I bought it for Bert - it was only .79. Who knows if it's any good or not? The other items I bought were mint, cilantro, green onions, two bunches of lettuce, and various noodle bowls plus a rice dessert (seen in my previous blog) for dinner at Lotus and Thor's.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Carabao
One of the items (impulse purchase of course) I got at Vien Dong III today was this Carabao energy drink from Thailand:
I bought it for Bert - it was only .79. Who knows if it's any good or not? The other items I bought were mint, cilantro, green onions, two bunches of lettuce, and various noodle bowls plus a rice dessert (seen in my previous blog) for dinner at Lotus and Thor's.
I bought it for Bert - it was only .79. Who knows if it's any good or not? The other items I bought were mint, cilantro, green onions, two bunches of lettuce, and various noodle bowls plus a rice dessert (seen in my previous blog) for dinner at Lotus and Thor's.
Dinner with Lotus and Thor
Earlier this evening we had dinner at Lotus and Thor's place. Lotus made a batch of pork potstickers which were really really delicious. Here they are below. This was just one plate. We had two plates of this!
These were the fixings for the fresh spring rolls. From the top row - noodles, spiced marinated carrots, regular marinated carrots (for TC). The bottom row - mint leaves, cilatro leaves and two bowls of homemade peanut sauce courtesy of Lotus. The big container in the corner had green leaf lettuce. The bottom-most bowl had chopped peanuts for garnish and extra crunch. The cilantro was 3 for .99 at Vien Dong III in Linda Vista while the mint was only .59 a bunch! Not pictured - the marinated and slivered cucumber and fresh shrimp.
Lotus wrapping one of the colossal spring rolls:
Mmm...this was tasty.
More fresh spring rolls - these were surprisingly quite filling! Lotus also made some with chicken inside.
Our drink for the evening was "Lambrusco" - one brand that is popular (or is it?) in the U.S. is Riunite. Remember the commercial from the 80's? "Riunite on Ice - That's Nice!". This wine was light, fruity and a bit fizzy. It didn't even taste like wine. I ended up having 2 and 1/2 glasses. Thor and Lotus had a huge bottle and it was pretty much polished off that evening. Funny I've never had it before but I remember my parents buying it way back when because they were curious. And also because the commercial worked!
Lotus also made a Korean dish. Sorry, I cannot remember the name, but it was beef (roast) cut in cubes that she marinated in soy sauce with boiled eggs. She also put the meat in a pressure cooker which resulted in tender and soft chunks of beefy goodness. Lotus, what was the name of this again?
Lotus said this was a common breakfast item in Korea.
Cross section of one of the spring rolls:
For dessert, I bought this black rice with coconut milk dessert from Vien Dong III (earlier that morning). It was made by Aroma Thai on El Cajon Blvd. This sweet rice dessert was topped with a sweet yellow bean paste and a smattering of sesame seeds. It was only $1.49 so I thought, what the heck. It wasn't as sweet as I thought it would be. We each had a spoon of it. I liked the topping. The rice was chewy but could have used more coconut milk and coconut shreds.
TC was a big help in the kitchen, helping Lotus cut and devein the shrimp. Yes, with a real knife. She also helped pick the mint leaves. I had her help me "season" my roasted potatoes several evening ago. She enjoys using the pepper and salt mill!
These were the fixings for the fresh spring rolls. From the top row - noodles, spiced marinated carrots, regular marinated carrots (for TC). The bottom row - mint leaves, cilatro leaves and two bowls of homemade peanut sauce courtesy of Lotus. The big container in the corner had green leaf lettuce. The bottom-most bowl had chopped peanuts for garnish and extra crunch. The cilantro was 3 for .99 at Vien Dong III in Linda Vista while the mint was only .59 a bunch! Not pictured - the marinated and slivered cucumber and fresh shrimp.
Lotus wrapping one of the colossal spring rolls:
Mmm...this was tasty.
More fresh spring rolls - these were surprisingly quite filling! Lotus also made some with chicken inside.
Our drink for the evening was "Lambrusco" - one brand that is popular (or is it?) in the U.S. is Riunite. Remember the commercial from the 80's? "Riunite on Ice - That's Nice!". This wine was light, fruity and a bit fizzy. It didn't even taste like wine. I ended up having 2 and 1/2 glasses. Thor and Lotus had a huge bottle and it was pretty much polished off that evening. Funny I've never had it before but I remember my parents buying it way back when because they were curious. And also because the commercial worked!
Lotus also made a Korean dish. Sorry, I cannot remember the name, but it was beef (roast) cut in cubes that she marinated in soy sauce with boiled eggs. She also put the meat in a pressure cooker which resulted in tender and soft chunks of beefy goodness. Lotus, what was the name of this again?
Lotus said this was a common breakfast item in Korea.
Cross section of one of the spring rolls:
For dessert, I bought this black rice with coconut milk dessert from Vien Dong III (earlier that morning). It was made by Aroma Thai on El Cajon Blvd. This sweet rice dessert was topped with a sweet yellow bean paste and a smattering of sesame seeds. It was only $1.49 so I thought, what the heck. It wasn't as sweet as I thought it would be. We each had a spoon of it. I liked the topping. The rice was chewy but could have used more coconut milk and coconut shreds.
TC was a big help in the kitchen, helping Lotus cut and devein the shrimp. Yes, with a real knife. She also helped pick the mint leaves. I had her help me "season" my roasted potatoes several evening ago. She enjoys using the pepper and salt mill! Sunday, September 16, 2007
Purple Rice, Balboa Park & House of Turkey
After church the Fil Am group was once again asking for donations for their assorted pastries, donuts and homemade goodies. I chose to get the purple rice cake. Purple rice is also known as 'pirurutong'. I'm not sure if this was some sort of bibingka or not. The lola serving it knows my mother in law, so she gave me an extra piece ($1 donation)...It pays to know people in the right places! Ha ha.
This dessert was so good. You could taste the butter and the coconut milk in this! It was nice and chewy - I liked that she gave me a side piece! Yes! Crust!
Later that morning, we went to Balboa Park to catch the House of Pacific Relations event for today - the House of Turkey lawn program. We had several hours to kill so we took a walk in Palm Canyon, just a few steps away from the Organ Pavilion. There were a lot of squirrels out that day, climbing up the palm trees and scampering in the hillside. 
One of the trees in the canyon. This wasn't a palm though. I think it was a type of Monstera.
Base of a tree near the exit of Palm Canyon(or the entrance).
The Botanical Garden...the largest wooden lath structure in the world.
Purple flowers in front of the Botanical Gardens... 
Orchids...(sorry, I don't know what type these are):
This is the berry spike of the anthurium hookeri. Looks like a plant with some sort of venereal disease. 
Another spray of beautiful orchids, I believe these are a type of dendrobium:
Here's a type of Coleus - these were quite striking. The inner part of the leaf was a deep eggplant color, almost black while the edges were bright green.
Here's another type. These were more reddish orange with lime green outlines on the leaves.
View from inside...
After having a few snacks and icy cold water, we headed back to the International Cottage area to seek real food at the House of Turkey booth. More on Turkish cuisine here:
Their menu - you could see that the pita with hummus was crossed out. They ran out, so they subsituted baklava for the pita/hummus in the combo plate.
We bought one combo plate ($6) which had one piece of borek (not Borat), two pieces of dolmas and one piece of pistachio baklava, and a couple of pieces of pita (sans hummus).
We had a choice of either the spinach and cheese borek or the beef. The guy serving us preferred the spinach so we went with his choice. We've had it before at past food festivals at the park. I've got to ask my Turkish students to make some for me! The crust was nice and flaky with a tasty filling of spinach and feta cheese. I normally wouldn't eat feta cheese, but in borek, yes!
Look at the buttery goodness...
I also bought "Evil Eye " bracelets for myself and TC ($5 and $3 each):
Here's a cross section of the dolma. I didn't really like this because it was too oily.
Now these pistachio baklava were really superb. They kicked ass on the Greek baklava that Bert brought home from Astoria a couple of weeks ago. I mean, those were good, but these were so much better. I also like the shape of these, preferring to eat each corner at a time. 
Check out the honeyed pistachio nuts nestled between the buttery phyllo layers:
The combo plate was polished off in no time between the three of us, so Bert went back to get another piece of borek - this time, we got the beef.
The first part of the lawn program had two guys singing Turkish songs with a guitar (or some other small stringed instrument). The first song was all right, but the next 5 sounded just like it - kind of slow and boring. No offense, I'm sure the songs were great but there was no variety in the rhythm or pace. As always, I joked to Bert, "Could you play 'Super Freak' by Rick James? Metallica anyone?" But seriously, those guys were good but I was okay with just two songs, not six of the same sounding songs. After that was a belly dancer (who danced with scarves and also a sword!)... What was cool was her first dance was the tune, "Misirlou", think the first song you hear when you watch 'Pulp Fiction'. Yes, that really cool surf tune by Dick Dale, but this was sung in Turkish and had those rad swirly guitars in it. Very very rad!
Sorry, it's kind of dark here. Lots of people were out that day...Lots of senior citizens and families were out there having a good time.
Before we left, we looked at the different cottages (Scotland, China, Norway, Sweden - we skipped the USA, and lastly Finland).
Each cottage was selling (or actually, asking for "donations") samples of their food. I don't know how "Finnish" this was. It was a cracker with a cream cheese artichoke spread garnished with parsley and served with a thin slice of banana nut bread. It also came with either coffee or pink lemonade. This was TC's snack before we made the drive home.
Finnish flag...
Charger game is on in a few hours. Bert plans to watch while I plan to either read or organize my sock drawer.
This dessert was so good. You could taste the butter and the coconut milk in this! It was nice and chewy - I liked that she gave me a side piece! Yes! Crust!
Later that morning, we went to Balboa Park to catch the House of Pacific Relations event for today - the House of Turkey lawn program. We had several hours to kill so we took a walk in Palm Canyon, just a few steps away from the Organ Pavilion. There were a lot of squirrels out that day, climbing up the palm trees and scampering in the hillside. 
One of the trees in the canyon. This wasn't a palm though. I think it was a type of Monstera.
Base of a tree near the exit of Palm Canyon(or the entrance).
The Botanical Garden...the largest wooden lath structure in the world.
Purple flowers in front of the Botanical Gardens... 
Orchids...(sorry, I don't know what type these are):
This is the berry spike of the anthurium hookeri. Looks like a plant with some sort of venereal disease. 
Another spray of beautiful orchids, I believe these are a type of dendrobium:
Here's a type of Coleus - these were quite striking. The inner part of the leaf was a deep eggplant color, almost black while the edges were bright green.
Here's another type. These were more reddish orange with lime green outlines on the leaves.
View from inside...
After having a few snacks and icy cold water, we headed back to the International Cottage area to seek real food at the House of Turkey booth. More on Turkish cuisine here:
Their menu - you could see that the pita with hummus was crossed out. They ran out, so they subsituted baklava for the pita/hummus in the combo plate.
We bought one combo plate ($6) which had one piece of borek (not Borat), two pieces of dolmas and one piece of pistachio baklava, and a couple of pieces of pita (sans hummus).
We had a choice of either the spinach and cheese borek or the beef. The guy serving us preferred the spinach so we went with his choice. We've had it before at past food festivals at the park. I've got to ask my Turkish students to make some for me! The crust was nice and flaky with a tasty filling of spinach and feta cheese. I normally wouldn't eat feta cheese, but in borek, yes!
Look at the buttery goodness...
I also bought "Evil Eye " bracelets for myself and TC ($5 and $3 each):
Here's a cross section of the dolma. I didn't really like this because it was too oily.
Now these pistachio baklava were really superb. They kicked ass on the Greek baklava that Bert brought home from Astoria a couple of weeks ago. I mean, those were good, but these were so much better. I also like the shape of these, preferring to eat each corner at a time. 
Check out the honeyed pistachio nuts nestled between the buttery phyllo layers:
The combo plate was polished off in no time between the three of us, so Bert went back to get another piece of borek - this time, we got the beef.
The first part of the lawn program had two guys singing Turkish songs with a guitar (or some other small stringed instrument). The first song was all right, but the next 5 sounded just like it - kind of slow and boring. No offense, I'm sure the songs were great but there was no variety in the rhythm or pace. As always, I joked to Bert, "Could you play 'Super Freak' by Rick James? Metallica anyone?" But seriously, those guys were good but I was okay with just two songs, not six of the same sounding songs. After that was a belly dancer (who danced with scarves and also a sword!)... What was cool was her first dance was the tune, "Misirlou", think the first song you hear when you watch 'Pulp Fiction'. Yes, that really cool surf tune by Dick Dale, but this was sung in Turkish and had those rad swirly guitars in it. Very very rad!
Sorry, it's kind of dark here. Lots of people were out that day...Lots of senior citizens and families were out there having a good time.
Before we left, we looked at the different cottages (Scotland, China, Norway, Sweden - we skipped the USA, and lastly Finland).
Each cottage was selling (or actually, asking for "donations") samples of their food. I don't know how "Finnish" this was. It was a cracker with a cream cheese artichoke spread garnished with parsley and served with a thin slice of banana nut bread. It also came with either coffee or pink lemonade. This was TC's snack before we made the drive home.
Finnish flag...
Charger game is on in a few hours. Bert plans to watch while I plan to either read or organize my sock drawer.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Asia Cafe
The weekend forecast was nice, warm and sunny. After a quick stop at the CV Library book sale (wow, children's books were only .10 each!), TC and I had the morning to ourselves. Bert, on the other hand, had the unsavory task of helping his older brother try to extract what he suspected was a dead opposum in their parent's garage. His bro recognized a "familiar" pee and/or dead animal smell in the garage much like the smell he encountered last year in their back yard shed. When they cleaned out the shed, the remains of two 'possums were the culprit behind the odoriferous assault on the senses. Unfortunately, this time, they did not find any 'possum remains, but rather, it's fecal remains. I'm sure that varmint peed in there too. To say the least, Lysol was unleashed in great quantities to rid the garage of the infernal scent.
Anyhow, we all wanted to have lunch out today. We set off to the Chollas View neighborhood. Below was an art project near an empty lot near our destination...
More of the art posters/photos (well, the backside)...
You can't see the place right away. It's behind this oil change place on the corner of 47th and Market Street.
Asia Cafe is in a small and old looking strip mall which has a lot of Lao businesses (food market, coin laundry, nail/hair shop, video and import store).
For inquiring minds, here's a post about Lao cuisine, and MMM-Yoso's post of Asia Cafe here along with an old post of mine here :
I hadn't been here in awhile. This time, we sat on the opposite side of the restaurant (to your right when you walk in). There are 5 tables that seat 4 each plus one long table in the middle that seats 9. There weren't too many people there that day, but they did brisk business with takeout I noticed.
In my old post, I mentioned (or was that an older post?) that their menus were old and the prices were wrong. Well, this time, they redid their menus. These were nice, crisp, new and laminated. The prices also looked updated. Before it seemed like their prices were too good to be true, then you got slammed with a bill that was higher than you thought you paid...At least they got it right this time!
The guy in brown is one of the son's. His parents run the place; his mom cooks in the back kitchen. He's pretty nice (it's either Scotty or Johnny) and mellow.
Condiment tray:
We started off with the fresh Spring Rolls ($3.00) which weren't on the menu. It comes with a side of peanut sauce. TC enjoyed 1 and 1/2 of this...
Cross section of the spring roll. These were of a decent size and quite filling. Fresh shrimp, lettuce, mint and beansprouts. No cellophane noodles in here!
I liked that they brought out Christmas plates for us. People at other tables also had mismatched plates!
Bert and I both ordered Lao iced coffees ($2.00 each):
As usual, I ordered the Nem Khao ($5.50) which is not on the menu. This is Lao fried rice. 
The greens to go with the Nem Khao (green leaf lettuce and cilantro):
A close up of that awesome crunchy fried rice! I just love this rice because it has so much flavor and texture from the green onions, garlic, finely chopped peanuts, the sour sausage and the crunchy rice crust! I could eat this every day!
The sticky rice ($2.00) - this was quite a lot of rice! I don't remember having this much of it before, but when I checked my old post, it was the same. This rice will be for dinner later on! TC loves sticky rice because we let her eat it with her hands like you are supposed to.
The Lao BBQ chicken ($5.00). This was an appetizer but we ordered this for TC to eat with the fried rice. She had the drumsticks only. The rest is for us later!
That chicken skin was so good! You could really taste the spice paste they put on there... Wish I knew exactly what was was in it. I could definitely taste the ginger and garlic and I think there was turmeric as well (yellowish color).
Bert's Spicy Noodles with beef ($5.75). You could actually smell how hot and spicy that was. He predicted that this dish would do some internal "damage" within 12 hours.
My Chicken Larb ($6.00). Larb is the unofficial national dish of Laos.
An overview of part of our table. This was a lot of food. We'd have to take some boxes to go. I don't know why I ordered the Chicken Larb...I remember Lotus ordered the pork larb last year and didn't like it. It tasted a bit fishy which threw me off because it was a ground chicken dish. I did eat one cucumber! But I didn't really like the texture of the larb. It looked like tuna fish.
This must be an old sign...it says to add .50 to any item on the menu. When I checked the menu against the receipt, it matched up.
With our three take out boxes in tow, we left Asia Cafe and headed back to the car. We parked next to the Lao nail and hair place. There was a gangster looking guy smoking right in front of our car. He had long hair, was wearing a wife beater, long baggy jean shorts, white socks and white tennis shoes. He also had a lot of tattoos. I didn't think he would appreciate me taking a snapshot of him. We still had a kid's bday party to attend later that afternoon. At least we know we'll have good leftovers for dinner!
Unfortunately, Asia Cafe was out of their fried bananas in a ziplock ($5.00), so I bought these fried pork rinds in a ziplock instead ($2.00). They'r a little different than the pork rinds I grew up eating. These are long, skinny strips with a thin line of hard meat in them. Instad of just the nice, fluffy skin or occasionally the piece with a bit of meat and fat...mmmmm...I haven't had pork rinds in a long, long, long time!
This place is near the corner of 47th and Imperial. Looks like Lao Plaza is now Mekong Village:
Heading home to the 805 South under the skinny bridge in National City (47th St):
Anyhow, we all wanted to have lunch out today. We set off to the Chollas View neighborhood. Below was an art project near an empty lot near our destination...
More of the art posters/photos (well, the backside)...
You can't see the place right away. It's behind this oil change place on the corner of 47th and Market Street.
Asia Cafe is in a small and old looking strip mall which has a lot of Lao businesses (food market, coin laundry, nail/hair shop, video and import store).
For inquiring minds, here's a post about Lao cuisine, and MMM-Yoso's post of Asia Cafe here along with an old post of mine here :
I hadn't been here in awhile. This time, we sat on the opposite side of the restaurant (to your right when you walk in). There are 5 tables that seat 4 each plus one long table in the middle that seats 9. There weren't too many people there that day, but they did brisk business with takeout I noticed.
In my old post, I mentioned (or was that an older post?) that their menus were old and the prices were wrong. Well, this time, they redid their menus. These were nice, crisp, new and laminated. The prices also looked updated. Before it seemed like their prices were too good to be true, then you got slammed with a bill that was higher than you thought you paid...At least they got it right this time!
The guy in brown is one of the son's. His parents run the place; his mom cooks in the back kitchen. He's pretty nice (it's either Scotty or Johnny) and mellow.
Condiment tray:
We started off with the fresh Spring Rolls ($3.00) which weren't on the menu. It comes with a side of peanut sauce. TC enjoyed 1 and 1/2 of this...
Cross section of the spring roll. These were of a decent size and quite filling. Fresh shrimp, lettuce, mint and beansprouts. No cellophane noodles in here!
I liked that they brought out Christmas plates for us. People at other tables also had mismatched plates!
Bert and I both ordered Lao iced coffees ($2.00 each):
As usual, I ordered the Nem Khao ($5.50) which is not on the menu. This is Lao fried rice. 
The greens to go with the Nem Khao (green leaf lettuce and cilantro):
A close up of that awesome crunchy fried rice! I just love this rice because it has so much flavor and texture from the green onions, garlic, finely chopped peanuts, the sour sausage and the crunchy rice crust! I could eat this every day!
The sticky rice ($2.00) - this was quite a lot of rice! I don't remember having this much of it before, but when I checked my old post, it was the same. This rice will be for dinner later on! TC loves sticky rice because we let her eat it with her hands like you are supposed to.
The Lao BBQ chicken ($5.00). This was an appetizer but we ordered this for TC to eat with the fried rice. She had the drumsticks only. The rest is for us later!
That chicken skin was so good! You could really taste the spice paste they put on there... Wish I knew exactly what was was in it. I could definitely taste the ginger and garlic and I think there was turmeric as well (yellowish color).
Bert's Spicy Noodles with beef ($5.75). You could actually smell how hot and spicy that was. He predicted that this dish would do some internal "damage" within 12 hours.
My Chicken Larb ($6.00). Larb is the unofficial national dish of Laos.
An overview of part of our table. This was a lot of food. We'd have to take some boxes to go. I don't know why I ordered the Chicken Larb...I remember Lotus ordered the pork larb last year and didn't like it. It tasted a bit fishy which threw me off because it was a ground chicken dish. I did eat one cucumber! But I didn't really like the texture of the larb. It looked like tuna fish.
This must be an old sign...it says to add .50 to any item on the menu. When I checked the menu against the receipt, it matched up.
With our three take out boxes in tow, we left Asia Cafe and headed back to the car. We parked next to the Lao nail and hair place. There was a gangster looking guy smoking right in front of our car. He had long hair, was wearing a wife beater, long baggy jean shorts, white socks and white tennis shoes. He also had a lot of tattoos. I didn't think he would appreciate me taking a snapshot of him. We still had a kid's bday party to attend later that afternoon. At least we know we'll have good leftovers for dinner!
Unfortunately, Asia Cafe was out of their fried bananas in a ziplock ($5.00), so I bought these fried pork rinds in a ziplock instead ($2.00). They'r a little different than the pork rinds I grew up eating. These are long, skinny strips with a thin line of hard meat in them. Instad of just the nice, fluffy skin or occasionally the piece with a bit of meat and fat...mmmmm...I haven't had pork rinds in a long, long, long time!
This place is near the corner of 47th and Imperial. Looks like Lao Plaza is now Mekong Village:
Heading home to the 805 South under the skinny bridge in National City (47th St):
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
