|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Dina Gan A Handful of So-Cal DelightsIt had been more than three years since I left Manhattan and returned to Maryland, and I had to face facts: when it comes to Asian food, Baltimore may as well be Boca Raton. The occasional Filipino house party, my husband's stir-fry and the "country side taste" menu of the local Szechuan House notwithstanding, there is nearly nothing to recommend in my reclaimed hometown to even the most casual admirer of Asian cuisine. So over Memorial Day, I decided to head west and refresh my memory about real Asian food. It helped that my husband’s folks have a condo in Carlsbad, which is convenient for day trips to San Diego and Long Beach, two other stops on my Southern California itinerary. I succeeded in finding a handful of spots worth revisiting, all within an hour’s drive of our west coast home base: The Phnom Penh of the West 
The latest addition to the ethnic neighborhoods in the greater Los Angeles area is a street in Long Beach, a city that is home to the largest Cambodian population outside of Cambodia. Soon to be official, if local council members have their way, Cambodia Town is more than some kind of Chinatown wannabe except with an Angkor Wat replica adorning a gated entrance. It's a long, sunny stretch of Anaheim Street between Junipero and Atlantic Avenues, where you can find a concentration of Cambodian restaurants and businesses. We tried out Sophy's (3720 E. Anaheim Street), a popular hangout for hip Cambodian-Californian transplants. With a tasty dual menu of Cambodian and Thai dishes, Sophy's is a cheery lunch spot suitable for a cozy meal with friends, or in my case, relatives.  My husband, my dear Auntie Mary, who lives nearby, and I feasted on stir-fry tofu and bagn cheo, pan-fried crepes filled with ground chicken, shrimp, bean sprouts and onion, served with fresh mint, lettuce, and a sweet-and-sour sauce. But the soups were the main event. We ordered somlaw machou kreoung, a spicy, sour lemongrass soup seasoned with a thick herbal broth of tamarind and watercress, and somlaw kaukoh, a fish and vegetable soup simmering in roasted rice. This was our first time to try Cambodian food, but we all agreed it would not be our last.
Where the Street Has a Name When my husband told me about Convoy Street in an eastern San Diego neighborhood called Kearny Mesa, he said it was a good place to get Chinese food. I wasn't prepared for the reality of this pan-Asian paradise where you can get soba, pho, bibimbap, and dim sum all in the same block. I lamented that we didn't have enough days in our trip to spend eating along Convoy Street. We managed to try two Chinese restaurants with great reputations, not "insider" discoveries, but respectable first forays for East Coasters like us. The first was Emerald Restaurant (3709 Convoy Street), a Cantonese seafood eatery that attracts locals and tourists alike. We splurged on a whole black sea bass steamed with green onions, garlic and ginger. Pricey but delicious, the fish had the most sublime, tender texture, second only to the butter-baked sea bass my husband and I had caught and cooked ourselves on our last fishing trip. The second place was Shanghai City (3860 Convoy Street), a smaller restaurant with a vast menu of more than 160 dishes. We ordered takeout of crispy fried fish with seaweed strips and a vegetable side of baby bok choy with black mushroom, both of which came in such enormous portions we had leftovers for the next two days. Masarap Central 
South of San Diego is National City, where a large percentage of Filipino American residents means lots of Filipino restaurants. Driving in off the I-805, the first thing I notice is a Jollibee fast-food restaurant, the likes of which I haven't seen since visiting Manila in the early '90s. We were very tempted to stop there, but opted instead for the home-cooked fare at the Point-Point Joint (916 East Eighth Street), a literal translation of the turo-turo, where customers "point" to indicate which dishes they want. I had pork lechon, fried bangus (milkfish), and pancit malabon, a noodle dish made with shrimp and squid juice, which was good but not quite as good as the kind I've had at my mother's parties. My husband had pinakbet, a bitter melon dish, which was masarap (delicious). Then it was off to Filipino Desserts Plus (2220-Q East Plaza Boulevard), a small restaurant and bake shop where I bought several boxes of my favorite confection, pastillas de leche, melt-in-your-mouth morsels of milk and sugar, wrapped in either white paper or colorful cellophane. They were so yummy, we ate them all by the next afternoon. Quick Culture Stop 
As a way to consume culture instead of food, we headed to the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum located at the southwest corner of the Asian Pacific Historic District in downtown San Diego. For a tranquil hour, we enjoyed this jewel box of Chinese history, which includes an Asian garden, complete with a terracotta warrior replica, displays of ethnic textiles embroidered by China's mountain-dwelling minorities, and miniature dioramas depicting life for Chinese immigrants in San Diego.Brick Bounty 
Back in Carlsbad, another place that displays the world in miniature is the Miniland USA exhibit at LEGOLAND (www.legoland.com), which uses 20 million LEGO blocks to depict seven areas of the country, from Las Vegas to Washington, DC. The LEGO rendition of San Francisco includes a nicely executed Chinatown, and I suddenly realized how much more I could have aspired to in my own childhood LEGO projects. The rest of the theme park looked like a lot of fun for children, or for adults with kids to experience it vicariously through.
While it may be a few years before I visit LEGOLAND again (hopefully with a few little ones in tow), you can bet that I’ll be back for second helpings at Cambodia Town, Convoy Street, and National City the next time I head west! |
|
|
|
We would like to hear from you! If you have any comments or questions, please send an e-mail to: writeus@jademagazine.com or click here Write Us!
Reproduction of material from any jademagazine.com pages without written permission from the author is strictly prohibited. © 2007 Dina Gan. All rights reserved. DISCLAIMER |
