Revisits: Rice King, Bonchon, Pop Pie Co

La Ley and I went out to lunch the other day...

I hadn't gone to this place in two damn decades...

Stop 3: Bonchon Chicken

Our third stop was at the newish Bonchon Chicken..

We were all excited to try Korean fried chicken...

TC has graduated and is college bound!

I still remember the day she was born...

fast forward to yesterday when TC graduated High School....

Steamy Piggy+ desserts from Paris Baguette

We were up for trying a fairly new place,

over in the Convoy area of course...

Bowl'd BBQ - Oakland

(Back to the Spring Break road trip posts)

Fresh from our foray into the forest at Redwood Regional Park...

we headed into the Temescal neighborhood in Oakland for lunch...

Korean Bell of Friendship and Pavilion @ Angel's Gate Park & more

It only took a few minutes to get here...

at the top of the hill in Angel's Gate Park is this spectacular sight...

House Roots Coffee

Literally a few minutes away from Ninong's Pastries & Cafe was our third and last stop in Granada Hills...

I also found out about this while doing a "coffee" search online and saw that it was really just a "pop up" on the second floor of a Korean Methodist church...

Out with Astroboi - Phuong Trang, Caffe Bene + the Thai tea donut @ Donut Panic

It was an early appointment for me and once I was done...

I grabbed a seasonal holiday drink before heading up to enjoy my day off with my dear friend Astroboi...

Cafe Hielo

It was finally time for dessert a few doors down...

We were supposed to go here but got sidetracked by the allure of the new dumpling shop...

Ethnic market roundup

Before the end of the year, I visited a number of ethnic markets. TC was with me for some of the visit as my "accomplice".

I wanted to buy some snacks and supplies for various get togethers and gifts for the season, but mostly...

Zion Food Court + Paris Baguette

Last weekend, we met up with Bert's oldest brother and his family. Instead of meeting up north in La Jolla (ugh), I made the (strong) suggestion that we meet in mid-San Diego for an early dinner...

More specifically, at the Zion Food Court which has a lot of choices plus some great desserts. I thought the teens would enjoy that more than a stuffy restaurant with shitty parking...

Snacks & Sweets & other random items...

Wasn't last week a scorcher?  Wednesday was also pretty windy, starting fires all over the county.

The wind was so strong, blowing down trees, branches, and making these palm trees bend as seen at the Jaguar dealership (that's my red car in the driveway, yo') on Convoy...

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...

Big Joy's remodel and finally...a cronut from Paris Baguette

We didn't want to drive too far for dessert, so Big Joy it was...

I haven't been here since Bert's birthday and I always like looking at their cakes...

Stuff from Zion & our dessert from PB

No matter where I go with Astroboi, we always have fun...

It didn't matter if we were at a mall, a park, a museum exhibit, a party, or whatever. We can always make each other laugh with our silliness. Of course, ethnic markets are just rife with opportunities for amusement....

Paris Baguette, Boba Bar & Cocohodo Walnut Pastry Cafe

If you couldn't tell by the title of the post, or by looking at the produce below,

we were in Zion Market, where napacabbage and giant white radishes are DIRT CHEAP! This is definitely not Ralph's or Albertson's yo!

TC, Bert and I had a fun time showing my sis around Zion; I quite liked seeing her fill up her basket with assorted goodies (she's a good cook)...

Exploring Zion Market with Astroboi & dessert at Paris Baguette

From my visit last week, I noticed that there were even more "new" signs under the new "Food Plaza" sign!

A couple of the places are not yet open, Cocohodo and Spotted Cow.

Astroboi was excited to check out the new Zion so off we went...

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...

Return to the new Zion Market + Boba Bar

After a relatively short drive from La Jolla to Clairemont, the girls and I arrived at the still peaceful and not yet crowded Zion Market...

I'm sure that was a different story today, since it was the big "Grand Opening"..

The girls wanted to try something at a newly opened establishment within Zion while I was keen on getting a few grocery items...

The new Zion Market

A few days ago, TC and I finally got to check out the new Zion Market...

which was formerly a Sears store on Clairemont Mesa Blvd.

This turned out to be a day where we hit up three different ethnic markets, but this would be the first stop...