Pho Vinh visit...

Finally ate at that Vietnamese place in west Chula Vista, Pho Vinh, next to the tattoo parlor. Went with a couple of friends after a book project meeting this morning.

Verdict: It's alright but there's better places than this.

Bowls of pho are $4.75. I had the pho with brisket and flank. The soup tasted pretty good. The noodles were not clumpy and the meat had very little fat, which was good. My main complaint about this place is that they were stingy with the garnishes. We ordered the fried spring roll appetizer. There were six small rolls and the garnish plate came with TWO lettuce leaves and ONE measly sprig of mint. A glaring faux pas for me was the lack of cilantro! No cilantro!!!That SUX the big hairy one with throbbing veins! We had to divide the lettuce leaves in thirds so we could each have two pieces to go with our rolls. There was hardly enough mint to go around. There were two saucers of nuoc cham (fish sauce); one saucer was full yet the other seemed like an half-ass afterthought, because it was only 1/4 full. The lack of cilantro to me spoke of cheapness.

Also, our pho came with only ONE small plate of garnish for all three of us which included: bean sprouts, several halves of limes (which I liked rather than lemons), and two lonely small sprigs of basil, plus six slices of jalapeno peppers. It was okay, but most places (at least up in the City Heights or Kearny Mesa area) give you more shit to put in your soup than that. Man, I couldn't believe we only had one plate of garnish for all three of us. Anyways, this place was worth checking out since it's probably the only Vietnamese place in Chula Vista, but I would rather drive up to Convoy or Balboa to get better pho with better garnishes for the same price.

Chicken Adobo coming right up...

Tonight, after TC had her piano lesson, I made adobong manok (chicken adobo) for tomorrow. Although it tastes really good right out of the pot, it tastes even better the next day. You can even pretend to be healthy by scraping off the layer of nice crisco-ey white fat that rises to the top of the sauce after it's been refrigerated...or you could just leave it there and enjoy the fat covered adobo after it's reheated.

Adobo is considered the national dish of the Philippines. It's not only a dish but a style of cooking. The basic ingredients are usually a meat (chicken or pork) in a sauce of soy sauce, a souring agent - normally white vinegar (or if you want to go native, sugar cane vinegar, which is quite strong), garlic and black peppercorns. Some recipes will use calamansi (native citrus fruit) or even lemons as a souring agent instead of vinegar. I've used personally used pineapple juice and pieces once for my pork ribs adobo. The cooking process (in vinegar) is also a preservation process and if you wanted to, you wouldn't even have to refrigerate your adobo dish.

There are a myriad variations, each uniquely delicious. Where my mom is from in the Philippines (the Northern part), she adds ginger. Sometimes she will add food coloring made from soaking annatto seeds (also known as 'atsuete' in Tagalog or 'achiote' in Spanish; also available in powdered form) in water, so that her adobo is reddish orange. My mom will also cook her adobo really dry so that there are dried bits at the bottom, mixed with the chicken skins that slipped off the chicken pieces! Me and my siblings used to fight for those burnt pieces; we loved the crispy skins! Other people make their adobo soupy or watery. I like mine with a little bit of liquid but I defintely do not like it drowning in sauce. My recipe is below. A few asides: the onions are not a traditional ingredient but it makes the adobo a bit sweeter. You could also add sugar to this recipe. Another variation is adding potato wedges , which cuts the vinegar and soaks up the sauce. One of my friends said she even made adobo in a crock pot before! I'll have to try that method next time.

Chicken Adobo

ingredients:
1 3lbs of chicken pieces (your choice, but NOT the breast - too dry!)
1/2 cup soy sauce
3/4 cup white vinegar (you could even use cider vinegar)
1 medium onion, sliced
1 or 2 heads of garlic, crushed
2 bay leaves
1/2 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
sliced ginger (cut into coins or small smashed chunks) **optional ingredient**
salt to taste

Instruction:

• saute the onions, garlic and ginger in several tbsp of oil
• add the chicken pieces and lightly brown them
• add the rest of the ingredients together (soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaves, peppercorns), bring to a boil then simmer covered for 30 minutes. do NOT stir the chicken!
• after simmering, remove lid and let sauce reduce by half
• add salt to taste (i usually don't - the soy sauce is salty enough)
• serve hot with white rice

serves 6

So there you have it...one of the most popular dishes of the Philippines. Pretty easy. Saute. Dump in ingredients. Leave it alone. It's done after half an hour. Taste better if you simmer it a bit longer. The meat will fall of the bones...

Ronin, you've tried making adobo before haven't you? Any special variations? Thane, have you had adobo since you've been out in Cambridge? Mulysa, I still need to try your pork chops with soy sauce recipe!

Goodbye Pickler...GTFO!

I'm such a cheater... Instead of waiting until 9:00 pm to watch the results of who gets booted off American Idol, I logged onto the American Idol Season 5 blog (it's on blogspot actually, at www.americanidolboy.blogspot.com) and got the results. East Coast watches the show first...

OH MY GOD...PEOPLE FINALLY GOT A CLUE! THEY FINALLY GOT RID OF THAT DUMB ASS INBRED HICK KELLY PICKLER!!!! GO FLY YOUR "WHAT'S A BALLSY CA-LA-MA-RI ASS BACK HOME"!!! SHE CAN'T SING HER WAY OUT OF A WET BAG MADE OF TOILET PAPER! SHE CAN GO BACK HOME TO HER LECHEROUS GRANDPAPPY'S SHACK NOW!

Man, my feet f--kin' stink! This is what happens when you wear pointy toed slingbacks for nearly a whole day(or open toed wedge sandals, or pretty much, any damn shoe for that matter!). I feel sorry for those people that do pedicures. They have to see and touch and fondle other people's gross, gnarly, hairy or hammer toed, feta cheese smelling feet and clean it up and sand it and file the dead skin off and shit. You know what I'm talkin' about Superman...I'm sure it feels good too. I'm too squeamish and too ashamed to let someone other than Bert see my disgusting feet. I have wide troll feet just like Frodo, unlike Bert's enviable (to me) slender feet that are perfect for wearing narrow sandals. Alas, not being blessed with narrow feet, I have to get wide square toed sandals. The poor child has my same feet, complete with tiny hairs on her big toe. : )

Currently listening to:
my new CD that I got on Amazon.com, the eponymous Paris Combo, a group from France that have (according to the back of the CD cover), " smoldering influences of Gypsy music, sweet Spanish and Italian melodies, cool American Jazz, and a smoky hint of Django Reinhardt". It don't know how good it all is yet since I've only heard the first 3 songs...

There is no 'h' in Ridgemont

Okay...my 2nd post in less than 24 hours...

Due to my fast typing when revising this blog, which resulted in sloppy typing, you probably had trouble finidng the page you are reading now. Why? I had an extra 'h' in Ridgemont in the new title of my blog. Sorry folks! You do not having a spelling problem, ride the short bus, or have an extra chromosome. I made a mistake and now it's fixed.

I wanted Pink Candles but someone else already has it and it is in use, not like Shogun's.

The former intern from work (she worked with my colleague recently) was so kind and made me homemade chicken mole (pronounced "moh-lay") with beans. A few months ago I had remarked that I have never tried homemade chicken mole before. She offered to make it for me one day, but I forgot about it. I figured, oh well, it was an empty promise or she was trying to make conversation. No big deal. Her last week as an intern was two weeks ago and I figured I'd never see her again. The other day she popped in the office and dropped off two containers of the aforementioned food items! I had a tiny taste of it this afternoon when I got home from work and it's really delicious! She even apologized for not having rice and tortillas (not much of a tortilla eater nor am I much of a bean eater). Bert and I did defrost some tortillas the other night (the flour kind from Costco where you cook them on the stove, not ready-to-eat corn) so perhaps we can try the mole with the tortillas later.

So, on American Idol tonight they are going to sing (sappy and most likely boring, unoriginal and mainstream) love songs. The show will feature that blind Italian dude, Andrea Bocelli. I'm sure he's talented and shit (but then again so is a trained rat), but I'm not a fan of pop or opera. I hope that that dumb blonde hillbilly Kelly gets kicked off. She can't sing. Period. Now, Bert is banking on his favorite Al Jarreau-inflected, Mr. Tumnus-lookin', British teeth-sportin' croaker, Elliott (aka Goatboy) to stay in the game. I'll watch it on video tape tomorrow when I have more time (yes we are still in the Dark Ages, sans TiVo).

Check out their musical guests over the weeks:
Shakira (gotta get those Latinos watching the show), Stevie Wonder (out of everyone, he's got the most talent), Barry Manilow (please save us! - well, actually I liked some of his songs back in the 70s), Kenny Rogers (gotta get the South's support), Rod Stewart (WTF? old goat with more kids than hit songs), and now Andrea Bocelli...They're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for this one...Which has been is going to be featured next? Please let it be Debbie Boone!

Currently listening to:
More Sounds of the 70s (my own compilation)
Andy Gibb ("Love is Thicker than Water"), Pilot ("Magic"), The Sylvers ("Hotline"), Elton John and Kiki Dee ("Don't Go Breakin' My Heart")...you know you all listened to this shit as a kid!!!

New Blog Name

This is my first post under the new blog name (thanx Lotus for coming up with this! : D)
i wonder if there's any way to work in 'Ferris Bueller' in the title somewhere!

It was a biyatch typing in the new links, then redoing them because i did it wrong! I'm going to post a picture too...but need to figure that out as well because when i tried it, my "URL" had illegal characters. WHATEVER!!!

Anyways, what a fookin' busy week it's been. This week promises more of the same. At least until TC's dance recital is done (after 2 weeks).

Still haven't watched 'Brokeback Mountain'. My sis lent her me DVD. My dad GAVE me his. He bought it (knowing it had gay themes), but my mom didn't know. She lasted less than halfway through the film. I think the sex scene is what got her. In any case, I will be watching it alone since Bert doesn't watch flicks such as these, namely men humping other men or anything to do with gayness, unless of course it's hot lesbians. I also borrowed 'Crash' from a co-worker. haven't had a chance to see that yet either. but yet, i have time to type in this damn thing...

Bert has a funny bidet story to tell you. So I'll leave it up to him to describe it in his blog...

Restaurants I'd like to try:
Puerto la Boca - Argentinian/Little Italy
JSix - fusion/downtown
Terra - New American/Hillcrest
Khyber Pass - Afghan/Hillcrest
Sushi Ota - Japanese/PB
Andre's - Cuban/Morena Blvd Area
Island Spice - Jamaican/downtown on Market St.
Sadaf - Persian/Gaslamp
Bambou Grille - Asian fusion/Hillcrest

Most fun birthday present I received a week and a half ago:
Roller skates from Bert (I have yet to use them outside, but I will since TC now has a pair too).
And yes, they are roller skates, NOT blades. They are actually sneaker roller skates because I didn't like the white boot ice skater look.

Am currently listening to:
sounds of the 70's
Electric Light Orchestra ("It's a Living Thing)? How about the O'Jays ("Backstabbers")? Michael Martin Murphy ("Wildfire"), or Yvonne Elliman (If I Can't Have You?)?

What does that say?

Oh man...this past Monday while driving TC back home from her dance practice, we were at a red light on the corner of Highland & 30th next to Sweetwater High. There was a truck in front of us with the interlocking 'LA' decals on both the bottom left and bottom right corners of the back window. In the middle of the window was a Raiders decal. So I said to TC, "What team is that?" since she is familiar with NFL logos from watching footbal with Bert. Right after I asked her, my eyes saw the UPPER LEFT corner of the dusty window, which was clearly written in the thick dust, "FUCK YOU". I desperately put down my visor, but from her vantage point in the back seat, (whilst viewing her from my rear view mirror), I could see her straining to read it...Mind you, she's but a wee kinder-child...but she can read.

Unfortunately, she did read it and actually started to pronounce it..."Fuh....Fuh...Funk? You? Fuh... Mommy, what does that say? What does that mean?"

I wanted to just curl up under a rock. We were at a red light and it was pretty damn long too. I wanted to change the subject by saying "Look, there's Sweetwater High! Remember their mascot? The Red Devil?" You know, anything to keep her attention off that window staring straight at us. But she persisted in asking me what that word was.

I think my mistake was saying "That's a bad word that someone wrote on that window"....D'ohhh! Now she is probably filing that "new" spelling word in her little brain and waiting to use it at the most importune moment...like to her teachers or with her friends...Oh man...At that moment, the light turned green so I hauled ass as soon as I could to the next lane so we wouldn't be behind that truck. And no, I did NOT help her figure out how to pronounce the word!

I know I can't shelter her from bad words because she's going to hear it eventually, (hell I say them a lot, but not in her presence) but I don't think she needs to hear or see them this young. It's a trip because she can read things and figure it out...scary...

Anyways, it was pretty funny thinking about it afterwards...

I don't have to cook this week!

Yay! Thanks to my mom, I don't have to cook this week (except rice of course). Why you may wonder?

We had Easter dinner at her house...As usual, my mom went overboard and cooked a lot of dishes to suit everyone's taste. We had pork embutido (Philippine pork meatloaf with olives, cheese, and raisins --but no hard boiled egg---these make nasty farts by the way), neo-pinakbet (I say 'neo' because my mom is trying to be health conscious and thus did NOT use shrimp bagoong, which is traditional, so it was salt-free), good old American roast beef with gravy (courtesy of my dad's cooking skills), potato salad, ham, lumpia (the neo-kind because she used turkey instead of pork or beef), pancit bihon (the 'bihon' refers to the type of noodles used; in this case, bihon is made of bean thread, as opposed to' canton' which is the Chinese style egg noodle), and a variety of Filipino desserts such as espasol (mochiko rice flour with evaporated milk, rolled in toasted cassava flour, rolled and cut into diamond shapes), Philippine-style fruit salad (canned fruit with cream cheese and coconut shreds ), and kutsinta (a rice cake with fresh grated coconut), and lastly a pink jello mold with tropical fruits (the jello was a seaweed based 'agar-agar').

Notice the lack of fresh vegetables. That's the one thing I don't like about Filipino food. They don't have salads (at least we didn't), and any vegetable featured is cooked in a stew. I'm not saying it's bad, but I like my vegetables to have a firm texture and a bright color, not cooked to colorless mush or almost mush. My other gripe about Filipino desserts is that they're way too sweet. I don't like canned fruit salad and adding cream cheese and coconut doesn't make it better for me. As a kid, I remember I would just pick out the maraschino cherries. The fresh fruits however were seedless red and green grapes. SO there was something 'fresh' on the table. All in all, it was a great meal. I had a tiny bit of each (except the ham and lumpia). Since there was so much leftover grub, my generous mom told me to pack up whatever I would like to take home. My sibs did too. I'm definitely going to be brown-bagging it this whole week; same with Bert Wolfe. Save me some money too dammit.

Back to the grind tomorrow. Had one week off. Next holiday to look forward to is at the end of May for Memorial Day. Then after that, summer vacation after June 16th!!!!!

Sleep is good

Sleep is good

Had a very nice 12 hour nap yesterday. I only had less than 2 hours sleep the night before. Perhaps it was the iced Vietnamese coffee (cafe sua da) I had Thursday for lunch. Whatever it was, I was a total insomniac. I felt like I was running on fumes yesterday.

After Bert Wolfe came home from work, I crashed in bed at 5, then woke up again at 10:30 pm, then back to sleep, then up at 7 am this morning. According to Bert Wolfe, the child was worried about me last night because I didn't eat dinner.

Saw the historic 92-year old Hotel San Diego get imploded live on TV at 8:05 a.m. This is the hotel downtown that's across from where you do jury duty (Hall of Justice). It was also featured in the movie 'Traffic' (as was the Hall of Justice). During the filming of 'Traffic', the hotel was already condemned. The interiors were used as rooms for the interrogation scenes in the movie. Now that the hotel's a pile of rubble, the city will build a brand new 22-floor federal building.

Spent my bday with the child and Bert (lunch at Pho Ha Calli in Mira Mesa). I ate a light lunch since we were going to Corvette's in Hillcrest for dinner with my siblings and their kids. I wanted to get what I always get at Corvette's, the Dion burger, which is a hamburger with lettuce, tomato, swiss cheese and mushrooms. I also had a chocolate mint shake, which was pretty damn good. My brother had the (disgusting) Rory burger which has peanut butter on it. My sis ordered a foot long hot dog with cheese. It was supposed to have chili on it, but she wanted it nearly plain. It looked pretty gross for obvious reasons.

Although Corvette's wasn't a place I would normally go to, I chose it because it was kid friendly. The child and her cousins enjoyed the oldies music, the flashy decorations and the plethora of straws that the waitresses throw on the table. Best of all, they enjoyed the shower of Bazooka bubble gum pieces that our waitress threw at us at the end of the meal.

Have begun reading Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice'. Just saw the movie version a few days ago (with Keira Knightley--she's so cute!), although I did enjoy the longer BBC version (circa 1995 I believe) more. The latter version featured Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy and that is the version that inspired his casting (as Mr. Darcy no less!) in the movie 'Bridget Jones' Diary', which was loosely based on 'Pride and Prejudice'. I guess those English chicks think he's hot stuff, but to each their own. I have the complete works of Jane Austen but my lazy ass never got around to reading it, other than Cliffs notes in high school.

I wonder if Ronin and HotFudge are back yet from their trip to Italy...

Eggs were boiled yesterday afternoon, but decorated at night (while I slept) by the child and Bert. Must fill up the plastic eggs tonight while she is sleeping and hide them around the house.

Wishing you all a Happy Easter!

Just Fabulous revisited...

As I write this, there are less than 2 hours left until it is officially April 13th, which marks my birthday...as for my age, for those of you that know me, you know how old I am...age is just a number but it still kind of sucks to see your age slowly creeping towards 40. And no, I will NOT be 39! By the way, my birthday mates are Tony Dow ("Wally" of 'Leave it to Beaver' fame), Thomas Jefferson, Alfred M. Butts (the creator of 'Scrabble') and my favorite, Ricky Schroeder (woo-hoo, the RICKER!!! Actually I hated his ass, but still, a bit of useless trivia!

Anyhow, went out to lunch with a friend today (did Vietnamese at Phuong Trang on Convoy). I had the bun with char-grilled beef with the green onion inside. She had the rice paper wraps with grilled beef. The child had seafood fried rice and a jackfruit smoothie. For dessert we headed over to Just Fabulous in Kensington. I wanted to go there again and experience the ambience in the daytime. There was no one there except for the same happy waiter who was there Saturday night. We got to eat inside this time, since Saturday it was packed and had a 45 minute wait. Very nice interior. Lots of whimsical ornaments dripping off of a fanciful chandelier. Citrus colors galore with gerbera daisies in cute little vases on each table. I had the gianduja pyramid that my friend had Saturday night. My lunch companion had the key lime tart and the child had a very rich, dense chocolate brownie with white chocolate chips and nuts (she only ate 1/3 since it was very sweet and thick).

I saved half of my dessert for Bert Wolfe, only to realize later that he gave up chocolate for Lent. Hmmm...perhaps I could save it until Easter when it is safe for him to eat chocolate again. Hopefully it will have survived the few days wait. But probably will not! Which just makes me want to go there again and try another dessert. I'm afraid if I save it, it will start to grow mold or something since I saved some of the fresh fruit garnish.

Will need to boil some eggs for the child's Easter egg decorating night. She will help decorate those things with me and Bert Wolfe. Must also fill some eggs for the child's egg hunt. Need to find time to do this...

Queen butchered on American Idol

It's a few minutes past 9 p.m. Tonight was the night one of the world's greatest rock bands was flayed to death on TV's American Idol...Freddie Mercury must be rolling over in his grave somewhere after hearing some of these peformances.

I originally thought that Gary Coleman in drag would be the worst, but she was the closer, singing, "The Show Must Go On" and actually did a good job with it.

I predict the bottom three tomorrow night will be:
Kelly "Nice Prom Dress" Pickler - She totally f----d up "Bohemian Rhapsody".
Katherine McPhee - Sang the song from the Highlander movie, "Who Wants to Live Forever"
and the absolute most WORST of all, the pretty boy with no singing talent whatsoever, Ace Young who really mangled, "We Will Rock You"! Oh my gosh, that was pretty bad. I would rather listen to Kenny G, John Tesh, or Color Me Badd than listen to that fool! Okay, I take it back! NO KENNY G!!!!!

Bert Wolfe enjoyed his favorite, Goatman(aka Mr. Tumnus) who sang "Somebody to Love". At least Goatman didn't try to do Freddie's falsetto and really mess it up. He knew his range and kept it realistic.

Then again, what the hell do I know! I'm not a singer, but a wanna-be music snob/rock critic in another life! I'm Jack Black's character from the movie "Hi-Fidelity".

After all these years, Brian May (the tall curly haired guitarist of Queen) still looks pretty much the same. He did pack on the pounds, but then again, who doesn't after 3+ decades? He can still play great guitar and run circles around musicians one third his age!

My Favorite Queen Albums:

• A Night at the Opera (1975) - a classic rock album which included several of their hits such as the multi-tracked operatic ditty "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "You're My Best Friend "and the beautiful "Love of my Life".
• A Day at the Races (1976) - the anticipated follow up to ANATO which had the gospel-inspired "Somebody to Love"
• News of the World (1977) - the album with the Killer Robot on the front! it had "We Will Rock You" which segued into "We are the Champions"

My Favorite Queen Songs:

• Stone Cold Crazy (from 1974's album, "Sheer Heart Attack", this song was also brilliantly covered by Metallica in 1991, which subsequently won them the kiss of death - a Grammy)
• You're My Best Friend (ANATO - my #1 fav. Queen song in 2nd grade and today)
• Seaside Rendezvous (ANATO - English music hall at its best and flamboyant lyrics by the master himself, Freddie Mercury)
• Tie Your Mother Down (ADATR, also brilliantly covered by the fearsome Lemmy Kilmeister of Motorhead!)
• We Will Rock You/We are the Champions (NOTW - a killer anthemic song played at eery major sporting event in the world)
• Spread Your Wings (NOTW - Freddie Mercury shows his dynamic vocal range)
• Mustapha & Bicycle Race (from 1978's "Jazz" - a compendium of diverse musical styles, two extremely fun songs!
• Under Pressure (from 1982's underrated and reviled "Hot Space", yes, I still have your LP Thane. Queen and Bowie are an awesome combination, unlike the Rolling Stones with David Bowie's misfire "Dancing in the Street")

I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones that come to mind first...

Laotian food

Last Saturday, I had dinner with several friends at Pho Ca Dao in Mira Mesa. Nothing beats a filling bowl of pho and only $4.35 too! The cheapness of dinner was offset later by the exorbitant prices we were to experience at Just Fabulous which is on Adams Avenue right next to the Kensington sign. Luckily, I was comped by my friends, but for 4 of us, they coughed up $23 each (tip included). We all got a dessert and coffee, except for me because I had a French Viognier which our waiter recommended since it was not as overly sweet as this other dessert wine I was eyeing.

The desserts differ in presentation from Karen Krasne's Extraordinary Desserts ( on 5th in Hillcrest) because the frou-frou stuff is not ribbons and flowers decorating the cakes. Instead, of just cake slices, you can order mini cakes with what they call 'accoutrements'. The whole plate is decorated with squiggles of fruit coulis, chocolate, gold leaf accents, rolled white or dark chocolate wafers stuck into the sorbet that accompanies the dessert along with fresh berries (raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and blackberries), as well as edible glitter. I had a ganache covered chocolate bombe which had thin slivers of chocolate encircling it, much like chocolate tombstones. Encased in the bombe was chocolate mousse with a luscious center filled with passionfruit and lemon creme. It was accompanied by mango sorbet in a whisper thin tuile (wafer) shaped into a bowl...One of my dinner companions had a four sided pyramid which was covered in ganache. The base of the pyramid was encrusted with hazelnuts which also formed the crust.

Yesterday, we went to Asia Cafe, which is a Laotian eatery in the hood. Located on the corner of Market Street and 47th, it is in a really rundown stripmall which includes a Thai/Lao video store, a barber shop, a Lao/Thai mom and pop market, and a few other tiny store fronts with bars in the front. I got the recommendation from the MMM-Yoso!!! food blog (it's one of my links) and it worth a look see. We had nem-khao which is Laotian fried rice (it's not on the menu- it's so good - the rice is totally crispy and nutty tasting---lots of green onions and cilantro too), sticky rice (served steaming hot in a woven cylindrical basket with a lid), a spicy beef entree (Bert's choice - his new screen name), the Yum Asia which was a seafood salad, and the Seen-nam-toke, a marinated beef salad. When it came time to pay the bill, I was blindsided because the total came out higher than my mental calculations. Turns out their menus were 10 years old and the prices were not updated, so the owner told us each item should be .50 higher. Damn, how much does it cost to print new menus dude!!! In any case, we enjoyed our food and our leftovers. The child enjoyed eating her sticky rice with her hands. The restaurant also serves Chinese and Thai food. They also have their versions of pho and com (broken rice) dishes. I'm glad we checked it out. I'd go back again to try some of their other dishes.

Watched Ice Age 2 - The Meltdown today with the child. I can't stand Ray Romano's voice. It was okay for me, but she loved it and thought it was hilarious.

aaah...the after effects of pork...

bought pork tocino (marinated, salty, cured meat) at seafood city last week. finally cooked it last night. fried that shit up. made the house smell good with the fat burnt at the edges. tasted good, but the next day...mud soup!

perhaps this is what happens when superman eats too much bacon...or morgan spurlock when he ate all that mcdonald's crap for a month.

speaking of which, you've got to try bacon baked with maple syrup and fresh cracked black pepper!!!

nice thing that happened to me last week

got flowers and a thank you card from a student who got into yale

name i was called by someone at the gym

some lady said, as i was walking by to have my id scanned, 'hey, i want to look like 'skinny minnie' over there"...uh...yeah...right...ugh!

stuff seen on tv

• we watched t/dvd 'waiting' - talk about gross but funny! the brain! the goat! let's put it this way, LUIS GUZMAN RULES!!!
• kenny rogers on american idol - talk about bad plastic surgery. poor kenny. he needs a full beard again...check out the website: www.menwholooklikekennyrogers.com!
• people moaning about the weather on the local news stations...get a grip folks, it's not like we're having a major storm here. we're such p-wimps in san diego.
• the 'i love toys' series a few weeks ago on vh-1. man i never had a easy-bake oven! we were too poor! we never had tinker toys, the slip 'n slide, and stretch armstrong either! or rock 'em sock 'em robots and that hoppity hop ball bouncer thing. one thing about the Spirograph was you could never really make all those cool designs that they had on the box. plus after a while, you'd rip a hole in the middle of the design after going in circles so many times with your colored pen. one thing that brought back memories was the Snoopy Snow-Cone Machine! of course, i never had one...

things to look forward to this weekend:

• Dinner (my choice) with a group of friends this Saturday. am deciding between a hole in the wall Laotian/Viet place located in the hood, a yuppyish Argentinian place in little italy, a korean place on convoy, or a nice but safe Vietnamese place up in Mira Mesa. i think it will all boil down to, "can we get decent parking at the dinner hour?"
• Dinner with the husband sans child @ kemo sabe
• checking out SDSU's Family Day on Saturday
• getting to sleep in all of next week and by sleeping in, i mean waking up past 6:00 a.m.!!!!
• no work!

Daylight savings time...

oh shite...we forgot about daylight savings time today. our child woke us up around 7 (it was actually 8 of course), so we took our time getting ready to take her to CCD which is at 10 am. after eating breakfast and performing our daily ablutions and deposits into porcelain receptacles, burt wolf realized we should have put the clocks forward the night before...by that time it was 10 am already and we thought we had a lot of time to get ready...

we ended up not going to church (it would have been 10:30 am, midway through mass) and CCD for the child...we ended up going to vons to buy pitstick (coupon - 2 for $3.25!!!!) for burt, then home to change so we could go to the zoo.

after taking the skyride over, we checked out the hoofed and horned animals...uh, there was a zebra that was pretty hung...it was practically like a fifth leg and it was black too. that would be funny if it was striped.

we saw a pygmy falcon that was eating some fresh bloody meat, perhaps a defrosted mouse. i say defrosted because long ago, when burt was working for another company, they took the employees on a 'behind the scenes' tour of the zoo. we saw the freezers where they kept dead mice and other critters in zip locs. they can't feed the animals with live food (they don't want to gross out us humans, i guess) so they give 'em already dead food...

talk about unnatural...now they have this area next to the giraffe exhibit where they were charging $5 to hand feed the giraffes 3 measly biscuits...giraffes have VERY long and black tongues...other things we saw, a meerkat sitting (not standing at attention like they usually do) and scratching itself...and a crazy old lady in one of those 'rascal' scooters (think george costanza in seinfeld) that was whizzing by and talking to herself. then she would periodically stop at some of the exhibits and rant unintelligibly about who knows what...

we left after about an hour and a half so we could eat lunch, which was at takahara noodles in the mitsuwa marketplace. it was okay but i won't eat there again. the plastic replicas of their food look better than the real food. like a typical gaijin, i ended up buying just snacks (i.e. pocky, yan yan, ramune candy and sweet rice crackers). i need to shop with a bonafide nihonjin who can teach me the ropes of japanese food shopping (emilf, that means you!).

back to daylight savings time...according to burt wolf, they are not going to have it next year. i say good riddance. it was always a pain in the ass to change every clock in the house plus all my watches, car clock, etc...

one more week til spring break...