No. 185

Korea BBQ House
4620 Convoy Street
San Diego, Ca. 92111

The Darla has never had Korean food before (my brother Jim was stationed there in the US Army and tells us his favorite dish is Bulgogi) so we made it a point to stop by on our way home from the VA today.

It appears to be brand new and it's nicely designed with plenty of wood paneling and close to a dozen decorative overhead vents for cooking with hibachi grills right at the table.

Our first order was for the No. 1 on the lunch menu, Bulgogi (essentially marinated beef) which came with a small side salad and an interesting dressing (ginger, sesame oil and maybe rice wine vinegar?), a side order of steamed rice rice noodles, vegetable tempura and a dumpling with both beef & pork. You can see more about each dish by clicking on the link to their menu (below).

We also ordered the No.6, a hot pot with pork stew and tofu, which also came with a small bowl of steamed rice. When the food started arriving, our server also put out 8 small bowls of kim chi.

I had also ordered an iced tea (the wife doesn't drink with her meals in general) and the total (including tax) was $20 and coin so I left the change and tossed in another 3 bucks for the tip.

The wife really liked the bulgogi and plans on making it here at home soon, using my brother's recipe (secret ingredient: Coca Cola). And the hot pot was fairly spectacular, a meal in itself (even I ate several chunks of the tofu) and there were several vegetables neither of us recognized although I'm fairly certain one of them was seaweed.

The wife is somewhat divided on the various iterations of the kim chi.

There were some nice little pancakes with a deep green leafy vegetable inside that were very good but some of the others were way too spicy for me.

Would we go back?

Definitely, even though I am not supposed to eat beef, pork, shell fish, dark green leafy veggies, garlic or grapefruit...

No web site but see the menu here: http://koreahouse.menutoeat.com/

No. 184

Philly House
Parkway Mall
El Cajon, Ca

We discovered this place last week when the wife went to Penny's in the mall for some new shoes. After she picked up a couple of pairs, we wandered down to the food court for some Khan's Mongolian BBQ. I made a mental note to come back and check out the new cheesesteak place as they appeared to be doing things right when I stopped by on our way out. I saw the very thinly sliced ribeye steaks as the cook threw them on the grill and noticed the sign about hand cut, cooked-to-order fries and decided to do it sooner, rather than later. As it stands now, it's at least 10 miles from here for a decent cheesesteak and a place right here in the mall could change everything.

Unfortunately, the reality didn't live up to any of my expectations.

The meat was overcooked to the point of looking like dry, feathery, leathery grilled roast beef (and not much of it either!), the cheese was a thin, single slice of mozzarella, plastered to the inside of the bun, not mixed throughout the meat as a proper cheesesteak does it, there were way too many excessively caramelized onions (the bun was good) and the fountain Coke tasted of chlorine, the 3rd time I've encountered it this week (once at Khan's and another time at Wendy's).

My best guess is that they don't clean the lines for the soda machine thoroughly enough but it is disturbing to realize it is such a prevalent problem and also begs the question: what else hasn't been properly cleaned? When the wife took the soda back, they didn't offer to give us our money back, even after we saw another customer complain about the taste as well, instead offering me a canned Coke, which she never actually delivered (it would have been nice to have something to help choke down that dry, tasteless meat).

The fries were honest, hot and I have absolutely no complaint there.

We had split a foot long combo and the total was only $7.60 with tax. In my opinion, they ought to raise their prices significantly, maybe even a couple of bucks or so, (they do have mall rent to pay) and double the meat and (at least) double the cheese as well.

Then they'd have something...