A Taste of SJSU

I always kind of dread going to HP Pavilion events because I am beyond a San Jose food noob, and I never know where to eat after. The majority of the time I end up hitting like the Foster City Denny's @ midnight on my way back to SF. While that is always fun, I like to try new places and experience the local scene.  This time, I decided to take advantage of the Foodies @ EAHQ list, and get some advice. Surprisingly, I only got two responses and both recommended the same place: La Victoria Taqueria. Sold.

After checking the Yelp reviews, I was a bit worried because everyone claimed the special "orange" sauce was to die for, and that without it the food was not particularly memorable. I tend to not like orange stuff (baked goods, chocolate, etc)... but I mentally committed to it anyways. James and I rolled up around 11 after the Sharks game. We were both pretty starving because the match had gotten intense in the last period and ended in a shootout! I was immediately excited by "la vic" because of the awesome building it was in. It looked like a little freestanding (Victorian?) SF row house :)

burrito explosion!

The inside is small, and we were definitely way older seeming than the rest of the SJSU crowd. It wasn't too busy though so we easily got a table to wait for our food. And then we waited... and waited. At first we thought that all of the orders being fulfilled were "to-go," but then after about 10 mins we noticed people who came in after us eating their burritos? It was really hard to understand the woman calling out the order numbers, but we figured out they were on 23 when we held a 10 :P. Finally a worker noticed our disgruntlement and wandered up to ask us what we had ordered. I was a bit annoyed, but then they brought us some chips and salsa to tide us over, so I gave them a semi-pass. The chips were pretty non-descript corn, and the salsa was nothing amazing... so my waiting annoyance re surged.

orange sauce

Finally our food came! We both got burritos with pretty typical taqueria fillings. They let you take one bottle of their acclaimed orange sauce to your table, and you are able to purchase more for $6 to take home. I doused my first bite with it, and it was pretty tasty :). I actually couldn't use that much for the rest of the burrito because I'm so anti orange... but I can appreciate that it is objectively delicious. James seemed to really enjoy his. The burrito was pretty filling and I ended up kind of ripping mine apart at the end and making a huge-giant mess of myself. I'm always the most fun person to take to public restaurants

security detail??

The one thing I thought was hilarious was that there were two security guards posted at the door?? I'm not sure if it's to keep the constant flow of drunk students at bay or whether the Yelp reviews claiming it's to protect the orange sauce are true.... but it was pretty bizarre to see at a little taqueria. Oh! and one super lame thing: they freaking charge for refills on fountain drinks!!! WTF >: |

Glad I went :) prolly wouldn't go back, but if you are in to orange and local flavor, this place seems like a San Jo must

Fusion that Can't Fail

I've never really understood "fusion" food. It generally just ends up being over-priced (albeit often delicious) Americanized Asian stuff.  I am highly in to bizarre foods though, so when I read about the coming soon Sushirrito in SOMA, I could not wait!! A sushirrito is exactly what it sounds like: combo of sushi & a burrito. AMAZING! Only problem is that the store is open for weekday lunch, and I work in Redwood Shores :(

reminiscent of a burrito bar :)

Since I'm freaking sick again, I was rocking the wfh. Normally when I'm wfh, I make a point of it to stay in PJs and clean out the cabinets and fridge to the best of my ability. But today, I decided to be crazy since it's Friday and venture out on a lunch quest! After some Yelp research, I found out that Sushirrito tends to get horredous lines around the lunch rush, so I planned on getting about 30 mins before they closed at 3. Of course I was late to leave my house, so I rolled out around 2:20.

I like to pretend I'm an expert at SF driving which is a complete lie. I knew the place was in SOMA near 2nd and between Market and Mission. I hate driving on Market Street, so I thought I'd take a different route. I ended up on Folsom and got all the way down to SOMA when I ran in to an issue I had forgotten to take in to account. YOU CAN'T FREAKING MAKE ANY LEFT TURNS EVER! Stupid non-one-way-street no turn signs >: |. I was already totally late at this point, so I was starting to get super flustered. I decided to make some strategic right turns instead. failfailfail. I'll spare the details, but the highlight of that endeavor was me making a highly illegal u-turn to avoid turning on to some secret carpool entrance to the Bay Bridge. Good times.

I was too shy to take a pic of the rest cuz people were staring

Once I finally got my car on Mission heading back west, it was like 2:45 and I was freaking out. I took the first parking spot I could find on the side. The f-ing meters there are ridica expensive, and I only had 2 quarters which got me about 5 mins. I tried to stick my credit card in, but it would only fill it to 15 mins even though it was an hour meter?? (BTW, since when can you use credit in those? awesome!!). After that, I booked it up the street. I was totally shamelessly running and knocking in to people, but I was not going to miss my sushi burrito! I arrived at the shop with a few mins to spare and was amazed that there was still a decent sized crow waiting for their food. 

I ordered the "Latin Ninja" roll mainly because it had mango :). The menu had like 6 choices, and all of them sounded pretty tasty. They contain pretty typical sushi fair but with a little bit of extra sauces/spicing. The shop itself is pretty small and has a few standing room only tables that can be pulled down from the walls. Definitely a lunch spot for people who work in the area. 

Luckily my sushirrito was done quickly so I was able to run back to my car before the meter ran out. Oh and anyone in the vicinity of 1st and Mission today around 2:55 prolly saw my butt cuz a huge gust of wind came right as I tried to get in my car with my hands full. Even better times!

warning: do NOT remove from paper wrapper!

I was so relieved to arrive back in my beloved Twin Peaks apartment and settle down with my Outlook and lunch. I actually really enjoyed it :). It was pretty much just a giant sushi roll. I feel like it might have kind of tasted like pre-packed sushi, but they poured on a lot of green onion-ey cilantro sauce which made it really unique and good. I was a bit timid about the giant pieces of salmon, but they were fresh and delicious too :). I made the mistake of unwrapping the paper from the first half which made the first side totally explode everywhere!! Beware, they can be very messy. I ate it quickly an it was decently filling and felt pretty healthy. My only complaint is that $10+ seems like a steep price for the amount of food you get. 

I probably won't be back anytime soon due to how highly inaccessible it is to me, but I highly recommend everyone try it at least once! I love weird foods!!!! :D

WHO BRINGS A F*CKING CREDIT CARD TO A GROUP DINNER?!

HI!!!! soooo... i was going super strong last year on my food blog until i went to Japan. Then i got really stressed cuz there were too many things to post and freaked out and quit forever which was way lame since i ate tons of awesome places. sigh sigh. maybe some back blogging. we will see. But! at least for the moment i will try to be good :D

In order to celebrate cumpleanos de Katelyn, she, eugieugi, Carlos & I hit up a favorite intern haunt: el Torito!

I think we all know el Torito, so I won't go in to too many details. We all excitedly ordered the $11.99 3 course "MexiMeal" as it was a substantially better value than the main dishes

apparently the espolon margartini is a fail though, so don't order that

 Of course my fav part of this place is the "bottomless" chips and salsa. LIES!! either they don't expect to have lunch patronage or they just really freaking hated us cuz the service sucked. Please note the immediately empty chip basket to the left. one for four people!? are they serious >: |

Being a Sharon, I couldn't concentrate on the witty mingling cuz i was so focused on this:

full basket of chips in the next booth over

Such a waste! I hate it when people leave tons of food on their table. I was seriously so tempted to jump across the booth and swipe the basket. It was totally untouched and we were so starving. oh!! and you can't really see it here, but they also left a full ice cream there too :'( </3 wish i had gone for it

corn mush!
katelyn: is it an entree?
carlos: no it's hot

it looked bigger in the picture :(

Ok... haha this is el Torito so I'm already sick of describing it. below are the main dishes. mine was kind of gross. floutes? in the picture it looked like it was the entree with the greatest quantity so i went for it.. but it was nasty. let's just say i've had better Hot Pockets. i did enjoy the tortillas for the guys' fajitas tho

even dessert was a little disappointing. i had the "fried ice cream" which was just really fried tasting (in a surprisingly not good way)

fried fail :(

the lunch was amazing cuz i <3<3<3ed the company :) but def not cuz of the cuisine. sigh. it made me miss mike roth and dylan too :( and being an intern. life was so simple back then~~~~

Food at the Home Depot

This weeks FFW (fancy food weds) brought us to the home depot deli! According to food connoisseur Alice, this place has the best breakfast burritos. Truthfully, I don't generally eat those, so I'm not sure how awesomely excellent they were. They were freaking huggggge tho :| 

 

The highlight of my meal was actually the Aloha bev I got!! It was like a smoothie/shake made out of ice cream, pina colada mix, and berries!!! ahhhhhhhhhh since it was like 100 degrees that day, YUMMMM. i need to start frequenting the HD just to get this :|

the other highlight was when the cashier knew i was from SLC before i even opened my mouth. creepy but worth the 10% discount!

pronounce it sure-oh! dododo~~~

my awesome LA friends! check the stylin' wall :O

My last post about churro questing made me remember my ultimate churrtastic adventure... XOORO!! One day Ken randomly mentioned the place while we were on our way back from Yogurtland and I was insta-intent on dts-ing. Fortunately, I frequent LA for work and have super awesome friends like ishii-ish and mike roth who are willing to escort me :)

such fond memories of that night

 

We hit the Santa Monica location (now closed!! boooo) and shiz. It was so mindblowing! This shop had like 10 different crazy "premium spanish fritters" and a bunch of plainer filled ones. We ended up getting 4 to split: smores, double chocolate, turtle, and condensed milk filled. They are pretty much exactly what they sound like (AWESOME), take your regular, delicious cinnamon and crispy churro, fill it with sauce or choco, and then dip it in more sauce or choco and then maybe add some toppings. 

It was an intense experience, and not something one could do every day. My favorite was by far the turtle. I think it had caramel in the middle and then milk chocolate and almonds. This is a must-have experience next time you go to LA :)

display xooros. such variety!

P.S. I always feel like I have to explain my titles since they only make sense to me. If you go to the actual xooro website w/ your sound on, all confusion should be alleviated

Food in the Patio of the States

Over a year ago, Lorenzo told me of a magical baked good found in his homeland of Texas, strawberry cream filled churros. Since then, I have long yearned to try the lone star delicacy. Lucky for me, GameStop decided to move their manager's conference to San Antonio from its previous locale of Vegas!

For some reason, my checkin at the Hyatt took forever so I got to chat up the workers. I told them of my mission and they thought I was some combination of crazy and hilarious, so they pointed me to their favorite local mexican bakery, Mi Tierra.

A mile each way in the humid heat, and i found the place. As cool as the Riverwalk seemed, I'm always glad to get out of the tourist centers. When I got in this place people were hardcore staring at my teal hair and pink sequined True Religion jeans, a good sign of local-ness. I am a big enthusiast of the San Antonio decor, very mexican inspired with lots of bright colors and sombreros! (I just wish they all played the mexican hat dance like my salsa bowl back in utah.....)

The entrance to this place was no exception.

I was super excited to enter and find a ticket dispenser. Growing up in Utah, it was sadly rare to go to a place that had one (chains don't normally have such novelties), but I have fond memories of using them back in the good ole days of ZCMI and their in-store bakery :). Man, I wish I was 5. 

Luckily there was a bit of a line because I was overwhelmed with the selection. As much of a baked good officienado as I am, I actually am quite incompetant with mexican pastries. Beyond my and Damien's forever joke of the Holiday concha bread, I have no idea what's what. So that means I had to buy a lot <:D. I had already ordered three items before I realized I had forgotten the churro I quested so wholly for. Turns out they only serve them on weekends anyways, so no loss. Plus, let's be honest, I've been to xooro.... anything will be underwhelming after that!! (guess that should be my next back blog)

one of three sections of baked awesomeness!

fresh tortillas <3

I ended up getting a toasted coconut cookie, a caramel empanada, and a tres leches cake. Since I hadn't eaten, I also grabbed some enchiladas to go. 20 mins, a whole lot of sweat, and a melting food bag later, I was in my hotel and ready to pig out. The enchiladas were good, definitely authentic tasting. The highlight was the pile of 4 fresh tortillas they included :) eating tortillas makes me think of Disneyland and the Mission Factory <3

I'm proud that this was all I bought

On to the important part, DESSERT!!! I started out with innocent intents, I'd try a little of each, and save the rest for dessert/my 6 am flight tomorrow. Ha.

I started with tres leches since I had been craving that lately. Holy. Freaking. Crap. it was so so sooooo good. I think there were at least 2 cans of condensed milk alone in that thing... and the fruit was so fresh and juicy :) :) :) eeeeeek. So I  started planning on eating 1/4, to 1/2 to... yeah. I ate the whole freaking cake.

Look at the ridic amount of leches oozing from the cake. it's totally consuming the fork. SO GOOD

In my very limited defense, I was having some hardcore work crises. Of course this is normal with my job, but being Sharon, I tend to freak out. Luckily I am a simple creature and can only freak out about one thing at a time. I also stress eat with the best. Combine the two and we have me eating the entire cake in a sitting. The good news was that once I was stressing about how hugefat and sick I was from eating it all, I was able to approach my work with a clear and logical mind and block some of the shiz from hitting the fan.

I have since sampled the other items. Both were quite tasty but overly sweet. Not sure if that's typical of mexican baked fare. Either way, it ended my San Antonio food adventures. I can only consume so much.

Back to the Bay in the morn!