New Blogger in Town

Yep, there is a new blogger in town. Alice Q. Foodie. Looks to be a great one – she’s had several insightful posts so far and seems well versed in San Diego food stuffs. Angie, I’m going to work on that list of 30 Some Favorite San Diego Food Experiences.

Zoo News
If you have a zoo membership, you get free food at Chipotle on Saturday June 3rd. All Day. Morning, noon and night if you want. Sweet. They aren’t the greatest thing since sliced bread (they have a certain taste that you instantly associate with Chipotle brand burritos) but for free it can be worth it.

Another week, another post...

Once again, I really have nothing – haven’t been eating out much – and I don’t want to do another “run down to the kitchen and take pictures of random foods” type of post. And my wife mentioned that we’ve spent nearly 3 times as much this year as last year (year to date, of course) on eating out. What the *&%&$%? Ah, the joys of having an accountant in the family. I’d say last year was low because I was in the middle of drum roll please the South Beach Diet – something I do not believe I have mentioned yet. I don't dare! Oh, maybe I do dare.

My Indian food kick continues with pretty much weekly trips to Punjabi Tandoor – lovin’ that place – also tried the lunch special at The Indian Tandoor at the Mira Mesa food court next to KFC and the credit union. Great deal, just $6 for two meat selections, veggie, rice, naan and yogurt. But just alright in total flavor – the Chicken Masala wasn’t as creamy and rich as Punjabi. Ah, the bathroom scale is slowing moving up.

The same food court also has Amarin Thai – a rare food court restaurant with table service. Went recently with a group of coworkers – most had the beef salad, which looked tasty (around $7.25), I had the Yellow (or was it red?) Chicken Curry, tasty and just $5.95 as a lunch special, came with a watery soup, small salad and a mini egg roll – really tiny, which was fine with me.

Hope to get some real restaurant reviews going sometime...

Mixing It Up

I’ll post today - just a mix - because I wonder if there has ever been a food blog entry that has stooped so low as to mention a Sunday night Sopranos time meal of Domino’s Pizza? Probably, but here is another. We like the thin crust – we’ll get it a couple times a year when any other ideas fail us. I never understood the people that order their pizza with just one topping – most of the coupons are like that. Maybe kids like just a plain pepperoni – but I want mine with everything. And a tasty cold beverage.

What to post about?
I often thought about having a workplace blog called “Over the Wall” writing about the trivial comments I hear from over the cubicle wall. Samplings from this week: American Idol, Potty Breaks (no kidding!), Boyfriend This and That, American Idol….rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat. And so on…

Suck on it!
As you well know I’m in no way a BBQ connoisseur (or any other kind of expert) but I found this sauce at Henry’s, marked half off. I looked at the label, liked the name and found it nearly all natural and made with tomato paste, honey, molasses, mustard, horseradish and so on. Good stuff. Ah, and thank God in heaven, no high fructose corn syrup. Heck of a lot better than your typical grocery store sauce – many of them I find are not quite right for me. Great just for dipping chicken pieces in – I might even make up some ribs. But probably not.

I mentioned it was half off – once I got it home I thought, oh maybe I should have looked for a “sell by” date. The only thing I could find was 030605. Whoops. Bottling date or sell by? Who knows!

Pho Ca Dao
With the San Diego Restaurant Blog Master (or is it meister?) running a huge Pho retrospective (but leaving out Pho King – okay, whatever) I thought I would mention the only Pho restaurant I’ve been to, on Mira Mesa Blvd, in an old Coco’s restaurant. Pho Ca Dao – it’s a lunchtime, line out the door, type of place. I’ve been there several times with coworkers – for some reason I am usually disappointed with the amount of meat I get. Maybe I eat it too fast.

Service is always fast and friendly – bowls big, the eating is messy, prices are cheap (big spring rolls for under $3 for two of them, pho is $4 or 5 depending on the bowl size.) I don't care for the tripe or fatty meats - but give me some thinly sliced beef and I am lovin' it.

I did find another blogger entry on this place.

Nuts to you!
And the answer to entry yesterday. I do like nuts – I’m a little undecided by these Thai Lime & Chile Peanuts. I’m not craving them and the fact that the bag still around, half full, a week after purchasing should tell you something. But they aren’t bad. I guess I’ll just stick with my favorite – Spicy Hot Peanuts from Vons. Those things are tasty. I probably do a whole entry on nuts some day – maybe with a favorite nut to gobble on theme.

Aw, nuts!

There he goes, screws it all up with another post: Where is it from?

And what is it - of course peanuts, but what kind? I am frantically – no wait – furiously writing another post which will be my 50th post (by my records) and will have it up by the end of summer. Really, I’m actually pretty casually writing it – no need for me to get worked up over it.

Anyone get to that Taste of Escondido or La Bastide Wine Dinner? Yeah, me neither.

I've got nothing today...

I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel, kids. I’ve gots nothing to report on. I suppose I could do a Trader Joe food finds report or something similar. Maybe a report on McDonalds (dig those tasty big breakfasts – actually I haven’t had one for years.)

Heads up for Mom’s out there.
I did see an ad in the weekend section of the paper last week that said that Mom eats free at the Gaslamp Cohn restaurants on Sunday. The link on their website doesn’t work but the ad said entrées up to $30 were free 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the 4 downtown restaurants.

Random Bits

Just a few random bits today...

A Taste of Escondido
It's happening May 13th - they call it Tour de Fork. $25 - I think I'll pass since we just did the other one, but it sounds pretty good but I have no idea on the number of restaurants. I've never been to downtown Escondido, I knew there were some nice restaurants but I didn't know about all the art galleries. It sounds like a fun area to explore - although, I would imagine just a few blocks or is it bigger? Is it quaint? Or not so much?

One last cheese curd link
Can you stand it? Forgot to post this one last time: a curd entry on something called Slashfood. I see another entry on the site just linked to all the San Diego blogs including this very one. Lots of good reading on that site.

Indian food in Carmel Mountain Ranch
I've noticed this place for awhile, but Delhi Kitchen, near Trader Joe's, does a weekend buffet for all of $6.99. Pretty good - you get the Chicken Makhani (or am I thinking Karhai or Vindaloo - I can't keep all these straight!) and of course Masala, many veggie dishes plus the Tandoor Chicken. I wonder if they change it up? Missing was Chicken Saag which is usually really good. The website says Sat. and Sun. buffet, but the sign on the door says from 11:00 to 3:00 so it may not be ALL day. As always, I overeat at these things - I'm probably better off with a couple item combo.

Scott's Bookmarks

Lately I've been writing my posts at work in Word, storing them on a little USB storage thingie (yes, that is the technical term!) and bringing it home to post and add links and pictures but tonight I'm writing this on "the fly" right into blogger. Yes, with the other way I could get fired - but it has helped with boosting the number of posts per week! I imagine some long time readers were pretty flabbergasted to find new posts on a couple of consecutive nights!

And from website stats, I find that my number of unique hits per day has doubled to 6! So, welcome everyone! When I started this, it was sort of a "me too" type thing as a couple of other San Diego blogs had started up.

I guess it still it.

Me too.
With no clear plan tonight and no posts ready to go I was just going to post a cheese curd follow-up but then I saw a few bookmarks of area restaurants in a favorites folder (of course called San Diego Stuff) and thought I would just toss these out. These are places that must have sounded interesting - so I had saved a link - but I have not yet been to any of these:

http://www.tartinecoronado.com/home.htm

http://www.shakespearepub.com

http://www.elagave.com/1.html

http://www.candelas-sd.com/CANDELAS_VERSION2.html

Anyone been?

And that cheese curd follow-up.
The website for Real California Cheese has a search section where you can search for different types of cheese by area. Here they list the cheese curds I talked about - Chedder Curds "Squeakers" - a very good name for them! One place has them - in the CA Central Valley region.

Joey's Smokin' BBQ
Picked a slab up last night, after a little BBQ discussion on Chowhound. I couldn't resist! Yum! $20 gets you a full slab of baby backs, with beans (very good, nice and sweet), slaw (not too creamy) and corn bread muffins. Enough to share, but I was hungry enough I could have gone for more. A poster on Chowhound mentioned that a 3rd location was planned in Poway - I asked about that and the guy behind the counter said no, the deal fell through.

Eatin’ the North County Way Part 5

Many of the places I’ve been mentioning would be a great choice to get off the highway for – say, you might be stuck in traffic on “THE 15” on the way to that weekend getaway to Vegas (or maybe Hemet) and can’t take it anymore.

La Bastide Bistro
It’s the newish Scripps Ranch French restaurant – well, not that new, they will be celebrating their one-year anniversary in May with some special menus. I'd say it gets mentioned more than any other in the immediate area. Looking at their website, the first time we had been there for dinner I had a very good Sautéed Sea Bass, Red Bell Pepper, Chorizo, Garlic Confit with Italian Parsley Sauce (copied straight from the online menu – it’s also featured prominently on the webpage). We had also been there for lunch – my wife had a great Smoked Salmon Crepe with a delicious dill and lemon sauce. She also loves that chocolate mousse. I read that the chef came here from El Bizcocho – a little more about that in this newspaper article. You could probably just eat light and have dessert. I believe they may do half-priced appetizers in the bar area. Service is always friendly - and the owner usually is there to greet.

Takhrai Thai
We’ve probably hit this place more than any other in the last year – it’s just a comfortable place to end the workweek. In a previous incarnation this spot had been a pizza restaurant. They closed down, the place was remodeled and ta-da!!! I know little about Thai food, but I’ve been pretty pleased with what we’ve eaten here. Like Indian food, I don’t know Thai food from shinola – hey, I grew up on midwestern meat and potatoes! They have all the normal stuff - sizzling shrimp that, green curry this, pad see-lw, yum nuah and so on . I imagine it is your typical suburban Thai restaurant. I was a little disappointed in a recent takeout order – the shrimp were smaller than expected – otherwise we’ve been pretty pleased here, and lots more menu to try. I cannot find a website for them – but the first thing that comes up in a web search is a great little defunct blog called Table for Two which has a great report (and scroll to see more - included the farmers market report.)

Etc.
I’ll get around to continuing this multi-part series once I hit a few more restaurants (I haven’t mentioned any of the sushi restaurants yet) but for now I’ll put North County Inland Quick Ones™ on hiatus. So, there you have it the top 10 restaurants that I might recommend though I don’t really know about Jose O’Rielly’s so skip that one – and my wife reports that Miami Grill was just sorta ehh. That takes us to 8. Or maybe 5 eats.

I’ll be back with other reports and probably a doggie picture. Rorie had a great comment which I think applies to us – we either eat locally, within a short drive from our house, or we go downtown or to the coast. She also has a collection of Rancho Bernardo restaurants on her list – I hadn’t been including RB and Escondido even though they should be on a full San Diego North Inland report (maybe soon!) Here is her list:

Bernardo's
French Market Grill
Pearl
Passage to India
Spices Thai
Kabob House
Fortune Cookie

We’ve been to Pearl once for dim sum and I do want to go back – it was filling and plus dirt cheap. I've been meaning to hit Bernardo's or French Market.