and decided to see if this Lao food truck was open. It's on 30th Ave across the street from the old Nomad Donuts and Ono's...
As you can see, the truck wasn't there, although someone had posted recently on yelp. I was hoping the truck would be there because I was hungry and curious to order several items to take home.
Dammit.
Plan B was to head down to 47th and Market to try out the new iteration of Asia Cafe. From afar, the signage says "Thai Cafe".
Closer, it says "Lannboon Asia Cafe".
You will also notice that the bars are now gone from this establishment and it's undergone a renovation with new wooden or laminate floor, new decor and painted walls. A new family must have taken over the family who took over after the original folks retired.
In addition to their regular menu, they had other specials listed on these boards.
We'll have to get that Nam Nuang next time. I noticed Nam Khao was on another board.
I got the Nam Khao, sticky rice plus and order of Esan sausage which is made in house.
I was by myself mind you so don't judge, ha ha. I was planning to take home leftovers for Bert and TC (who both enjoyed it before the day's' end). A lady who was waiting for her order came over to admire the food, saying that it looked good. I offered her a piece of sausage with the rice and peanuts. She ended up liking it. Hopefully she will order it for herself next time.
I noticed that the lettuce was romaine. In the past, it was green leaf lettuce which is easier to make into wraps. There was more crunchy rice than anything. The fermented pork sausage was pretty good too.
Their housemade sausage was a big portion, maybe three full sausages worth? The grind was corase with chunks of fat and unground eat embedded within. My only grip is that they used pickled Japanese ginger instead of fresh ginger. In the future, I'll ask if they could substitute.
So good this was with the sticky rice.
As for that nam khao, equally as delicious.
On a more recent visit with D, we also tried to go to that food truck and whaddaya know...it was fucking closed again.
So we headed over to Lannboon where we got the nam khao as well as the Thai Fried Fish. It ended up taking almost forty minutes for our food.
The nam khao came out after 25 minutes of waiting. I'm not sure what the hold up was since the restaurant wasn't really crowded (only two other occupied tables, one single and a family of three).
Our fried fish finally came out, perched on top of a fish shaped which rested on top of a hollow base. The menu description listed green apple as the relish, but here it was slivered unripe green mango, which we actually liked better. The sauce was spicy with lime as the main citrus note. The cashew nuts added a nice texture as well.
D got the head later on, ha ha.
We would get this fish again, maybe for TORC's upcoming crawl, if she's up for getting down and dirty with fish bones and all.
Previous visit when it was still Asia Cafe:
January 2015 (they had already gone under a change of ownership by that time)
Lannboon Asia Cafe
4710 Market St.
San Diego, CA 92102
(619) 527-1917
fb page + reviews from you know where
More return visits are in order with Bert so we can try the chef's specialties and the items listed on the wall...
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