Pho 888, oops I mean Pho Vinh

Here's yet another "coupon" story. My GBF (gay boy friend) and I had a date for lunch today, so I thought we could try this new Pho place in western Chula Vista. I had a coupon from a mini magazine mailer. I hadn't heard of Pho 888 before so I thought, ok, let's try it. Turns out that this place is not even open yet! Dammit! The coupon said the grand opening was on October 25 and today was the 30th! WTF!!! Also, this restaurant site must be cursed because this used to be Tango Grille. This is on Broadway, by the way, a few blocks away from the Chula Vista mall. After Tango folded last year, it briefly became a Mediterranean Grille place. I never ate there, but just remembered the sign. That didn't last long! It then became a generic Mexican food place. Now it's Pho 888. But yeah, it's not open yet.
So...hungry and desperate for Vietnamese food, we traveled north on Broadway and parked near the seedy Motel 7 (what? no 15 minute rates?) which is the neighbor of this fine eating establishment.

I'd been here several times before with TC, Bert, and a few other friends. Here's one of my previous posts here .

The decor is standard tacky Asian stuff. You know, the Four Seasons (not pictured here). My parents have a circular Four Seasons in the bathroom of all places. Okay, not the same place I'd put it but...I'm just saying!

My GBF and I ordered the fried spring rolls which came with a small platter of lettuce and mint. No cilantro.

Oops, the photo of my GBF's pho with flank and brisket is gone! Now all you see are the beansprouts and basil he dumped on top of his pho. I actually recommended the flank and brisket to him. I think he liked it, but he peeled off the fatty edges - and there was a lot of fat (that's why I like it!).

My Bun with shrimp. Nothing too exciting. This was okay, I've had better. Sigh, no fried pieces of pork fat here like at Pho Hoa Calli and Bolsa. But I wanted to eat something relatively healthy. Noodles with fresh vegetables and seafood (okay, those are kind of laden with cholesterol) does the trick for me. Someday I'm going to just make this at home so I don't have to go out and buy it. But I need to get a recipe for the sauce first. The only fish sauce I have is Filipino (patis) and I want to buy the Vietnamese kind. I'll be looking on some other food blogs later to check out some recipes...Maybe do a run to Ranch 99 in a few days...

Here's a closeup of my vermin from the sea...a nice little shrimpy shrimp.
In other news, Vien Dong III in Linda Vista is now Thuan Phat. Not sure if it's open yet. We saw it when we passed by on our way to Sab e Lee last week.

Awash Ethiopian

I'm actually writing this on Friday, Nov 7. Like the toilet in "Trainspotting", I'm a little "backed up" in my posting. I had a coupon (yes, tight ass me- wait, that is not supposed to be sexual, but referring to my cheapness) for this place, Awash Ethiopian on University Ave. I hadn't been here before, so we wanted to use the coupon before it expired on November 1!
It was pretty dark inside, which kinda sucked for me because I don't like using my flash, which brings unwanted attention sometimes.

Their menu...

The place was not crowded at all. We sat on the far left. In the back is a bar area and the kitchen. There is another separate area with a TV. There were lots of Ethiopian wall hangings...

Here's the separate room. One guy was by himself eating lunch and watching the news. This was the day they found out that there was an assassination plot on Presidential candidate Barack Obama.

More decor...

Bert tried a new beer. Last time we tried Ethiopian (actually, it was Eritrean at Asmara), he tried Meta. This was St. George's beer which was "medium". The Meta was light. He asked the waitress her recommendation for a beer and this was what she recommended, which he enjoyed. I wish I had my notes but I am too lazy to go downstairs and get it. I got the Vegetarian combo (I don't have the #'s, but I'll post them later when I edit) - which is a combo of 5 different kinds of veggie dishes with salad and some sort of cheese that smelled feta-like. Bert got the meat combo (get a load of this - that shit coast $16.99! mistake!) - It consisted of 3 meat dishes (seen on the bottomof the plate) - lamb, beef and chicken. They combined it here on the veggie combo plate. For $16.99, those three meat dishes do not look worth it. The chicken leg was dry and tough. The potatoes in one of my dishes were kind of hard too. Damn...I wonder if they're like that all the time? I did like my entrees however - there was yellow lentils with curry, some sort of vegetables with berbere sauce, plus carrots, cabbage and onions too.

Of course the meal was served with injera, the unleavened bread (made of teff) that you use to scoop up your food. By the way, we ordered the beef sambussas but were given the lentils. We found this out after we bit into it and chewed a few times. We told the waitress and she got us another order of sambussas. But, when we got the check, we noticed that we were charged for both sets of sambussas - the lentils (which we didn't order) and the beef. We had to tell them to revise our total. Man, WTF!!!

Even though the waitress was pretty nice, the service could have been better. We didn't know that the meat combo would be so overpriced. I thought Bert would have more. Most meat combos in Ethiopian places cost between $8.95 - $10.95. Luckily I had the coupon but even that wasn't enough to quell our disappointment.

Sab e Lee

Bert and I finally checked out this new Thai place that I read about on MMM-Yoso's blog. Here's his post here. Although the restaurant's name isn't on the GINORMOUS blue awning that wraps around this strip mall, this is THE place to go for Thai food. Forget those pussified Thai places all over San Diego, this one is the real deal. Sab e Lee is on the corner of Ulric and Linda Vista Road. You can't miss the blue awning-ed strip mall there.

The restaurant is pretty small. There are four 4-top tables and one that seats two, which we snagged. Luckily there were open spots since it was 12:45; we must have arrived after the lunch rush. We noticed that we were the only non-Thai customers there. How do I know this? I overheard the owner speaking to everyone else and it wasn't in English. Even when more customers came in, they were Thai. Now when going to an ethnic restaurant, this is a GOOD THING. You don't want to walk into an ethnic restaurant and find no one of that ethnicity eating there. That usually means they've watered down their dishes for American tastes. You may as well eat at PF Changs or some other abomination.
There are nearly 100 items on this menu and we plan on coming back to try more. We only picked three dishes today...
Bert, being the coffee freak (although he's trying to cut down) ordered the Thai iced coffee ($1.75). It was a little too sweet for me - must be all that cream.
The first item we ordered was the Papaya Salad ($5.95). The owner (who is super nice by the way) asked us how spicy we wanted it. I told him to make it very spicy. The salad consists of shredded green papaya, a wedge of cabbage, tomatoes, green beans (just a little bit), dried shrimp, a lot of chilis, lime juice and peanuts. Every bite that we took had pepper seeds or chili flakes in it. Even though this salad was pretty fiery, it didn't make me want to stop eating it! Bert and I kept on picking at this even though I was beginning to sweat. My nose was even beginning to run, but fk it! This was delicious! In the back of my mind I was fearing the future consequences of this spicy meal, but interestingly enough, I didn't experience a "spicy" finale the next day.

There were two sausage dishes we wanted to try, the Northeastern and the Northern style sausages. The owner said the Northeastern was popular so we went with that. The Northeastern Style sausage ($6.95) is pork sausage with rice and curry sauce (according to the menu). The other sausage (which we will order next time) was the same but instead of rice, it had pork skin as the ingredient. I couldnt' really taste the curry in here, but I really liked the sausage.

This is why...look at that porky goodness! And the rice in there made for an interesting texture.

The sausage tasted really awesome with a side pint of sticky rice ($2.00), which is listed on the menu as "Sweet rice"although it wasn't sweet. The rice was perfectly cooked, no mushiness or hard grains. The portion size was perfect too, but if one were really hungry, I'm sure just one person could polish one off one of those little steamer baskets.

The third and last dish we ordered was the Nahm Tohk ($6.95). This is beef with rice powder, chilis and lime juice, along with red onions and mint leaves. Again, the dish served with a wedge of cabbage and the side garnishes of shredded carrots and red cabbage.

I loved the textures and tastes of this salad - the grainy/powdery beef, the crunchy vegetables, the spiciness of the chili along with the cooling mint. We had a version of this at Tamarind Thai in La Mesa. I thought theirs was pretty good (they served their beef on top of spring greens though), but this version kicks ass.

We ended up saving half of this to take home since we were full from killing the sausage and papaya salad. Our daughter tried the Nam Tohk later that night but it proved to be spicy for her. Well, our meal did not disappoint and we definitely plan a return visit!

Guamanian Red Rice

A few weeks ago, I was talking to one of the ladies at the gym. She's an older lady, like my mom's age (late 60's) and is Chamorro (Guamanian). We got to talking about food and I asked her about red rice. She was nice enough to let me know how to make it and even nicer to give me this item (see below), which she calls it her secret ingredient, although I guess it's not secret anymore since I'm posting it):

Man! This is so hard to find anywhere - she said it's not in the stores here. She gets hers mailed to her from her neice who lives in Seattle. I tried looking online, but only saw it on the manufacturer's website as one of their products. It didn't say where to purchase it online. Well, the lady gave me one of her tubs of the roasted chicken base (it was almost done), just so I could try making red rice for myself. What makes the rice red is the "achiote" (also known as "annatto" powder). You can use the powdered form which is easier. Or, you could use the seeds, but you'd have to soak the seeds in hot water to get the color and then strain the seeds out. More work.

I've made this recipe twice already and it was a big hit with my husband and daughter as well as my nephews and siblings. I was surprised with my nephews because I thought they wouldn't like the celery in the rice! Wrong! One of them had three servings! Warning - This ain't no lazy man's recipe - you cook this in a pot, not a rice cooker and yes, you do have to stand there and check on it from time to time.

Guamanian Red Rice

(Auntie Mary's recipe)

Ingredients:

annatto powder (the amount depends on you - a couple of teaspoons? less? how red do you want your rice?)

water (the amount will vary depending on how many cups of rice you cook - in this case, 3 and 1/2)

1 big tablespoon of the Knorr roasted chicken base (you could use more to taste)

4 cloves garlic - minced

1 small onion - diced

celery leaves - chopped (this was also one of her "secret" ingredients)

**if you don't have celery leaves, you could also use finely diced celery (I used both)

3 cups of rice (I used Calrose short grain but you could probably use another kind, but for the love of Bourdain, just don't use Uncle Ben's!!!)

• First, soak the annatto powder in the water. I also threw in the roasted chicken base (it's like a paste) to liquefy it.
• Next, saute the chopped garlic, onion and celery leaves (or chopped celery) in a tiny bit of oil (I don't know what amount, but just eyeball it, ok?) for a few minutes to make it "sweat". Your kitchen will be fragrant from the aroma!
• Then, after you saute those ingredients, add the annatto-colored/roasted chicken base water into the pot, along with the rice.
• Bring to a boil first, then let it simmer for 20 -25 minutes. Maybe longer - just keep checking the rice and make sure it doesn't burn. If there's not enough water, add more. Also, stir the pot ocassionally so the rice doesn't get clumpy.

The first time I made this, I used only the chopped celery because I'd thrown away the leaves. The second time I used both the leaves and the stalks. Mary told me that the basic recipe is just rice and the annatto powder, but she kicks her up by using the roasted chicken base, garlic, onion, and celery leaves. That rice tasted a lot better than the kind they serve at Yokozuna's. Makes it plain by comparison. She also said that her daughter doesn't use the chicken base but uses the Knorr powder (or bouillon cubes) instead. Mary doesn't like the powder because she thinks it's too salty, but since the roasted base is hard to come by I may need to resort to the powder/cubes.

Latin Chef revisited

This was my 2nd visit to Latin Chef (the first was in late August with one of my friends) - this time Bert was with me. We got there a tiny bit before noon. The place wasn't quite open yet, but the owner set out a table for us in the front so we could wait. He and another guy (the cook maybe) were setting up inside. We also scored with parking because we got a spot right out front. We thought we wouldn't be able to get one during the lunch hour. So, the new thing here (since the last time I went), according to owner were the Wraps (see menu below):

The owner, Freddy (I believe that's his name) was very gracious and always willing to answer any questions I had about the food. He also brought over an actual cob of purple corn, which is what is used for Chicha (a drink) and also the main colorant of their purple corn soda. Looks cool, eh? I love the color purple and have been noticing that it's one of the main colors in this fall's fashion palette. Allow a slight digression - a couple of weeks ago, I was window shopping with Bert at Horton Plaza. We walkied into Aldo, a shoe store that I normally don't frequent. Why? I spotted some killer pointy toed high heels and they were deep dark eggplant color! Awesome! So, for the hell of it, wanted to try on a pair. They were also $69.00 - yikes, kind of a splurge. Anyhow, the salesgirl told me that they didn't come in half sizes (I'd asked for an 8.5) but she'd bring out an 8 and a 9 (whoa - mongo size there!). The 8's were too narrow (I have wide troll feet folks) and the 9's were way too loose. Neither size fit obviously. That would have been a killer color to wear too. Sigh. Well, I saved myself 69 bucks!

Back to the food - At Latin Chef, you get these fried corn kernels as an appetizer. They are called Canchitas. As we were eating them out of the Lilliputian sized basket, I realized that as you pick up the kernels with your fingers, you are also occasionally touching either the interior sides of the bottom of the salt encrusted basket. These canchitas, by the way, were not salted. The only salt we saw was stuck in the basket's crevices, no doubt touched by other peoples' fingers who may or may not possess a dubious state of cleanliness. It kind of bothered me. Like, these little baskets should be lined or something so that way you're not eating microscopic finger dirt or poo particles. I know that's gross and maybe unlikely, but it looks like these baskets aren't cleaned. In any case, Bert enjoyed the canchitas and didn't end up with a raging case of tapeworm or the splats.

Here are our sodas - the purple corn one (kind of tasted medicine-y) and the Inka Cola (bright yellow - pineapple flavory). Like last time, they were served with no ice. Maybe that's how they do it in Peru. Last time I went here, I had the cola. I ordered the purple soda with the special, but ended up trading it with Bert.

When Bert ordered the Fish a la Huancaina wrap ($6.90), the owner told us he had just put these on the menu a few weeks ago. We asked him what Huancaina meant and he told us that it means, "in the style of Huancaiyo", which is a town in Peru. So this wrap featured white sea bass sauteed with onions and tomatoes with the Huancaina sauc, wrapped in a flour tortilla. He also had a little upside down ramekin of rice with a two tiny carrot dice and one green pea. The green sauce you see was made of jalapeno, onion, garlic, lettuce (yes, that's that Freddy said), and some sort of Peruvian herb (forgot the name, but it started with a 'g'). Now that was some good ass sauce! It had a kick to it!

The sea bass in this wrap (I was about to type burrito) was so soft and tender! I wish I had ordered this instead. The sauce was also very good - creamy and a bit spicy.

I ordered the special ($8.90)this time since I remembered my friend's awesome two entree combo last time. Today's special was Seco de Cordero, which is beef with Cilantro sauce and Aji de Gallena, served with rice and a small salad and the soda we saw earlier. Look at this beef dripping with cilantro sauce- that was some good ass food I tell you. I ended up saving the beef for our daughter who is a pretty adventurous eater. Now she can cross off Peruvian food on her mental list of cuisines to try. No fast food/chicken nugget/pizza/fried anything crap for her.

Freddy gave us a tutorial on the Aji sauce which has curry, breadcrumbs (as thickener), a type of yellow chile pepper, parmesan cheese and cream. There may be a few more ingredients, but that's all I can recall. I liked this shredded chicken more than the beef. That sauce was so good, I would have licked that plate clean if I could.

Because we told him we liked the green sauce, Freddy came out with another tiny container of a red sauce which he said was more Peruvian, using some sort of indigenous red chile. This was also pretty good, but I liked the kick in the green sauce more.

We were pretty full from lunch so we skipped on dessert - they offer only two types: lucuma ice cream (a type of fruit) and these tiny caramel cookies. Next time we go here, I'd like to try the Papas a la Huancaina which are sliced potatoes in that Huancaina sauce. Or maybe the fish wrap. My husband and I had a fun time chatting with Freddy about his country's food. He was more than enthusiastic to share with us the preparation, the ingredients of the dishes, etc. Very personable. Like the last time I was there, I noticed we were the only customers. Maybe they get more customers after 1 pm? Or maybe it's a happening joint at night, I don't know, but we were there right at noon and it was dead. I hope they do well enough to stay in business because I really like their food.

Nuyo - Eastlake

Today, TC and I went to check out the new Nuyo (new Nuyo, ha ha) over at Eastlake. It's in the tiny strip mall that has Rubio's, Starbucks, California Sushi (gross - ugh, Mexicanified sushi) and Walgreens. Apparently, they had their grand opening yesterday. Nuyo's (formerly known as Prince, I mean, Pure Yogurt) first location is at the Telegraph Vons shopping center in Chula Vista.

I like that they don't use styrofoam containers here. What I also like is that it's self-serve, .38 an ounce. You can control your portion and your choice of toppings. I also love that their are at least 10 flavors to choose from, not 3 like that overhyped and overpriced Pinkberry crap.

This location is much larger than the Telegraph store. It's much longer too. Like their other location, they have flat screen tv's mounted in various area of the store, sometimes playing Old School videos. At least they didn't have Rick James on this time.

The color scheme here is blue and orange (it's blue and green at Telegraph). There were only two girls working when we went. It obviously, wasn't very busy when we went. One of the workers cheerfully offered up samples but we already had an idea of what we wanted. By the way, the service here is pretty friendly like at their other location. The workers are usually teenagers and they are super nice, not sullen and assholey like at Pinkberry. They are usually busy chopping up fruit, cleanining up or offering samples. There's not too much strain on them - just be friendly, ring up the customers, and keep the place clean (which is always is).

This is the toppings bar which offers fresh fruit (even lychees and longans and coconut jel!), chopped nuts, cereals, candy (kind of negates the healthy aspect of yogurt, don't you think?) like gummy bears, sprinkles, and various crushed candy bars, mochi balls, and a half-dozen bottles of flavored toppings (chocolate, vanilla, marshmallow, peanut butter, chamoy ?, raspberry, and caramel).

The furniture here is the same - spage age looking chairs and greenbacks booths. They also have the same lucite barstools (not pictured) by their window seating area. There were so many yogurt flavors to choose - I was so excited. They had the regular suspects - Chocolate, Vanilla, Peanut Butter, Strawberry and then some exotic ones like Mango, Green Tea, Pineapple, Pistachio, Taro (yes!) and Coconut. They also had sugar free versions (I didn't bother with those), plus the plain. There's probably more flavors but I can't remember right now. So there's a mix of regular sweet flavors as well as tart. Something for everyone I suppose.

This was my daughter's. She got a mix of sour flavors - Mango, Pineapple, Strawberry and Coconut (well, that wasn't sour) and put sprinkles, chocolate chips, and a cherry on top. I'm not into the tart flavors myself.

Like an old fogey stuck in her ways, I got the usual - Vanilla and Chocolate with mini chocolate chips, mochi balls, and chopped almonds because I love crunchy stuff. But wait, I tried a new flavor today - the Pistachio (the light greenish color). I notice a pink one in there. Man, I wish I could remember what flavor that was. Wait, now I remember. It was Taro. That tasted kind of Ube-ish. I topped this concoction off with a drizzle of chocolate sauce. Or fake chocolate sauce. Whatever it was. Our portions were rather small. I've seen some people fill up the whole damn cup. And those were kids too. No wonder people are so fat. Anyways, we just got just enough for a taste, but not so much that we couldn't finish it.

We liked the wider range of choices here but it's a bit more east. Unless I have something to do in the area (it's near the Otay Ranch Town Center, aka mall), then we can make a pitstop here. Otherwise, we'll stick to the closer location just for convenience.

Parsian International Market & Grill

[Update - Closed as of 2011]

We went here earlier today (I'm actually posting this more than 1 week later, so it's kind of wierd writing it like it just happened!) - one of my students recommended this place to me. She is of Iranian descent (born and raised here though) and says her parents go to this place to buy their ingredients for their food. She also gave me a take out menu and the items looked pretty good so we decided to check this placed out. Parsian Market and Grill is located on Convoy, If you are heading North on Convoy, it's past Ostrow, with a 7-11 on the opposite corner. If you hit Convoy Plaza strip mall (where Phuong Trang is), you've gone too far. As you can see by the shape of the restaurant, this place used to be a McDonald's. The "ordering" area is the same as it in in McD's, but there's a small row of fresh fruits and vegetables as well. In the corner (not pictured) near the bathrooms, they sell fresh bread (lahvosh and some other types). There's refrigerated sections for drinks and other perishable items.

We ordered our food and sat in the back where there are about 4-5 4-top tables. There is also an outside patio with covered tables (as seen in the first photo). Back here, on the end caps are stuff for tea. They take tea seriously here. They sold tea sets, tea biscuits, all kinds of boxed and loose leaf teas, etc.

Another shot from the back. You can see the tea pots there. They also sold rice cookers!

There were rows of Middle Eastern Products. "Sadaf" was one of the main brands. Here you can see Sadaf brand mint and quince/lemon syrup. I ended up buying some Sadaf seasoning mix for beef kabobs and chicken tandoori. Turns out I could have bought that at North Park Produce closer to home, but I didn't know at the time.

They sold all kinds of basmati rice. I never knew there was brown basmati rice. I bought a small 2 lb bag of white basmati rice ($4.99 - I'm not sure if that's a good deal or not). I may just try the brown variety next time I come back and I definitely plan to...

The dried fruit section. Man, they love sour cherry stuff here. This package though, were dried barberries, which is an ingredient I've seen in the rice they serve at Bandar.

So, our food finally comes after we're done browsing through the aisles. Not sure how long it took, but it was pretty quick. I ordered the Beef Kabob plate - yeah, I know, "safe", but I wanted to try it since I really liked what I had at Sadaf a few weeks ago. This was $7.99, about the same price as Sadaf's, but you don't have the downtown vibe to it. Here, it's two juicy and seasoned beef kabobs served with a char-broiled tomato, on top of a huuuuge bed of basmati rice. There was a bit of saffron tinted yellow basmati rice on top - very pretty. There was also a wrapped pat of butter on top of the rice and a big sheet of lahvosh. I'm kind of anal and I didn't like the butter on top of the hot rice because it was already melted by the time I unwrapped it. But who cares, it's going to melt anyways on the rice or the lahvosh, depending on how you eat it. Man, this was a lot of food! I only ate 1 kabob and barely made a dent in the rice. We took my leftovers home for TC to enjoy later.

My entree came with a small side of salad - Persian cucumbers, chopped tomatoes and iceberg lettuce in some sort of dressing. I normally don't eat salad with dressing, but I tried and liked this. I just tried to scrape off some of the dressing or ate the pieces that weren't as drenched.

Bert ordered the Chicken Kabob wrap ($4.99). It was seasoned chicken wrapped in lahvosh with tomato, onion, lettuce and pickles. Since he ate most of it and didn't throw up, I'm assuming that he liked and enjoyed his wrap. It was a sizable portion too.Here's a few of the items I bought at Parsian Market - The seasoning packets I mentioned earlier and some tea biscuits. Actually, I bought the biscuits because they said "Salamat" on it ("Salamat" means "Thank You" in Tagalog), but Salamat turned out to be a brand name. I think that word has an Arabic origin but I'm too lazy to look it up right now. The biscuits will be for Bert's coffee.

Here's a wanna-be Nutella, called Armella. It was $2.99, which is cheaper than Nutella. I compared the two later at home. It tastes pretty close to Nutella, but Nutella is a tiny bit more chocolatier (is that even a word?). But hey, this will taste good with those Salamat cookies.

I also bought some Chick Pea Flour since it was one of the ingredients for a recipe I saw on the back of the Tandooring Chicken seasoning packet. There wasn't a smaller package, but I bought it anyways because I just may use this to make fritters.

Their menu:

Oh yeah, beef!

Another look at their offerings:

We ended up going back here again, one week later (10/10). That time, I ordered the Beef Kabob wrap and Bert got the Beef Kabob plate. Next time we go (and we WILL), I want to try one of their stews because it has walnuts and pomegranates in it. I also tried to make basmati rice. I actually used my rice cooker. After washing the rice twice, I steeped some saffron threads in hot water and poured (the right amount) into the rice cooker. My rice came out quite fragrant and yellow! Good for a first try!

So, if you're ever in the Convoy area, check out this place. The people who work there are very nice. No one bothers you when you're eating. It's very mom and pop. There's a lot of cool ingredients and products to look at and/or purchase if you choose to do so.