Kirbie's Cravings

Pho Cow Cali Express

Pho Cow Cali Express
9170 Mira Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92126
(858) 271-8341

www.phocowcaliexpress.com

In my search for a new go to Vietnamese pho spot, several people recommended I try Pho Cow Cali Express. After looking it up, I am surprised I didn't try this place sooner. It's quite highly rated and popular on yelp.

So this weekend, off we went to try Pho Cow.  When we got there, there was a waiting list. This was the first time I'd been to a pho place with a wait. Luckily, the wait was only a few minutes, and soon we were seated.

Everyone pretty much stuck to their standard order.

We also ordered some eggrolls. The eggrolls came out pretty as a picture. Each eggroll was fried a nice golden color. The eggrolls here are a bit longer than the ones I get at most places. They use the chinese wrapper, which I know isn't authentic, but I like it anyway. The filling was just right. Not too salty. Not too bland. Out of all the pho places I've tried the last few months, these were my favorite eggrolls.

We all ordered some variation of the pho, so the pictures would look pretty much the same, so I only took a few.

The garnishes included the saw leaf herb, which I love using.

One thing I noticed about the pho here is that there was a lot of meat. Usually, I only get a few pieces of the rare steak, but I got quite a bit here. The broth was pretty flavorful too. The only bad thing was the tripe, which was so hard, it was barely edible.

Overall, I really enjoyed this place. I can see why it is so popular. I wish they hadn't overcooked the tripe, but this has been the best pho place I've had in a while. It may become my new go-to spot, but there are a few others I need to check out first.

After I paid, I saw on that with my receipt I could get a frozen yogurt next door for .25/oz. I am always up for a new frozen yogurt place. I loved how cute the character/mascot was for Yogurt Swirl. It looks a bit like a hamster character.

This place had a lot of my favorite flavors including green tea, taro, and coconut. They also had my multi colored mochi bites.

Pho Hiep and Grill

Pho Hiep and Grill
6947 Linda Vista Rd
San Diego, CA 92111

I've been wanting to branch out and try different pho places. Every time I see a review from one of my fellow San Diego bloggers, I'll say to myself that I need to try that place out. Unfortunately, I never write this stuff down. This weekend, we decided to get some pho and I didn't have much time to choose a place.

Lucky for me, Dennis of A Radiused Corner writes really thorough posts on his meals, often discussing several meals in one post. He recently did a post documenting various pho places he tried out. After reading his SD Pho findings post, I decided to check out Pho Hiep and Grill. I was particularly interested in the fact that they have the saw leaf herb in the vegetable platter and the cha gio (egg rolls) are supposed to be bigger than the typical ones served.

After we ordered, we got the vegetable/herb platters: enough for one for every two people.

There was indeed the saw leaf herb, though only a little of it. It was actually hidden and I put them on top for this picture.

We also got a plate of shredded cabbage, something I haven't seen before:

I ordered the rare beef and tripe:

The broth was about average for me. Not too light, but not as rich as some other places. While the small order looked about the same as other places I've visited, I think there might have been less noodles than usual because I had no problem finishing my bowl.

One of the people in my group ordered this spicy vermicelli soup with pork blood:

Baby Bro ordered a number #1, which has everything and is extra large:

You can't really tell how big the bowl is but he said it was pretty filling. 

We got two orders of the eggrolls:

The eggrolls indeed were bigger than the ones I've gotten at other places and were fried up quite pretty. But there was something about the filling that I didn't like as much. I think maybe it was too salty.

All in all, it was a decent experience. If I am in the area, I'd go back to this place, but I probably would not make the drive specifically just to eat pho here.

Yum Cha Cafe

Yum Cha Cafe
6933 Linda Vista Rd
San Diego, CA 92111
www.yumchacafe.com

It's been a while since I did a post on Yum Cha Cafe, so i took some pictures on our last visit. You can read about my previous posts here and here. I enjoy going to Yum Cha because I can get dim sum even in the evening.  Yum Cha is the only fast food cheap dim sum option that I've come across that actually has pretty good tasting dim sum items.  Lately, Boyfriend and I have been visiting Yum Cha in the early evening. They still have food at the time and it's not crowded.

On our last visit, we picked up quite a few items to share with my siblings and took our order to go. This is what we got:

Brown sugar rice cake.  Normally the version I have of this at dim sum restaurants is white.  The brown sugar tasted just as good.

Pineapple buns. These breads were just okay tasting. I liked the sugar crust, but the bread itself wasn't as soft.

Chinese egg tarts

Fried shrimp balls.  These had been sitting out a while, so they weren't that crunchy, but they were still filled with lots of shrimp.

Shrimp with rice noodles

Shrimp har gow

Rice balls with shrimp

Crystal shrimp dumplings.  (I couldn't remember what this was called, but reader Jess left a comment reminding me what it is.) The outside skin is kind of clear colored and it is sticky and chewy.

Bean curd rolls

Beef honeycomb tripe

Shrimp shui mai