Senor Sisig Taco Truck - Part 1

Hey now...the SF Day 2 Posts have now been resumed with a vengeance. You have been warned. More postal diarrhea coming your way! Ha ha!

To refresh your moldy memories, Bert, TC and I took a quick vacay up to SF last month, staying with our good friend Thane. This was the weekend the Padres played against the Giants during playoffs.  We were to later lose on this day, Sunday October 4.  Anyways, one of my former students told me of this free event at the Asian Art Museum (thanks Target!) in which this truck, Senor Sisig, would be there! Hell yeahh man, we're so there!

This looked promising...

Their menu....ohhh yeah. Well, the only thing is that they were only offering two items. If you see the video at the end of this post, you will see that they make much more than just tacos.

It was a little after 11 am and the truck wasn't ready to open yet. Evan Kidera is the owner  of Senor Sisig (he;s the guy in the black chef's clothes and baseball cap). He is actually not Filipino American but rather Japanese American. His associates are Filipino American and they all run this Bay Area food truck which joins other Filipino food trucks, Adobo Hobo and Tapa Boy). I had a chance to chat briefly with him - nice guy and really happy that people were coming out to check out the truck and hopefully have lunch.

We were going to see the exhibits at the Asian Art Museum first before having lunch...can't wait!

This was really an ideal location. Right in front of the musem, near the SF Library and right across from City Hall.

Why can't we have this truck down in San Diego?

Check out these articles on Senor Sisig:
"Bay Area, Welcome Senor Sisig" by FOBBDeep(Fear of a Brown Blogger)
"There's a New Filipino Taco Truck in Town, Meet Senor Sisig" from SF Weekly

and here's a short "We Eating" episode about this here truck:

Looks like they had more choices to pick from! Too bad they only had two choices today but I'm not complaining! Mmmm nachos....(now drool like Kang and Kodos!)

Okay, lunch coming up after the museum!

Return to Niederfrank's

[Massive posting session - Scroll down for the latest 4 posts]

After our big lunch at Brian's Eatery, we headed South to National City.  This is right off The Mile of Cars Blvd and 8th St, near those two tall buildings (one's a hotel and the other got converted to condos I believe). If you make a left on 8th, make your first left on A Avenue and Niederfrank's is on your left...

TC and I went here earlier that month so we wanted Bert to also try the awesomeness that is Niederfrank's...

We all got one scoop each...At 12 o'clock is Bert's Cappucino Crunch (he loves all coffee flavored things). Then we have TC's red mint chip since she liked mine so much from before. Then we have my cup which was Kahlua Krunch (with toffee bits inside).

The ice cream was so good - I totally want to try all of the chocolate varieties. Eventually, right?

I love these homemade shops. You could taste the difference in quality instead of that crap at Baskin Robbin's and Carvel's (too much air pumped into the ice cream).

Until our next visit...

Brian's American Eatery

[Closed as of this summer 2012 - supposed to reopen under a different name]

A couple of weeks ago, we were trying to use up coupons that were going to expire soon. Bert and I wanted to try someplace we'd never been to before. This place ended up being here, Brian's American Eatery on Washington street. It rained earlier that morning and it was a gloomy day.  
I'd seen this place before but never gave it a second thought until I was searching the coupons for a place we could try. Well, let's give this a go, shall we.

Their parking lot was pretty crowded. When we walked in, the reception/cash register area had about 5 employees gathered there. The place was pretty busy but we were fortunate to get seated right away in a big booth too!

After our visit here, I ended up asking one of my GBF's if he'd ever eaten here before. He made a face and said "yes" but he "hated it" because he didn't like the food and also because a lot of "bears" liked to go here. In LGBT lingo, "Bears" is a term referring to heavy set/hairy gay guys (hairy as in facial hair as well as overall body hair). "Bears" are also a subculture in the gay/bisexual male community. He said the bears liked this place because their portions were large. I guess Bears aren't my GBF's type. He's tall, thin, fit and likes similar type guys. Hmmm, I guess gay dudes discriminate amongst themselves just like everybody else.

I didn't really notice a lot of "bears" so to speak at this place and it wouldn't have bothered me anyways. I thought the vibe was pretty cool here and our waiter was really fab and funny!

Thank goodness we had a coupon because the prices here were kind of steep. Feeling reckless, I got the Chicken Fried Steak...I remember going to Corvette's with Astroboi and our friend N and Astroboi would always order Chicken Fried Steak. It's about time I tried some!

Bert's entree came with either a soup or salad. This soup was supposed to be "gumbo" but it looked like a thin tomato vegetable soup with hardly any sausage or seafood in it. Disappointing.

My salad (plain of course) - this was a large salad plate. There were about half a dozen tomatoes in there, whoa. Like a typical Filipino, I was a bit annoyed having my food come out in courses. I like it all at once. I picked at the salad and waited for the main dish to come. Turns out I would barely eat the salad at all since my plate had so much food!

Now when I saw the word "gravy" in the menu description, for some reason, I thought of dark gravy not white gravy. See how naive I am about diner food?

Surprise surprise, white gravy is the variety that's pretty much served handed in hand with chicken fried steak. I wished I had asked for the gravy on the side because the nice crunchiness of the thin pounded and breaded steak got soggy and shit. That was also a hell of a lot of broccoli. It's like they put a whole damn crown of it on my plate. My mashed potatoes also had that white gravy on it. I thought the gravy was too thick and flavorless.

TC's burger which she sort of liked. This was from the kid's menu. I tried a bite of it and it wasn't so good. I liked her burger at Boll Weevil much better.

Bert's got the Fried Scallops which also came with potatoes and  broccoli. Instead of tartar sauce (as described in the menu), it came with cocktail sauce. This was a pretty big plate. My friend wasn't kidding but of course we didn't know how big the portions would be when we got here. The broccoli ended up going home along with my leftover steak...

I would have liked this better with the gravy on the side...I loved the crunchy coating here. I rarely eat this type of food so I don't have much to compare it too. I'll have to try another place to make some comparisons, eh.

So that was Brian's American Eatery...

Who else ate here?

Turns out Kirk and his wife went here back in 2006 where he had the PB Burger (Bert would love that!)

I couldn't find any other local foodbloggers who ate here.

After lunch, we headed back home, but before doing so, decided to check out Niederfranks...

Tomodachi

I keep looking at my queu of unposted posts...my SF post is still incomplete along with our Canadian posts. Sorry C! Manitoulin posts will be forthcomign!

So I'm just going to do a wham bam thank you ma'am and get these out nice, dirty and quick.

Last month, Bert and I were down South since TC was over at my parents with the cousins. We figured we'd have dinner with Bert's mom and TC at the local sushi place. This is right off Palm and the 805, Tomodachi.

It's pretty big inside, but not too huge. The sushi bar's in the back. The wall on the left (not shown) is filled with photos of customers and friends. My sis is on there somewhere. The side walls are also lined with booths with open tables for larger parties in the middle.

I think I blogged this before but I'm too lazy to do the link...


This is my MIL's combo bento: the Teriyaki ginger salmon with rice, salad and a few pickled vegetables with beansprouts.

TC had the same thing but with Teriyaki chicken instead...Sorry for the shitty photos.

Bert also had the Terikyaki ginger salmon but this combo had fried seafood along with California roll...Note the tartar sauce. Ugh.

I didn't get a combo. I just got a few rolls - this was the California Roll inside out with masago on top. Ordinary. Nothing too exciting.

I also got a Salmon Skin roll. As I looked at this, I kept thinking something was missing. Halfway through my meal, I realized that those shaved bonito flakes were MIA. No wonder this seemed so naked.

I also got one of their special house rolls. I forgot the name of this but it's named after someone. It was a hot cooked rolls with eel sauce. Crab and/or shrimp was in here. This, I really enjoyed and would probably order again.

And by the way, I didn't eat all these rolls by myself. What kind of pig do you think I am? Ha ha, I also picked off their plates.

The place was packed by the time we left. The food is all right but not the greatest. The people here are super nice though. The sushi isn't spectacular but it's the only place around in Otay Mesa so that's where the locals go because Mexican food places down here are a dime a dozen.

Food at the Fall Festival

Last week TC's school had their annual Fall Festival. Most of the schools in our area have them around October/November. It's usually a fun time for the teachers, parents, kids, and community to get together and play games, win prizes, watch entertainment, fundraise for the different grade levels, and of course, to EAT!

Here's my post from last year. Again, Robsessed's husband was ready with THE PLATTER. He and the other husband were third in line. They came early just for this....Their order for the families: 30 carne asada tacos. Look at the smile on the dude's face as he's laying out the tortillas. "30 fkg tacos?"

There was a fixings bar - limes, onions, cilantro, pickles carrots and jalapenos along with salsa.

This was just the "first layer"...

Here they are in all of their meaty glory...ohhh yeahh....(cue the Barry White Orchestra's "Love Unlimited theme)!

Along with tacos, Robsessed's daughter had Pizza Hut pizza (the cheese kind; they also had pepperoni)...


I bought nearly a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts for us to share...


I've been good, so I ate just one!

Robsessed also brought some drinks from home. This was a "Throwback" Pepsi made with real sugar. Bert had a can of this and found it a bit too sweet.

Despite how tempting all those tacos were, I only had two because earlier that day, I'd gone to Rubio's with the co-workers and forgot about having tacos for later. Dammit. But, I still had room to have this hot dog. I love ketchup. I hate mustard.

TC bought some apples with caramel sauce. They had either the Gala or the Granny Smith apples. These were the Gala's. I'm not  a fan of sticky sauce on fruit so I passed on this.

Bert got a small boat of nachos...as you can tell, the theme was junk, junk, junk!

Wait a minute, what is this? In all five years of going to these things, this was brand new, the Sun City Italian Ice cart....

They were generous with their scoops - a bowl was $3 and you could get up to two flavors. The guy also gave samples. I got the chocolate chip (this was really really good!!!!) with cherry on the bottom. When Bert tasted this, he felt like that critic from "Ratatouille" when he tasted the ratatouille...he told me that the flavors reminded him of a cherry cordial which he loves. Man, I only got these two flavors because I thought that lemon, mango, lime, and such would be disgusting paired up with chocolate. Well, this was a win!

TC had a lot of fun roaming around the school's quad with her friends. That's where the entertainment, game booths, and prizes were. We, the parents, just parked our asses in the cafeteria arbor area where we ate, bullshitted, ate some more and blah blah blah. My sister even went with her kids and they don't even go to this school. We only have one more Fall Festival next year and then TC's off to middle school!

Pork Tacos & Bacon SPAM

Man we're going to be eating this for days...not that I'm complaining!

A few days ago I threw a pork butt into the crock pot, threw in a couple of chopped onions, a few peeled and chopped carrots, and dumped a couple of cans of diced green chilies, two small cans of chipotle peppers with adobo sauce, as well as lemon juice, black pepper and chili powder. A lot of chili powder. I just eyeballed the ingredients. Ten hours later the meat was falling off the bone. The house smelled good too.

I was inspired by our secretary's pozole that she shared with us the day after Halloween. That soup tasted so good with the sliced radish, chopped onions and shredded cabbage. I figured these fixings would also taste good with tacos (along with sour cream and cilantro). We had no corn tortillas at the time, just flour. It was still just as good. Bert used tostada shells instead of flour tortillas. The sour cream also helped cool down the heat. Too bad we were missing lime slices.

Do you like our placemats? Mine has the flags of the world. TC's had the United States map and their capitals. Bert's placement is the world map.  They are laminated and easy to clean. Fk cloth placemats where the food gets all stuck and ground in and then you have to wash it. These placemats (and a few other edumacational ones) were bought for TC's benefit but we still like to use them and rotate them. U.S. Presidents anyone? Musical instruments?

TC didn't want the pork tacos. Instead, she had another pork "entree". I diced up some bacon Spam and sauteed it with onions and cabbage along with a few sprinkles of soy sauce. Mmm, quick and easy dinner.

This was bought at Marukai Market. I got this can along with the "Hot and Spicy" variety. They also had Turkey flavor but I've tried it before and it's pretty gross. The bacon Spam on the other hand was pretty damn good.

I'd get this again! I'd put this in a taco! Ha ha, I just realized that the Spam photo was taken while it lay on top of my jeans in the car on our way home from Marukai!

It's now a few days later after I made this pork...even after having it for lunch (with rice) and giving a full plasticware container to my neighbor, we still have a lot of meat! I may just end up freezing it. And the spiciness of the chipotle peppers was pretty strong. I think I'll just use one can next time, but I liked how nice and red the sauce was when I opened the crock pot lid. Let's put it this way...Ring of Fire.  (cue the song, "Hurt So Good" or "Master and Servant")

Here is the post that inspired me to do this crock pot pork dish:
Chili Sauced Pulled Pork Tacos by Vicki from the blog A Work in Progress!

I also liked this other post she did:
BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches.

Here's a few more pork recipe posts. These are courtesy my foodblogger friend Joelen in Chicago whom we had the pleasure to visit last year:

Pork Barbacoa. I like how this one involves a crockpot! And a can of Coke!
Shredded BBQ Pork Sandwiches (ooh, another sandiwich recipe and here comes the crockpot again!)
and lastly, Mexican Pulled Pork Carnitas

Sorry Wilbur and Babe, but we loves eatin' ya!