5 Random Things

I was tagged by Oggi for this meme. I hardly ever get chosen for these (for good reason, I'm sure, ha ha) but here goes:

5 Random Facts (from my Boring Ass Life)

1) I was actually in a garage band in high school. Of course, I was the most unmusical, untalented member, the"Ringo" if you will. But it was an excuse to get out of the house and hang out in our friend's garage. The leader was the drummer (he was also in our band's percussion ensemble and Assistant Drum Major) and a big time Rush fan, especially Neil Peart (drummer extraordinaire). I didn't last too long. Maybe a year or so and it was on and off. What did I play? The Roland synthesizer (I forgot the series number, Superman, do you remember?). Even though I could play piano, I couldn't seem to get it right with what our leader (the drummer) wanted. In fact, Thane of the Universe was much better than me and pretty much took over after my talent show debacle.

Lead singer? Our very own Superman. Guitarist? A guy whose name I longer remember. Bassist? Mr. Arsonist and later on, Mr. Agua Dulce, who is now in a Latin influenced band of his own in San Diego. We played a few talent shows in high school. I still recall with shame and horror when I found out that the "preset" buttons on the Roland synthesizer I was playing were the wrong sounds! I had fkd up royally and in front of an audience. It's one thing to mess around in a garage. No biggie there. Another thing to do it in front of a paying audience. To this day, I cannot bear to listen to Bon Jovi's "Living Without a Prayer" (that'll give you a clue as to what year that was!) without cringing and violently changing the radio station. Yes, that memory is the suckiest of all sucktivity.

Other songs we practiced..."Perfect Way" by Scritti Politti (my choice, actually) and "What You Need" by INXS. Those were the songs I could play without screwing up too much. Other songs the band played (but I didn't) were "Save a Prayer" by Duran Duran, "Things Can Only Get Better" by Howard Johnson, "Dress You Up" by Madonna. Yes it was THE 80's.

I learned that I was not a disciplined musician and that playing for fun was different than playing for "real". I felt as though I had let people down and in my high school aged mind, thought everyone would remember and taunt me for my mistake. In reality, I'm sure it was forgotten by the next morning and nobody gave a shit enough to point at me and say, "Hey, there's the chick that screwed up the Bon Jovi song!" Thank goodness! Okay, that was painful dredging up that long buried memory. I still think Bon Jovi sucks saggy veiny donkey balls.

2) I once had custom made Vans in junior high. Back in the early 80's, Vans could only be found in specialty surf/skate shops. The shoes cost about $15 for the ties and a tiny bit more for the slip on style (the checkerboard pattern was made famous by one of my favorite movie characters, stoner Jeff Spicoli from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"). That was a lot of bones back then. Especially when you had tight Filipino parents. My siblings and I had no allowances growing up. Anyhow, I somehow convinced my parents to shell out the unheard of sum of $30 for a pair of "CUSTOM MADE" Vans from the now defunct RC Surflines surf shop in Imperial Beach (IB, dudes). They didn't have stores just for Vans shoes like they do now. I think$30 is the going rate for one pair now.

Why does this fact even make the list? Well, for one thing they don't make custom mades like THAT anymore. Not a lot of people remember that this was an option. Back then, you bought the shoes as delivered to the store in the premade styles in predetermined colors. That was fine if you liked the classic black and white checkerboard slip on or the lace up red and navy or the solid red's, blues, whites, or grays. Then, in 1982, the custom made option became available. Mind you, this was the early 80's (1983 to be precise) and the color combinations as well as print styles were awesome!

Picture a Vans lace up skate shoe. Each shoe has the front and back panel, as well as the left and right panel. You could custom order the colors you wanted for EACH panel. It gets better...Picture the rubber sides of the shoe, the part that wraps around the bottom portion? You could also custom order printed rubber panels AND it could be different on each side. Keeping in mind the time frame (80's), many choices were pretty wacky.

What did I do? For one panel, I chose a Wonderbread wrapper inspired polka dots pattern, but instead of primary colors, the dots were pastels. Another panel was checkerboard - but not black and white. No, that simply would not do. It was purple and hot pink. Another panel was tiger striped. And another panel was some outlandish and totally unmatching pattern (wish I could remember). For the panels, I chose one side to have hearts and rainbows or some other girly pattern on the other side. This was just the LEFT shoe. The right shoe's panels were the complete opposite of the left. I also had entirely different panels for the right shoe. To top it all off, I had different patterned shoelaces on each shoe. These were pretty "clashy"and I got a lot of stares because of it, but Ithought my shoes were Effin Cool Maaaan.

Where are the shoes now? Long gone, I'm afraid. Wish I'd saved them because they'd be total collector items! I can't believe my parents shelled out $30 of their hard earned money so I could get a pair of shoes that looked like the 80's exploded and deposited its colorful remains on my feet.

3) I like to collect those wooden Filipino fork and spoons. I haven't bought any recently, but I have about 8 or 9 pairs. Most of them were obtained from thrift stores. I guess a lot of Filipino families were getting rid of their "traditional" decorations. I notice the ones from the late 60's and early 70's were better made than the more recent one's you see being sold on various Philippine decor internet sites. Doesn't seem like the carvings are that intricate anymore.

Why the wooden fork and spoons? I thought it would be fun to collect a kitschy Filipino item and, save for the Barrelman, thought that the wooden utensils would be different to collect. I have one pair in my office which sometimes invite comments from my Filipino American students who recognize it as an iconic Filipino decoration, "Hey, we have that too!" or "What are those for?" from my non Filipino students. I gave one set away to a fellow Latina colleague; she has it hanging in her office and she enjoys the comments she gets from her Pinoy students. They think it's cool that she has what they have hanging in their kitchen at home! Now, she just needs the Weapons of Moroland shield, the Barrelman, the Santo Nino shrine and the Last Supper velvet painting.

Speaking of which, the biggest fork and spoon that I do have is in my kitchen...above my rice dispenser (which was a damn useful wedding gift by the way). Here is a photo...of the fork and spoon not the rice dispenser!

It was painted by our good friend and talented artist, Superman. He did it several years ago; he sanded it down, painted it and varnished it for me. It's so wild. I totally dig it and it's looks great in our kitchen.

Spottings of the wooden fork and spoon in pop culture:

1. "Edwards Scissorhands" - the scene where the family is eating at a restaurant. Look at the walls. There's a wooden fork and spoon there.



2. "The Debut" - it's in there. Trust me.



3. The TV show, "Everybody Loves Raymond" - Marie and Frank have a set in their house.

4) I once spotted Rob Halford, yes, the METAL GOD, THE former lead singer of Judas Priest...in Hillcrest (yes, he does happen to be gay). My husband and I were were out several years ago looking at bookstores on 5th and I saw this bald guy with a familiar head tattoo. Soon after he passed by, I realized who it was..."Oh my God! Rob Halford!" I screamed in my mind. I didn't want to make a slobbering fool of myself, so I refrained from calling out his name, approaching him, making fawning obsequious remarks about how "British Steel" was one of the best albums ever and how "Breaking the Law" was a kick ass song, pestering him for an autograph and saving him (and myself) from embarassment.

My image of Rob Halford the rock star was changed that day. He was wearing a black t-shirt and get this, black jean shorts. No, they were not studded with spikes nor were they tooled of fierce black leather. He had no leather wrist or arm cuffs on and he was not riding his chopper. He looked like a normal, balding middle aged dude. Plus he was walking with some guy, perhaps his boyfriend? Dude looked kinda young. Although Rob is the Metal God, he's entitled to living a normal life and walking around without getting bothered by female metal heads! For those of you who are unaware, Rob Halford, at the time, lived in San Diego near Balboa Park. He even recorded some of his solo band's album at the Park Manor Hotel.

Sigh, lost opportunity to get the Voice's autograph.

5) Ooh, the last random fact. Surprised you made it this far.

The first contest I ever won was from the now defunct Pulse! Magazine, from Tower Records. Don't ask me what issue, but I was still in college so it had to have been before December 1991. Every month, there was a trivia question. That month's trivia question was "Which famous guitarist of a classic rock band suffers from hearing loss? Who is he, what band , and what is the condition called?" The answer which every fan of rock and roll should know, unless you live in a cave and listen to Yanni, was of course, Pete Townshend of the Who and tinnitus. The magazine would choose five winners and give them a prize.

Not sure if it was picked randomly or first five correct answers... After I sent in my answer on a post card, I promptly forgot about it until one month later.

Guess what my grand prize was?

Ear plugs. Get it? Ear plugs!

Here's an obituary for Tower Records and another article from another blog. Here's the article from San Diego.

We paid our tribute to Tower Records in November 2006. Since the El Cajon Tower Records was torn down in the mid 90's, all that remained was the Sports Arena Blvd location along with the La Jolla Villa Square. Everything was on sale. I belive that's where Superman bought me (as a joke gift, I would hope) the William Hung CD. I bought several magazines and a few CD's. Bert bought Thane a Moon Knight (aka Marc Spectre) doll, oops, I mean Action Figure, not knowing that Superman bought him the same thing for Christmas that year! Great minds think alike!

Although Tower Records is no longer physically with us, you can still get your stuff online at Tower's website.

I tag my husband Bert, Superman, C, Lotus, and Hot Fudge for this meme where it will either elicit a response or remain in cyber limbo.

Gonna eat that?

Here are a few items I picked up from North Park Produce (to be referred to as NPP from now own). It was one of my resolutions to try either one new ingredient or food item or a new recipe every couple of weeks. This is canned octopus in "garlic" flavor; it's a product of Spain and only $1.29. I'm going to have Bert be the taste tester!
This isn't really a "new" or exotic ingredient, but I was suprised to see the green onions in plastic. I was just at North Park Produce the other day and the green onions were in regular naked bunches. Hunnnh.
This was also less than $1.50 - it's a type of tomato pepper spread from Bulgaria.

This was also picked up at NPP. I was suprised to see this there. It was in the "Asian" food aisle. I've had this before, but a Filipino brand. I think Chaokoh is from Thailand. I'll have to look at the jar again. I bought these as an impulse since we just saw these coconut jel squares recently at Pure Frozen Yogurt. I like how these taste in Halo Halo! Or even just plain! So sweet and chewy!

This was from the frozen section at NPP. It looks like a thin pancake and it's filled with "tandoori paneer". I'll have to make it this week - all you do is heat it up in a frying pan. No oil or anything. Seems easy enough, but will it taste all right?

I really like NPP's selection of international food items. Makes it fun and easy to try new things especially since it's so inexpensive.

Correction...

Re: the YouTube video of a "white guy" making chicken adobo that's been making it's rounds, Travis Kraft (with a "K", I spelled it wrong with a "C") is actually half Filipino (his mom's Pinay).

Correction - His adoptive mother is Filipina and from Bataan. I guess I skimmed an article on his website too quickly. He's a white guy after all.

He's from the Midwest and an actor (small time though) and model (Jockey, Rexona deodorant?) as well as a Superman lookalike. He's acted in a few roles in the Philippines, where they seem to dig the mestizos (colonial mentality for sure!). More so since he can actually speak Tagalog. Props to the guy for learning the language. A lot of us American born can't even speak it to save our life, unless you count naughty body parts and curse words. Ha ha. Anyways, just thought I'd throw this in here. Here's his webpage and a link to his MySpace.

By the way, I've never made adobo the way he makes it. No whole black peppercorns? Cut up garlic in small pieces, not whole and smashed? Five whole bay leaves? That's quite a bit there. Although I make my adobo with onions, most people don't put onions in theirs. Plus, my mother taught me never to add more salt since the "toyo" (soy sauce) is already salty. Well, at least the dude can cook and speak the language!

Pure revisited

[Update - renamed as Nuyo]

Yeah, we're suckers for this new yogurt place, Pure. We went again this afternoon after picking up TC who spent the day at Grandma's while Bert and I had lunch at Urban Solace sans child. The really nice worker was there again and remembered us. He even asked us what flavors we got this time. All the banquette seats were taken so we took the trio of Lucite barstools by the front window, which was fun because we got to people watch.

This is Bert's who had the chocolate and strawberry flavors with pb and chocolate chips with almonds. There were also mint candy pieces in there. I believe he added the caramel sauce on top. I normally like mint but not with these flavor combos. This is TC's cup. She just had the tart mango with coconut jel and another type of gel cube (red) with sprinkles, a few pieces of mochi, and blueberries. No sauce on hers.
This is mine - I kept the flavors simple with chocolate with vanilla, but this time I also put in a little bit of the plain. Next time I won't do that since I couldn't really taste it since it was covered with toppings, which included chopped almonds, mini chocolate chips. Oh yeah, and I added tiny mochi pieces (the white squares you see) and a few bits of cheesecake topped off with chocolate and raspberry sauce. The other sauce I forgot to mention in my previous post was "chamoy" which is a sour reddish plum paste (think of li hing mui candies). Not my thing.Another thing about their choice of music/videos...they were playing a few innapropriate songs. Oh my gosh, I sound like Tipper Gore. I don't think playing some rap chick's video where she says the word "bullsh*t" and talks about doing guys left and right should be played when little kids are present. The other day when we swere there, there were quite a lot of children. Today it was just our daughter, but no matter! Crap like that should be banned! Luckily from where we were seated, we were not facing any of the plasma screens. Right after that video by who knows who, they played Rick James' classic "Give It To Me Baby", which I admit is a cool and funky song if you think about it in a tongue in cheek way, but listen to the words! And the video is a bit salacious as well. Yeah, my kid doesn't need to see Rick James in his poodle braids getting all up with three women in a hot tub.

Urban Solace

Since we didn't go anywhere on the actual day of Valentine's, we ended up having a rare lunch date together (sans kid) at a relatively new eatery in North Park, Urban Solace . Here are a few other reviews from other blogs and from LMC's blog and yelp . That's Bert's back. : )

We got there a few minutes right after it opened (11:30'ish). Parking was available on the side streets; we were able to find a spot next to the Bargain Surplus Store (not it's real name but I can't think of it right now on North Park Way, just a few steps South of the restaurant.
These photos are too dark. I didn't take any near the bar area (which is gorgeous by the way). We chose to sit to the right of the really really high wall that divides the space in half. It's a pretty long space with white walls and huge pieces of art work. I liked the spare and simple tables and chairs - very minimalist.

For starters, we shared a cup of the Creamy Tomato and Fennel soup topped off with a crouton and white pepper creme fraiche ($2.50). This was really good! The soup was indeed creamy and thick and didn't taste like you were drinking watered down ketchup. Yeah, bad comparison, but when I think of tomato soup (take Campbell's for example), I think of watery ketchup. No, folks, this was quite the opposite end of the spectrum. We could have had a whole bowl of this delicious soup!

The soup went really well with these - a plate of Warm Cheese Biscuits with Orange Honey Butter ($4). There were five biscuits. We each had two and picked on the last one. We both enjoyed the flaky topping and the tender melt in your mouth quality of these cheese biscuits! I'd order this again!

Both of our entrees were priced at $9.75 each and came with a side of their popular sweet potato fries. This was my choice, the Monte Diego, which is like a Monte Cristo but with sweet egg bread, fontina cheese, ham and sliced pear and lightly dusted with powdered sugar. The jelly was raspberry currant. I ended up eating only half because I wanted to save room for yogurt for later (yes, Pure again!). The sandwich was fine but I thought the bread was too thick so I ended up picking at mine and just eating the filling. The pear was a bit on the crisp side, so perhaps it wasn't ripe. My daughter ended up eating the other half (plus the leftover fries) for dinner tonight and she enjoyed it!

Cross section of the Monte Diego. Bert had the grilled Albacore Tuna sandwich on an egg bun with arugula, tomato, lemon thyme and grilled onions. I thought it was rather thick and only tried a cooked edge since I'm not big on raw or slightly undercooked fish. He liked it though and was pretty happy with his choice.

After I took this shot, I realized I should have a chosen a better looking sweet potato fry! This was kind of limp! The ketchups were served in tiny bowls along with sea salt and pepper. These fries were addicting but I made sure to utilize my internal off switch and ate only half, saving the rest for later.

Mmmm...

It was a charming little restaurant and a nice addition to the many eateries in the North Park area. The service was attentive and efficient. On a nicer day (it was a bit cool and overcast), it would have been nice to sit out on the side patio. We'd would go here again since there were other items on the menu that we were curious to try, like the Braised Beef Cheek Sloppy Joes and the Lobster and Artichoke Pot Pie along with their desserts! Glad we tried it!

Earlier, we passed by the Pink Elephant Bar (this was the window). In the reflection you can see the new parking structure right off the corner of North Park Way and 30th.

Apertivo was one block up from Urban Solace...I'd heard good things about this place from a co-worker. He lives in this area and just raved about Apertivo.

We checked out their menu and the prices and food offerings seemed very reasonable! Another reason to go have lunch or maybe dinner together!

After our quick jaunt in the North Park area, we headed over to the Mission Valley mall, passing by this place on Camino del Rio North. I remember back in high school (yes, 20+ years ago) people would drive up to LA to eat their burgers and get their free stickers. They (meaning horny boys) would alter their stickers, removing the "B" and the "R" so it read "In-N-Out Urge". Niiiiice and classy.

On to Pure!

Ang Sarap Sarap! Adubung Manuk!

You go Travis Craft!!!!!

This guy rocks! I like how he throws in some Taglish, "Welcome sa kusina ko", "golden brown", "fifteen minutes" and "mag-absorb"!

The cool thing is that this guy can speak fairly clear Tagalog, although with an American accent! He's spoken more Tagalog than I've done in my entire life! Good for him!

I saw this post on I Can Do That's blog and found it amusing. I wanted to post it here as well to share the joys of making "Adubung Manuk" (should be "Adobong Manok", which is Chicken Adobo).

I actually had to do something like this for Tagalog class 13 years ago. I had just started my Counseling job and wanted to take Tagalog for hurtle credit (hey, it was 5 units!). We had to show our spoken mastery (ha ha) of the language, so I chose the "make a cooking demonstration" video. I ended up videotaping myself at my mom's house. She supplied the ingredients and even grated that coconut herself on that low wooden stool thing and practically wrote the script for me! I got my "A"! Thanks Mom!

Philipino!!!!

I saw this sign at North Park Produce in Chula Vista:
What is y'all? Ig'nant?

FILIPINO! FILIPINO! FILIPINO! With an effin' F people!

On the flip side (pun intended), at least they had Filipino eggplants there! In fact, they have about 4 other kinds! Awesome! I love this store! So much variety in produce and international items!

Greenbox #12

And this painted greenbox is located where?
Answer to post next week! For sure! Not in two months!

Flashbacks

Yesterday I tried to sell a load of my mom's old "groovy" dresses from the 60's at Wear It Again Sam, which is a vintage clothing store on 5th Ave in Hillcrest. It's located where the Blue Door Bookstore used to be (I'm showing my age since they closed awhile back!) and next to the old Guild Theatre (that's closed too!). The owner said she only bought vintage clothes from the 20's up to the early 60's, stopping at the Jackie Kennedy era. My mom's dresses were mid to late 60's, so therefore it was beyond the era she sold. I remember seeing some of those dresses in old photographs when she still was a teacher in the Philippines. They were tailor made for her and boy, they are impossible for me to fit into!

My mom tried to make me wear these dresses back in 6th grade. Now, this was a long ass time ago. We're talking 1980 here. Despite my protests that the dresses were WAY out of style, I gamely tried on these dresses to make her get off my back and found that I couldn't even pull them past my hips. Damn, how skinny was my mom? She was only 85 pounds when she got married in 1967. Sheeyit, I was in 6th grade and I'm pretty sure I weighed more than 85 pounds! Plus, I was already taller than my mom (she's 5' 2") by the time I got to 6th grade.

Sooo, after the owner from Wear it Again looked through my pile, she suggested that I take it over to Flashbacks which was just a few stores down. If my memory serves me right, Flashbacks used to be the site of the old Off the Record used record store. The owner sold it due to increasing rent and I think it's since been resurrected on University Avenue in the North Park area. Flashbacks is also a used clothing store which carries stuff from the 40's up to the 80's and a few fashion forward (the salesman's line) pieces as well. They jumped on those dresses and out of the 15 I brought, they chose 11 of them. I could either get in store credit or 30% off the total offering price. Since I was selling these for my mom, I didn't think she'd want the in-store credit, so I took the cash (they actually cut her a check) option. The total was $99.something but with 30% off, it came to $68.95. For 11 dresses, that was about $6+ a dress. I'm sure they'll mark those up big time, but considering my mom hasn't worn these in decades, that's an extra $68 she can use for other things and it leaves more room in her closet for her other stuff. I can't believe she saved all those dresses.

I wish I took photos of them, but they are all pretty much mini skirts with sleeves above the elbows, some with Peter Pan collars. There was a sleeveless A-line in there in a hideous mustard yellow and pink floral print. There were a few funky prints in there as well. Good luck to whoever buys those dresses because you have to have a sub-zero size body to fit into them!

Side note - on our short walk to Flashbacks, we passed by a tattoo parlor. This heavily tattooed guy was standing by the door and he said, "Hey how's it going!" to me so I replied, "It's going all right, thanks". What floored me was his next comment, "Hey, I used to see you a lot at the Costco!". When I asked him which Costco, he said he used to work at the one on East H Street for nine years. Yep, that would be the one I go to. I told him he had a good memory. He apologized for possibly freaking me out, but I actually wasn't too freaked out. I don't really remember him though - he must have been one of the ID checkers or maybe one of the cashiers.

Pure Frozen Yogurt

[Update - renamed as Nuyo]

Today we went to this new Yogurt Place a few doors down from Pho Hiep & Grill on Telegraph. Pure Frozen Yogurt opened a few months ago and I've heard a lot of good things about it from friends. Here are a few reviews from Yelp.
The space is long and narrow with moss green walls painted with trees and fruit. This is the view form the back where the self-serve yogurt spouts are.

You get your cups - there are two sizes. Both seem kind of large. I believe the larger one is for either gluttons, or those who want to get shave ice.

There were several flavors available, some tart and some sweet. These are just four of them: plain, peach, strawberry and green tea. They also had chocolate, vanilla, vanilla without sugar, peanut butter, cookies and cream and mango.

You pay by the ounce...that includes your toppings too.

I didn't take pictures of the toppings bar, but they had various candies like mini M & M's, Reeses Pieces, gummy bears, crushed cookies, dried fruit, nuts (almonds, peanuts, walnuts), cereals (I couldn't even name them, but they had quite a selection), granola, fresh fruit (blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, mangoes, strawberries) and even cubed coconut jel and lychees and longan fruit! You can use those toppings as ingredients for shave ice. Mmmm, I'll have to try that next time. Lastly, you can choose to top off your creation with some sauces - chocolate, vanilla, condensed milk, raspberry, peanut butter, caramel and marshmallow!!! One of the workers was really nice - a young Filipino American guy who offered us samples and gave us tips on the flavors and combinations. This concoction below was TC's. She had the cookies and cream yogurt with blueberries, multicolored sprinkles, and mini M & M's. I also put in a couple of cubes of coconut jel for her. Man, these cups are pretty deep.

This is Bert's cup of yogurt - he chose the peanut butter with bits of cheesecake, mini chocolate chips and chopped almonds. He also put caramel sauce (his favorite) on top.

And here's mine. I was adventurous. I had Chocolate, Vanilla and Mango yogurt with pieces of sno-caps, crushed almonds, a few blue berries, coconut jel and topped off with chocolate and raspberry sauce. Our grand total was $9.04. I think most of that came from my cup. We ended up sharing our flavors. In the future, I won't mix mango with chocolate. Sour with sweet, not good.

There was a mini bar area with supercool Lucite barstools. It was busy when we got there but we were able to snag the end of the banquette.

TC got to sit in one of these spacey chairs.

There were plasma screens against one wall and another one in a corner. The only thing was that the music they played was all happy and poppy - example - Ashley Simpson, Gwen Stefani or rap-like (couldn't even tell you the artists' names). Not my thing. Now if they were playing Megadeth and Sepultura, that would be great. Just kidding. More like Iron Maiden, Van Halen (David Lee Roth era please, none of that Van Hagar shit), Queen, Boston, early Def Leppard...That's more like it. I understand the store's music selection - I know they're going for the "youth" market and I am verging on old fart territory. Please leave me along in my 80's time warp!

I think we'll be going here more often.

Ono's Cafe

Wow, a four day weekend! TC and I had a busy morning running errands and having lunch together from food bought at the service deli in Mitsuwa Marketplace. I ended up getting a container of edamame beans, one California roll and two packs of fried oysters. There was no place to sit, so we ended up sitting at the tables outside of the Starbucks around the corner. I used up an old giftcard I had to buy me a Frapp and TC an apple juice. It was nice and warm that day and we had just come from South Sun Beads on Aero Drive, one of my favorite new places to stoke my current obsession with earring making. After going home later that day , we ended up relaxing and later, after Bert arrived home, we went out to dinner to use up an Ono's cafe gift card we received as a Christmas gift. I had been to Ono's before, my most recent outing was last summer - here's a link to my old post. Maybe 3 or 4 years ago, Ono's was initially a wraps place that also served smoothies. I wasn't impressed back them. It has since been revamped by Edwin (a Pinoy brother), the owner/sometimes Chef and has opened up dinner service about a year ago. I guess you'd call this Asian fusion. I'd only been here for lunch 2-3 times, so we were curious about dinner...It was about 7:15'ish when we arrived. According to the waitress, we had just missed the big dinner rush so now the servers were more relaxed instead of rushed. We were initially seated at an open table near the right hand side, near the front window. There were booths along the side. I noticed one was emptied out after the occupants left so we asked if we could be seated at the booth instead. The waitress obliged our request and we transferred our waters and items to the booth. Another selfish reason I wanted the booth was so that I could snap photos of the food without wierd stares from neighboring diners. And also, so our family could have privacy. The booths were pretty high. You coudn't see anyone's head over those booths unless you were Shaquille O'Neal or that gigantic Chinese dude who stuffed his arm down a dolphin's throat to retrieve an object, which saved it's life. We ordered an appetizer, the Mushroom Poppers ($10). Yeah, it sounds really lame, like Jalapeno Poppers but we wanted something different and something FRIED! For those of you who need to know, here's their online menu , which by the way, I noticed needs to be updated. Their prices are outdated.
These are mushrooms stuffed with salmon and cream cheese, which are breaded and fried. It's served with two kinds of roe (tobiko and masago), wasabi aioli and unagi sauce and topped with sprouts.

It's also served witha side of papaya relish.

Not a great shot, here's a cross section of the mushroom popper:

All of our entrees came with miso soup. This was too salty. I only had a few spoons of it. Even if it wasn't salty, I was saving my appetite for my entree and for the dessert.

For starters, ordered the Pear Mushroom Salad ($11). I had to ask the waitress a few questions about this salad since I was curious about the preparation and some of the ingredients. The salad consisted of spring mix with sauteed button and shiitake mushrooms mixed with a balsamic reduction. The salad also had tiny bits of chopped tomatoes, thin slivers of pickled ginger (I had to ask about that) , slices of poached Asian Pear (which was poached in red wine - I asked!), candied walnuts, a raspberry miso vinaigrette and was topped with enoki mushrooms. There was a lot going on with this salad, I tell you. I liked how the bitter greens played off against the sweet yet earthy mushrooms. There was texture with the walnuts, the pickled ginger and the smooth Asian Pear slices which were hidden under the salad greens. I also enjoyed the slight tang from the dressing. Again, not being a dressing lover, this says a lot. I would order this salad again, or try to recreate this at home. It seems easy enough. Close up of salad:

I ordered the Kalbi Ribs plate ($17) which came with rice and Kimchee salad. That salad, by the way is about as far away as you could get from traditional kimchee, which is all right with me, but purists may not agree. The ribs were sliced very thinly. There were about 6 strips there and I ate 3 of them, saving the rest for lunch the next day. The "Kimchee" salad had spring greens with bits of cubed mango and tomatoes and onions. There was a bit of a slight sourness to it, like kimchee would have, but none of the pungent spiciness and heat normally associated with kimchee.After my plate arrived, I realized I had ordered meat and it was a Friday. A no no for Catholics during Lent. I ate it anyways.

For TC, she had the safe (for tonight at least) Teriyaki Chicken with Rice and Asian Slaw ($12). It was a lot of food and we saved the other half for lunch as well. She also have a few pieces of my kalbi ribs. She liked gnawing the meat, fat and connective tissue around the cross cut bones.

Bert had the Macadamia nut encrusted Salmon with Thai Black Rice and a side of Asian Slaw ($17). The salmon was topped with a banana sauce. IWhen we saw the description in the menu, I thought it was Mafran or Jufran. We tasted it, we could tell it was not banana ketchup after all so we asked the waitress why the sauce was red. The answer? Fresh bananas pureed with raspberries. Aaaaaah. The rice was molden in a cup and placed upside down on the oblong plate with the salmon resting atop the mound. The salmon was also zigzagged with wasabi aioli and topped with fresh cut chives. The Asian slaw was green and red cabbage slivers with diced tomatoes and dried cranberries. A close up of that macadamia nut salmon:

We shared a smoothie - the Island Princess which was a strawberry, banana, passionfruit and mango slushy ($4.25)! Delicious!

Here's the upholstery on our high backed booths. Not sure of this is real or mock writing.

Our dessert were the Malasadas ($5). There were ten of them and we chose half cinnamon and half sugar. These were like cakey doughnut balls (ha). I liked the sugar ones better while Bert was the cinnamon fan. These were made fresh to order and took about 5-8 minutes. They arrived piping hot and with a bit of a crisp exterior. So good! I like that they are bite size. Real malasadas are big ole honkin' things. When we were in Hilo, I could barely finish half! These wer just right.

Cross section of Malasada:

One thing we liked about dinner at Ono's was the attentive service from our waitress. She was quite helpful with our menu selection and made sure to get answers to my questions. She was cheerful and didn't seem annoyed by our questions about the entree ingredients. A true mark of great service! Another thing I liked was the size of their water glasses (see below)! Most places give big-ass glasses which seems like a waste to me. I hardly ever take more than 5 sips during dinner. Even when we bring out daughter, she gets a huge gallon of water as well. I hardly drink water when eating. I don't see how people could finish giant glasses of water. Doesn't that take up more space when you could be eating food? God, now I sound like a pig! But seriously, we're not camels here, a small cup will do, so thank you Ono's for not wasting water!

Here are TC's Mini Uglies (from Ugly Doll, courtesy of last year's Comic Con)...This one is Moxie:

and here is Moxy with Toodee!

These were $5 and you can hang them from your belt loop or use it as a key chain. TC hung these on her mini purse. So cute!