Dinner @ Quinua - Cocina Peruana

When looking at google maps prior to our trip, I noticed a new Peruvian restaurant on the map.

Not wanting to drive out again for dinner, we decided we would have dinner here at Quinua...

Return to Nazca Grill

A few days ago, TC and I had the pleasure of having lunch with the awesome C from CAB Cooks.

Unfortunately, we learned the hard way with this coupon...

Return to Latin Chef

Here's another post from earlier this summer...I forgot when this was, but it was the day we went to Great News! in PB to get our knives sharpened practically for free ($2 each knife). There was a rep from Wusthof there. Bert was ahead in line while TC and I waited on the side. There was an old man in a soccer ref uniform carrying a big ass knife (it's in his left hand - you can't really see it here). All those people had knives. Luckily no one went postal and stabbed anyone !

It look nearly an hour to get my chef's knife and paring knife sharpened. For each person in line, factor in about 5 minutes of chit-chat and if they really had questions about their cutlery, the customers really grilled the dude. Even Bert had a few questions for him. So that is why it took so fkg long.  After all that, we headed over to Latin Chef on Garnet...I haven't been here in awhile so it was time for a revisit...

Here's their menu which looks like it changed a tiny bit - now there are Brazilian items on the menu. Do any readers know if they changed ownership? I didn't see Freddie there from before....

The interior looked a bit different too. There were some Brazilians at another table; I could hear them speaking Portuguese. World Cup soccer was also on one of the tv's but I didn't really give a fk about it...

This side of the restaurant looked the same...

Looks like this shelf is new with Brazilian and Peruvian food/snack items...there was also a freezer on the side. It looked really out of place in my opinion.

This sign was on the sidewalk...I don't really like black beans so we did not order the Feijoada.

For our appetizers, we ordered the Kibe (on the left) and the Coxinha (on the right) along with Inca Kola. Turns out that North Park Produce near us (in Chula Vista) sells Inca Kola so it's not as nearly "exotic" since I can just get it there now. I also saw that they had it at Mercado Internacional 2000 as well. Inca Kola is a really sweet soft drink that kind of tastes citrusy. I looked it up on wikipedia and the flavor is described as "lemon verbena". The maker is actually Coca-Cola.

About these Brazilian appetizers now...The Kibe tasted kind of dry - there were some spices in there but I don't recall what they were.

"Kibe (or quibe): extremely popular, it corresponds to the Lebanese dish kibbeh and was brought to mainstream Brazilian culture by Syrian and Lebanese immigrants." (wikipedia, "Brazilian Cuisine").

I had to lookup "Kibbeh" becuause I didn't know what it was - it is actually a dish made of chopped meat and rice or bulgur.

Furthermore (also from Wikipedia, "Coxinha"):

"The Coxinha is a popular Brazilian snack, also popular in Portugal. It is made from shredded chicken and spices (occasionally including Catupiry-style cheese), enclosed in wheat flour—variants made from potato or manioc are also common--batter, and deep fried. It is shaped to roughly resemble a chicken drumstick, and sometimes a toothpick is inserted where the bone would be.
Coxinhas were originally made with a chicken thigh, thus the origin of its traditional shape. The batter used to make the dough is often prepared with the broth of the chicken, enhancing the flavor of the dough.

Coxinha literally means "little thigh", and it is how chicken drumsticks are known in Brazil."


As Johnny Carson would have said, "I DID NOT KNOW THAT!"

Of the two appetizers, I liked the Coxinha much better. So did TC. Bert enjoyed both and finished off that dry Kibe for us. Ha ha.

Below is the fish fillet we ordered for TC which came with one scoop of rice and a dressing drenched salad. We ended up sharing our dishes with each other, as is usually the case. We liked the fish but found a few tiny bones. The fish was lightly battered and fried and the portion was about right for us three. My daughter wouldn't have been able to finish this off by herself.

This is what I ordered, the Aji Gallina (Shredded chicken with yellow chili sauce). The sauce is thickened with parmesan cheese and bread crumbs. There is a tiny kick to it but for the most part, it's pretty mild. I've had it before and really enjoyed it so I had have it again.

It was a nice and laid back revisit to Latin Chef. The last time Bert and I had Peruvian was a Nazca Grill back in February (see that post here). After lunch, we decided to check out Mount Soledad. We'd been there before but that was years ago and before TC was born. This photo below is heading East on Garnet...

Passiing by World Curry which has been there for at least 15 years but I've never eaten there (yet). Any readers eat here before? The verdict?

Street art on Garnet...

PB is just not PB without a local head shop...(one of many, I say)

And here's the original location of the Broken Yolk Cafe which is always packed in the mornings. The other location is in Eastlake in Chula Vista.

Other folks who have blogged Latin Chef include:
Dennis from A Radiused Corner
Kirk from Mmm-Yoso (part 1 and part 2)
as well as my previous posts:
Latin Chef in Aug 2008 with TORC and again in Nov 2008 with Bert. Next up, the place that all the atheists love to hate, Mount Soledad!

Nazca Grill

The day after Valentine's Day, Bert and I had our anti-Valentine's day lunch at Nazca Grill in Clairemont. It's in a small stripmall, the same one that houses Thai Time III. Here's a link to their menu. Check the Yelp reviews here as well as Kirk's post from last summer and a more recent post from the Food Ho.

You can't see it but beyond the far left margin is an area where they roast their chickens. The area on the right is the kitchen.

It's pretty spacious in here...

Menu:

Meat section on the menu:

More menu items:

The one of the left is Inca Kola (tastes like pineapple) and the Chicha Moreno (purple corn soda). I didn't really like the purple soda so I ended up trading with Bert.

This is cool - their wallpaper border has the Nazca Lines!

Fried corn kernels, canchitas, which are complimentary. I wished this was a bigger bowl, this was like a fingertip sized dipping sauce dish. At least they were not served in grody woven baskets like at Latin Chef (see my bitch rant about this here)

Here's the Causa Nazca - a layered potato salad with tuna or chicken (we chose chicken), served with these big corn kernels. We really liked this - nice and cool and potatoey. Ha ha, that's not even a word!

Bistek a la Chorillana - fried steak covered with fried onions and tomatoes served with grilled potatoes and rice (mmmm, starch!). This was Bert's choice...which he really enjoyed.

We also ordered the Ceviche Tiradito Nazca - marinated strips of fish with aji amarillo sauce. The fish strips were quite thin. The sauce, although mild, was delicious, especially with the extra canchitas and the corn on the cob.

For dessert, we chose the Lucuma ice cream (a subtropical fruit found in Peru). I liked this better than the one I had at Latin Chef last summer, which seemed old and kind of dry, if you could even describe ice cream as dry.

The owner, Wilson, was super nice. He was going from table to table talking to the customers and asking if they were enjoying their meals. He was quite personable and liked talking about the ingredients when I asked him about them. Bert and I plan to come here again soon...there were more dishes on the menu that we want to try!

Balboa Park - Ethnic Food Fair 2009

[Some photos came out really bad - I think I had a smudge on the camera towards the middle of our visit...sorry!]

It's that time of the year again! Yes, it's the Balboa Park Ethnic Food Fair! This is one of my favorite events to attend. Bert and I went even before TC was born. It's more fun with her now because she has the opportunity to try all kinds of foods. We're big believers in trying something at least one and going out of our culinary comfort zone. Otherwise, what is the fucking point, right? Anyhow, here's an older posts from 2007 and 2006 (sans photos) here and here.

Since I was going through treatment last year, I wasn't really supposed to go out in crowds due to my suppressed immune system. I had just lost all of my hair and would get tired easily. Furthermore, what sucked big time was that I wasn't supposed to risk eating out a lot either because the doctor didn't want me to catch anything from unwashed fruits or vegetables or whatever. So, last year, we had to sit this one out...This year, we were back...with a vengeance! Plus, we brought TC's friend and her Robsessed mom... We planned to meet another family there as well. We made sure to get there super early, like around 10:30'ish am.

Of course, I made a beeline for the House of Puerto Rico for these...
Pastelillos - these are huge empanadas with a nice, flaky crust and they are filled with beefy goodness!
My friend bought the girls Churros from the House of Mexico. A lot of food items were priced higher than normal since this was a fund raiser for the different Ethnic Houses at Balboa Park. Let's put it this way, churros at Costco are way cheaper than this version, but the girls enjoyed their little snack...
While we were perusing the booths, Bert held down our picnic site with the other family. Our plan was to switch off, but it later became tedious and stressful for me, because the compulsive streak in me wanted to make sure pix of the food and booths were taken. I felt lost without my camera. We never did get anything from House of Hungary that day. We had tried their sausage sandwiches in the past and the lines were always super long. They were quite popular that day as well.
I remember going here a couple of years ago and buying a couple of evil eye bracelets for me and TC...
In fact, someone was selling bracelets again. I bought two for the girls. They had big blue eveil eye beads interspersede with spacer beads with links for charm dangles. They loved it. I should have bought one for myself. At $5 a bracelet, I thought that was reasonable especially since I didn't know when I'd be seeing those again and also because I don't make bracelets (just earrings).
I bought some Borek at the House of Turkey. These were pretty damn small. I rememeber the big frisbie sized borek I got in Astoria, NYC last year. It was as big as a plate! But I still liked these, even though they were bite sized. Borek is a type of pie made with flaky phyllo dough and filled with either meat, cheese (usually feta) and/or spinach. These were the spinach and cheese borek. Every time I said 'borek', it would elicit a giggle. Sounds like Borat, maybe?
Bert went off to the House of Scotland where these kindly kilted gentlement served him the combo plate...
These were the sides for the Scottish combo plate. The green stuff were cucumbers and the pink stuff were strawberries. The last item on the end was barley.
Here's Bert's combo plate...Peas (which looked liked they came out of a can), mashed potatoes with gravy, meat pie, cut up apples and barley. I had a tiny bit of the meat pie and it was pretty bland. Not so good. The peas were kind of gross too. It reminded me of elementary school cafeteria food. Bert liked his plate but agreed with me on the peas.
Next to the House of Scotland was the House of China selling dim sum. Usually we skip booths like China, the U.S.A., the Philippines, and Mexico whenever we go to this event. We figure we can get that type of food anytime...
A couple of years ago, I think we tried House of India...I got all excited because I didn't see anyone in line...
Turns out that they weren't ready yet. Damn it.
This book is always good for home made desserts. Plus, they were seeling their dessert plates for $2.50 instead of $3.00 a plate like some of the other European houses.
The swirly pastry is poppyseed. The dark colored one had rum in it. The last pastry was buttery and had a cherry preserves on top...My favorite was the poppyseed - it had a tiny bit of crunch to it with the tiny ground up poppyseeds. Just don't test my pee - it might have opiates in it. Ha ha.
I had my eye on this booth:
Especially on the Kefta Combo plate:
Workers putting my plate together:
Various pastries at the House of Lebanon...Most were baklava type things.
I complimented them on their juice containers. The lady told me that she got them from Costco! Those look really cool and elegant.
The kefta which was baked meat (beef, I hope) with potatoes, tomatoes, and a rich creamy sauce...
It was served with 2 pita wedges, rice, and hummus. TC really liked this and ended up eating most of the rice and aboug 1/3 of the meat. I was happy that she was willing to try it and even enjoyed it. That goes to show you that if you give kids the opportunity to try new things, they can develop more sophisticated palates instead of that fried shit that fast food joints try to pawn off as "kid" food.
Close up of the borek:
We saw a couple of our friends working the Philippines booth (they aren't in this picture):
I'm glad they finally changed the name to just "The Philippines" because it used to be House of the "Philippine Islands" for the longest ass time. The Philippine Islands moniker is a colonial term given to the Philippines during the Commonwealth Period (1934-1946). One of my Pinay colleagues (she's older and left the Philippines after the 1986 coup) gets really rankled when people refer to the Philippines as "PI" (as in Philippine Islands). Not only that, PI is also a slang term for a pretty bad Filipino curse word: "putang ina mo", literally translated as "your mother is a prostitute/whore").

Quick history lesson - The Philippines was a colony of Spain from 1565 up until the turn of the century. After over three centuries of Spanish rule, the Philippines changed colonial masters. Spain sold the islands for $12 million under the Treaty of Paris and transferred their island possession to the United States. The country was called The Philippine Islands up until 1946, after the end of WWII and after the Philippines was given its freedom by the US. The country now is officially called the Republic of the Philippines (or RP), but most people just call it the Philippines. Okay, let me get off my soap box now.
My other friend bought lumpia for her son:
The other friend bought the combo plate from the Philippines booth. You have your staples: rice, chicken adobo, lumpia and pancit (bihon, in this case).
From the House of Panama, Bert bought two sausages on a stick. I don't remember what these were called, but man, they were hot!!!! They had some serious pepper action going on in there. I took a bite and saw pepper seeds in the cross section! The sausage had a good snap when you bit into it also! This was one of the best things I tasted that day!
From the House of Columbia, some sort of fried dough. Bert was the one who got this, so I don't know the name of this exactly. Either way, it cooled our mouths down between bites of that red hot sausage on a stick! We offered some to our friends. The women were a bit reluctant. One of the husbands was pretty game and tried a few bites of the sausage.
Cross section of fried dough thing:
This was from House of Peru - it's also a version of fried dough, but it was drenched in Honey. That's my bag in the background. The brand is Tokidoki, season - Winter 2008, style Graziosa messenger bag, name of print - Celebrazione...It's one of my favorites and I always get compliments on it wherever I go. Kids seem to love it too. My fave characters include Donutella and the Disco ball head guy.
Mmmm...Peruvian doughnut!
This is my boombox bag with working speakers (half off last December when Karmaloop.com was slashing prices). Cool, ain't it? TC was borrowing it that day. You can plug in any mp3 player in there and it will play the music through the speakers, which aren't that strong. It's not BOSE quality okay, but it will do if you want to hear music. I had it on full blast but the music was drowned out by the noise of the crowd that day. There were lots of people in the park having a great time and enjoying the diverse food offerings.
Here's House of Peru again...we saw their doughnuts earlier...
But now, you will see the Anticuchos, or Beef Heart on a Stick! And it's served with creamy potatoes! Bert and I debated on getting this. Everytime he checked the booth, they kept telling him it wasn't ready. One of the moms ended up getting it for him while she was out with our kids. There it is...
Since the heart is a pretty tough muscle, I expected this to be pretty tough. It tasted irony too. Very chewy. I could only manage a few bites but Bert and the other dad's (mostly Bert though) ate this. It was seasoned well, I have to say.
From the House of Finland - vanilla ice cream with strawberries.
From the House of Germany, the Death by Chocolate cake. It also had orange zest on top. This was pretty dense and chocolatey, but I 've had better. I was pretty full by the time this made the rounds...
Our friend's Choripan (Chorizo sausage in bread or 'pan') from the House of Argentina. The green stuff you see is Chimichurri, the sauce Argentinians use with everything, especially grilled meats! Chimichurri is made from made from finely chopped parsley, minced garlic, vegetable oil, white or red vinegar and red pepper flakes. It's so good!
This guy had grill duty:
At some point, Bert and I took a quick walk to the Prado to get a gift card for a co-worker...That building you see will lead you to the Prado. There is a horse statue on the far left and the building in the very back is the Museum of Art.
The California Tower:
Sensory overload? I know, it was a long post! This event was a success in my book and we are making sure to return again next year! I still think House of the Philippines should sell Balut and Diniguan! My favorites this year - as always, the pastelillos from Puerto Rico, the sausage on a stick from Panama and the Kefta from Lebanon! The Latin American countries get a big "Win" from me for their flavorful food and interesting offerings (beef heart on a stick!)!!!