CDD Tofu & Grill (Inside Zion Supermarket)

mmm-yoso!!!  is a food blog. This post is being written during one of the food-iest weeks of the year by Cathy.  This is because the foodier guys, Kirk and Ed (from Yuma) are busy planning their magnificent Thanksgiving Day feasts.

The Mister and I try to have a bite to eat before grocery shopping and the Food Court area inside Zion marketplace  (as well as the small counter in the midst of the actual market) offers quite a variety of selections. 

 You can see the signage advertising $2 off any combo all day as well as the Fall Special of $6.95 Tofu Soup, which we decided to share on this chilly day.    We decided on a spice level of 2 (out of 5), since we knew the spicy here is very spicy. 

 The organic, non-GMO tofu in soup is handed to you on the tray, bubbling furiously.  It comes with the raw egg, and various banchan (sides) of fried tofu, seaweed and marinated bean sprout as well as some mild kimchi.  The 'Rice Lady' followed us until we found a table and had started scraping the rice out of a hot stone pot, presenting the rice in the dish you see above...

 as well as the hot stone pot, with the remaining rice stuck to the sides, which she filled with warm tea- another side dish. The rice is a bit more 'toasted' in this hot pot and scraping it off and eating it with the tea is yet another great flavor combination (if you like Japanese Genmaicha-brown rice tea- you'll get that flavor from this bowl with the bit of burnt scrapings).

 Here's a photo of the 'Rice Lady' leaving our table, heading to another table to deliver their hot pot of rice. 

The tofu soup here is particularly good, filled with bok choy, onion and thin sliced pieces of beef (as well as the cooked egg which is not in this photo).  The tofu is a perfect texture and the spice level was just enough that you can still taste the ingredients. 

 

CDD Tofu & Grill 7655 Clairmont Mesa Blvd San Diego 92111 Inside Zion Marketplace.
Here is a link to Kirbie's visit to CDD(includes a copy of the menu), and this is a link including Jinxie's visit to CDD.

After our shared lunch, we went shopping inside Zion. You'll notice we were here on 11/11---that special day is 

Pepero Day!!! Celebrated in Korea in a way similar to Valentine's Day here...exchanging Pepero cookie snacks to show affection for friends and loved ones is how to celebrate. (Pepero Day originally had the purpose of exchanging Peperos with the hopes of becoming taller and thinner...as if).

 

The flavors above were our purchases (although other flavors, box sizes and individual foot long Peperos as well as a collectible tin were being sold)..the green one is chocolate coated and rolled in almond,  the red is chocolate dipped and rolled in peanut and the yellow (my favorite) is "nude"- a plain biscuit, filled with chocolate (or as the label states: "chocolate is contained tightly in the stick biscuit").  

Happy Belated Pepero Day!

Comments

[caninecologne]

hi cathy - i read somewhere that 11/11 is also Pocky Day (probably in Japan) because the 11's resemble pocky sticks. makes sense. i just bought a box of pepero "nude" at a filipino bake shop.

[Cathy]

I hadn't heard of "Pepero Day" until we happened upon it (and didn't think of looking for 'Pocky Day' displays elsewhere, although that makes sense.). It was a fascinating display (do you see the "LOVE" sideways under the airplane? )(Thanks for reading to the end of the post, cc)

[caninecologne]

now that you've pointed it out, i noticed that the plane is made of Pepero sticks!!!! ha ha! so cool!

[NK]

I checked out the place next to this - named '0410'. Just by the amount of squid/pork/whatever-non-existent protein they put into their dishes (even though the noodles is advertised to have some variety of them), you would start to wonder if the owner is from the Great North Korea. Despite have a flow of customers, the cashier would insist their customers not to pay via credit card, likely due to the overhead they'd need to pay. Just terrible.

[Cathy]

I haven't tried the noodle place yet, NK, but dishes I saw being picked up looked like there was quite a bit of protein on top. I noticed all the 'Food Court' businesses as well as Zion were listed for Small Business Saturday and know costs cut into profit; all businesses try to make a profit; we try to use cash for those places. Welcome to the commenting side of our blog.