Ethnic Market Round Up: Ranch 99, U-Mart (plus the new Big Joy), Thuan Phat & Northgate

It was fun to see the awesome paintings on these store doors...

These designs were some of the better ones I'd seen...

It looks like someone really took the time to paint these using shading and depicting "movement" somehow with the paint instead of looking like some flat crappy paint by numbers job.

This particular weekend saw me going to several places in search of Vietnamese coffee filters...

Seafood City, Manila Seafood Market, Mercado International and Moreliana

You know it's Christmas season at Seafood City when you see these:

Queso de bola (ball of cheese), or as my dad calls it, "bola bola"!

This is the cheapest I've seen it so far...Christmas is right around the corner and I'm sure my parents will be buying one for the family lunch. This wasn't all the cheese though...

Save a Lot Market

A long time ago this supermarket on the corner of Saturn and Coronada used to be Alpha Beta. That's telling you my age there, ha ha. Then it turned into a Safeway, then Albertsons, then closed about a year ago.

The once shuttered stored was recently reborn as a "Save a Lot" market and opened earlier this year...

Ethnic Markets: Seafood City 2x, Muang Lao, Kyoto & Zion

A few weeks ago, Bert and I had an errand to run here...

at the Seafood City in National City. Ever since SC opened up in Chula Vista two years ago, I haven't had the need to go here...It's always crowded in the parking lot and in the store. We needed to get some jasmine rice for a potluck/surprise party nearby...

Tim Hortons and snacks from Metro Plus

Our nature walk to the Falls left us tired, hungry and thirsty! What better excuse than to visit one of the thousands of  "Timmy's" (Tim Hortons) that are all over Canada...

By now, it was in the 90's and a frozen drink sounded good about now...

H Mart & Paris Baguette

Yesterday our plans were waylaid by several factors. A lunch originally planned with friends was postponed. We meant to go up North and intended to do so when we saw the terrible traffic on the H off ramp to the 805. Unbeknownst to us, there was a suicidal jumper on the 43rd St. bridge in National City, which backed up traffic for miles, from as far south to Palm Avenue, up to the 54 freeway where traffic was diverted. The 805 was closed from 8 am up to 2 pm when the suicidal man was eventually talked down and taken to County Mental Health. I seriously hope that he gets the help that he needs.

(view of the Good Year blimp as we traveled on the 125)


It was a really odd day yesterday because there were actually THREE suicidal jumpers. The 43rd St. bridge, then later on, someone on the Laurel Street bridge near Balboa (he was saved), and the third and only fatality, a person who jumped off the Coronado Bridge. So sad.

Cathy of Mmm-yoso was invaluable to us as we were contemplating where to go. We thought we'd cut across H Street to the 5, but even H  was crawling at a snail's pace. We made a U-turn at the CV mall and decided to head east by taking the 125 to the 8. Cathy gave me text updates as I tried to figure out our plans...


It was nice not to see cars jammed up on the freeway! We thought we'd give H Mart a shot so up north we went...

Santos Farms Market

Back to that market that Cathy and I passed by on our way to Caffe Calabria. It's on a small side street off Lincoln Street nestled between some newer condos and a pawn shop and laundromat.

We could not help but look at the arrow and signs...

Return to Foodland

You know, I feel like mixing things up today.

Portland, Canada, San Diego, anything goes...

This time we are back in Canada. Manitoulin Island to be exact. We had our hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, and fruit as well as the surprise Poke made with rainbow trout a few hours earlier.

C's husband, FarmerJohn was out in the fields while we piled into their minivan to do errands and see some sights...

Seafood City

Our next stop was Filipino food heaven...

Lechon kawali? Yes please!

Chicharon bulaklak?  Not so much...for me at least. What is this curiously named food item? Answer at the end of the post)

Seafood City stuff...

This weekend, we stopped by Seafood City to get a few snacks and ingredients for the nilaga and tinola I recently made...

Everyone and their mother was there that day which is typical on weekends, especially after church.  No recent Lotto winners though...

Northgate Market

Last weekend we stopped by the Northgate Market in Nestor to pick up a few things...

This used to be a Safeway back in the 80's, then it became El Tigre (I almost typed Le Tigre..."Hold that tiger!")...

H-Mart - Irvine

I don't know about you, but I love going to ethnic grocery stores.

I'd only been to the Super H-Mart in Niles (near Chicago). It was like a foodie amusement park in there. Let's see if this H-Mart measures up...

Seafood City Food Court

I wanted to get some snack items at Seafood City for the dessert buffet table...I'm such a sucker for cute packaging and the color purple...

Ooh, this banner is new! Looks like Seafood City is hyping the fact that they sold a winning Lotto ticket here a few weeks ago!

After getting our stuff, TC wanted to get a mango shake at Red Ribbon...

Meanwhile, I snapped shots of the various eateries in the Seafood City food court, such as Filipino Desserts Plus where I picked up a large sized container of Pastillas (Filipino milk candy). If they've done it the traditional way, it's supposed to be made with carabao milk. Where are the carabaos in the US, ha ha.

Of course, there was a Jollibee and Goldilocks as well...

Let's not forget Chowking either. I've never eaten at a Chowking and my few experiences trying to eat at Goldilocks resulted in frustration because of the long lines and crappy customer service (National City location). Hopefully it's much better here.

TC's mango drink with boba. I don't know about you, but I think boba is just wasted space in a drink. I don't like chewing things either if I'm drinking something. The texture of large boba reminds me of a gigantic booger ball. But more firm. Not that I've ever tried ingesting a mondo sized snot sphere. Ugh, look at those bobas sitting at the bottom of the cup...makes me wanna step on some potato bugs.

Near the front entrance is Valerio's...So this foodcourt has it all! Several kinds of fast food joints plus dessert places and a huge seating area and, because I checked it out, nice, new and clean bathrooms. Hopefully it'll stay that way.

Later tonight, dinner at Benihana's in Mission Valley, a place I hadn't been to since 1993 when I finished grad school. I wasn't married yet or engaged.  Besides my family and Bert, friends that were with me that night included Thane, Astroboi, N, and another friend whom I am no longer friends with (bitch). I wanted to see if Benihana's had changed. I also wanted to use my free birthday meal from Benihana's!

Yikes, 1993 is nearly 20 years ago!!!

South Bay Food Crawl - Otay Farms Market and the Haunted Billboard

Next on the itinerary (and yes, I made one because I'm anal like that) was Aqui es Texcoco on Broadway. I had a 10% coupon ready to go and was willing to even try the black corn fungus quesadilla (huitlachoche) and an item called "Rabbit Mixiote". This place is known for their lamb, but since I don't like gamey type meats, I wanted to try the rabbit instead. They also serve squash blossom quesadillas here...

We ran into our first bout of long ass lines. Earlier, we were kind of lucky to beat the rush at Tita's and Don Vicente's. At Texcoco there were lots of people but you just can't see them in this photo. But yeah, we drove by and decided to pass on it for today.

(photo courtesy of Dennis)

Undeterred by this little change in the itinerary, which also served as a "memory lane" of sorts, I headed south on Broadway, a tiny bit past Main Street. On the side is a small green building, Otay Farms Market. Man, I have not been here in over 30 years! My parents used to love getting cheap fruits and vegetables here. Part of me wanted to go there for old times sake. See the pavement? That used to be dirt in the late 70's!

I didn't take too many shots here. It was a small store and very crowded. Right when you walk in they have shopping carts filled with bagged fruits and vegetables as well as as unbagged fresh produce in regular store-like displays. There was a salsa bar and a counter where you could order food but I didn't see anyone manning it. There was a long line of people waiting for something. Turns out they were waiting for FRESH TORTILLAS which you could smell as you came near the window.  There were more foodstuffs in the middle such as canned and jarred items, and spices. They also had a small meat department. As Dennis was taking shots, one of the butchers smiled and did a muscleman pose for him!

Another reason I wanted to make Otay Ranch Market was so we could see the "Haunted Billboard". Now although the billboard currently has some half nekkid pirate chick hawking Captain Morgan's rum, back in the summer of 1991,  that billboard made national headlines.  At night, the billboard purportedlyhad  the ghostly image of a young girl named Laura Arroyo from Otay Mesa was abducted from her home, sexually assaulted and brutally murdered. Her body was found nearby in an industrial park.

Passerbys swore that they saw her image cast by the spotlights on the blank billboard just south of Main Street. Thousands of people flocked to see this ghostly phenomenom at the time. Me and my co-workers from the mall even went here at night to check it out. There were traffic jams at night just to see the billboard. Local (and greedy) merchants made extra money by charging people to park in their lots. Just any anyone who lived down south at the time and they will remember this tragic story that dominated the news that summer. This attracted national attention and was dubbed "The Miracle on Broadway".

Did I see her image? It was kind of hard to tell. It was a very shadowing image and not so clear to me, However, I feel that if you truly believe in something, I guess you could make yourself "see" it, just like people who swear they have Elvis's image on a tortilla or the Pope on a potato chip.

The good news about the sad case of Laura Arroya was that in 2003, it was solved due to the advancement of DNA technology. A neighbor, originally considered a suspect, was found to be the murderer, was convicted in 2005,  and is currently on Death Row, which unfortunately won't come soon enough.

During the summer of 1991, many people left offerings for the young girl and her family such as candles, flowers, and toys at the base of the billboard. Those gifts are long gone now but part of me is glad that justice was finally served when the killer was caught.

Articles on the Laura Arroyo and the Billboard:

"Killer's Fate up to Jury in slaying of girl, 9"
"Jury recommends death..."
Southern California Ghostbusters (you will need to scroll down to get to "San Diego". This link also includes the 2003 SD Union Tribune article about the killer (I can't even bring myself to type that fkr's name).
Outcast Earth. You will have to scroll down to get to the article...

After this bit of South Bay history, we wanted to check out a taco truck near the Strawberry Field on 4th and Main...

South Bay Food Crawl - Chula Vista: Lotto at Seafood City!

Damn, I'm on a roll now...

To get down south, I took the 54, which is also the "Filipino American Highway". Did you know that?

According to "ACR 157 (Vargas)...Designates the portion of SR 54 from its westernmost point to its intersection with SR 125, in the County of San Diego, as the Filipino-American Highway. Resolution Chapter 145, Statutes of 2006 " (info taken from the Assembly Committe on Transportation TRANSPORTATION - Summary of Legislation 2005- 2006).

I don't have a picture of the sign, "Filipino-American Highway" but there is one right when you exit the 5-S to get onto the 54 and one in the opposite direction heading west from Spring Valley heading to the Paradish Hills area. Here's a cool link that shows you all the different exits along the portion of the 54 designed as the "Filipino-American Highway".(In my opinion, the "hyphen" bothers me because it kind of implies a division. I personally don't use a hyphen when describing or writing down my ethnicity)

So back to the next destination, the new Seafood City on Orange Ave in south Chula Vista. See my previous posts on this location here

Well, last Friday, April 1, a local woman bought the winning Lotto ticket here! 19 MILLION BONES! Seafood City. That local woman is a Filipina named Ruth Sombillo. My sister knows her daughter and son (classmates). When I heard the woman's name on the radio and saw it in the paper, I thought, "Hmmm, I wonder if that is XX's mom!". And it was. Guess she won't have to work anymore with all that $$$!

I didn't take too many photos in here but Dennis did. You'll just have to wait for his epic post! Here's a shot of some seafood flavored chips - Pacific Squid (mmmm), Shrimp, and Sweet Chili fish! MSG overload!

So while Ruth Sombillo gets her $19 million in installments, Seafood City got a $19,000 for selling the winning ticket.

Hoping that lightning will strike twice, Dennis bought a lotto ticket here!

See my previous post on the new Seafood City below:
Seafood City on Orange and Melrose now open!

All of the storefronts in the food court are now open! When they opened in mid-February, it was only Chow King and Jollibee. The other establishments were Filipino Desserts Plus, Red Ribbon Bakery and Valerio's Bakery. I bought a small box of pastillas (milk candy) from Desserts Plus.  It was pretty crowded and busy so we decided NOT to eat here. The original plan was to try something from one or two of the places here.

Next up, a few miles down near Palomar and third for some tacos at a local hole in the wall...

South Bay Food Crawl - National City: Seafood City & the Rizal bust

After the pork heaven that was Tita's Kitchenette, we headed west to the Bay Plaza strip mall on Plaza Blvd. Normally the parking lot from hell, there was actually a lot of spaces available in the Big Lots/Joann's side.  I noticed that Ginger Pho and Grill replaced the former Asian Noodle Place (known for their pancit mami).

I also have to apologize for the haziness of some of these photos. Turns out that there was some sort of "smear" on my camera lense. I cleaned it up later, so there is a weird blurriness in the middle part of the photos. Sheeyit.

So why did we even go here? Well, I wanted to show Dennis one of the major Filipino grocery stores in National City as well as a bit of history...

The bust of Dr. Jose Rizal was installed in front of Seafood City during the Centennial of Philippine Independence from Spain in 1998. In my opinion, the Rizal bust probably deserves a better venue than the front of a grocery store like maybe a park or something less commercial.

Dr. Jose Rizal is considered one of the national heroes of the Philippines. He was executed by firing squad by the Spaniards during the Philippine Spanish Revolution in 1896. Rizal was a reformist rather than a true advocate for independence from Spanish rule. As a member of the elite upper class, he would have lost his rights if he truly wanted the country to break away from Spain.

Controversy dogged the bust's arrival in San Diego. Apparently, that same year, a lot of money went "missing" by one of the major Philippine organizations. I won't even get into that here but there ya go.


We took a quick look see in Seafood City...Right near the front were these assorted rice cakes known as "puto".Yeah, man PINCHE PUTO! For those of you that don't know, "puto" may mean steamed rice cake in Tagalog, but it is an extremely bad word in Spanish, short for "prostituto" = "puto" or MALE WHORE.  Isn't that nice? My Mexican friends always got a kick out of seeing and eating puto cakes.

Dragon fruits...These were huge!

Different types of fresh lumpia wrappers in the cold case...

It was just a quick jaunt here! On to the next place recommended by one of my friends, Menuderia Don Vicente on Highland Avenue.

Articles about the Jose Rizal Bust and Jose Rizal:
"Jose Rizal - From National Hero to Fishmarket Sentinel"
"The World of Dr. Jose Rizal"
Jose Rizal entry in wikipedia

Stuff bought at Foodland

Time to unload our packages from the store...

Here's those cool milk in a bag things. Farquhar's Milk for C's family:

C bought us some Ringolos and Compliments brand cream soda (I belive it's the store brand for Foodland). Now, whenever I think of cream soda, I think of A and W and the soda is kind of a beige color, for lack of a better description. C has only known cream soda to be pink. When I see pink soda I think of those artificially flavored Strawberry Nehi's or something but not cream soda. The cream soda was super sweet. I kept thinking it would taste fruit flavored because of the color. I just can't get over that bright pink color!

I had to include this. Not only does C make her own maple syrup, but she also makes her own vanilla extract. It's easier to make than syrup - I believe it's just vanilla bean pods steeped in brandy.

I thought this was a rather nice gesture. One of C's friend's (whom I met earlier that afternoon, although very briefly) gave our family a bag of Nana's Kettle Corn; the brand is based out of Sudbury (a town two hours away and off the island). The snack was enjoyed while we were at the airport and on our last day in Toronto.

C insisted that I try these Dare Maple Cookies. I ended up buying several packages to give as gift to friends. I really liked these cookies. Later, I found out from Lotus that Trader Joe's had a similar product but when I tried their version, it wasn't quite as good as Dare's. I liked these so much that I ended up buying some off amazon.com to give as gifts (I love giving food/candy/snacks as gifts by the way). I noticed there were a ton of maple flavored EVERYTHING in the store.

All right, here's those Ketchup flavored Pringles. A very interesting flavor but one that I'd rather eat than something that's dill pickle or vinegar flavored. The ketchup powder was also very very red, which I liked.

Of course, I had to stock up on some candy too. These were 4-packs of Aero bars (the chocolate with bubbles in it), the highly addicting Coffee Crisps,  and one box of the Junior Caramels for Bert. I was told that buying only one bar of Coffee Crisp would not be enough and it was better to buy them in bulk! C has been my, uh "supplier" this past year. I have about 1 1/2 packs left from her.

This was a Mirage candy bar and two kinds of Kit Kat. The Mirage bar is manufactured by Nestle and is related to the Aero bar in that it also has a bubble texture. This flavor happened to be milk chocolate. I bought it mainly for TC because she likes milk chocolate more than the dark. Speaking of dark chocolate, I loved that version of Kit Kat Noir here. That's pretty hard to find in San Diego. The other was a Kit Kat Senses bar; these were not the wafer sticks but rather an actual bar with hazelnuts inside.

Maynards bagged candies - The Fuzzy Peaches and the Sour Gummy Worms. I liked the worms the best, especially the pink and blue ones (better than the orange and green striped). The flavors were nice and sour with that gritty sugary coating. 

This Van Houtte Coffee was for Bert; the brand is based in Montreal.

And yes, more of that Coffee Crisp! This has got to be my favorite candy from Canada!

This "nice light snack" (as seen on the package)  is not really nice healthwise though. It's over 200 calories and has a ton of transfats in it. There's something about wafer bars that I really really like. These are much bigger and thicker than, say a Kit Kat (also a wafer bar). There's more heft in the coffee crisp. If you like a light coffee flavor, this bar has that. It's also a big sized bar. It's not easy to bite gracefully either like those thinner candy bars. But I figure, who cares about looking dainty when you're horking down one of these, right?  I haven't really seen these here in San Diego, but a fellow blogger commented that she'd seen them at Fry's. So I guess I will be checking out Fry's really soon to see if they have that!  C, if you're reading this, send me that package soon! Ha ha! Strawberry Pocky for you and Coffee Crisp for me!

Readers, do you have any favorite snacks/candy's that really like? U.S. or foreign brands?

Foodland in Mindemoya

Because I love going to grocery stores during vacation, C thought it would be a good idea to check out Island Foodsin downtown Mindemoya.

I loved their covered shopping cart return, just like Super H-Mart in Niles!

Yes, thank you very much!

OMFG - French Crush (okay, Canadian, but it's in French!). Raisin is "grape" and "soda mousse" is creme soda.

Maynards brand candies. You can also find some of them here at North Park Produce. The name "wine gums" doesn't sound appetizing to me. Sounds like a gross dental problem. I picked up the Fuzzy Peaches and some sour gummy worms for TC.

Mini bagged versions of various candy bars.

Smarties are the UK equivalent of M 'n M's. Personally, I like the more varied color palette (they have a periwinkle color and pink too!) but the taste is a bit too chalky and not as chocolatey as M 'n M's.

Ooh, "Os de Poulet" aka "chicken bones" by Canadian brand, Robertson's Candy. Remember to pronounce all of the French words in an exaggerated Maurice Chevalier accent. R'oh r'oh r'oh! Ugh, chocolate and cinnamon hard candies.

Man, they fkg love Ketchup flavored chips over here! From Lay's to Pringles and Old Dutch. Of course, I picked up a can of these Pringles! You know, for "research". I liked the tomato powder on those chips!

Old Dutch brand chips. Check out the Dill Pickle flavor. Ugh, I just cringed. And hey yo, what do you know? They have KETCHUP! I remember seeing Old Dutch popcorn and pretzels at the Walmart in Wisconsin Dells.

Humpty Dumpty brand snacks is a Canadian company. "In 2006, the company was acquired in a takeover bid by Old Dutch Foods. Many Humpty Dumpty products were rebranded as Old Dutch Foods on the potato chips side, whereas other snacks such as Ringolos retained the Humpty Dumpty name." (info from wikipedia's entry on "Humpty Dumpty")

Speaking of Ringolos, here they are. C picked up a bag for us. These are like corn chips, but in ring form. I think C said she used to put them on her fingers when she was younger and eat them.

For Bert, I picked up some Junior Caramels, which I'd never seen before. Junior Mints yes, but not Junior Caramels. They tasted kind of waxy to me, but he liked them.

Here's something I haven't seen before either, milk in a bag. The dairy company, Lord Farquad Farquhar's is local to Manitoulin Island.

After having a field day spazzing and  checking all of the Canadian and French brands of foods, we finally headed back to pick up Bert and TC from the Kicking Mule Ranch.

I had a total blast checking out the store.  The snacks flavors were so different than what I'm used to. Same with the soda flavorsI also love how everyone knows each other here. Whenever I was introduced to a local, I was described as "my friend from California"! Time to head back to C's.