mmm-yoso!!!

Quoc Te 2 International Restaurant

You know, I haven't had anything for my "One Trick Pony's" category in a while...but then again, I hadn't been back to Quoc Te in a while.

Over the years, I've been to Quoc Te more than a few times, and have tried more than a few items on the menu. In what became a disturbing trend, I've found that the food has gotten steadily worse over the years, to the point that the Missus has given up on eating here. I'm not sure that I'm the only one who notices this. But then again, check out the cavernous dining room at 12 noon on a recent Thursday.

There is basically only one item I order here(though I've been told the fried rice is pretty good):

I order the Banh Cuon Dac Biet($5.95), which is quite a lot of food for the price.

On a bed of steamed rice flour rolls(think Cheong Fun, but more delicate) and bean sprouts, resides shredded pork(always on the dry side), Gio Lua(lean pork sausage), two slices of a sour sausage,  four slices of a mung bean and shrimp cake(also usually very dry), topped with fried shallots.

It is a good amount of food....after all the Dac Biet(special) contains a little bit of everything that the other Banh Cuon dishes have.

There are up to six(I've had a few as 4, and as many as 6 - don't ask me why) rice flour rolls, on this day there were 3 types(I've had some different versions on occasion), one type with cloud ear fungus and ground pork, another with shredded pork, and the last with shredded dried shrimp.

I just realized this has sort of read like an inventory of sorts...but it's kind of how I approach this dish whenever I order it...."hmmmm, let's see what we got today...."

I pour Nuoc Mam Cham(Fish sauce based dipping sauce) all of it and devour the whole thing. It doesn't strike me as anything amazing or out of this world, but is very filling and refreshing on a hot day. Come to think of it, I've never had Banh Cuon that has knocked my socks off, but maybe "Friends of mmm-yoso" Beach or Billy can recommend somewhere, or even my good Blogger Buddy Wandering Chopsticks.

Until then, I'll just drop by Quoc Te whenever I want some Banh Cuon. Quoc Te has two locations, here's Annie's post on the University Avenue location, from Her Blog Green Beans in Writing. To the right is a photo of the listed "specials" in Vietnamese, I'm including a photo of the Chinese version below.

Quoc Te 2 International Restaurant
4344 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111

Is It Soup Yet? Guess the Restaurant - It's Fortune Cookie Express

I haven't done one of these in a while. I recently had a pretty good bowl of soup, and thought "hmmmm, maybe it's time to give away some coffee".

So here we go, I'll post a few photos. Email me  the name of the restaurant, and I'll Email the first 7 correct answers a free cup of Peet's. Now that it's getting a bit cooler, doesn't a cup of Peet's sound good?

Okay.....the name of this Chinese Fast Food  Restaurant is:

As much as I hate the name...it's Fortune Cookie Express, hidden behind other businesses on Balboa avenue. And most of the usual Fast-Food suspects are in view from Chop Suey to Beef Broccoli.

It's one of the last places on Earth that I'd be eating....but the Chow Ma Mein was recommended by the Twins at Sandwich Emporium. Turns out that you won't find it on the regular menu....but if you check out the photos on the side wall you'll see the a photos of "Chowmamein".

Looks pretty spicy, huh?

The Chow Ma Mein, seems to use all those Chinese Fast-food components...the thin cut stir fry refugee veggies, fast food chow mein noodles, the sliced beef, etc....

Though I enjoy the fried garlic, and the 5 pieces of shrimp, the Chow Ma Mein is a bit on the oily side, but for $3.99, who's going to really complain. The Chow Ma Mein is nice and spicy, though lacking in much other flavor, and will fill you up.......

BTW, there was one correct guess! Kudos to Kimmie!

Fortune Cookie Express
5931 Balboa Ave.                        
San Diego, CA 92111

Rickshaw Corner

The mention of Rickshaw Corner to many people I know elicit comments such as "you'd never catch me dead eating there", and "WHAT, that's like one step above Panda Express".  I guess part of the problem is the sign that says "Chinese & Japanese Cuisine", that scares people off, and smacks of fast food.

The interior doesn't really do anything to change your opinion. Nor does the plastic "menu", a plastic sheet with "Chinese Menu " printed on one side, and "Japanese Menu" printed on the other.

So what makes Rickshaw rise above the usual neighborhood generic Asian restaurant?  I usually visit Rickshaw once or twice a year, when the weather gets a bit colder, and only get one dish. The spicy Chow Ma Soup Noodles(Chow Ma Mein-$5.95):

Now I haven't had this at any other restaurant, so have not  developed a "baseline" for comparison. The Missus has heard of Chow Ma Mein, but has never had it. So what's to like? The nice spicy broth has a real "Korean" flavor, like the broth in Soon Tofu. I'm not a real fan of food being first stir-fried and then dumped on top of a soup, but in this case it's not too bad. Mainly because the pork, shrimp, bamboo shoots, and other vegetables are stir fried with dried chilies that adds another layer of heat. In addition there are large slices of garlic and several pieces of Zhacai (Sichuan preserved vegetable) that help give the soup even more "zip". The Bad? Well the noodles pretty much suck, no better then brittle "spaghetti" in broth. And of course there the bad side of stir-frying ingredients, then adding them to a soup often times mean that flavor that can be imparted to the soup never makes it. I thought it was rather ironic that one of the most inexpensive items on the menu, is probably the best. Another funny thing; every time I order this, I'm asked if I'm Korean......

On one of my recent visits, when looking up at the pictures of dishes above the counter I noticed what was called Chef's Special Beef Noodle Soup. I asked the Young Lady if the Beef Noodle Soup was Niu Rou Mein, and in a very surprised manner said "yes...". I guess I wasn't supposed to know that? So I thought I'd make a return visit and try the Niu Rou Mein($5.95):

Well, I had a feeling it was going to be the stir fried beef dumped into soup; but I just had to find out for myself. And unfortunately it was just stir fried beef dumped on top of the soup. The soup was nice and spicy, but was rather weak in the "beef flavor" department. The beef was fairly tender, but didn't have much flavor. And I really don't know what to do about the stir fried tomatoes. The same lousy noodles really didn't help this dish very much.

So that's about it, right? Well not quite; as I was paying, a Gentleman walked up to the counter and picked-up his order, and was conversing in Mandarin. He was the first Asian I recall seeing here. As I left I held the door open for Him as he was carrying a pretty large order. So we struck up a brief conversation. Seems that he's been coming here for over 10 years! He made some recommendations of a few items I should try. So I made one more take-out visit.

Hot and Spicy Won Ton($4.25):

More like Won Ton in teriyaki sauce. Not spicy, quite sweet. Won Ton skins were really thick.

Szechuan Chicken($8.25):

Basically, battered and deep fried chicken strips with a gooey brown sauce. The sauce was too sweet and very one-dimensional. The chicken were expertly fried and moist. But not really worth the eight bucks.

And lastly, the menu item that came with a strong recommendation. The Chicken Wings in Hot Garlic Sauce($8.25):

This chicken was puzzling to me. There were chilies, but not very much spice. I really couldn't detect much garlic flavor. The chicken was obviously fried, but not crunchy. There was not much of a soy sauce flavor, and though it was slightly "sticky", the wings were not very sweet. I truly wish that there was something taste-wise that stood out, but nothing really did. Call it non-committal wings. Not bad, not great, not what I'll order again.

I'll still go to Rickshaw, but I'm sticking with the Chow Ma Mein. If anyone knows of any other restaurant that makes a good Chow Ma Mein here in San Diego, I'd like to know. Rickshaw is a nice neighborhood Chinese/Teriyaki joint, and is a step above those Chinese Fast Food joints.

Rickshaw Corner
10428 Clairemont Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92124

Mandarin Canton - Is this Cake Noodle?

Tucked in a strip mall on Telegraph Canyon Road in Chula Vista is Mandarin Canton, like Golden Chopstick, a Chinese-American-Filipino restaurant.

One night about a year ago, the Missus called from work and told me she thinks she found that "noodle dish" I'd been looking for. What I'd been looking for is called "Cake Noodle" in Hawaii, and I've never seen it anywhere on the Mainland. I've had some dishes that used pan fried noodles, but they were not even close.

Cake Noodles are usually thin egg noodles that are fried until crispy in a pan (thus the cake), cut into squares, and topped with a thick stir fried "gravy" and various meats and veggies. I knew this was a Filipino-American Chinese restaurant when I noticed that no chopsticks are provided and we are served what we jokingly call Chinese Tortilla Chips! Actually these won ton pi chips are very sneaky, served with sweet and sour sauce, you end up eating one after the other....

On this visit I was really surprised that lunch specials were being served on a Sunday! The specials come with soup and either Fried Rice or Steamed Rice and range between $3.75-$4.75. One quick tip - stay with the steamed rice! We ordered one item off the lunch menu, and two off of the regular menu:

We received the Shrimp with Lobster Sauce ($4.75) that the Missus ordered off the specials menu:

I was pretty surprised to find that we got a whole order of Shrimp with Lobster Sauce. Shrimp with Lobster sauce is not my favorite dish, I call it "egg drop soup with shrimp", but the Missus enjoys it. This version was very mild, though the shrimp were large and tasty, ditto with the water chestnuts. It also started congealing as soon as it hit the table.

The Salted and Deep Fried Shrimp with No Shell ($11.00) came up next:

So fried, salty, garlicky, slightly spicy, and crunchy.....I don't think you need to say anything else about this dish. It's probably the most expensive dish on the menu, but it's alot of really large shrimp. I once saw a Young Lady order this with a side of the garlic/green onion/chili pepper topping, and eat a spoonful of the garlic with each shrimp, and loving it! Make sure you order them without shell.

Than came the dish I came here for - the Upside Down Pan Fried Noodles ($6.50). Yes, it's actually called that on the menu:

The noodles are fried to a crisp than topped with veggies and meats in a brown sauce. The sauce is nice and salty, sweet, and gooey, and slowly softens the noodles. My only complaint is that there is not enough brown sauce. The Missus ended up spooning her rice into the empty plate to sop up the remaining sauce. There are large shrimp, beef, and chicken, along with broccoli and snow peas.

So is it Cake Noodle? Well not really, but it's close enough for me.

Some notes on Mandarin Canton: Like many of these places Your Mileage May Vary, there are some really terrible dishes here, so pick and choose based on what you see others eating. There are only ten tables, and a constant flow of people in and out, but the turnaround is pretty quick. Mandarin Canton is a "Player" in the "Best Salt and Pepper Wings" battle going on, but is not as good as Golden Chopstick, though Golden Chopstick's Upside Down Pan Fried Noodles (yes, they have them there as well), is not as good as Mandarin Canton's. I've actually swung by both restaurants on a single take-out trip. Don't eat here if you are afraid of salt and MSG, though I've never had any problems or reactions from the food, I'm pretty sure it's there.

Mandarin Canton Chinese Restaurant
543 Telegraph Canyon Rd
Chula Vista, CA 91910
Open Daily 11am - 10pm

Golden Chopsticks - Guilty Pleasure

I've got a special place in my heart for well made American Chinese food; after all I was literally raised on the stuff back home in Hawaii. If you've been to a Filipino Pot Luck in San Diego recently, along with the lumpia and pansit, you've probably had these:

Those are salted pepper chicken wings ($5.75) from Golden Chopsticks. These are like crack, once you start eating them there's no stopping! Crunchy, salty, garlicky, with a slight sweet taste, these are addicting. Luckily for us, Golden Chopsticks is located in National City a pretty good distance away, in the same mall as Ohana Family BBQ and Seafood City. I guess if I had to categorize GC, it would be Filipino-American-Chinese Food.

As with most food in the Filipino community, there's been great debates and conversations over who makes the best salt-and-pepper wings, there are some who say that Mandarin Canton in Chula Vista makes the best, but the over-riding opinion is that GC makes the best. The first thing you'll notice when you enter, is that most of the customers are Filipino. Also, no one's using chopsticks, spoons and forks are the norm here, they don't bother with chopsticks unless you ask, or if you look like us..... The other thing you'll notice if you go on a weekend, are the endless stack of trays ($25.00/tray - 60 pieces) and styrofoam containers of wings lined up for pick-up. This weekend we decided to partake of other items on the menu, in addition to (of course) dem' wings.

We started with the Shrimp "Chow Mein"($6.25):

I'm not a great fan of the style of noodles used, but this dish is nicely flavored, and large shrimp are used. I actually liked these.

The next dish was the Sizzling Shrimp/Beef/Chicken, one of the most expensive dishes on the menu ($9.25), but the very friendly Waitress (she's Chinese, if you need to know) recommended it:

Flavored with garlic and black bean, and placed on a metal plate and sizzled, this dish was pretty good.

The last dish was the Tofu with Brown Sauce ($5.50):

This was the blandest dish, in need of more aggressive seasoning. This dish actually tasted much better the next day(mmm-leftovers!!!), but I think I'll pass the next time.

With a large bowl of rice and a pot of tea - $33.00, not bad! And we've got lunch and tonight's dinner with the leftovers. We did finish all the wings though, and probably could have gone through another order....Yes, I'm still the same person who loves Ba Ren and China Max, but I really think that Golden Chopsticks also has a place in there somewhere.

Some Notes on Golden Chopsticks; I'm pretty sure they use MSG, so if you're hyper-sensitive to it, you may want to take a pass. The service is very friendly, and very quick. Don't forget those wings....

Golden Chopsticks
1430 Plaza Blvd #E/22A-23A
National City, CA 91950
619-336-1888

I can't believe I ate it all......

The Noble Chef

*** Update, Noble Chef is under new ownership. The folks that used to run Noble Chef have decided to retire. A brief update can be found here.

Sometimes you just gotta go with your instincts....about 3 years ago we were at a store in one of those indistinct strip malls along Balboa Avenue, as we left there was the wonderful smell of garlic and soy sauce, and even better, of something being fried in the air! And we did what that old commercial said, and "followed our nose, it always knows..." up to the humble storefront of The Noble Chef.

As we had already had dinner I added this to our list of places to check-out and moved on. A few months later I decided to try it out. I saw the menu of standard Chinese Fast Food  fare out front, but knew for sure that it wasn't beef broccoli or teriyaki chicken that I smelled that night. But I went ahead and started ordering Orange Chicken and such, but a photograph of Chiu Chow Fried Rice caught my eye, and I ordered that along with the other dishes. Well, to make a long story short, the American Chinese dishes were not very good - but that fried rice was perfect, exactly to my taste and texture. I like my fried rice on the "dry" side, and this did the trick! Funny how things like this happen. Had I eaten only the standard Chinese Fast Food, I would've never returned, but for some reason I'd ordered that fried rice.

So for the next couple of months it was Chiu Chow fried rice at least once or twice a week. It got to the point where I'd walk in the door and the ladies working there would know exactly what I'd want - Chiu Chow fried rice. Now I don't know if this is authentic - from what my (very limited) knowledge of Chiu Chow, otherwise known as Chaozhou, is that this type of cooking has alot in common with that of the ethnic Chinese from Vietnam who managed to flee when Saigon fell in 1975. (Anyone with more accurate info-please let me know). So there are alot of Southeast Asian overtones in the cooking. For those in Los Angeles, think Newport Seafood. What I do know is that there's a very generous amount of chopped Gailan, Char Siu, and 5-6 large shrimp in this dish. It's one of the most expensive items on the menu ($6.55), but it's two meals for me. The first day all of the shrimp and about two-thirds of the rice is eaten. The next day I fry two eggs and finish everything.

But the Chiu Chow fried rice is not the best dish. One day we ordered the Shrimp with XO sauce fried rice(also $6.55), and lo' and behold, this is what I smelled that first night months ago. With chili pepper, shrimp, tons of garlic, and XO Sauce (what is actually XO sauce???) this is a a garlic-chilihead dream! You can request the dish to be more or less spicy as desired. Once I brought this to our office and our Administrative Assistant loved this dish. A friend of mine who for a time lived a few blocks away told me that the Chinese food here was unpalatable. So one day I brought him the Shrimp with XO Sauce fried rice, which he loved, and he couldn't believe it came from The Noble Chef. Amazing what a serendipitous event can lead too!

The Noble Chef is a real Mom-and-Pop operation. Your order is taken, than is cooked on the wok stove by "the Noble Chef" in full view, flames leaping in the air! Sometimes he's juggling three woks at once. Sorry 'bout the blurry picture, but the Noble Chef moves really quickly........The Shrimp Tomato rice is also pretty good. Service is friendly, and really nice once they get to know you. There are alot of people having noodle soup - but I haven't progressed to that step yet.

Sometimes doing one thing real well (thus the One Trick-Pony monniker) is worth it!

The Noble Chef
6159 Balboa Avenue
San Diego, CA 92111
(858)278-8688