresh Lebanese Grill (formerly known as "Off the Sajj) on University...

TORC's Bday lunch at Alforon

This past weekend, the Educator GF's celebrated TORC's birthday.

It's always a blast going out with them because they are pretty willing to try anything new. In this case, Lebanese food in the College Area...

Alforon with MFH

It has been awhile since I've gone out with Mi Firme Hina (MFH), who's been one of my closes friends through work and in life. Even though she no longer works at the same site, we still  see each other at district meetings but hardly get to chit chat since we have to sit with our sites.  So, every so often, we try to get together to catch up on things. Last year I took her out for her belated birthday lunch at Aladdin in Hillcrest.

This year, I gave her several choices. Sab-e-Lee 2 in Santee? Ba Ren in Clairemont? Que Huong in City Heights? Alchemy in South Park for brunch?
We ended up going to Alforon in the College Area. She hadn't been there before and it was also close by where I wanted to take her for dessert...

Alforon

On El Cajon and 60th is a tiny strip mall. It's right next to San Diego Desserts. Look for this sign (below). You can park in the parking lot (kind of small and it's one way only) or on the street.

Yes! Alforon was now open!

North Park Produce Chula Vista - Mediterranean Cuisine

[Update - Closed Summer 2011]

North Park Produce's deli section opened a take out food section a couple of weeks ago. There were door hangers sent in the local newspapers as well as flyers heralding the opening of this new food option...North Park Produce is our local international grocery store, just a few minutes away by car, or 20 minutes away if we walked (like we would). The market is the former site of The Good Guys, which went out of business a few years back and was reincarnated at NPP in Fall of 2007, the same time that Fresh and Easy opened. Lastly, NPP is right next to Costco (just down the hill) and shares walls with K-Mart.

They offer several kabab combo plates as well as shawsarmas and other Mediterranean food items like Gyros, Manakeesh (a type of flatbread with zataar herbs and sesame), falafel sandwiches, and pies (spinach, meat, feta). The appetizers offered are hummus, baba banouj, tabouli salad, lebne, grape leaves, and because this is totally Mediterranean, FRENCH FRIES. Maybe that's to appeal to the non-adventurous or something. As Kirk from Mmm-Yoso would say, they are probably "Sysco-fied".

That's TC playing Vortex on my iPod...There's a small dining section right by the Mexican style bakery. It's located near the front corner of the store...Not pictured, but present, are the Hookahs and flavored tobacco items...Hmmm...Bongs anyone?

What we love about NPP is that they have a diverse selection of food items from everywhere. All kinds of people shop here - you name it, they're here. Just last week I saw a lady in a beautiful sari doing her grocery shopping. Another time, I saw two women in burqas - they were fully covered in head to toe black. The only thing showing were their eyes. The store stocks so many things such as Russian chocolates, Filipino ice cream, Indian spices, Mexican sweets and much much more. So, when this new food place opened, we wanted to give it a shot...

Aaagh - you can see the dirt on my Tokidoki Concerto Punk rocker character! We wondered if the food would be as good as the other Middle Eastern type places we've been to...

TC and I shared the beef Kabob Plate ($6.99) with basmati rice, salad, pita (on the side) and hummus. The cucumber was the Persian variety, smaller than your normal cucumber with less seedlike filling. The hummus was pretty good but I thought the pita a bit dry. The beef kababs looked pretty substantial. The flavoring didn't seem to be as deep or pronounced as the ones I've had at Parsian Market, Sadaf and Bandar. One thing that kind of worried me was that the meat looked a little undercooked when sliced open. Another thing was the rice portion was quite small. The rice seemed "broken" and not long and fluffy like other types of rice I've had at similar places. It was a small portion and was a bit too dry.

This was Bert's plate - The Gyros with salad, pickles, parsley, hummus, and tatziki (in the cup). We all really liked the tatziki - cool and refreshing. Bert thought the gyros was "okay" and didn't think it was too bad.

View from our table...Check out all the video cameras!

So would we go here again? Most likely yes since they're still fairly new and probably still working out a few kinks. It's definitely an option if none of us feel like cooking that night, but for better Mediterranean, we'd make the drive to El Cajon or Convoy or something.

Portland - Day 2 with Photos part 2

Okay, we're still on day 2. We actually saw A LOT of stuff that day...After getting back from Washington Park and the Japanese Garden, we took off on foot to the Portland Saturday Market, which is actually open on both days of the weekend, not just Saturdays. Since downtown Portland is pretty compact with small blocks and all, we walked all the way over there. It's located under the Burnside Bridge. As we were approaching, I took note of all the cool brick buildings and older businesses downtown. This one's a bookstore - didn't get a chance to go in. We were kind of hungry and were hauling ass to get there. I liked how this one had a cool neon sign - even though it was daytime and not lit up, it looked very old timey.
Another one of Portland's many food carts scattered throughout the city. I believe this one was Mexican food.
Stumptown Coffee Roasters. We walked by it, but planned to go by there later after getting doughnuts. More on Stumptown here. Yelp reviews for this location here.

We also noticed the crown gathered around Voodoo Doughnuts... More on Voodoo here. Here's a few reviews here, and yelp's here.
Yelp reviews here on the Portland Saturday Market. It was pretty crowded since the weather was really nice. It was kind of warm actually and while I was getting my food at the Horn of Africa booth, Bert and TC were lucky enough to score seats at an empty table in a covered seating area! Seats were at a premium - I saw several people eyeing empty chairs and descending upon them like vultures on rotting caracasses as soon as people finished eating.
Tons of people! But not scary Comic-Con crowded though! The food booths were at the farthest edge of the market, closest to the waterfront area. The arts and crafts booths were at the opposite edge of the market.
Bert got something from the booth on the left later - the Beirut Cafe:
This was a side menu board for the "Taste of Himalayas" booth. I remembered seeing this on Kirk's blog during his visit to Portland. Here's his post here. I remembered he wasn't too crazy about the "Tour of Asia" plate so that item wasn't ordered.This was the booth where I got my food. It served Ethiopian food and was family run with a teenager working the booth with her mom as well as two other adults (relatives, perhaps).
Bert's - the Vegetarian Tripti, which is curried vegetables served with yogurt sauce and rolled up in a tortilla. Hmmm, is a tortilla Himalayan? It didn't really satisfy him because he was still hungry after finishing it so he ended up getting something else at another booth.
TC's - Go-Gi (pronounced "Go - jee") Chicken. It was a spiced curried mixture of chicken and potatoes inside a pita served with sliced cucumbers. She seemed to enjoy it - so much that she actually finished it. I had just a tiny bite. It tasted like Indian food to me, but in a pita. I didn't really like the pita - it was too dry. The pita we would have a few days later from Ziba's food cart (Bosnian food) would kick ass on this.
My lunch - The Hoe-Dra - veggie combo over Injera (they described it as African 'flat bread', yeah right). After my yuppified meal at Muzita last month, I still had a hankering for East African food...I liked the vegetables here - carrots, cabbage and potatoes served with a green salad. I didn't care for the salad since it had dressing on it already.
My African appetizer combo - 2 sambussas and 1 bajiya:
This sambusssa had spinach in it; the other had beef (not pictured). The bajiya was described as a 'pastry of herbs and a variety of beans' (seemed like it was mostly lentils). I didn't care too much for the bajiya - it was thin and dry. I could have dipped it in yogurt sauce as well, but I didn't really go for the bajiya. I would rather eat a balut. Just kidding.
Bert was still hungry so he went to the "Beirut Cafe" and got a vegetarian Falafel sandwich.
Bert's self-imposed restriction of no meat, no chocolate and no rice during Lent really restricted his options, but not too much. He ended up getting pretty healthy items. Here's his falafel sandwich. Despite the slathering of yogurt, I wasn't a fan of this but he liked it because it tasted 'fresh' and 'filling'.

After finishing our lunch, Bert wanted to check out the Duck Store, which is the store that sells stuff from the University of Oregon. The store is on the same street as the Portland Market but just a few blocks down...So we went, checked it out, bought a few shirts for TC and Bert got himself a green "O" hat. With our lunches still digesting in our systems, we headed over to Voodoo Doughnuts which most Portland natives say is a "must go to" place for visitors. The reviews I've seen of this place had both "Love it" and "Hate it" type sentiments, but hell, we were here so we were going to check it out and get some fkn doughnuts dammit. This place may also seem familiar to those who've seen it featured on the Food Network and also on the Travel Channel (most recently in Tony Bourdain's Portland episode). This location is right next to a theatre that happened to be showing Japanese anime porn. Look closely as the picture on the far left (in the middle). That was a Japanese girl drawn as a kitty cat (complete with ears and whiskered nose) wearing a short hiked up skirt. It was some sort of 'Hentai' movie.

Here I am in front of Voodoo:
Interior of Voodoo Doughnuts. Heh, I'm sooo imaginative with my titles here. By the way, the line was a lot short by the time we got there which was around 1:30'ish. We waited maybe about 10 minutes or so. Not so bad. We waited 45 minutes for a damn hamburger at the Shake Shack in NYC.
Another crappy interior shot. The walls are pink and there is shit all over the place.
Shit like a giant fake doughnut, plastic skeletons, tiki heads, and a bunch of kitschy framed stuff...
Their menu board...
Their lovely rotating doughnut display:
So, Voodoo Doughnuts is known for their unique flavors of doughnuts with "interesting" names. One of them used to have Nyquil inside. They had to stop making those because it's a medication. There is another doughnut that comes with crushed Pepto-Bismol on top too. I didn't get that okay. One of the doughnuts I was curious about but was too chicken to order was the "Cock 'n Balls". Yes, it is a dick shaped doughnut filled with cream. If my daughter wasn't there, I probably would have ordered it. Another doughnut I actually did order, but they were out of was the "Triple Chocolate Penetration". Bummer! We ordered our half dozen and headed out to Stumptown Coffee Roasters, which was recommended to us by Knitting Diva's brother as well as highly recommended in several food blogs. Well, Bert was the only one who really ordered anything here since I'm not a coffee drinker...
After getting his coffee, we parked ourselves at a booth and opened up our half dozen heart clogging morsels of doughnutty bliss.
We had to get the namesake doughnut, which TC enjoyed eating. The doughnut was a crudely shaped person with a pretzel stick stabbing the heart. The doughnut is filled with raspberry filling. Pulling out the pretzel stake:
Here are the other five doughnuts - from the top left top row: The Maple Bacon bar (recommended by the cashier) and the Dirt Doughnut (topped with crushed Oreos). The middle doughnut was called "Butterfingering" - nice. It had crushed Butterfinger bars on top and a creamy filing. I don't even remember what the filling was, but this was pretty damn good. The doughnut on the lower left was another filled doughnut - the Mango something. The one on the right was a filled powder doughnut which had a fruit filling inside. We didn't eat all of them at once so don't think we are pigs! Ha. I think the bacon doughnut would have been better if the bacon was crushed up on top of the bacon instead of just a strip.

We started off with the Butterfingering...Who could resist a doughnut with that name? Nice! I shared some of that with me along with part of the Maple Bacon bar. Honoring his no meat rule, he took off the bacon and gave it to TC.

TC had fun dismembering her hapless doughnut as well as disemboweling it. No drawing and quartering though.
Goodbye Stumptown...
I meant to put this photo before the exterior shot of Stumptown...Bert got a mocha - doesn't this look pretty? Actually since a mocha is made of chocolate, he shouldn't have ordered this! Too late!

While we were eating our doughnuts, Bert realized that we had a scant few hours left to visit a place I'd read about in several blogs and seen on the Bourdain Portland Show. That place was the Velveteria, which is a Museum of Black Velvet Paintings! They are only open on weekends and close at 5 pm. It was nearly 3! We hauled ass back to our hotel to drop off our junk and doughnuts and headed out to NE Portland! One our way there, we saw the Pacific Northwest version of 7-11, the Plaid Pantry. We arrived a little before 4 pm with about an hour or so to spare. This photo below features Carl Baldwin and Caren Anderson, the owners of the Velveteria. (Yelp reviews here). It was actually taken before we left and also with their permission. You can read more about them on their blog, but hey if you are ever in Portland, you NEED to, No, you MUSt go visit this place!!! Now, dammit!

In retrospect, this was one of my favorite places we'd visited in Portland. Forget the waterfalls and the beautiful scenery. It was the Velveteria for me. It's not in the typical guidebooks, which is what I was going for, and it certainly appealed to my taste in kitsch and pop culture. Walking into the place was like sensory overload. I couldn't concentrate on what to look at first!.

We had such a blast checking out the various walls which were organized by theme...Carl and Caren were also kind enough to chat with us. Carl was interested in Bert's t-shirt which featured the sun and three stars design found on the Philippine flag. That discussion led to another about Philippine velvet painters. I was talking about tacky Philippine souvenirs and mentioned the "barrel man" which Carnen had never heard of. Shewas reminded about these carved wooden nutcrackers shaped like women. You open their legs and put the nut in the crotch region! I'd never seen one before and she had one on display in the back of the museum - it was located on the naked ladies wall. Anyways, I'm so glad we were able to make it to this place. Here are the owners by the celebrity wall which had musicians, artists, and movie stars. Do you see Dolemite? That painting had silver glitter on it!!! It was a total masterpiece. Many people consider velvet paintings to be tacky pieces of crap you buy in TJ, but it really is an art form. You cannot make a mistake when painting on black velvet...When I first saw the sign, I thought to myself, "Okay no photos", which is standard for most art museums. I certainly didn't want to overstep my boundaries. I still remember being admonished by a big burly guy at Dean and Deluca's in New York. WTH! After our visit, I asked permission to take a few shots for this blog and they were kind enough to oblige. I'm not sure what theme this wall was but it had Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles, Dr. Jack Kevorkian (aka Dr. Death), a sad faced clown with a cigar hanging out of his painted mouth, one of the many incaranations of Michael Jackson, bikers, and a well groomed poodle nicknamed "June Cleaver". Among other notable paintings were Tupac Shakur as a Vulcan, Marshall Applewhite (the freaky eyed leader of the Heaven's Gate Cult)), that hot gay silver fox, Anderson Cooper in a Speedo, Jesus raising his arms all Rasputin-like over a semi truck, room entriely devoted to black light paintings, the cartoon version of the Pink Panther perched on a toilet, Jesus and Liberace, and many more! The Black Power Wall - Isn't this awesome? Amidst a sombre portrait of MLK, Ali , and paintings of Malcolm_x and Elijah_Muhammed is a velvet tribute to Beetlejuice) (of "The Howard Stern Show" fame). By the way, that is NOT Gary Coleman at the bottom right. It's a guy who had his portrait done in the Philippines.

Alas, our visit came to an end...I ended up buying their book, "Black Velvet Masterpieces"(which they signed - even cooler!), which was an immediate hit on our coffee table during two parties we recently threw. Here's The Last Supper ( a staple in every Filipino home, except we don't have one):

So we left before they closed and off we went to go to Cosmic Monkey Comicswhich was highly recommended by David Walker, a Portland native, expert on Blaxploitation and creator of the 'zine BadAzz MoFo (one of my favorites). It was in the same neighborhood and wasn't too far away. But before we go, here's one last view of the Velveteria from the car:

Hollywood Theatre in the NE:
Cosmic Monkey Comics:
View from one of the shelves - I was just browsing around here:
Another view from where I was sitting while Bert browsed around. He ended up getting an issue of Infinite Crisis, which is a DC graphic novel. I ended up getting a Trivia book about horror movies. While waiting as Bert was lookikng for titles, I had a little chat with the girl working the counter. I asked her if she was going to the Con this year. Last year, she didn't and wasn't going this year either. It was a bit cost prohibitive I believe. She also highly recommended a visit to Floating World Comics (which we would check out in a few days)...what I really liked about the people here in Portland was that they were so giving of their time and gave tips and advice on places to check out. I really appreciated it - whether it was an email from BAMF, Knitting Diva's brother, Caren from the Velveteria who recommended that we visit the Grotto, or strangers on the stree(ex: the man from Jordan and the Iranian woman), everyone was so kind.
Stickers on the door of Cosmic Monkey:
TC and I in our new Velveteria t-shirts! This one features TC's favorite painting there, the "Unicorn Combover"...I also have another one of a forlorn Chihuahua in a teacup. If you click on the photo to enlarge, you will see that the sides of the "V" in Velveteria are formed by bodacious nekkid lady silhouettes! By the way, I am holding Bobo Bear the 3rd and that's a bag of Dorito's Sweet Chili flavor(which taste really good!!!!)!

Next up - The Columbia River Gorge and Waterfalls galore!