Wednesday, April 26, 2017

The Galley Fish Tacos Report

I noticed the teriyaki place by the Starbucks in the Home Depot shopping center had been replaced by a new restaurant. The Galley Fish Tacos and Beer has just opened so I took the whole family. The address is 12218 Apple Valley Road Suite 105 and the website is http://www.thegalleyfishtacos.com . I am a longtime fan of fish tacos though not of beer so once we checked the menu to be sure there were options we filed in and stood for a long time before the counter trying to make up our mind.

The menu had tacos, burritos, salads and a few other items so we eventually made up our minds and ordered. We got the namesake Galley fish tacos, potato tacos, a shrimp burrito, kids steak taco and kids fish and chips.

The Galley Fish taco was a panko crusted white fish fried crispy. It was served on a corn tortilla with shredded cabbage, Pico de gallo and creamy tart white sauce. Having never had a potato taco (sweet potato excepted) I wanted to give it a try. It turns out it was made with mashed potatoes shaped in a tube and fried til golden brown. It was dressed the same as the fish taco except instead of a soft tortilla the tortilla was fried crisp. The shrimp burrito was huge and had plenty of large shrimp.


Several of our meals were combos. The sides were options of white or cilantro rice and black or peruvian beans. The cilantro rice was pale green and not too strong. The Peruvian beans were creamy soft and had a mild unique taste in the same flavor family as pinto beans. I tried my sons kids meal and the fried fish tasted of beer batter though he didn't seem to notice.

The restaurant was clean, had fun decor and the staff was patient with us. It turned out to be a good family friendly place and a good option for fish tacos in the High Desert.

Friday, April 21, 2017

Pho Kobe Report

I had a chance to bring my kids to Pho Kobe in Victorville.  It is the second of the currently open Pho restaurants that I have eaten at in the high desert. It is located at 15208 Bear Valley Road in Victorville, the former Walmart shopping center.

This place was pretty casual.  Ordering takes place at a counter and you seat yourself.  When it is ready your food is brought to your table.  The menu is printed on a large signboard with photos.  There were several items other than Pho on the menu.  Staff was helpful and the food was brought quickly.

We ordered spring rolls, two bowls of Pho and smoothies all around. The spring rolls consist of lettuce, carrot shreds, herbs and shrimp wrapped with elastic translucent rice wrappers. They were fairly large and accompanied with a dish of peanut dipping sauce. 

We shared these and the soup and the staff brought us extra bowls without us even needing to ask. Pho traditionally comes with a bowl of clear beef broth, thin rice noodles, onions, scallions, cilantro and your choice of meat.  It also generally is accompanied with a dish containing bean sprouts, basil, chiles and lime wedges that you can add in to your preference.  Chili sauce is also available on the table.  One bowl we ordered had beef, brisket and flank and the other had rare beef, tripe and tendon. Beef balls are also available but the dish we ordered came with three options so meatballs got short shrift. 

I split the soup in my bowl with my youngest son but was wary of sharing the tripe and tendon with him since they are not universally loved.  His brother donated some of his meat. We added bean sprouts, basil and lime juice to the bowls and rather than jalapenos I opted for some of the red chili sauce for a little heat. You might be hesitant to order soup with tripe or tendon.  Certainly don’t let that keep you from trying pho (you can always get just meat you are familiar with) but consider giving these things a try.  These are standard items and people all over the world love them. They are unfamiliar but by trying them them become more familiar and you can learn to like them. They add something to pho you don’t get if you only get the meat.  Their texture is unique and pleasant and after a few times you can grow to appreciate what they add to the experience of eating pho.  We each had a smoothie. Three strawberry and one jackfruit two of them with boba. My younger kids are still gaining an appreciation for boba but like pho I am encouraging them to keep trying.  I always have them try some of mine and they are slowly warming up to them. For the uninitiated boba are marble sized balls of black tapioca. When prepared for the smoothies they become smooth chewy textured nuggets that intersperse through the smoothie. You even get to use a extra large diameter straw so they fit.

There is a tendency in restaurants for us to associate one item for a whole cuisine.  Tacos for Mexican or sushi for Japanese.  These cuisines actually have many more foods available rather than the one item that becomes associated with it.  Pho is one of these items that for many has come to typify Vietnamese food in general.  
Of course only a certain number of foods can be translated to a restaurant format and be made available in places far from home where available ingredients and infrastructure might be pretty different.  Because of this we get certain foods that seem to be able to transcend cultures and become a symbol of an entire culture.  Pho is a delicious symbol but remember that there is more to a cuisine than the one item that symbolizes it.

Saturday, April 8, 2017

Complete High Desert Restaurant Breakdown

It can be difficult to find new restaurants in the High Desert so in order to sort through and hopefully find new options I decided to take the data from the County Health Department and sort through it to come up with a list of places to seek out.  If you want the data to sort through yourself by your own criteria you can download the entire list here: https://www.sbcounty.gov/dph/ehsportal/Facilities/Food

The list includes all facilities that the County Health Department inspects which includes schools, convenience stores, groceries and all of the chains.  I took the master list and started filtering out the places that don’t apply to what I am interested in with food such as popular chain places, schools, etc. The list can be sorted by city so I set aside the communities outside of the Victor Valley for use when I am traveling outside of my typical range. Here are some interesting observations and some places I am looking forward to trying out.

On the date I uploaded the list there were 15,508 different entries.  Once I removed the communities other than Victorville, Hesperia, Apple Valley and Adelanto there were 1595 left.  Then I sorted through the listings for those communities and took out the places that weren’t local restaurants.  There were 290 left. They didn’t already have a category for the type of restaurant so I added in that column and gave them a type. The categories I came up with were mostly related to ethnicity such as Mexican, Chinese, etc. but also includes categories for bakeries, groceries and burgers. The Victor Valley has:

American
34 American Restaurants
16 Burger Places
3 Hawaiian Places (One is a chain but I kept it because I like it)
8 Southern/Soul Food Joints
20 Pizza Places
11 Sandwiches
2 Seafood Restaurants
1 Fine Dining/ Fusion (Chateau Chang)

Asian
7 Chinese Restaurants
2 Asian Buffets
1 Filipino Market/Restaurant
18 Japanese Places (Almost all sushi)
3 Korean Restaurants
1 Mongolian BBQ
5 Thai
4 Vietnamese
1 Indian Place (plus maybe another in a gas station I haven’t been able to chase down yet)

Latin American
90 Mexican Restaurants (I hope to do a better breakdown on these later)
3 Salvadoran

Other
9 Italian Restaurants (outside of Pizza Places)
1 Middle Eastern (Plus Mu’s Street Food)
1 African Restaurant
1 Jamaican

I hoped that I would come across some other type of restaurant that I really liked but unfortunately there were not many surprises.  There were no Peruvian, Persian, German/ French/ or any European except Italian, Brazilian/Argentinian, Moroccan or Cuban.  In the future I would like to cover some of the non-restaurant entries that are of interest.  There are 18 Donut Stores, 7 Ethnic Groceries, 12 Frozen Desert Places and 5 Bakeries (though I don’t think this includes some of the panaderias that are in the area)

Now I can start making priorities based on some of the available choices and hopefully get some new reports uploaded soon.

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Mu's Street Food Report

I had noticed a street truck a few times when I was driving down Bear Valley Road and was curious what kind of food was on offer but was zipping by too fast to see what they had.  A few weeks later my wife mentioned that she saw that they had kabobs there so I knew I would have to get there soon.  Not long after I had my teenage son who is always up for trying something new and we needed dinner so I gave it a shot.  I have been missing Middle Eastern food in Apple Valley singe the closing of Pita Stop a few years ago and am glad to know we have an option on this end of the Victor Valley.  The location is at 20339 Bear Valley Road at the top of the large hill above Deep Creek Road.

As soon as we walked up they handed us a large laminated menu. One side was devoted to Mexican Food and the other side was Mediterranean Food and some American options.

 I will have to go back to try some of the other options so I can’t comment on those yet but I can on the Lamb Pita which is what we ordered.  As soon as we placed our order they brought four skewers loaded with marinated lamb cubes to a hardwood fire which was just outside of the truck. 


They grilled to order and once the meat was perfectly cooked they brought them back into the truck and assembled the rest of the meal.  It consisted of a big thick soft pita bread with the grilled lamb on top.  To the side was shredded lettuce, tomatoes, onions and cilantro and a container of a green herb tinted yoghurt sauce. I added the salad and sauce and ate it taco style.  The hot savory meat with the cool vegetables and sauce were great.  Each element worked and it makes me want to get back soon to try some of the other options.

It is good to have a Mediterranean option in Apple Valley and it is great that it is a good example of the genre.  Their website is http://www.musstreetfood.com/ which has part of the menu including the pricing. As of the time of this post the Mediterranean options aren’t on there yet but hopefully soon.

Gul-Naz Cuisine of Pakistan Report

I had an opportunity to go down to Redlands recently and this allowed me the chance to go to a restaurant that was recommended by a co-worker. It was Gul-Naz Cuisine of Pakistan. Located in a strip mall (where all the best restaurants can be found) in Colton it was at 1624 E. Washington just east of the 215 so it was easy getting there.

The host was friendly and accommodating, seated us quickly and was attentive during the time we were there.  If you are familiar with Indian food many of the dishes on the menu might be familiar.  One distinctive difference was that there were beef dishes on the menu.  We started with an appetizer called Shami Kabob which consisted of beef and chickpea patties fried and served with a spicy yoghurt sauce.  It was vaguely reminiscent of falafel but smoother textured.  The sauce was the perfect accompaniment adding a tartness to cut through the heaviness of the fried patty and just a little heat. 

I ordered a rose syrup drink made with milk called Rooh Afza.  I am fond of rose water but recognize it is not universally loved.  If you like it this cold creamy drink is a good way to enjoy it and it is an option if you get tired of ordering a Lassi every time (though there were several on the menu too). 

For entrees we ordered Lamb Palak and Chicken Tikka Masala. The Palak dish was cubed lamb cooked in a creamy spinach sauce with spices and a side of naan.  The lamb was mild and tender and the sauce was great.  The bread was soft and a perfect accompaniment to sop up the sauce.  My wife claimed the Chicken Tikka Masala was the best she had ever had and it was excellent.  It came with a side of perfectly cooked rice.  It is a mystery to me how to elevate rice to a level of perfection but they accomplished it here.  

We didn’t have time for desserts but we will definitely be coming back to try more.  Our host/server mentioned that all of the food is made from scratch on site and it all had a homey personal feeling to it.  It wasn’t just like homemade food but homemade by a talented capable cook.

The website for Gul-Naz is http://www.gulnazcuisine.com/ and has part of the menu with the prices.

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Ninja Poki Yaki Report

Newly opened Ninja Poki Yaki Japanese Healthy Food Cuisine adds a new option for High Desert residents who want something a little different.  Located in the Desert Mountains Plaza on the Northwest corner of Highway 18 and Apple Valley Road it joins a few other restaurants such as Di Napoli’s Fire House, Los Domingos and Maxwell’s Burgers.

Despite being called Japanese Healthy Food a cursory internet search indicates that Poki is actually a Hawaiian Invention. It can be describes as a salad made with raw fish and other vegetable ingredients.

The restaurant is set up as a bar where the staff assembles the Poki to your specifications.  Your order starts with a choice between brown or white rice and a fairly large scoop is placed in your container.  Then you get to choose between a number of seafood options depending on if you selected the regular or large option. I ordered the regular and got to choose three options.  Some of the choices include cubed raw tuna, spicy tuna, salmon, scallops, shrimp and others.  Your choices are placed in a bowl and then you get to select the vegetable components to add into the fish.  Cilantro, shredded carrot, corn and other options are available and are added into the fish.  You can also choose sesame seeds, furikake and other additions and there are several sauces/dressings that are then added to your salad.  The completed salad is placed next to the rice in your container.  If you aren’t sure on what you want the staff was friendly and will gladly walk you through the ordering process.

This restaurant style seems to be growing in popularity where your order is assembled to your specifications.  It seems like the kind of place that would become a hangout for a young college crowd.  Hopefully they can get the promotion they need to get a regular clientele.  They don’t have a website listed but there is a facebook page.