Juice House Boba

For dinner yesterday, we tried Juice House Boba. We've been for drinks before, but never for food. The shop is located at the southwest corner of 35th Ave. and Peoria (in the same plaza as Fry's, but facing 35th Ave.).

Here's a shot of the exterior:

We ordered the following:

• durian smoothie w/ boba ($3.00)
  
• spring rolls (three for $3.49)
• pho tai nam bo vien ($5.95)
• grilled pork banh mi ($2.99)
  

First up was the durian smoothie:
The smoothie was good, but I ordered the boba by mistake...

The spring rolls were excellent - among the best we've had in the area. The hoisin peanut dipping sauce served w/ the rolls was fantastic.

We had somewhat mixed opinions on the pho. Patty thought the noodles were a bit too hard and that the broth lacked "depth". I thought it was a decent bowl of pho - the broth was a bit salty for me.

The banh mi was "ok". The sandwich fillings were quite good, but the bread was mediocre (it reminded of the white bread at Subway). The banh mi (served on a crusty baguette) @ Pho Avina are superior.

Overall, Juice House Boba wasn't bad (it's definitely not bad for a very filling, ~$17 meal). It's a nice stop for drinks and an occasional bite to eat.


Places mentioned:

Juice House Boba
10410 N. 35th Ave, Suite #12
Phoenix, AZ 85051

Cajun Seafood Corner and The Street

The Thursday after Christmas we met up w/ a bunch of friends for dinner at the Cajun Seafood Corner. This was the first time there for all of all us. It's quite an interesting place. As the name implies, the restaurant specializes in Cajun food (jambalaya, crawfish, etc.), but also offers a full Vietnamese menu (as the owners are Vietnamese). We had a few things from both menus.

Here's what I can remember eating:

• Fried prawns (Vietnamese style)
• Snails in coconut broth (Vietnamese)
• Shaken Beef (Vietnamese)
  
• Fried rice
• Fish (catfish) and chips
  
• Catfish po'boy
  
• Chicken wings
• Boiled shrimp
• Jambalaya
  

I was pleasantly surprised. Everything was very good. My favorite was the fried prawns. Sorry - no pictures of the food.

After dinner, a few of us went to The Street (which is just up the street from Cajun Seafood Corner) for boba drinks. I had a red bean smoothie and Patty had a green milk tea w/ boba. Both drinks were quite good.

Too bad we live on the opposite side of town from these places...


Places mentioned:
Cajun Seafood Corner
2051 S. Dobson Rd. Suite #18
Mesa, AZ 85202
(SE corner of Dobson/Baseline)

The Street
1116 S. Dobson Rd.
Mesa, AZ 85249
NW corner of Dobson/Southern)

Weekend recap

Saturday we met up with some friends for dim sum @ China King (in Chandler). It had been a long time since we'd gone for dim so we were both excited. This was also our first time going to China King. As we were being seated I saw Trung and Rose...wow - another couple to add to the "on-deck" list (October '08). Congratulations guys!

The dim sum was good - probably the best in Phoenix right now. Good, solid food but not the best dim sum I've had. The service was good and the prices were very reasonable - about $10 per person. I'll give it a 7 (out of 10).




After dim sum we went to Boba Tea House for some boba. Same drinks as last week - jasmine green tea w/ boba and red bean slush (this time w/ boba). Linda and Al were also there and had ordered popcorn chicken. Tasty stuff...very similar to the salty fried chicken you can get on the streets in Taiwan (though it had a bit of a sweet taste and needed a bit more pepper).



After snacking, we went to visit Khoa and Mai and their new baby, Mina Saomai...what a cutie!

For dinner we went to Pita Jungle (Tempe location), one of my favorites. I've been going to the Tempe and Chandler locations for years, ever since I moved to Chandler in 1997. We ordered a small order of hummus ($3.60) and the Putanesca Chicken ($9.95). I've ordered both before and knew this would be more than enough for the two of us to share. The hummus (served w/ pita bread) was great - not too oily and it had the perfect texture. Next came the Putanesca Chicken. I'm not sure how Pita Jungle prepares their chicken but it is the best chicken EVER. It's always very flavorful and moist. The dish was great - marinated grilled chicken on top of linguini pasta, garlic, capers, tomatoes, and plenty of herbs. The service at Pita Jungle can be a bit erratic but there were no problems on this night. Pita Jungle gets an 8 (out of 10).




Sunday morning we tried making pancakes for the first time (I've made with pancake mix before but never from scratch). I found a recipe online (for basic pancakes) and decided to try it out. The pancakes turned out a bit dense...here they are (when you see the shape, please don't laugh!):



In the background, you can also see the ham omelette that I made (I guess it's actually more of a frittata). Anybody have any great pancake recipes to share???

After lunch, we went to see The Bourne Ultimatum. What a great movie - probably the best of the series. It's non-stop action. Jason Bourne (aka David Webb) is indestructible - he survives an explosion from close range, a few car accidents, multiple fights, etc. Maybe just a tiny bit unrealistic but I loved it. I'll give it 8 (out of 10).

That's all for now...thanks for reading!

Hello World!

Wow - my first blog post. Since I currently have a bit of free time (haha), I can concentrate on blogging! I plan to make this a "diary" type blog where I'll be posting about a variety of topics: food, travel, investing, food, random thoughts, and finally, food.

To start things off, let me do a re-cap of the past few days.

Saturday (8/4/07):

Saturday afternoon, Patty (my wife) and I went to Boba Tea House in Chandler to get our boba fix for the month. We had a Jasmine Green Tea w/ Boba and a Red Bean Slush. The Jasmine tea was a bit too light but the Red Bean Slush was great.

We killed a bit of time at Chandler Mall and then decided to go Lee's Sandwiches for a light dinner. We had a Grilled Pork Banh Mi and Grilled Chicken Banh Mi. Both were good, as usual.

After dinner we headed to Tempe for the DCI (Drum Corp International) Desert Classic. Aside from a bit of rain, the event was awesome. My hometown corps, the Madison Scouts (Madison, WI), gave a fantastic performance and I thought they were one of the top teams of the evening. The crowd seemed to agree and gave them a standing ovation. Unfortunately, the judges saw things differently, and the Scouts placed 9th (out of 12 corps). I thought the Scouts performance was better than The Academy (Tempe, AZ) and Spirit from JSU (Jacksonville, AL) but both these teams ended up placing higher. In any case, it was very cool to see some of the top ranking teams perform. This was our second DCI event - the first was in Glendale back in July. If you haven't been to a DCI event before, I highly recommend checking one out.

Sunday (8/5/07):

For lunch we decided on sushi. I had read that Takamatsu had just opened a location near us (in Goodyear), so we drove there to check it out. When we got to the location and pulled up there were no cars in the parking lot and the place looked more like a bar or lounge from the outside. We discussed a bit and decided to pass on Takamatsu and try Ichiban (Goodyear) instead. I felt kind of bad, as we were pulling out, a chef popped his head out there door (maybe to communicate to us that they were open???). In hindsight, maybe we should've stayed and tried Takamatsu.

Ichiban has to be one of the worst Japanese restaurants I've ever been to. Actually, it is one of the worst restaurants (in general) that I've ever been to. The service and food were seriously lacking. I didn't see any of the employees smile. I got the general feeling that the employees didn't seem to care (about anything). I was shocked at our Caterpillar and Soft Shell Crab Rolls. Both were way over-priced for the quantity and quality of food received. The sake (salmon) and tempura were also not so good. For restaurants, my opinion is that if either service or food is lacking, strength in one can definitely make up for the other's shortcomings. If both are lacking, then we definitely won't be going back. To make things worse, I was "on the toilet" 15 minutes after we left.

For dinner, we tried another place that we had never been to before - Wong's Chinese Restaurant (west Phoenix). What a difference that good service can make! We were greeted with a smile...is that so difficult?!? We ordered: Orange Beef, Home Style Tofu, and Wonton Noodle Soup. The Orange Beef was great - it reminded me of what we used to offer at my parent's restaurant. The Home Style Tofu and Wonton Noodle Soup were both just ok. There was a bit too much sauce in the tofu dish and the tofu itself was an odd orange color that I've never seen before. The soup was good, although the noodles were tasteless. Oh - I almost forgot to mention another important part of any Chinese meal, the rice. The rice was really bad...

But as I said above, the service was good so there's a pretty good chance that we'll be back again.

OK - I think I've written way too much (thanks for reading this far) so I'll call it a night.