Phuong Trang & Canadian candy

Last month, we decided to go to Phuong Trang's for dinner. I just had my haircut and I was craving some bun.
Phuong Trang is located in the Convoy Plaza strip mall next to the Boxing Club and bakery.

One of our friends calls Phuong Trang the Vietnamese "Denny's".

Condiments:

The receptionist fellow with funky gelled up bangs sat us behind the screen you see as you walk into the restaurant.

We started off with fresh spring rolls:

The greenery for our fried spring rolls (lettuce, cilantro, mint) + dipping sauce, and for Bert's pho (bean sprouts, lemon, basil).

The fried spring rolls:

A crappy photo of the jackfruit shake with boba and TC's seafood fried rice.

My bun with char grilled beef (this is soo good!). What I like about bun is that it's really light (well, not with beef). The noodles are resting on a bed of shredded lettuce, carrot, cucumber and topped with the beef which is rolled around a green onion. There are also chopped peanuts for crunch and tiny fried pieces of pork fat in there. You pour the fish sauce over this and enjoy!

Bert's pho with flank:

Mmmm...peanuts!

Can you see it? There's the pork fat right in the middle!

Just had to throw this in. One of Bert's co-workers went to Vancouver, BC recently and brought us back these Canadian candies. The "Maltesers" are like Whoppers.

She also brought us back a couple of Aero bars. These chocolate bars have "holes" in them. They don't taste much different than regular chocolate to me, but they look cool!

This candy isn't from Canada. It's from Ikea and it's pretty cheap. They used to make this with nuts but sadly, don't sell that type anymore.

View from a parking garage

I haven't updated in a while, other than this blog and the previous 2 posts...

I have a backlog of posts from various places. So when I post, there will be a shiteload of entries and pics. (update on 5/16 - I just posted a bunch; you'll have to scroll down)

These photos below were taken last week from the parking structure of the Otay Mesa Kaiser. I thought I had pinkeye last Monday. Thank goodness it was just an inflammation, not an infection! Yeah, what a relief that was...Ha. The doctor gave me some drops and I was fine.

It was wierd not being at work in the morning. I'm always cooped up in my office. Going to the doctor's was actually a treat for me that day. From my vantage point in the parking garage, you could see the lovely smog and Point Loma in the distance. In the foreground, the west side of the 805 (and some sort of churchlike building) off of Main Street.
Panning to the right...the 805 and the (fairly) new shopping center from the Main Street/Auto Park entrance. The stores include Kohl's, Baby's 'R Us (my co-worker spotted Gwen Stefani there with her baby and bodyguard a few weeks ago shopping!!!), Panda Express, Pier 1, Souplantation and one of those chain pet stores. This area used to be a junk yard!!! In the immediate foreground is a farm. No crops this time.
Another view east of the former junkyard. The land where Kaiser resides used to be called "Dirt Canyon" where the locals would ride their BMX's and ATV's or 4x's...

If you continue east, you'd hit the Coors Ampitheatre and the Knotts Soak City Water Park (not pictured). The mountain is Mount Miguel I believe.

Random stuff

Last week, a Spanish speaking student shouted "Hola profe!" while I was walking to the main office during lunch. Profe is a slang term of respect; it's short for "professor" which I definitely am not! I thought it was funny. At least he didn't call me "Hey asshole!" or worse!

Just today I was greeted by another student, "Hello Ms. Counselor Lady"...Uhhhhh...okayyyyy... I don't think he was in my alpha otherwise he would have known my name.

The band teacher gleefully came into my office today with this toy voice changer (it was a student's - you could make your voice sound like an alien, Darth Vader or some sort of robot. It was hilarious!

I saw a toilet on a sidewalk on my way to work. Bert saw it later as well and said it was going for $40 (there was a sign by that time). I wonder if someone got it? I remember my dad once put our old toilet on the sidewalk to give away for free. I was so embarassed especially since my parents' house is by an elementary school and gets a lot of sidewalk traffic. That sucker was picked up in no time!

What I'm currently listening to:

Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings by The Police

I'm especially stuck on Discs 2 & 3. This was one of the first bands that I really liked. Zenyatta Mondatta was one of the first albums I ever owned. Regatta de Blanc is my favorite.

I originally bought this used box set for Bert back in 1999. I got it at Off the Record in Hillcrest (when it was still there - my favorite location was in the College Area, back when it was still on El Cajon Blvd.). It was a splurge back then, but well worth it...All of their albums plus their early singles (sans guitarist Andy Summers) and some Sting songs from the film "Brimstone and Treacle", live versions of various songs and so on.

(photo taken from yahoo images - I was too lazy to take a picture of my own!)

Greenbox #1

The first in a series of painted greenbox photos...
This is pretty distinctive. All over San Diego are electrical greenboxes (for lack of a better term) painted by various artists, some good and some not so good. Just for fun, where is this located? Sorry I'm a cheap ass and won't be offering any prizes but just want to know whos else notices these things...The answer in a few days (if no one gets it).

CV Farmer's Market

Last Thursday, TC and I went to the Chula Vista Farmer's market. This time, I picked her up earlier so we weren't in such a rush. I noticed they had onions this time.
The radishes looked really good:

So did the strawberries. I ended up buying a trio of strawberries from the same Asian farmer ($6 this time instead of $7).

That's the farmer's arm. He was talking to a customer about how he loves eating squash blossoms.

TC sampled the pummelo, which is a huge thick skinned grapefruit. She wasn't too keen on it.

Flowers...my favorite color - purple:

I wonder what kind of flowers these were?

Here's the east African food booth, RED. The poor guy was by himself, frying up all those batches of sambussas for patient customers. Those were going for $5 for 6 pieces. The flavors were beef, chicken, spinach, lentil, potato and coconut. He was also selling rice and some sort of meat. I wasn't sure what it was. I just wanted those sambussas!

Here he is frying away:

Freshly fried morsels waiting to be devoured by a hungry mob:

Mmm...I need to learn how to make these so I don't have to wait once a week to get my sambussa fix!

The view from across the street. TC and I were sitting in the shade munching away. There were two hippie chicks in line. There was also an elderly African American man who was singing along to the sounds of Motown classics being played live by a local high school musical ensemble. People were smiling and applauding the man for his singing talents. He was pretty joyful and he could carry a tune!

Cherries are in season right now:

More fresh vegetables:

Here's the pint of cherries I picked up. Some of them looked like two headed mutants:I got the last 2 bunches (.75 each!) of rainbow chard from my favorite farmer's booth, the Asian man.

I sauteed the leaves later the next day with peanut oil and oyster sauce.

Snacks from Zion & Mitsuwa

After lunch at Lanna Thai, we went over to Zion Korean Market to get that kojuchang I wanted from a few nights earlier, since Ranch 99 didn't have it. I got this dark chocolate Pocky wannabee. This was goooood....
Yeah, I'm a pig...I opened it up as soon as we got in the car on our way to Mitsuwa Japanese market.

At Mitsuwa, I spied these snacks. I bought some Collon last time. It was way overpriced (imported from Japan) - just an airpuffed bag filled with a few cream filled wafers. You're paying for the packaging. But, what's that? Asses?

No, it's Couque D'Asses. Whatever the hell that means! Here's someone else's post on this item!I noticed one of the commenters on that post wrote: "Asse" is a name of a town in Belgium, and "Couque" means cookies. "Couque D'asse" should actually mean 'the cookies from the city Asse', but I got no clue why they had an 's' at the end of the name Asse. Weird, but just to let you know. " Well, alrighty then!

Oh so cute...Hello Kitty Babies! Actually these are just little puffs of baked dough. I'm sure it's dry and tasteless.

Now I bet this has more flavor than the spawn of Hello Kitty. You know, next time, I just might buy these crunchy crabs! It ws only $2.49! What the hell, as it says on the label, "Let's Party!"

On our way out, we stopped to try these fish shaped "Japanese style pancakes". We got one of each ($1!). This came out crappy because I was playing with the settings...

Here are the fish shaped batter molds:

They were also selling roasted chestnuts. It was $3 for the smallest bag.

The red bean filled fish pancake. We're heading South on 805 approaching the Mission Valley area.

The other pastry:

While at Mitsuwa, we got two packages of these peanut butter mochi. Unfortunately we let it go bad after 2 days. I only had 1 and 1/2 the same day. I didn't eat any the next, and noticed by the end of the 2nd day that the pieces were already beginning to grow mold! Fk! That'll learn us.

This was bought at Zion. These are yam noodles that you use for make japchae. They look greyish and remain so after they are cooked. The noodles have a nice chewy texture to them and I like how they stretch! I'm not sure how good this brand is but hey, it was on sale dude!A package with 3 kinds of wafer crackers. One was waffley looking and the other two were superthin wafers. They tasted kind of like fortune cookies but better!

TC chose this packaged quintet of Japanese candies at Mitsuwa. They still haven't been opened. Looks like an assortment of fruit flavored candies as well as wannabe M&M type candies.

Had to buy the BLACK chocolate.

And finally the kojuchang I was looking for. I need this for our Korean BBQ at the end of this month. Evite to follow to the regulars! Mind you, this is the smallest ass size. They had some industrial sized TUBS there in Zion for the hard core folks.

Lastly, in our living room, a tiny but cute Korean melon. We'll be eating this soon.