Darla's Szechwan Shrimp (that recipe we sent last time)
We recently bought a new external floppy drive as the one in this old machine quit working a year or so ago. That made it possible for me to retrieve dozens of photos from the 700 (or so) floppies we went through, back almost 10 years ago now and to replace all of the lost photos from a drunken computer accident late one night several years ago when I inadvertently deleted all of my recipe files.
Fortunately, some of you still had a number of them on your computer and we've retyped the rest and repaired the last of the damage now...
2 June - Tommy's Italian Restaurant & Delicatessen II:
The Boy and I had dinner at Tommy's (small dinner salad, large pepperoni pizza, Coke and an iced tea) last night for my second visit.
We had a fairly young and obviously inexperienced server, maybe only 17 years old and she neglected many major good server points such as no ice in the iced tea refill, we had to go to the counter for our check, it was way too long a wait for her to acknowledge us, the salad should have been delivered a lot sooner, she didn't check back very often (it's a tiny little place with only enough tables for one server), and she was almost never "on the floor".
She was fairly energetic (but tended not to hear what the customer said like when we asked for several things such as extra bleu cheese dressing and then had to ask again) and we figure she'll get better as she goes (or not)...
We have to say that it was a pretty good sauce on the pizza but there was a little too much cheese and the crust was too thick for my tastes (extremely filling but I'm an old man and can't handle a lot of cheese anymore) but we'll definitely come back again (and order a smaller pizza).
All of their sandwiches looked great as did the lasagna and calamari (to the Boy).
It's an expanded menu for dinner with many more pasta dishes (we saw several that also looked good) but didn't see them put out a calzone, something I've learned to appreciate over the last few years (maybe next time).
And we noticed Bubble Up in the 16 ounce glass bottle in their see-through glass front drink case. I haven't seen Bubble Up in maybe 30 years now (it was my favorite, far better than Sprite, with a lot of carbonation, so I'll be having one the next time we visit. They had Vernor's (in glass bottles), another of our favorites and several Nehi flavors too (in glass bottles as well, also something I haven't seen in ages).
Our total was $22.48 before tipping out.
Small pepperoni pizza at Tommy's (notice the lack of ice in the tea).
4 June - Tommy's Italian Restaurant & Delicatessen III:
This time, the wife and I dropped by for lunch (her first visit).
We split a Salami, Mortadella, Pepperoni & Prosciutto with Provolone, lettuce, tomato and olive oil (Create your own sandwich) for $9.99
As I mentioned before, the sandwiches here are huge, maybe 15 inches long and the one sandwich was more than enough for both of us.
Of course, I had a Bubble Up (since 1921) and the wife ordered a Vernors but neither were cold enough to do them justice.
Our server was the same woman who had waited on me on my first visit and she did a fairly good job in spite of the fact that we walked in the door before she was even "on the floor" and she had to scramble to get ready (put her hair up, put on her apron, find her ticket book, etc).
Our total was $17.00 including an almost $3 tip.
I had meant to take a photo but I was almost done eating before I remembered it...
5 June - Tommy's Italian Restaurant & Delicatessen IV:
The Boy had just gotten back from a long day of paintballing up in Corona (just short of LA) and we decided to go out for our dinner.
We split a small dinner salad, the Boy had the meatball sandwich and I ordered a pepperoni calzone with a Coke for him and an iced tea for me.
There was way too much ricotta cheese in the calzone (I'm not a fan anyway) but the crust was great.
Boy liked the marinara sauce with the calzone better than the sauce that came with his half sandwich.
This was his first meatball sandwich and he says he doubts he'll ever order it again, at least here.
He says there wasn't anything wrong with it but it just didn't "do it" for him.
I thought he'd have liked it as he loves Italian food in general so he will try it again somewhere else most likely...
On service:
Service was once again hit-or-miss and we had to ask for enough ice for the tea (again) from the same young waitress from our second visit.
At least she gave us enough bleu cheese on the salad this time but she had the very annoying habit of answering "No problem" when we asked for the check, more ice, etc ("Yes" or "No" is the proper way to answer a customer, PERIOD!).
A number of tables had been bussed but not wiped down so we took the only apparently clean one there when we seated ourselves.
And one of the supposedly clean forks on the table had a speck of food on it and the glass the extra ice came in felt grimy on the outside.
And the other (also very young) waitress must have skipped her classes at Waitress U on the day that they told everyone else about not grabbing a glass by the rim, where the customer drinks from...
The total was $22 including tip ($18.48 plus a little over 15% tip in spite of the mediocre service)
Overall:
We suggest that they have the day shift waitress train the other two younger ones as they appear to have been, more or less, just tossed onto the floor with absolutely no training (that's common in a lot of places here from what we have seen but then again, maybe we're just spoiled).
And we love their sandwiches, the pizza was good and reasonably priced, the lasagna looked great, last night, the salads all look marvelous, the owner himself was having dinner with what we assume are his parents and he had shrimp fettuccine and that looked wonderful and the calzone would be great without all of that awful ricotta (it had the texture of a wet sponge and very little flavor).
9 June - Wahoo's Fish Tacos:
We ordered a number of items from all across the menu: grilled fish tacos, Polynesian shrimp tacos, sushi rolls with cilantro sauce, Maui Onion Rings, the shrimp came with black beans and rice and we also had a Pepsi and a Root Beer.
We got excellent service, in a modified fast food format
It was amusing for a change (I had a chili cheese dog for lunch, just in case...).
Our total was slightly less than $22
The Darla says that the best fish tacos around here are still at the Por Favor in Lemon Grove.
Celebrity Waitressing III:
Recently, the wife noticed football coach Dick Butkis was a guest of one of the members at La Jolla Country Club.
Like myself, The Darla is largely uninterested in the world of sports and had to be told who the familiar looking ex jock was (I know him mainly from his recurring role on "Saturday Night Live" in a skit with John Goodman and others discussing the team "Da Bears" as they say it).
They hold a lot of fund raisers at The Club and recently San Diego City Councilman Ron Roberts was the guest of honor at one of these benefits where they raised a large chunk of change for his upcoming run at the Mayor's office...
12 June: Tommy's small ($9.95) pepperoni pizza, easy on the sauce, easy on the cheese...
14 June - Dim Sum at Jasmine Bistro:
This time, the wife and I revisited several old favorites from our previous visits such as the Shrimp Su Mai, the Scallop Pot Stickers, the Shrimp-filled Rice Balls, Spring Rolls, a small bowl of steamed sticky rice, hot tea for the wife, iced tea for me.
Everything was great and we tried all of the little condiments with each entry (and ate quite a bit of the hot mustard of course).
The total was $19.37 before tipping a very generous 23% plus ($24 even)...
We had great service this time (we were the only ones in the place as it was 11:00 AM) and 4 different servers attended to us.
When this place is clicking on all 8 cylinders, it's wonderful but sometimes service is horrible as well (Saturday mornings, for example).
A summer meal schedule adjustment:
The Boy leaves for work at 6:00 AM every morning, eats his lunch just after 11:00 AM and is ready for his dinner when he walks in the front door, generally just before 4:00 PM.
And I get up at 5:00 AM or so every morning (when the Boy does) despite the fact that I may be awake as late as 2:00 AM sometimes and I am more than ready for my mid-day meal at approximately 10:00 AM even though most restaurants don't start serving lunch until 11:00 AM.
I am also ready for my dinner fairly early and could easily eat as early as 4:00 PM too.
Sometimes I am stuck in traffic until almost 6:00 PM, however and that isn't practical at least a couple of days a week.
What that means, especially since the wife isn't here to eat dinner with us most of the week is that we are moving up our meal time, both for my lunch and both of our dinners, whenever possible.
This should give me at least an extra hour early in the day (summer's coming) and clear a space of a couple of hours after our dinners most nights of the week. Of course, that also severely limits my lunch options as well (looks like I'll be "brown bagging it" a lot more often...
26 June - The Little Fish Market II:
We had virtually the same thing as before but the service was all out of whack with everything arriving at once on this visit.
I ordered the Shrimp with bacon on a skewer which was cooked over mesquite charcoal, with rice pilaf and cole slaw on the side.
The Boy had the Manhattan clam chowder in a bread bowl.
For drinks, I had an iced tea and he had a soda from the machine.
This time, we also tried the prawn cocktail and it definitely was not worth the money (5 lame medium size shrimp or small prawns, depending on your view point with a bowl of cocktail sauce with cabbage at the bottom to make it look like there was more to it than there is for $8.25).
Of course, the food was great, as usual but we had to ask for bread too (when it finally became apparent that someone was asleep at the switch there), so the entire meal order was wrong.
The server must've been absent the day they covered it in Waitressing 101 as she was absolutely clueless about the major points of her job (and she had probably slept through the discussion on the finer points of it all) and acted as if everything was normal, what's our problem...?
The total was $35 after tax and a slightly less than 10% tip.
