St. Charles Bazaar 2014

Another church bazaar, but this time, St. Charles. We go every year and there are the same but popular food booths like this one...

selling corn on the cob for $1.50 (can't beat that price), along with many tried and true faves...

Return of Bazaar Food

The first Sunday of June is always the weekend of the church bazaar...

which means good food like these fish tacos...

Shopping at Pata Negra

Since we're on the subject of ethnic markets, my neighbor and I recently visited Pata Negra, a Spanish market in PB. We wanted to make this again:

Our epic paella from several weeks ago....She also ended up going to Seafood City to buy some giant squid. Now she knows what disgust I went through cleaning those things! Anyhow, we needed to pick up a few items for future paella dinners...

Paella

Oh yeah....Paella baby...

This was a fun afternoon spent with my neighbor shopping for ingredients then putting everything together at her house for dinner that evening...

We merged the recipes that we found online to come up with these versions of paella...

Veggin' out...

Eating healthier isn't so hard when you have a variety of fresh and exciting produce like this...

Mini heirloom tomatoes from Trader Joe's...

Pata Negra and lunch with TORC

A few days ago TC and I made a trip up to PB...

I really only needed one ingredient...

Tapas Picasso

This past weekend, we celebrated the early birthday of the Educator GF's group, TORC (The Other Rock Chick).  Unfortunately, one of the four was ill, Knitting Diva (KD), so it was just me, TORC and Divalicious that evening.

Graffiti on the side of the old Corvette's wall on 5th Ave in Hillcrest. We made a left at Washington to head down on 4th...

We had early reservations and being the lazy asses and suckers for convenience that we are, opted to park in the structure across the street from this building, rather than park several blocks away. As you might know, parking on a Saturday night in Hillcrest isn't that much fun. So, the $5 was paid for our spot and we jaywalked across the street to Tapas Picasso, which is right next to Kip's place, which used to be India Princess.

Ooh, $5 tapas...but are they any good? We shall see...

We chose to sit in the back since it was pretty damn hot up by the windows. The owner and his son were the only one's working....very charming he was.

Their menu which can also be viewed online here (turn off the sound if you don't want to hear the Spanish guitar).

It was just us 3 chicks but we were here to do some damage! They had a regular priced tapas menu plus a limited $5 tapas selection.We chose a few from each.

Here were more specials...all of which looked pretty good!


We sat by this awesome purple painted wall.We found out that most of their tapas were from Northern Spain and that the owner's wife was from the Basque region. TORC asked the son if he spoke Basque and he replied that he could barely get by with his Spanish.

We ordered a medium pitcher of sangria - this was not too strong either. We weren't quite buzzing but I noticed that even after we took a few sips (like maybe less than 1/4 of the glass), it was instantly refilled. In the end, we didn't finish off the pitcher otherwise we would have been stumbling out of that place like Barney Gumble.

TORC chose the shrimp croquettes - the owner told us to use our fingers when eating these because they were "delicate". He was right because I took one bite and it practically fell apart. These were so good!

This was on the $5 menu - Potatoes with alioli (there was a tiny bit of a kick to these). The potatoes were crisper and cut smaller than the version at Costa Brava.

TORC also chose the Jamon Serrano which went well with the small bread slices they gave us. The photo I took of the bread didn't come out so well, so you will have to imagine what they look like.

I chose the Chistorra sausage; I remember buying a few packages of these last year at the now defunct Ole Ole Spanish store in Bonita. It was $2 cheaper there than at Pata Negra so I stocked up! These were nice and meaty - see the flecks of fat? Spicy too!

Here's a bite of that croquette with a tomato based sauce

I also chose this tapa - Octopus in a spicy almond tomato sauce. This was so good - you could taste the ground almond bits as well as the garlic! The octopus was also tender!

D chose their Paella Valenciana...when I started to take a photo of it, the owner pretender to shield it from me, the "Paella Papparazzi"! He was pretty funny, cracking jokes with us the whole evening.

For dessert, TORC chose the Sherry Flan which was garnished with mango sauce and fresh berries. It had an interesting flavor to it...never had flan sherry before until that night.

We were saving some room for ice cream later that evening at Mariposa on Adams.

However, Mariposa was not to be. It turned out that the Normal Heights Street Festival (or Street Fair) was happening that night! The streets from 32nd to 37th were blocked off. Mariposa was by the 34th block of Adams, so we ended up going back to me place where TORC opened her gifts.

In my abode, we polished off a bottle of Orangina soda (As a joke, I pronounce it, "Orange-EYE-NA" much to TC's mortification, rhymes with "vagina") and we had a few of the paletas from Oasis. TORC had the Strawberries and Cream, D had the canteloupe (which she loved!), while I had the banana paleta. Must stock up and get more of those!

TORC's other birthday outings
2009 at Urban Solace and Heaven Sent Desserts
2007 at Villa Capri with dessert at the now defunct Kona Pacifica Cafe
I don't think we went anywhere in 2008 because I was still recovering from my treatment at the time...I remember it was a hot summer tho'!

TORC is an awesome friend - articulate, charming, intelligent, thoughtful, and most importantly, one who shares/tolerates my musical tastes and encylopediac knowledge of all things trivial related to music and pop culture. Ha ha. Seriously, I think she even surpasses me in knowledge...So I don't feel like I should hide any of my eclectic musical selections with her. She does not cringe or wrinkle her nose with abject disapproval when Iron Maiden, Rick James, or Ultravox is blasting. Happy (early) Birthday TORC!

Adios Ole Ole

Sometime last month I decided to pay a visit to the local Spanish food market. This is a really tiny place on the corner of Allen School Road and Bonita Road in Bonita. When I parked, I noticed a "For Sale" sign in the window. Uh oh. Inside I chatted with the owner (who is Mexican, not Spanish) who told me that because of the economy, they were selling their inventory and moving up North to help out with a local Mexican restaurant (forgot the name) in Encinitas. Yikes, that's pretty far! So, the store itself was quite sparse inside. I was able to pick up a few items...

The package on the left were some Spanish tapas crackers. We tried this when we got home, but they were so dry and flavorless even after we dipped them in hummus (not very Spanish, I know) or interspersed the bites with Manchego cheese. I imagined that these crackers were almost as bad as the hardtack that sailors from ages ago would gnaw on to stave off their hunger during long voyages overseas. Do I have an overactive imagination or what? And the second package is a practically ready made Spanish tortilla kit. It's canned seasoned potatoes and onions...all you have to do is add the eggs and cook it in a pan on the stove top. Bert likes these so I picked up a few.
The box had paella season and the jar on the right were garlic cloves in olive oil. The owner recommended that I try it because he thought I might enjoy it. Unfortunately I didn't. Bert and I tried it when we got home and while the garlic flavor isn't that pronounced, the flavor tasted kind of metallic.
I bought 2 packages of their Chistorra, at $9.75, they are way cheaper than Pata Negra's which sells theirs for $13.00 or more. This is the sausage I used in my paella. I also bought the last chuck of Manchego Cheese. I was looking for a type called "Mahon" but they were already out of it. I ended up inserting paper thin slices of the cheese in between rustic bread that I spread with fig preserves which I then topped with prosciutto. I ended up grilling the sandwiches and yes, they were very delicious!

Here's a package of paella rice...

So long and farewell. Hasta la vista Baby. Too bad Ole Ole didn't last. They suffered from lack of customers and also lack of inventory. They didn't really have a lot of items there and the location wasn't really ideal. Perhaps they would have survived if they were in the more hip and happening Eastlake area instead of old Bonita.

Ole Ole

[Update - Closed]

Before we went to the New Children's Museum downtown, we went to check out a new Spanish market that opened last month. It's a small place on Bonita Road in a tiny little strip mall. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take any exterior shots of the place because the sun was in the way.I was curious to check it out to see if it compared with Pata Negra, the Spanish market that's right next to Costa Brava in PB. It's pretty small in there. There are a few shelves on the left side, a display table in the middle, more shelves on the right and a small cold case of meats and cheeses in the back.

There's that cold case, plus some pre-packaged paella and tortilla mixes. There were also canned items like octopus, squid, and tuna.
These were the shelves on the left (when you enter). There's olive oil, pickled olives, peppers, spices, and other canned items. Sorry for the crappy photos - I was trying to take them on the sly. I didn't see any cameras though.

One thing I liked was a wall at the back with explanations of the different food items they carry (sausages, cheeses, meats and signature dishes of Spain).

More of the shelves on the left. Look on the bottom - they had different sizes of cazuelas there. I bought two small ones and a medium sized one.

Here's a few items I picked up. We've never tried these sausages before.

Here's some Jamon Serrano:

T his was only $2.49 - you add four eggs and pour the canned stuff over the eggs, mix it and pour it into a skillet. I can make a Spanish tortilla without a mix, but I just wanted to try it.

This was a can of Spanish almonds that the guy gave us on the house. Those were his words. Maybe he was happy because I dropped a load there, having bought meat, cheese, mixes, and cazuelas.

Well, whatever the reason, that was pretty nice of him.I was running out of my smoked paprika, so I bought more. It's $2.49 at Pata Negra and $3.80 here, so it was more expensive. I bought the hot kind too - can't wait to use it. The smoked paprika tastes really good in my Gambas al Ajillo recipe.

The man who helped us turned out to be the owner's husband. His wife wasn't working that day. He was Mexican and said that they hope to carry more food items based on the community's deman and itnerest. They wanted to have a Spanish food store in the South Bay because there wasn't one and also because Spanish food is different than Mexican food. You can get Mexican food anywhere in Chula Vista (and San Diego for that matter), but there aren't a lot of places that specialize in Spanish food. They wanted to fill that niche. They're just starting out and hopefully their shop will be arranged in a more appealing way.

Romesco revisited

Last week, I watched "Twilight" (yes, I know, again?! WTF!) at my friend's request because she hadn't seen it yet. I also bought her the book so she'd know what it was about and also so she could be converted. Ha ha. She's a little older than me and hasn't read the books but was interested in seeing the movie. Anyways, I blather too much!!! After the movie (in which I foraged the scenes for wierd details, goofs, and blunders), we had lunch at Romesco's in Bonita. Here's an older post here. I had the "Award Winning Paella" (yes, that's how it's listed in the menu) which has sea food, a pork rib and a chicken leg.

She had the Saverios Penne Arrabiatta with Shrimp. That is a big fkn blob of butter in the middle folks. She really liked her pasta. I've had the paella before (my other friend had ordered it) and wanted it so I could take the leftovers home for my daughter since that was a huge portion to begin with.
These next set of pix are from another recent visit to Romesco. I went with my regular "lunch/dinner bunch" (we are all educators - We have a high school counselor, me; a middle school teacher who is just as obsessive as me when it comes to music, an elementary resource teacher and an administrator). We were there to celebrate our friend's birthday. Last year, we went to Frida's to celebrate her birthday. Check out the post here. Coincidentally, it was raining last year and it rained this year as well during our lunch outing. And also, the Chargers were in the playoffs last year. Let's see if the Chargers can win it this Sunday. Back to the food...These are the Tacos Gobernadores that one of my friends ordered. It was $11 for 4 tacos which were filled with Shrimp and Mozzarella cheese and served with two types of sauces. Both sauces had a fiery kick to it; I liked the spicy tomatillo (green) salsa a tiny bit better.

She ordered her tacos with Romesco's Creamy Tomato Soup (this was really good - way better than Campbell's! ha ha). The presentation could have been better though - it was spilling out over the rimmed area.

Our other friend ordered the Spanish Platter Appetizer ($14), which were marinated olives, micro greens, Manchego Cheese and some sort of Ham (not Serrano, but close):

These were my tacos - the Duck Machaca served with Porfirio sauce (this had a different flavor than the other sauces - a bit more complex), guacamole and topped with Crema. I loved these. I'd order it again!

The same friend who ordered the Spanish Platter also got the Lasagna. Loved the presentation with the fresh bay leaf on top.

The birthday girl ordered the Penne Arrabiatta (look familiar?) but with Chicken. And yes, there's that same hunk of butter. She ended up putting it aside. The dish was already rich enough and that butter blob was just overkill.

She got a complimentary Birthday Flan served with fresh berries:

The one free dessert wasn't going to cut it for us four ladies so we ordered two more desserts. We had the birthday girl pick - so she chose the Creme Brulee...

and the Chocolate Trio - There's a shooter glass filled with Ibarra Mexican hot chocolate, a scoop of chocolate ice cream and a Chocolate molten lava cake served with fresh berries:

Damn, that was a lot of food! I didn't eat too much since I had to go to another function later that night...another holiday dinner party! I think I gained a few pounds these past few weeks. Need to start eating healthy again and maintain it!