Latin Chef revisited

This was my 2nd visit to Latin Chef (the first was in late August with one of my friends) - this time Bert was with me. We got there a tiny bit before noon. The place wasn't quite open yet, but the owner set out a table for us in the front so we could wait. He and another guy (the cook maybe) were setting up inside. We also scored with parking because we got a spot right out front. We thought we wouldn't be able to get one during the lunch hour. So, the new thing here (since the last time I went), according to owner were the Wraps (see menu below):

The owner, Freddy (I believe that's his name) was very gracious and always willing to answer any questions I had about the food. He also brought over an actual cob of purple corn, which is what is used for Chicha (a drink) and also the main colorant of their purple corn soda. Looks cool, eh? I love the color purple and have been noticing that it's one of the main colors in this fall's fashion palette. Allow a slight digression - a couple of weeks ago, I was window shopping with Bert at Horton Plaza. We walkied into Aldo, a shoe store that I normally don't frequent. Why? I spotted some killer pointy toed high heels and they were deep dark eggplant color! Awesome! So, for the hell of it, wanted to try on a pair. They were also $69.00 - yikes, kind of a splurge. Anyhow, the salesgirl told me that they didn't come in half sizes (I'd asked for an 8.5) but she'd bring out an 8 and a 9 (whoa - mongo size there!). The 8's were too narrow (I have wide troll feet folks) and the 9's were way too loose. Neither size fit obviously. That would have been a killer color to wear too. Sigh. Well, I saved myself 69 bucks!

Back to the food - At Latin Chef, you get these fried corn kernels as an appetizer. They are called Canchitas. As we were eating them out of the Lilliputian sized basket, I realized that as you pick up the kernels with your fingers, you are also occasionally touching either the interior sides of the bottom of the salt encrusted basket. These canchitas, by the way, were not salted. The only salt we saw was stuck in the basket's crevices, no doubt touched by other peoples' fingers who may or may not possess a dubious state of cleanliness. It kind of bothered me. Like, these little baskets should be lined or something so that way you're not eating microscopic finger dirt or poo particles. I know that's gross and maybe unlikely, but it looks like these baskets aren't cleaned. In any case, Bert enjoyed the canchitas and didn't end up with a raging case of tapeworm or the splats.

Here are our sodas - the purple corn one (kind of tasted medicine-y) and the Inka Cola (bright yellow - pineapple flavory). Like last time, they were served with no ice. Maybe that's how they do it in Peru. Last time I went here, I had the cola. I ordered the purple soda with the special, but ended up trading it with Bert.

When Bert ordered the Fish a la Huancaina wrap ($6.90), the owner told us he had just put these on the menu a few weeks ago. We asked him what Huancaina meant and he told us that it means, "in the style of Huancaiyo", which is a town in Peru. So this wrap featured white sea bass sauteed with onions and tomatoes with the Huancaina sauc, wrapped in a flour tortilla. He also had a little upside down ramekin of rice with a two tiny carrot dice and one green pea. The green sauce you see was made of jalapeno, onion, garlic, lettuce (yes, that's that Freddy said), and some sort of Peruvian herb (forgot the name, but it started with a 'g'). Now that was some good ass sauce! It had a kick to it!

The sea bass in this wrap (I was about to type burrito) was so soft and tender! I wish I had ordered this instead. The sauce was also very good - creamy and a bit spicy.

I ordered the special ($8.90)this time since I remembered my friend's awesome two entree combo last time. Today's special was Seco de Cordero, which is beef with Cilantro sauce and Aji de Gallena, served with rice and a small salad and the soda we saw earlier. Look at this beef dripping with cilantro sauce- that was some good ass food I tell you. I ended up saving the beef for our daughter who is a pretty adventurous eater. Now she can cross off Peruvian food on her mental list of cuisines to try. No fast food/chicken nugget/pizza/fried anything crap for her.

Freddy gave us a tutorial on the Aji sauce which has curry, breadcrumbs (as thickener), a type of yellow chile pepper, parmesan cheese and cream. There may be a few more ingredients, but that's all I can recall. I liked this shredded chicken more than the beef. That sauce was so good, I would have licked that plate clean if I could.

Because we told him we liked the green sauce, Freddy came out with another tiny container of a red sauce which he said was more Peruvian, using some sort of indigenous red chile. This was also pretty good, but I liked the kick in the green sauce more.

We were pretty full from lunch so we skipped on dessert - they offer only two types: lucuma ice cream (a type of fruit) and these tiny caramel cookies. Next time we go here, I'd like to try the Papas a la Huancaina which are sliced potatoes in that Huancaina sauce. Or maybe the fish wrap. My husband and I had a fun time chatting with Freddy about his country's food. He was more than enthusiastic to share with us the preparation, the ingredients of the dishes, etc. Very personable. Like the last time I was there, I noticed we were the only customers. Maybe they get more customers after 1 pm? Or maybe it's a happening joint at night, I don't know, but we were there right at noon and it was dead. I hope they do well enough to stay in business because I really like their food.

Nuyo - Eastlake

Today, TC and I went to check out the new Nuyo (new Nuyo, ha ha) over at Eastlake. It's in the tiny strip mall that has Rubio's, Starbucks, California Sushi (gross - ugh, Mexicanified sushi) and Walgreens. Apparently, they had their grand opening yesterday. Nuyo's (formerly known as Prince, I mean, Pure Yogurt) first location is at the Telegraph Vons shopping center in Chula Vista.

I like that they don't use styrofoam containers here. What I also like is that it's self-serve, .38 an ounce. You can control your portion and your choice of toppings. I also love that their are at least 10 flavors to choose from, not 3 like that overhyped and overpriced Pinkberry crap.

This location is much larger than the Telegraph store. It's much longer too. Like their other location, they have flat screen tv's mounted in various area of the store, sometimes playing Old School videos. At least they didn't have Rick James on this time.

The color scheme here is blue and orange (it's blue and green at Telegraph). There were only two girls working when we went. It obviously, wasn't very busy when we went. One of the workers cheerfully offered up samples but we already had an idea of what we wanted. By the way, the service here is pretty friendly like at their other location. The workers are usually teenagers and they are super nice, not sullen and assholey like at Pinkberry. They are usually busy chopping up fruit, cleanining up or offering samples. There's not too much strain on them - just be friendly, ring up the customers, and keep the place clean (which is always is).

This is the toppings bar which offers fresh fruit (even lychees and longans and coconut jel!), chopped nuts, cereals, candy (kind of negates the healthy aspect of yogurt, don't you think?) like gummy bears, sprinkles, and various crushed candy bars, mochi balls, and a half-dozen bottles of flavored toppings (chocolate, vanilla, marshmallow, peanut butter, chamoy ?, raspberry, and caramel).

The furniture here is the same - spage age looking chairs and greenbacks booths. They also have the same lucite barstools (not pictured) by their window seating area. There were so many yogurt flavors to choose - I was so excited. They had the regular suspects - Chocolate, Vanilla, Peanut Butter, Strawberry and then some exotic ones like Mango, Green Tea, Pineapple, Pistachio, Taro (yes!) and Coconut. They also had sugar free versions (I didn't bother with those), plus the plain. There's probably more flavors but I can't remember right now. So there's a mix of regular sweet flavors as well as tart. Something for everyone I suppose.

This was my daughter's. She got a mix of sour flavors - Mango, Pineapple, Strawberry and Coconut (well, that wasn't sour) and put sprinkles, chocolate chips, and a cherry on top. I'm not into the tart flavors myself.

Like an old fogey stuck in her ways, I got the usual - Vanilla and Chocolate with mini chocolate chips, mochi balls, and chopped almonds because I love crunchy stuff. But wait, I tried a new flavor today - the Pistachio (the light greenish color). I notice a pink one in there. Man, I wish I could remember what flavor that was. Wait, now I remember. It was Taro. That tasted kind of Ube-ish. I topped this concoction off with a drizzle of chocolate sauce. Or fake chocolate sauce. Whatever it was. Our portions were rather small. I've seen some people fill up the whole damn cup. And those were kids too. No wonder people are so fat. Anyways, we just got just enough for a taste, but not so much that we couldn't finish it.

We liked the wider range of choices here but it's a bit more east. Unless I have something to do in the area (it's near the Otay Ranch Town Center, aka mall), then we can make a pitstop here. Otherwise, we'll stick to the closer location just for convenience.

Parsian International Market & Grill

[Update - Closed as of 2011]

We went here earlier today (I'm actually posting this more than 1 week later, so it's kind of wierd writing it like it just happened!) - one of my students recommended this place to me. She is of Iranian descent (born and raised here though) and says her parents go to this place to buy their ingredients for their food. She also gave me a take out menu and the items looked pretty good so we decided to check this placed out. Parsian Market and Grill is located on Convoy, If you are heading North on Convoy, it's past Ostrow, with a 7-11 on the opposite corner. If you hit Convoy Plaza strip mall (where Phuong Trang is), you've gone too far. As you can see by the shape of the restaurant, this place used to be a McDonald's. The "ordering" area is the same as it in in McD's, but there's a small row of fresh fruits and vegetables as well. In the corner (not pictured) near the bathrooms, they sell fresh bread (lahvosh and some other types). There's refrigerated sections for drinks and other perishable items.

We ordered our food and sat in the back where there are about 4-5 4-top tables. There is also an outside patio with covered tables (as seen in the first photo). Back here, on the end caps are stuff for tea. They take tea seriously here. They sold tea sets, tea biscuits, all kinds of boxed and loose leaf teas, etc.

Another shot from the back. You can see the tea pots there. They also sold rice cookers!

There were rows of Middle Eastern Products. "Sadaf" was one of the main brands. Here you can see Sadaf brand mint and quince/lemon syrup. I ended up buying some Sadaf seasoning mix for beef kabobs and chicken tandoori. Turns out I could have bought that at North Park Produce closer to home, but I didn't know at the time.

They sold all kinds of basmati rice. I never knew there was brown basmati rice. I bought a small 2 lb bag of white basmati rice ($4.99 - I'm not sure if that's a good deal or not). I may just try the brown variety next time I come back and I definitely plan to...

The dried fruit section. Man, they love sour cherry stuff here. This package though, were dried barberries, which is an ingredient I've seen in the rice they serve at Bandar.

So, our food finally comes after we're done browsing through the aisles. Not sure how long it took, but it was pretty quick. I ordered the Beef Kabob plate - yeah, I know, "safe", but I wanted to try it since I really liked what I had at Sadaf a few weeks ago. This was $7.99, about the same price as Sadaf's, but you don't have the downtown vibe to it. Here, it's two juicy and seasoned beef kabobs served with a char-broiled tomato, on top of a huuuuge bed of basmati rice. There was a bit of saffron tinted yellow basmati rice on top - very pretty. There was also a wrapped pat of butter on top of the rice and a big sheet of lahvosh. I'm kind of anal and I didn't like the butter on top of the hot rice because it was already melted by the time I unwrapped it. But who cares, it's going to melt anyways on the rice or the lahvosh, depending on how you eat it. Man, this was a lot of food! I only ate 1 kabob and barely made a dent in the rice. We took my leftovers home for TC to enjoy later.

My entree came with a small side of salad - Persian cucumbers, chopped tomatoes and iceberg lettuce in some sort of dressing. I normally don't eat salad with dressing, but I tried and liked this. I just tried to scrape off some of the dressing or ate the pieces that weren't as drenched.

Bert ordered the Chicken Kabob wrap ($4.99). It was seasoned chicken wrapped in lahvosh with tomato, onion, lettuce and pickles. Since he ate most of it and didn't throw up, I'm assuming that he liked and enjoyed his wrap. It was a sizable portion too.Here's a few of the items I bought at Parsian Market - The seasoning packets I mentioned earlier and some tea biscuits. Actually, I bought the biscuits because they said "Salamat" on it ("Salamat" means "Thank You" in Tagalog), but Salamat turned out to be a brand name. I think that word has an Arabic origin but I'm too lazy to look it up right now. The biscuits will be for Bert's coffee.

Here's a wanna-be Nutella, called Armella. It was $2.99, which is cheaper than Nutella. I compared the two later at home. It tastes pretty close to Nutella, but Nutella is a tiny bit more chocolatier (is that even a word?). But hey, this will taste good with those Salamat cookies.

I also bought some Chick Pea Flour since it was one of the ingredients for a recipe I saw on the back of the Tandooring Chicken seasoning packet. There wasn't a smaller package, but I bought it anyways because I just may use this to make fritters.

Their menu:

Oh yeah, beef!

Another look at their offerings:

We ended up going back here again, one week later (10/10). That time, I ordered the Beef Kabob wrap and Bert got the Beef Kabob plate. Next time we go (and we WILL), I want to try one of their stews because it has walnuts and pomegranates in it. I also tried to make basmati rice. I actually used my rice cooker. After washing the rice twice, I steeped some saffron threads in hot water and poured (the right amount) into the rice cooker. My rice came out quite fragrant and yellow! Good for a first try!

So, if you're ever in the Convoy area, check out this place. The people who work there are very nice. No one bothers you when you're eating. It's very mom and pop. There's a lot of cool ingredients and products to look at and/or purchase if you choose to do so.

Lolita's Taco Shop

Man, I'm really behind. Well, not really, who says I need to be on a timeline anyways? : ) Bert and I went to the Palomar location of Lolita's Taco Shop. It's in the strip mall with Ralph's near the Sunbow homes. Anyway, it's just your basic taco shop. Lolita's (at least the Bonita location) is known for their carne asada fries, because you just can't have enough carbs, and their California Buritto (a big ass carne asada burrito with french fries in it- hoo wah).

This is their 3-rolled tacos plate with guacamole. I forgot how much it was but it wasn't more than $3. I was kind of disappointed because most places serve their rolled tacos with at least cheese on top, sometimes even lettuce and chopped up tomatoes. If I didn't order the guacamole version, this would have been plain. That would have been sucky to eat just plain rolled tacos. There is also a salsa bar where you can get up to 3 types of hot sauce, sliced radishes, green onions and jalapenos. These were just okay - crunchy with not a lot of beef inside though.

My husband, who wanted to eat "healthy", ordered the Vegetarian burrito.

This burrito was just beans, rice, lettuce, tomato, cheese, guacamole and sour cream. Hmm, maybe not so healthy with the guac and sour cream. He said this version was kind of skimpy on the fillings compared to the place he normally goes to by his work.

We also ordered some pickled carrots on the side. Very good, but there were too many oregano flakes in there for my liking. I ended up picking them out.

Nothing too exciting. The prices are all right, not too pricy but not dirt cheap either. I like the rolled tacos at Los Alazanes or Los Chavos better since they put stuff on it if you don't order the guac version. Next time I feel carnivorous, I may just go for the carne asada burrito here or for their California burrito.

Pho Vien Dong

Hmmm, Pho Vien Dong? I went there earlier today to meet a few friends for lunch. I suggested Vietnamese at Pho Hiep Grill, but because their lunch break time was limited, they didn't want to go there because they felt it was too far. Pho Vien Dong is a bit closer to them and is located in the Eastlake Vons shopping center, while Pho Hiep is further East (about miles away). They hadn't been to Pho Vien Dong before, but I had. Sigh. The last time I ate at Pho Vien Dong was back in December. I thought it wasn't great - the food, service or decor, not that the decor matters too much. But that was a while ago and perhaps, the food and service improved? That was not to be.

Still the same ol'.

Sucky.

Service.

We had an old guy as our server and Rockabilly (he was featured in my older post) as well. I didn't bring my camera because we were just going to order bun. One friend ordered bun with

pork and eggroll; the other chose bun with shrimp and eggroll while I wanted the char-grilled beef with bun. We also ordered the fresh spring roll appetizer which came out first.

My last time at this place, I remembered that they took a long time getting our food out. In my opinion, waiting more than 10 minutes just for bun is pretty bad for a Vietnamese fast food place. My friends' bowls were served separately, about 5-8 minutes apart. Other people who came after us were getting their food first. The waiters didn't seem concerned that my order wasn't done yet. Most places they serve it right away or all together. Not here. Then, when the first waiter came out with some bun, it was the wrong kind. They gave me pork and eggroll and then took it back after I told him that I ordered the beef (which I remember him asking me if I wanted the beef twice earlier). After 10 minutes, my friends were pretty much done with their food, my bowl arrived. The beef didn't look 'char-grilled'. It seemed like they just slapped it on the pan with some onions and tried to pass it off as edible. I wasn't impressed with the noodles. They seemed too soft and the meat was not what I expected - a little tough and chewy. Ugh, not char-grilled.

Oh yeah, they don't put mint in their bun. I don't know if that's a mandatory ingredient but in most places I've been to, mint is in there. So, major points off for the crappy service, the long wait time and the lack of mint in their bun! By the way, their bun is $6.99.

A measly tip was given...we shall not go back.

In the same strip mall, I noticed that D'Lish Express (an Italian place) is now gone. Or maybe it's been gone for a while, since I hardly go to this area? It's now been replaced with a BBQ joint. A few doors down is the ubiquitous L & L Hawaiian BBQ chain, a Chinese place (forgot the name but 'Panda' is in the title), and Pho Vien Dong. But what caught my attention was a sign that read, "Coming Soon - Lisa's Filipino Cuisine".

Hmmm, I'll be sure to check that out when it opens. I really hope that it's a nice place and not some steam table "point point" place. Not that there's anything wrong with those, but when you put "Cuisine" in the name of your restaurant, I'd expect more than a turo-turo joint. There's too many of those type of Filipino places in San Diego already. Let's see what "Lisa" serves up...

Animal Grossology

This weekend we checked out this exhibit at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center:

Luckily, we had a 2 for 1 coupon (for us adults), but we had to pay the kid's price for TC. At least we saved some bucks. This exhibit is similar to the Grossology one we saw earlier last year. We have the book for this too. Although the exhibit opened this Saturday and we went the very next day, one of the exhibits (the Dung Beetle ball) was already 'broken'. WTF? There were about 16 exhibits there - most of them quite educational...especially if you want to learn about flies, dung leeches, ticks, saliva, animal poo, urine, and vomit.
One exhibit had samples of owl pellets that you could look at with a magnifying glass. The samples included bird skulls, tiny mouse skeletons, and fur. Lovely. This exhibit (seen below) had different types of animals (only 3 are shown in the photo) and their corresponding fecal matter. There was a game that featured a device that you looked through to hone in on the poo, then you had to shift the device and push a button to point it to the corresponding animal. Actually, I didn't play it, hence, my rather poor explanation of the game! Another exhibit talked about different animals that gave off slime. Did you know that a hagfish is slimier than a snail?

This was a placard near the broken Dung Beetle ball. One exhibit that kids seemed to really love was this submarine that had a real working periscope. In fact, TC used it to "spy" on us. Inside the submarine were TV windows that showed different scenes of creatures and informational placards about their gross properties. Plus, there was a mini tunnel inside that kids could climb up on and then slide out.
Here's a recipe you can bring to the next school bake sale:

The olfactory exhibit was pretty gnarly. Almost worse than the corresponding one they had for Grossology. In this exhibit, there are four stations, each with a small rounded tube with a hole. Underneath, you squeeze a hose which releases an odor through the hole. You are supposed to guess which odor it is. For the regular Grossology one, the scents were Armpit Mouth, Foot, and Anus! For the Animal Grossology, the scents were Cockroach (this was actually the best one - it smelled like Cherry - it's a certain cockroach that emits this cherry like scent), Musk, followed by Urine, and the last was Skunk. Even after knowing the cherry odor came from a certain species of roach, I'd gladly sniff that again instead of the musk and urine ones! Pheeeew!!! The last one was especially gag inducing.

As Yoda would say, "Educational this was."

We didn't just go for this exhibit though. We did see the rest of the Science Center, which is in need of a major overhaul. It is stuck in the 70's and the exhibits need freshening up! The Science Center in LA kicks major ass on San Diego's - three floors worth of exciting and modern looking exhibits...

Marukai

Last week, my daughter and I went to Marukai. We were planning to have lunch somewhere else, but ended up buying our lunch at Marukai Grocery. Yeah, a grocery store. We were going to eat at Mitsuwa originally, but at Maruakai, they have a section where you can buy prepared food. This was the fried oyster bento, which came with pickled vegetables, spaghetti with sliced hot dogs (eww) and rice with a pickled plum in the middle. Next to the fried oysters is a fried piece of chicken. This was for TC (she shared some with me). The ume (pickled plum) was way to sour for TC. She tried it but didn't like it. For our drink, we had a wanna be Ramune that came in a can, rather than a glass bottle with the marble in it.

I like Mitsuwa's fried oysters, but these were bigger and came in a bento so I decided to try it.

I also bought a small tray of soba noodles with shredded nori on top. Not pictured is a tray of California roll that I bought for us to share. I wanted to get a cold dish since it was hot that day. The soba noodles were refreshing, especially with the wasabe. I wasn't sure where we were going to eat this food, but I noticed that there were tables with chairs right outside of the store, so we ate our lunch there with the traffic on Balboa Avenue and Mercury as our view. Lovely. Inhale those gas fumes.After our lunch, we went to Mitsuwa to get a few snacks. But before going to Mitsuwa, we went to the newly opened (temporary, I'm sure) Halloween store in the same complex. We ended up buying her a magic wand for her Halloween costume. This was a Harry Potter wand because she is going to be a Gryffindor student this year (Gryffindor - one of the four houses at the Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft - from 'Harry Potter'). I already got her gray uniform skirt, Gryffindor tie and robe. So, now she is all set! She's been reading the books, albeit slowly. There's a lot of difficult vocabulary in the books. She is now on book 6, "The Half-Blood Prince". Unfortunately, the movie of the same name which was slated to open on November 21 has been pushed back to July 2009. The good news is that the movie adaptation of 'Twilight' will take it's place!

This was a new Pocky flavor I hadn't seen before. Of course, that meant I had to try it. It seems more appetizing that Octopus flavor (which I've tried before). There was another type of Chocolate Pocky that I bought (not pictured). It looked like the regular Pocky but with a different box. What I found was that the pocky sticks are skinnier than normal. It was just skinny Pocky.

They should make a Jackfruit flavored pocky. Or how about Ube?