No. 239

New York Buffalo Wings & Ribs
333 H Street
Chula Vista
 
Since we moved over this way, we no longer have Neighbor Neal nearby to feed every once in a while and there's really no point in buying a whole chicken when there's just the 2 of us. Additionally, I'm not overly fond of chicken (my dad was a chicken farmer back in the early 50s). And since I only eat wings and an occasional piece of breast meat, we've been looking for a better way to get in our weekly chicken. So far, we've tasted wings at Popeye's, Church's, KFC and Wings & Things (National City) and this chain is Number One Son's favorite wing palace so we decided to check it out..
 
Unfortunately, this location had dirty front door glass, floors, tables, catsup bottle lids, etc and I watched on employees wiping the counter with a wet rag, then grabbing an order of food with the rag still in that hand. Then there's a serious problem with lousy, loud rap music dropping an almost constant stream of "F-bombs" despite the table with kids in the middle of the dining room at 3:00 PM...
 
When it comes to the food, we found the wing pieces (not whole wings) to be small, with not a lot of meat (KFC is winning on that point), the fries were generic and the dipping sauces were a bit vinegary. To their credit, it was possible to get iced tea that wasn't dispensed through the soda machine.
 

New York Buffalo Wings & Ribs web site: http://www.nywingsandribs.com/

No. 238

Rubicon Deli

 We've read about this place for a couple of years (they've racked up a number of "Bests" from San Diego Magazine, SD City Beat, The Reader and the Union Tribune), with 3 locations: Mission Beach, Mission Hills and Reno. We visited the Mission Hills location, a small storefront just down the street from El Indio, with 3 booths, one long table and window seating for 6. It was clean, neat and well kept.

 We shared The Dipper Dapper, essentyially a whole loaf of their Onion Durch Crunch bread with  ("...A Half a Pound of Thinly Sliced Prime Rib, Creamy Horseradish, Served with Au Jus For Dipping..."), a bag of Dirty Chips and a 1 liter Mexican Coke in the glass bottle. Our total was $18 and change but the portions can only be described as  more-than-generous and they tossed in a couple of just-baked cookies. Your choice of cheese is also included but the wife can't have it and I don't think cheese belongs on a French Dip..

 The meat was perfectly done and very tender, the Au Jus had great flavor but I wish I had ordered a more substantial bun as the Dutch onion loaf tended to fall apart in the Au Jus.

 We both really enjoyed our lunch and have already discussed several other items on the menu which we'll be trying soon.

 Finally, this place is more a very upscale sandwich shop than it is a deli...

The web site: http://therubicondeli.com/

Half of the Dapper Dipper - please excuse spillage & poor composition

No. 237

Wings-N-Things
1499 East Plaza Blvd
National City
 
Since we moved over this way (away from Neighbor Neal), it no longer makes economic sense to cook a whole chicken (it's just the wife and me now) so we've decided to look around for another solution.
 
As I mainly eat wings nowadays, we had planned to taste test the 3 major fast food chicken chains side by side, KFC, Popeyes and Chucrh's but noticed a Wings-N-Thgings nearby and after checking out their web site, stopped by yesterday.
 
The web site is somewhat misleading as it took me several visits to determine that they serve plain wings as well as Buffalo BBQ Wings (all of the photos only showed the BBQ wings).
 
It's somewhat expensive ($9.92 for 3 wings, 3 sauces, a couple of pieces of celery and carrot, a couple of generic breadsticks  and an iced tea) but the chicken was cooked to order and pretty good (despite my aversion to chicken in general) and I can't say I like their idea of cutting the wings apart and saying it's twice as many pieces (there wasn't a lot of meat)
 
The place was clean but noisy (lots of hard surfaces)  but I would go back, at least once more, to try the BBQ wings...
 
The web site: www.wingsnthings.com
 

UPDATE: We visited a second time and they must have twice-fried the wings, some of the most expensive chicken jerky I ever had.

No. 236

Ramberto's Mexican Food
1039 Sweetwater Road
Spring Valley, Ca.
 
Not to be confused with Alberto's, Adalberto's, Berto's, Dilberto's, Filberto's, Gilberto's, Hilberto's, Noberto's, Roberto's, etc...
 
This is a drive-through-only place (open 24 hours) and the food is so similar to Valerio's in El Cajon that I couldn't tell the difference...
 
Portions are fairly large, the place appeared to be neat and clean inside.
 
I had the 2 beef taco plate (with beans & rice) and the wife had the carne asada taco plate for a total of $14.54 (plus a dollar tip). The wife liked the carne asada and says she'll order it again and my only complaint is that the taco shells are too tough as I am missing a number of teeth now. .
 

No web site.

No. 235

Filippi's Pizza Grotto
 India Street (restaurant row)
 
We first heard about this place on Sam The Cooking Guy's show shortly after we moved here, almost 11 years ago now. We had been meaning to check it out ever since but had never made it over there until now (we're a lot closer to everything here at the new house).
 
To start off with, we should have known the streets would be crawling with tourists on a sunny Sunday afternoon in January...
 
You enter the restaurant through a small, very crowded, grocery store with very narrow aisles. It's dark inside (I couldn't read the menu) and once my eyes finally adjusted, the first thing I noticed was the 1000 year old carpet (stained, threadbare, soaked with spills and smelly). The dining room is a throwback to the 60s, with Chianti bottles and plastic grapes hanging from the ceiling. Then we realized we had been seated next to the trash can and dirty dishes and what's worse, the drink pass-through window is directly above them, a clear health code violation as well as being visually disgusting....
 
The wife had a horrible antipasto salad (lots of lettuce hearts, 4 slices of salami, a few slices of mortadella, hard green olives, garbanzo and kidney beans) and I ordered a pepperoni pizza, easy on the sauce, and an iced tea. The iced tea tasted like someone had put a cigarette butt out in it, the pizza had way too much cheese, maybe half an inch thick; it was flavorless and the crust was gummy and doughy in the middle. I only took a couple of bites, looking for anything actually edible, before I gave up. It was easily the worst pizza I've had in years and I counted a total of 2 slices of pepperoni on the entire pie...
 
 Incidentally, our waitress appeared to be totally clueless as well (we ordered separately yet she served the salad immediately and the wife was done with it before my pizza arrived)..
 
Our total was $26 and coin and I threw the money on the table and left
 

No. 234

Chef John's Fish & Chips
Lemon Grove
 
After we checked out Carnitas El Botanero, we drove right next door for my dinner.
 
I ordered the Fish, Shrimp & Chips with an iced tea. The place was clean and it's obviously a Mom & Pop operation. All of the food was obviously pre-frozen (I saw the chef pour the fries directly from a commercial freezer bag). The fish was properly done, the shrimp had a nice breading, almost like tempura. A couple of the fries weren't quite done and the tartar sauce wasn't up to snuff...
 
Our total was $11 and coin.
 
Good reviews on Yelp, we'll be back but this time, we'll bring our own (home made) tartar sauce.
 
When we were leaving, the owner's wife ran out to the truck to give me my cane, which I had forgotten and left behind (thank you!).
 
 
 
UPDATE:
 

We visited a sexond time, this time bringing our own home made tartar sauce and it was great!

No. 233

Carnitas El Botanero
Lemon Grove
 
The wife ordered the pork verde with beans, rice, a couple of flour tortillas, chips, salsa and an iced tea for me (I was there only to taste)
 
I liked the beans & rice, the wife liked the verde sauce and also discovered that she likes pickled jalapeno peppers
 
On the other hand, the chips were stale, nothing really stood out and we can't see any reason to return.
 
The total was $11 and coin.
 

No web site
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