jones brothers mississippi bbq / san diego, ca
Lincoln Park, San Diego County, Mary

jones brothers mississippi bbq / san diego, ca

Jones Brothers Mississippi BBQ is a little joint off Euclid Ave. near Lincoln Park. Jake suggested we try this place out last month after he spent some time talking to one of the owners. We’ve passed by this little nondescript BBQ spot a few times when we were on our way to Chula Vista and avoiding the traffic-clogged 805 freeway during rush hour. The smells of BBQ wafting in the air always made our mouths water and we finally had the chance to stop in to check out their BBQ.

bbq-overview

[bbq overview – 3 meat combination with 3 sides – $22.99]

View their menu!

The ladies at the counter were really helpful and friendly – greeting us warmly as we came inside and grabbed a menu to try and figure out what we wanted. They even suggested that we get the 3 meat combination – that way we’d get to try a bunch of stuff for one price. That’s what we ended up doing and it was more than enough food for Jake, T and I to share for lunch with plenty of leftovers for later.

They also let us sample the BBQ sauce. They have a regular mild BBQ sauce, a spicy BBQ and what they call “Twist BBQ” sauce – a combination of the mild and spicy. I got a little taste of the twist and enjoyed it enough to agree that we have all of our meats smothered in the “twist” sauce. It had a delightfully sweet taste and just a enough of an extra spice to give it a tiny kick – which is about as much spice as I could take or want. I am, after all, still a wimp when it comes to spicy stuff.

pulled-pork-in-bbq-sauce

[pulled pork]

The pulled pork ended up being my favorite meat of the three that we tried.

The pork was very tender and juicy. It melted away in my mouth from how tender it was and the sweetish sauce was a great accompaniment to the pork. I like pulled pork with sauce on it, so this was perfectly fine to me. I’m not sure what makes this stuff “Mississippi” style BBQ, but whatever it is, I like it. There’s no tangy flavor (rejoice!) just a nice, sweet and clean flavor from the sauce and the juicy meat.

beef-brisket

[beef brisket]

I’m really not a brisket person – I don’t know what it is that turns me off from it – but this beef brisket wasn’t too bad, especially with that tasty BBQ sauce. Jake and T seemed to enjoy it but there was one item they enjoyed just a bit more…

hot-links-in-bbq-sauce

[hot links]

… which was the hot links! There is a damn good amount of hot links here, also covered and tossed in their “twist” BBQ sauce. I am normally a great big fan of hot links and these hot links were also very good – juicy with a nice crisp “snap” to the links – but good god, they were really spicy! The “hot” part of the name was not lost on these links and they were much spicier than what little old me is used to and I sadly couldn’t eat too many of them. Jake and T were pretty bonkers for them though, and considering they like spicy stuff, this one was the winner for them that day.

Damn me and my low tolerance for spicy. Continue reading “jones brothers mississippi bbq / san diego, ca”

star dust donuts and searching for sea shells in imperial beach
San Diego County, Mary, Imperial Beach

star dust donuts and searching for sea shells in imperial beach

Jake and I have driven by Star Dust Donuts probably 3 or 4 times now and every time it was closed.

They have crazy inconsistent hours:

But one magical day in early December, Star Dust was open!

Jake, the kids and I were heading down to Imperial Beach to collect sea shells for a present Jake was making for his mom for Christmas. Since we were going right by, Jake suggested we check and see if Star Dust was open and when I saw that it was, I did a little happy dance in the car. Finally, we could try it!

There wasn’t a whole lot of donuts left… so I just got one of each.

They had: Buttermilk Twist (.94 cents), Old Fashioned (.94 cents), Carmel Pecan Rolls ($1.59), Chocolate Iced with Nuts (.94 cents), Chocolate Raised (.94 cents) and Cinnamon Rolls (.94 cents).

They cost a little more than what you’d get at a regular donut shop, aren’t really fancy looking and pretty basic.

But man oh man, were they good! The buttermilk bar and the old fashioned were probably my favorite of the bunch – just simple, crunchy, melt-in-your-mouth donut goodness. The donuts tasted fresh and perfectly crisp. Very yummy.

I don’t have any other photos of the donuts since my camera died later! Probably from all of the photo taking I did at the beach.

We went as far south as you can go – all the way to the end near the Tijuana Estuary.

The sun was still up while we went to collect shells. The beach was pretty empty and it was pretty chilly that night – but the sky was beautiful. Continue reading “star dust donuts and searching for sea shells in imperial beach”

Cheap Eats, San Diego County, Mary, City Heights

hao vi chinese restaurant / city heights – san diego, ca

Hao Vi is this little restaurant is smack in the middle of City Heights. Jake and I used to pass it all of the time on the way to his old apartment in the ‘hood and for some reason, I always wanted to go here. It didn’t look like much, just this tiny little place on the corner, but I wanted to go exploring. The day we were going to actually go we couldn’t, since Jake didn’t have any cash and I had a brain fart and couldn’t remember my pin number. I racked and racked my brain, but I just could not think of it! It was like one day I remembered it, and the next day – poof! That memory was gone.

Ah well. I got a new bank card and reset my pin to something I would actually remember and we were finally able to go here.

As you can see from that sign on the counter, this place is definitely “CASH ONLY”.

And yes, that giant light in the back is probably one of two lights in the whole place. The other from the front of the place, where the outside sign is located. They aren’t into interior lighting in this place. It also looks kind of dirty and there’s a weird tray of condiments at every table. Oh, and the parking is this weird tiny lot in the back off of a side road, with no lights there either.

This place screams “hole in the wall” on so many levels.

They’ve got a shorter menu then I’ve seen at other Chinese restaurants. No descriptions on it at all with a vague idea of what you’re going to get. We tried to ask the waitress what a few things were but it was hard for her to explain in broken English and it was hard for us to understand. We just went with it and ordered the best we could.

Menu Page 1 | Menu Page 2 | Menu Page 3

[beef chow mein (dry) – $7.99]

When we got our dishes, I actually confused them. And then I confused them again while writing this post. The names of the dishes didn’t quite match up to what I thought – why does it say dry in parenthesis? No idea. What we did get was a veggie laden dish with some delicious stir fried beef and yellow noodles.

You can’t really see how much (or what kind) noodles is in the dish from that first photo so here’s another shot. Under the layer of veggies lies this bed of noodles with a lovely little sauce. In the mix are bean sprouts, cabbage, onions, carrots and topped off with a sweetish sauce that’s made with pork and beef stock. There’s definitely a ton of veggies in this dish (much to Jake’s dismay) but the beef is tender and well seasoned. A surprisingly excellent first dish to start off with.

Another note here: we ordered three dishes, and each dish came out one at a time – long enough for us to polish off a majority of the dish before the next item came out. The dishes are served family style and it’s plenty of food for sharing!

[bbq pork vegetable crisp noodle – $6.50]

The second thing I picked was under “Chow Fun & Mein” – which was Chow Fun and which was Chow Mein I’ll never know.

Now this one sort of came out like what I thought – with crisp noodles on top. They look a lot like the noodles from the previous dish – except the noodles are crunchy and there’s a tasty sauce underneath. Continue reading “hao vi chinese restaurant / city heights – san diego, ca”

Hillcrest, San Diego County, Mary

busalacchi’s a modo mio / hillcrest – san diego, ca

Busalacchi’s is a pretty well known name around here in San Diego and recently I had the opportunity to visit Busalacchi’s A Modo Mio in Hillcrest for “a modo mio” week – or “my way” – where the chef calls the shots for dinner service. Guests get to choose what kind of entree they want (chicken, red meat, fish or vegetarian) and chef Joe Busalacchi takes care of the rest. It’s a fun and adventurous way to dine and you get to taste a little bit of everything that a restaurant has to offer.

This was the appetizer samplers laid out before Stacey and I for our first course. No messing around here. There’s a little bit of everything, including some complimentary bread with a bruschetta topping (which was incredibly flavorful for something that just looked like tomatoes in a cup).

[garbanzo croquettes]

These little fried croquettes were made out of garbanzo beans and pressed into this square shape. I thought they looked kind of weird and spongy, but they were actually a little crisp on the outside and kind of creamy in the middle (and really not spongy whatsoever). I’ve never seen garbanzos prepared like this before!

[pickled veggies plate with artichoke, olives, mushrooms, sardines, cheese and prosciutto]

We also got this little plate of mostly pickled things. I personally don’t like pickled anything so I was feeling very adventurous with this plate. I did try the mushroom but I didn’t care for it – the marinade made it taste off to me, but like I said… no pickled stuff for me. Prosciutto was fine, a tad salty though.

[pizza bread]

For some reason I have no notes about this except “pizza bread” and “flavorful”.

Clearly I need to take better notes.

[eggplant parmesan]

This dish actually surprised me because I don’t usually like eggplant. But this dish I ended up really liking it and – funny enough – didn’t taste at all to me like eggplant. I just tasted a very flavorful, rich and herby sauce with plenty of basil. The eggplant was tender and just soaked up the flavor of the sauce so I was really astounded I liked it!

[calamari]

Since Stacey doesn’t eat seafood, I got to have this plate all to myself. Wonderfully seasoned calamari, I would marry you if I could. The batter on this version is light and crispy, well seasoned and perfectly fried. The batter did not take away from the deliciousness of the calamari and is one of the better versions I’ve had of this dish.

[frisee pomegranate salad with arugula and pumpkin seeds]

This salad had frisee and arugula in it – and yet I still liked it! The combination of flavors and textures just made this whole salad really shine – from the crunchy bits of pumpkin seeds to the brightness of the pomegranates to the sweetness of the dressing balanced with the peppery arugula. Really packed with flavor and it was pretty and artful. Continue reading “busalacchi’s a modo mio / hillcrest – san diego, ca”

San Diego County, Mary, City Heights, Cheap Eats

minh ky restaurant / city heights – san diego, ca

We went here because A) the place I originally wanted to go to was cash only and for the life of me, I could not remember my pin number that weekend and B) it had a fairly high rating of over 300+ reviews on Yelp. I’ve learn to take Yelp reviews with a grain of salt though, since people tend to rate with no rhyme or reason (“the parking sucks, 1 star” or “it looks dirty, I walked out and didn’t actually try any of the food, 1 star” or on the opposite end with highly overrated food and other shenanigans). We ended up here on kind of a whim, a second choice location, but as it turned out, it was a pretty good whim after all.

Parking here is actually pretty weird. There’s a tiny, almost unnavigable parking lot in front of the tiny strip mall and a sketchy parking lot in the back, behind the restaurant. We parked in the back since it was the only space we could find, though the area made me cringe with the obscene amount of trash littered about.

We went inside and saw a small, cozy, 12-table restaurant. Every table was full but we must have had a stroke of good luck since we didn’t have to wait long to be seated.

They have an enormous six page menu with over 200+ items on board. A little baffling, to say the least.

Menu Page 1 | Menu Page 2-3 | Menu Page 4-5 | Menu Page 6

There’s also a specials board on the right side, listing about 5 different specials. We decided to try the Shrimp Tempura and BBQ Pork.

[tempura shrimp + bbq pork – $5.50]

Since neither Jake or T like shrimp, I got to keep that all for myself. The shrimp are butterflied and flattened and have a thin coating on the batter with what seemed to be panko crumbs. There was a side of Thai sweet chili dipping sauce for both appetizers. I enjoyed the shrimp – the batter didn’t hide the flavor of the shrimp and the shrimp was nice and tender on the inside.

The BBQ pork was a tad dry but a few pieces were perfectly sweet and tender.

[dumplings and wonton lo mien – $5.75]

This dish actually surprised me since it came out in two bowls – one with the noodles and one with the broth and dumplings/wontons. Lo mien makes me think of noodle dishes, sans broth, and nothing like this.

Here’s the broth by itself – you can see the dumplings and pieces of char sui pork just under the surface with the scallions scattered over the top.

And a closeup of the noodles with a hint of a sauce just underneath the pile of noodles.

Jake started to eat them separately, but me – I put those two suckers together and had myself a little lo mien soup.

I loved the flavor of the broth – it wasn’t overpowering, very nicely seasoned with a good amount of flavor and (as you can see) oil. The noodles were tender and delicious as well and the meaty dumplings were really nice with the broth. I liked the pork pieces in this dish more than the ones we had as an appetizer – they were more tender and flavorful, perhaps a result of sitting in the broth? Continue reading “minh ky restaurant / city heights – san diego, ca”