Dig This Jive: Christine Pasalo's blog

A couple of Fridays ago, I decided to treat myself to lunch. I was craving a Vietnamese sandwich, also known as bánh mì, the way Carrie Bradshaw aches for a pair of Jimmy Choos, so it was a good time to check out Cali Baguette Express, the bánh mì shop featured in the August issue of San Diego Magazine.

I rolled up to the shop on Convoy — there are also shops in the College Area and in Mira Mesa — around 1:30 p.m. Having arrived at the end of peak lunch hours, the shop’s adjoining parking lot was pretty much empty. I chose a spot in the shade near the service entrance, a spot the MacGyver-ish Cali Baguette owners reserved for their customers using a sign attached to an empty bread cart.

The shop was practically empty, too, but in an in-between-rushes way. There was one shirt-and-tie gentleman enjoying his sandwich purchase, his tie thrown over his shoulder so that his lunch wouldn’t spoil it. A young woman sat alone at a round table near the entrance of the shop, her wadded up trash awaiting disposal after her smart phone session. Two customers came in to pick up their take-out orders, customers who I assumed were regulars with the way they joked with the man at the register.

One look at the menu above the register and Quiznos and Subway this is not. The foot-long sandwiches run between $2.75 and $4.50 and are built up from proteins like fried egg, cajun shrimp, bbq pork loaf, Vietnamese ham and pâté. Not wanting to play favorites, I placed my order for the bánh mì called “Cali Express” ($3) which consists of bbq pork loaf, Vietnamese ham and pâté, paid cash (since it’s cash only) and took a seat as my order was prepared.

My wait? 10 minutes. Enough time to notice the framed painting that hangs on the wall adjacent to the soda machine, a painting that features a 19th century woman tending to a chicken she is roasting in a wood-burning stove. Because when I think of Vietnam, I see Colonial Williamsburg.

I’d originally placed my order “to go” thinking that I’d eat one half of the sandwich in the shop and the other half at home for dinner. By this time, the shirt-and-tie gentleman and smart-phone girl were gone and it was just me. Everyone else worked there and they were in the back. I unwrapped the sandwich, the sound of crinkling paper bouncing off the whir of the ceiling fans, then thought to myself, “Screw demureness.” I began to eat up the whole sammie in one sitting.

In hindsight, it isn’t that big of a feat. The fresh-baked French baguette is hollowed out in order to fit the thin slices of meat with the usual bánh mì suspects: sweet, pickled strips of radish and carrots, refreshing cucumber and cilantro, and green chili pepper slices. Pressed tightly, the girth of the sandwich isn’t much bigger than a sandwich one might make at home. Or so I tell myself.

It was the kind of chewy yet crumby lunch that clings long after you’ve finished — on your collar, your pants, the corners of your mouth. I fully understood why the shirt-and-tie gentleman had his tie over his shoulder. When you’re finished, there’s no leaving the table unnoticed. Evidence the likes of bread crumbs and a cilantro leaf or two mark your former territory no matter how carefully you crunch down.

Was it worth it? Well, put it this way: Should I ever make it to another Padres game this season, I’m stopping at Cali Baguette Express first to order a couple of bánh mì to take into the park.

Just be careful of one thing: If you, like me, pull the membranes off of sliced peppers before eating them, remember not to touch any place on your face with those fingers before you’ve washed them. Don’t use the tissue that you wiped your fingers on to dab your nose, either. “Slow burn” is just the short of it.

Column 1, top to bottom: The other use of bread carts; Cali Baguette’s camera security sign; cross-section view of the Cali Express bánh mì. Column 2, top to bottom: top view of the Cali Express bánh mì; the after-lunch-hour crowd; also for sale at Cali Baguette are teddy-bear-shaped plastic containers filled with lychee jellies. Column 3, top to bottom: the colonial painting on the wall adjacent to the soda machine; crumby bánh mì evidence. | Photos taken by Christine Pasalo.

It’s one thing to set a dinner date with friends at a place that’s old to you but new to them. It’s another thing to set a date with friends to try a new place together, one that has proper signage and enough photos on Yelp to figure out where it is.

But to set a dinner date with friends at a spot you suggested, one that none of you have been to before and a place you know is unmarked? That requires Ghandi-patient comrades who share an Anthony Bourdain-sense of food adventure, a supportive husband and an idea of how to pronounce the restaurant’s name with a rolled “r.”

Gratefully, I have all three.

The 3904 Convoy spot in question was Izakaya Sakura and the pronunciation came in handy when I asked the host of another of Plaza 3904’s restaurants where “Sakura” (pronounced SAH-koo-rah) was located. He pointed, I followed and I now know that Izakaya Sakura sits to the right of Mirage Cafe and Hookah Lounge. The foreground of the restaurant is framed by black-grated two-tops and its right window sports its restaurant grade (”A”) and a neon “Open” sign.

Traditionally, an izakaya is something of a Japanese gastropub: they focus on serving liquor and the food they serve is intended to help soak it up. This wasn’t quite the case at Izakaya Sakura. There were between 7-8 pages of menu to look over, only two of which were dedicated to soju and sake. That screamed more “eat” than “drink” to me.

Of course, when you’re inundated with the pressure of so many choices, the default first choice to make is the alcoholic one. My friend, Derek, ordered a chilled sake and my husband ordered a bottle of Yebisu (pronounced YEH-be-sue), a premium Japanese malt beer bottled by Sapporo. Both were smooth in their own way, cutting the stress of selecting an entree the way a cold beer in hand makes a hot day endurable. Maybe Izakaya Sakura does know what it’s doing with that many menu pages.

The boys each ordered a hot bowl of soba with tempura shrimp and Derek’s wife, Kristi, and I each ordered a small bowl of the restaurant’s ramen, called sakuramen, with a side of onigiri, two seaweed-wrapped triangle-wads of rice with your choice of seafood or pickled vegetable or fruit inside. Kristi’s onigiri had a center of ume, a salty and sour pickled plum, and mine had a center of salted grilled salmon.

Derek and my husband both devoured their bowls of soup but, on sneaking a taste, I wonder if they did so mostly because they were uber-hungry. The soba noodles were overdone in my opinion, having the consistency of gummy, overcooked pasta. Perhaps if they weren’t cooked to al dente before added to the hot soy-based broth, they would have kept the best texture upon service.

I found the portion size of the “small” sakuramen bowls Kristi and I ordered to be just right alongside the onigiri. The ramen was set in a rich, cloudy base known as tonkotsu, a base made from boiling pork bones. But while the broth was silky on the tongue, the noodles were my kind of chewy and the pork belly pieces practically dissolved in my mouth the way rapturist hopes dissipated around noon on May 21, 2011, I found myself wishing for ramen at my favorite spots. This was my first taste of tonkotsu and I’m probably just too loyal to the miso based ramen I tend to order everywhere else in Kearny Mesa.

On the other hand, my salmon onigiri was order-it-again good. I didn’t care much for the pucker-up sour of Kristi’s ume onigiri but she dug it enough to finish both pieces.

Verdict? Open. Over 150 people on Yelp reviewed Izakaya Sakura and the restaurant’s average rating on it is four stars. Having only tasted four of the multitude of options at Izakaya Sakura, I know I need to go back to give it a few more chances to win me over. I mean, I left seeing something on the menu that featured ox tail and I need to go back just to see if it stands up to my mom’s ox tail dish.

Should you come with, I promise I won’t get lost.

(Clockwise from top left: the menus of Izakaya Sakura; a serving of salmon onigiri is made up of two onigiri; soba with tempura shrimp; cold sake served in a masu; the inside of Izakaya Sakura seats close to 70 people; the sakuramen; and my husband’s bottle of Yebisu. | Photos by Christine Pasalo.)

Yokohama Yakitori Koubou is, to my mind, Convoy’s newest spot for Japanese cuisine grilled on a skewer, otherwise known as yakitori.

Scott and I visited around 6:00 p.m. on a Tuesday to find only three other parties seated in the sectioned off tables to the left of the restaurant. Since it was only the two of us, we opted for a spot at the bar. Over the course of our one hour stay, only one other party of two–a father and his 8-year-old son–came into the restaurant. Wondering at the lack of a dinner rush, I asked our waitress how long Yakitori Koubou has been in this space. She told us that they opened about six months ago.

And get this: it’s the only American sibling to a chain of 10 Yakitori Koubou restaurants located in Yokohama, Japan. It’s a fact that I can’t help but feel proud about, that of all of the cities in the US privy to dense populations of Japanese issei (Japanese immigrants) and nikkei (the generations of Japanese-Americans descended from issei), San Diego was picked as the place to introduce America to Yakitori Koubou. True, there could very well be bland, economical reasons for starting up in San Diego. But, those wouldn’t be very romantic.

One scan of the character dominant menu, its sometimes too literal English translations, and its unapologetic listing of grilled chicken parts like liver, gizzard, heart and tail and we knew that we’d happened on a place that serves up genuine Japanese food. Yakitori range from $1.50 to $2.99 per skewer, a la carte dishes range between $3 to $7 a dish, and soups, noodle dishes and rice dishes range between $1 to $7. In other words, it’s pretty easy to sample a variety of food like you were Anthony Bourdain filming an episode of “No Reservations.”

The atmosphere reminded us of our common experience of eating in Tokyo last year minus the smell of nicotine (restaurants in Tokyo are still “divided” into smoking and non-smoking sections.) There was a peaceful stillness in the dining area. The waitresses were soft-spoken and super polite and, once we placed our order, they stood close-by and only came back to us to serve a dish we’d ordered, to clear a plate or when we called them over. They don’t frequently visit the table, interrupting you to ask whether you would care for more of something. No, the service habits you might expect at the Original Pancake House would be considered impolite at Yakitori Koubou. It was a nice change of pace.

Then, there’s their very generous pour of sake. Scott ordered a glass of the $7 Casa Blanca and, on the waitress’ recommendation, had it served cold. She first brought over a small shot of milk which we learned is served to help the sake drinker counter the buzz s/he gets from the alcohol. Being lactose intolerant, Scott quietly left it alone. Next, she came over with what looked like a magnum of the Casa Blanca sake. She placed the glass, which was about the size of a large shot glass, in the center of a small cypress box known as a masu and poured the sake until both the glass and the masu were filled to the brim. To drink the sake, one has to first drink what’s in the glass then drink the overflow in the masu.

The sake tasted the way I imagined the melt from a pure glacial icicle might taste: cool, sweet and clean. And all of the yakitori we ordered–chicken gizzard, chicken thigh with leeks, chicken cartilage, chicken wing, chicken tail, and chicken heart–was salted and grilled well so that, when served, they were still hot, juicy and salted just enough to bring out the flavors of each chicken part. My favorites were the wing, tail, and heart.

I left that night nostalgic for Tokyo and with fond San Diego memories of food and service. I also left curious since I didn’t get to try anything off of the soup, rice and noodle part of the menu. I guess I’ll have to go back. Anyone want to come with?

(Check out my Facebook album to see the full set of photos.)

Clockwise from top left: grilled chicken hearts; Yokohama Yakitori Koubou’s brand; one of the chefs spied through a bottle of sake; a glass of the Casa Blanca sake; from left to right, the chicken thigh with leeks, cartilage, wings, tail, and gizzard; the menu; and a cup to place your empty skewers. | Photos by Christine Pasalo

We begin with the familiar, a place where you eat big or go home.

The Original Pancake House is a restaurant franchise that was originally founded in Portland in 1953. Yup: the “original” doesn’t mean it originated in San Diego. That was a naive mistake I made four years ago, a reverie that was unceremoniously punctured when I noticed an Original Pancake House on the outskirts of a Temecula mall-scape.

But I’m happy our city has one. It’s a Convoy Street breakfast beacon calling weary Friday and Saturday night revelers, young and elderly couples and families to port, where kitchy floral window treatments lie against beige-striped walls and the role of a restaurant staffer is marked by the aprons they wear or don’t wear.

No matter how many people are milling about outside of the restaurant waiting for their party to be called, I’ve never had to wait longer than 15 minutes to be seated at a table. Maybe I’m lucky or maybe it’s a turn-around-time the restaurant strives to average. Whichever it is, I’m grateful.

When seated, the first person to approach the table tends to either be a young man or a young woman with a water pitcher in one hand and a coffee pot in the other. This person is charged with taking your drink order then making sure your drinks are always refreshed. Order water or coffee and they zip away and back like a beverage-delivering Michael Johnson. Should the level in your cup no longer touch the brim, they reappear with a screech, kindly asking whether you’d like more of what you’ve yet to get halfway through. It gives me the sense that they were told during new hire training that no customer should ever feel that their thirsts were neglected, to provide the optimum in beverage related customer service. And they do. With simple drinks, the frequency of their table visits is reassuring. With coffee that isn’t taken black, though, it can feel daunting and it’s in these cases that one must be nice yet firm in saying, “No, thank you.” Don’t worry–when you reach your time for a refill, they’ll be back.

One look at the griddle centerfold in the menu and any doubt that this place is serious about wanting to serve you pancakes gets tucked in the back of your mind like a shameful, dirty thought. Pancakes are their main dish and their accompanying side dish to egg entrees. They even serve bacon pancakes. BACON pancakes. It’s a breakfast combo that’s savory and sweet all in one go!

Everything else–their egg plates and behemoth Apple Pancake, German Pancake, and Dutch Baby entrees (the smaller version of the German Pancake)–lives on the perimeter of the griddle menu and, while tasty, cost between $1.50 and $3 more than the 18 griddle options that stare up at you from the page, googly-eyed and expectantly. In my view, it’s the eatery’s subtle way of reinforcing what was and will always be the item they want to see leave the kitchen most.

But there is a way to skirt around ordering a griddle entree or an expensive egg entree: order à la carte. In my experience, an order of a side of two scrambled eggs with four link sausages is gut-filling and comes out to a fair $6.95 before tax and tip. Most times, my husband and I will trade–some of his pancakes or waffles for some of my eggs and links–and, sticking to water and coffee, we can leave for less than $20 (which includes 18% tax and tip).

It was a comfort to start this food adventure with a place I know. It gave me a chance to discover new details about this Kearny Mesa favorite, a place were speedy and frequent service is a promise and pancake is ruler of the world. Now it’s time to make like the Starship Enterprise and boldly go where I haven’t gone before.

Plaza 3904 isn’t too big and isn’t too small, making it a good place to start my Convoy Street food journey. Located about halfway between Aero Drive and Balboa Avenue, it includes a Chinese restaurant, three Japanese restaurants, a Thai restaurant, a Philly Cheese Steak and Hoagie eatery, a Wings n’ Things and The Original Pancake House. It’s a quilt of American and Asian restaurants, something that I’m curious to see recur in the other plazas and strip malls on this Kearny Mesa stretch of tarmac.

I’ve got me a pair of stretchy pants. Let’s do this.