Asia Cafe

After the fairly decent weather we had during President's Weekend, it finally rained on Monday. Buckets of rain! Having felt quite violated after eating at the Pukecake Factory, I wanted to eat some down home Asian food in the hood. That meant a trip up to the corner of Market and 47th to Asia Cafe. This is that very intersection - Asia Cafe is behind that Brake/Oil Change/Tune Up place, in a run down strip mall full of Lao/Thai businesses.
There it is. Never mind the derelicts that are hanging out in front of the other shops.

The condiments tray. See the minced garlic glass jar? That's NOT minced garlic in there. It's some sort of fish paste. It's quite strong. Try it if you dare. There's also hot chili sauce, Sriracha, fish sauce, soy sauce and chopped peanuts.

We sat in the corner (on the opposite side of the door opening since it was cold!). Check out this poster for a Vietnamese Spring Concert. It was autographed by all of the performers. More specifically, look at the dude on the left...Yays!!! He's rockin' the Prince look. The Morris Day eyeliner. The Little Richard moustache. The Spectrum photo hand pose. What a fkn scream! I wonder what he sounds like when he sings? Is he a Prince impersonator? Can he dance? I want to see this guy perform! Let's go to the concert!

Another version of the poster plus little figures of old Asian peasants flanked by 99 cent figures of little children. These are the same kind of figures you'd find in your Lolo or Lola's house. Hell, my parents have those cheap ass figures cluttering up their knick knack shelves, except it's bird figures and dogs. Nice. Oh yeah, if they're really old school, they'll have the old Asian man and old Asian women statues wearing a wooden yoke over their shoulders with pails of water. Before you think I'm knocking this place's decor, relax. I likes it. I think it adds to the authenticity, those plus Laotian calendars and pictures of their King or ruler. No fancy decorations here. That's the way they roll here.

Here's our view from our corner. My favorite place to sit in the summer is where that guy's sitting because that's where the fan hits you plus you get the breeze from the door.

Bert's Iced Coffee and TC's fresh coconut juice:

Mmm...fresh coconut meat! Don't eat too much though - you might get the squigz.

Their glass door couldn't quite close all the way. When anyone opened it, it made a cringe inducing scraping noise along the floor. Screee!!!!! You can kind of see the marks where the bottom of the door scraped the floor.

The Goi Cuon with Shrimp...on the everpopular Christmas plates!

Bert had their version of Pork Chop with Rice. This is the view on the Pork Chop Side:

Here's the other side of the plate. There's also a fried egg. What I liked about this egg was that it wasn't entirely runny; the yolk was partially cooked. Runny eggs gross me out. But wtf, this wasn't my meal, this was my husband's. I really liked this view of his plate because they arranged the tomato and cucumber slices so nicely, alternating them. The tomatoes almost looked liked eyes. There were also pickled vegetables on top of the rice. This pork chop had a deeper flavor than the one we had at Pho Anh. Hot Fudge ordered this several years ago and I remember eyeing her plate while my mouth was watering.

And here is the rice dish we almost always order whenever we are here. It's not on the menu, so ask for it by name, the Nem Khao. It's crunchy fried rice with chopped green onions, sour sausage, peanuts, cilantro and chili peppers. They serve it with lettuce leaves, mint, and cilantro. You can eat the rice wrapped up in the leaves and herbs. Or you can just eat it on your plate without all that. Either way, it's one of my favorite dishes. Ever.

We love Asia Cafe. The food is always good. The service is prompt. There's no bullshit here - no hovering and no pressure (like at some other places where you feel like they want you to finish eating and GTFO) to leave. It's very chill here. We like that.

TC's haircut and the Cheesecake Factory

The Friday before Valentine's day was a day off for me as well as TC. We both had a four day weekend because of Presidents' Day (Thanks George and Abe). That morning, we took TC to my hairstylist to get her hair cut. And by cut, I mean, 9 inches chopped off!!!

Actually, we had planned this for awhile. She'd been wanting shorter hair and bangs. She hadn't had bangs since kindergarten. Her hair has been waistlength (and occasionally grazing her butt) since she was four. She is now eight and a half. We both thought it would be a good idea for her to donate her hair for people who have lost their own hair to cancer.

Locks of Love requires a minimum of 12 inches. We didn't want to go that short. One of my friends told me that Pantene would take 8 inches, so we went online, found the info and decided to go for it. My stylist sectioned her hair off in four smaller ponytails in the back and cut them one by one. If you cut just one big old pony tail, the ends won't be even, so you have to cut them in sections (that's what my stylist said).
Aaaaagh! Here goes!
My daughter now has shoulder length hair with a bits of choppy layers in the back. The sides of her hair are angled and razored (but not as extreme as my killer rocker chick hair was). Her bangs are also razored and angled. She looks quite hip. My baby is growing up. Here's her pony tail which will be donated...
After the marathon hair session (1 1/2 hours), we headed over to the Otay Ranch Town Center to use up a gift card we got for Christmas at the Cheesecake Factory. Yes, it's a chain (hangs head in shame), but Bert and TC aren't as picky as me, so WTF.
Well, at least it wasn't crowded like the Fashion Valley one; they always have a line out the door. Personally, I don't think their food is worth a longass wait.
Whoever decorated this place had the Las Vegas aesthetic in mind. Faux Egyptian columns?

We were seated in a circular area in one of the corners. This was the view from our window - that is Barnes and Noble bookwhore, I mean bookstore. When we walked into the seating area, there was a huge circular table with a bunch of unruly kids. One of them was screaming and throwing a tantrum. TC looked at me and made her hand in the shape of a claw, which is our "secret" sign of spotting bratty kids. We snickered and rolled our eyes to to ourselves as we sat down. Great, this was going to be a really relaxing lunch, what with the children of the corn next to us.

Here's more of that lovely decor (not):

Their special menu...we ordered the first item listed, the Cashew Chicken Salad:

Bert had a Caramel Coffee and TC had a hot Chocolate. Like their desserts, the Cheesecake Factory deems it "necessary" to drown their shit with whipped cream. I think it's overkill.

They gave us bread to start:

Bert ordered a bowl of clam chowder which he intended to share with TC. This did not even resemble clam chowder. It had a brownish tinge to it. There were too many flecks of herbs in it.

And of course, it was too salty. This was the first clam chowder I've ever seen that looked this way. Maybe it was a variation or something, but it was not even pale. It looked almost like a mushroom soup with the coloring. I think the cook should be slapped like a bitch by Samuel L. Jackson and made to listen to Kenny G, Yanni, or Celine Dion for his/her egregrious abuse of thyme in the soup.

I ordered the Chicken Sandwich sliders. There were four mini buns with breaded chicken, plus sides of sliced tomatoes, pickles and lettuce. The sauces were mayo and a spicier mayo. I only ate two. TC and I could have shared this...

Closeup of the chicken parts slider:

Here is the Cashew Chicken Salad - this was just another version of a Chinese Chicken Salad. I just ate the greens - a mixture of iceberg and romaine andyour bagged cabbage mix (red and green with slivered carrots). The dressing was citrusy. Those fried things are tortilla strips. The chicken tasted flat and dead, so I didn't eat any. This was a pretty big portion by the way. I think we ordered too much food. We ended up taking most of it home.

Here are TC's cheeseburger sliders. I can't believe this is an "appetizer". I thought the sliders would be a little smaller. They were pretty large. She only ate one and I had one. We took the rest home.

These sliders weren't so bad, but I still think the Shake Shack in NYC turns these MF's out. Keep keep it on and you don't stop...

Bert had the Crab Cake sandwich with fries and tartar Sauce (I always picture Montgomery Burns from The Simpsons evilly murmuring, "Let the fools have their Tar Tar sauce...". I had a bite of this and it was pretty tasty, but again, too salty. Hypertension alert.Well, at least we used a gift card for part of this meal...Eating here just reminds me of how bland and soul less these chain restaurants are. I prefer to eat at smaller places where you can see and taste the care they put into their food. This is just food cranked out to the masses. I'll have to make up for this travesty by going to Asia Cafe!

Pho Anh Revisited and Blueberry Strudel

It's the return of my favorite Tokidoki bag, the Concerto Punk print in Graziosa (Messenger Bag style). Look at all of the cute characters! There's an angry razor blade, several vinyl LP's, a snake haired girl holding a Molotov cocktail, a mohawked baby with a Flying V guitar, a kissing couple (the dude has some serious Elvis hair!), Adios Star playing drums, and more. I also like the multicolored zipper, which is de rigeur for the Tokidoki bags. I like the messenger style the best. The other styles are either too tiny to hold anything for me or too large and bulky. This size is kind of in the middle for me. I find that with the tinier bags, you don't get to see much of the print pattern. This is my favorite print so far.
One week later, we were back at Pho Anh in the Southland Plaza strip mall in the South Bay. It's considered San Diego, not quite Imperial Beach. We sat in the back this time instead of near the front. It's a pretty long and deep place, but narrow.

Bert told me those (fake) plants were called "Creeping Charlies". I guess they aren't spider plants after all. There were A LOT of those plants in here.

We got the fried spring rolls. They were stingy with the accompanying vegetable/herbs. There were about two leaves of lettuce and two sprigs of mint. No cilantro, just some shredded carrot, which I didn't think served any purpose except as a garnish. I was disappointed in this. The fried spring rolls looked too lumpia-ish to me. They tasted okay, but we've had way better and with more lettuce/mint/cilantro.

I ordered the Grilled Pork Chop with Rice plate. I really liked this - the marinade on the pork chop was smoky and sweet. The pork chop was also cooked just right as well. It wasn't dried out. I loved the bits of fat on the edges too. Mmmm...I barely made a dent in this- I ended up saving half of it for dinner later. Ooh, look at the cucumbers. Fancy! Sorry this is ugly looking. I actually forgot to take a photo of Bert's dish. He had already started eating it and put in Sriracha sauce. Well, this is Bun with Grilled Chicken. Exciting huh. I did't bother taking a photo of TC's dish which was the same shrimp soup with rice noodles from the week before.

Other than the pitiful amounts of greens with the spring rolls, we were happy with our orders at Pho Anh. We got served again by the chef. The crowd eating there was mixed. We saw white, Mexican, African American, and some older Filipinos (heard them speaking in Tagalog). There's not a lot of Vietnamese people here in the South Bay. At our local Vietnamese place, Pho Hiep, it's pretty mixed too, but most of the "Asians" tend to be Filipinos. Pictured below is my new favorite dessert to make - Blueberry Strudel, courtesy of my cute nurse friend (she's appeared before in writing in my blog - I saw "Twilight" the 2nd time with her and we went to 59th and Lex in December).

Blueberry Strudel

Ingredients:

2 Sheets of Puff Pastry (I used the Indo-European brand from North Park Market - it's only $4.79 and the sheets are much bigger than Pepperidge Farm). Make sure you defrost this ahead of time - it takes about an hour. I used Pepperidge Farm the 2nd time I did this and the filling was too much. For these sheets, it doesn't seem like enough, but it works actually. It's so damn good!

Filling:

1 8 ox block of softened cream cheese

1 cup of sugar

2 tsp of vanilla extract

1 egg yolk, beaten (in another bowl, beat another egg yolk to brush on top of pastry before putting on topping)

1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries (I used the organic wild blueberries from Trader Joe's)

Topping:

2 tbsp softened butter

1/2 cup sliced almonds

1/2 cup sugar

Glaze:

1 tbs melted butter

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp lemon juice (I just eyeballed it)

Here's what you do:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Defrost the puff pastry on a parchment-lined baking sheet and keep cool.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the softened cream cheese, 1/2 cup of sugar, 2 tsp of vanilla and 1 of the egg yolk.
4. Gently fold in the blueberries.
5. Spoon the filling down the long side of the puff pastry.
6. Brush the edges of the pastry with beaten egg yolk.
7. Fold over and seal well. (I like to turn it over so you don't see the "seam")
8. Make 3 or 4 slashes on top of the pastry to allow air to escape.
9. Brush the top with extra egg yolk.
10. In a small bowl, combine the softened butter, 1 cup of sugar, and almonds until the mixture is crumbly.
11. Press the topping into the dough.
12. Bake for 35-45 minutes.
13. Cool.
14. In a second small bowl, combine the remaining 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 tbsp melted butter, and lemon juice.
15. The icing should be runny (if not, add a little milk): drizzle it over the strudel.

NOTE - Make sure you seal the sides of the pastry very well. And when putting the crumb topping on, press firmly so the pastry is encased in the sugar topping. The first time I made this, it came out quite well. The second time, I used a different puff pastry, the Pepperidge Farm (which my friend uses, but her version is better than mine). It was totally fkd up because I melted the butter for the topping which was a mistake. I beat the filling a little too much so it was too runny, thus is spilled over and was hard to seal. Since the Pepperidge Farm sheets are smaller, my fkd up filling overflowed because I didn't seal it well either. It opened up and ended up looking like Lard Ass Davy Hogan's barf after the blueberrie pie eating contest. If you are pop culturally challenged, are over the age of 70, or have lived in a cave or under a rock for the past twenty years, please watch this heartwarming movie clip from Rob Reiner's 1984 movie classic, "Stand by Me" if you don't get my reference.

And to drive the point home even further, please enjoy this subtle homage, nay a paean to "Barf", if you will, from "Family Guy" :

These are the two strudels I made. This is attempt #3. I didn't take pictures of Attempt #2. I meant to bring it for my co-worker's birthday, but I was pissed off because it opened up and didn't look "pretty". We kept one and gave the other one to our neighbor across the street who loved it. Since I didn't bring the strudels to work that morning, Bert saved the day by getting a fruit strudel at the Hans and Harry Bakery in Bonita. I told my colleagues that I refused to serve them something that didn't measure up to my standards. They told me that they didn't care and would have eaten it no matter what it looked like as long as it tasted good. I knew it would still taste good, but I wanted it to be perfect (because I am anal).

A close up of one of the pieces with the sugar glaze...

I'll be making this again really soon! A new favorite!

In - n - Out

After doing a few errands that morning, we made a quick pitstop to this place:
Yes, the return of In-n-Out. And on Valentine's Day. How appropriate. Ha ha. I needed to make a return at the Otay Ranch Mall so we went here for a quick bite to eat. I didn't want to eat too much since Bert and I were going to have dinner at JRDN later than night, so he and I just shared a burger. TC had her own. Man, there were tons of workers behind the counter:
We also got a chocolate shake which was so thick we had to eat it with a spoon. Unless your lips have suction like a Hoover or a Dyson, the milkshake wasn't going up the straw worth shit.

We sat by the counter...it was mega busy that day.

Here's our single patty hamburgers. Bert forgot to get ours with grilled onions. That is my Tokidoki Concerto Punk Graziosa messenger bag (Fall 2008 Collection). I love this print! It's got little punk rockers singing, selling t-shirts, playing guitar, a character holding a broken bottle. Plus, the predominant color in the bag is dark purple and gray! Purple, if you didn't already know it, is one of my favorite colors!

Our hamburgers with fries (to share). No animal style since it's kind of messy. I'm not a fan of the thousand island sauce on my fries. Actually In-n-Out's fries aren't that great. Remember the crinkle cut fries at Carl's Junior? No? That's because they haven't done 'em that way since the early '80s! I liked those! Rally's fries are better than these - they have some sort of seasoning on it that gives it more flavor.

In any case, I'll be going here again next week with my co-worker!