Hungry Girl Eats at Nem Nuong, Little Saigon, Orange County

Too often I fall in love with one dish or another that I first sampled in some far away place.  Then I can't get it out of my mind, and I just want to go back, or try to make it.  


By far away, I mean somewhere that I can't reasonably get to on a weeknight for dinner, like Orange County, CA.


And more specifically, a Vietnamese restaurant named Nem Nuong, which is tucked away in the back of the lackluster Mall of Fortune in Garden Grove in Orange County.  Even if you had the address right, and your GPS was spot on, you might think twice before actually getting out of your car and walking into the restaurant.


My Vietnamese friend Kim (seriously) recommended it when she heard I was going to Huntington Beach to visit friends.  I have a policy about eating in ethnic restaurants, which I do as often as possible.  The policy requires that in order to eat in an ethnic restaurant, most of the clientele must be of that ethnicity.  Not negotiable, ever.  For my Vietnamese friend to recommend this restaurant 500 miles away was a solid endorsement.  Plus, she practically drooled when she told me about the spring rolls.  "They famous," she said.

Meat Rolls (Brodard image)

I was a little nervous about dragging my friends to this restaurant, site unseen.  But when I mentioned it, they were floored!  Turns out the restaurant, part of the Brodard Group (of two) Restaurants, is locally famous, and centered in the Little Saigon part of town.  They'd been there before, and were happy to go back.


We ordered the Vegetarian Saigon Style Spring Rolls, oversized, stuffed with shredded tofu, mushrooms, vermicelli, sweet potato, lettuce, cucumber, carrot and mint.  All wrapped in a perfect rice paper, served with a delicious dipping sauce.  They lived up to their reputation, and made a meal unto themselves.  I must have more, as soon as possible.  We ordered a table full of dishes, some soups, some noodles, the works.  The waiters patiently rearranged our condiments and sauces when we bungled the  accompaniments.  By meal's end, we were stuffed, and the sizable restaurant was full.  


Total bill for six people for dinner: $89.00, including drinks and tip.  We'll all go back for more.

Splitboard: The New Snowboard for Backcountry Boarders

As a snowboarder, I often gaze longingly outside ski resort boundaries at all the fresh powder.  I snap back to reality when it hits me how hard--and dangerous--it will be to trek up to the ridge and make it down to the chair lift without an emergency Ski Patrol escort.

I was thrilled to learn about splitboards, just this week.  A splitboard, according to splitboard.com, is a regular snowboard that splits apart into two halves that become skis.  You can see how they work in this video.  Here's another one; turn up the volume on your computer first (remember to close your door if you are in the office).

I thought I had discovered a brand new product, but splitboards have been around for about 20 years.  A core group of backcountry snowboarders, who likely got fed up with trudging through the snow carrying a board on the way up and skis on the way down, stuck with the idea.  A side benefit is that, even though splitboards will set you back several hundred bucks, you don't have to arrange or pay for a helicopter to fly you up the mountain.

Kudos to the people at splitboard.com, who, not long ago, decided to build an online forum for "splitters."  This online forum pools together user feedback.  The result?  One, new ideas.  Two, the product development process has greatly improved.  Manufacturers have already modified snowboard gear to accommodate splitboards.  And let's face it, the snowboard business could use something more fresh than hip-hugger pants.

It's inspiring to see an industry embrace customer innovation and feedback to fulfill an unmet need and expand the category in the process, without adding blue crystals.

My Face is Burning!

My face is burning.  It started last night, in the Jeep on the way home.  One by one, it happened to the other passengers too.  About every hour, someone would cry out "My face is burning!"

Actually, it all started before last night.  Without going too far back, this particular story started just a few days after the recent cascade of epic disasters hit Japan.  When I heard the news of potential radiation danger in Tokyo, I called my friend Ellie-ko, who I met shortly after she migrated here from Japan 15 years ago, but who I haven't seen in two or three years outside of Facebook.  If you have kids you know how quickly these years can go by without seeing your friends.  It's not that you lose your friends when you have kids, it's that you get a lot more friends.  First, there are the pre-school friends, then the soccer friends, the baseball friends, then the school friends, and so on.  And you still only have 365 24-hour days to hang out with these friends.

With the news that Ellie-ko's family was okay, the subject matter quickly turned to catch-up, which then with remarkable speed turned into a plan to go snowboarding at Sugarbowl.  Sugarbowl is the first ski resort you hit when you drive the 80 East toward Reno from San Francisco.  Its convenient location makes it easy to get there, snowboard, and come home on the same day.

Which is precisely what we did.

When we planned this day trip, we were unaware that a string of winter storms would dump epic snow there just before our arrival.

Can you tell there is a house under here?  Yes, a whole house.

I recruited my friend Cindy, a telemark skier who needed a day off from managing a dynamic household that includes three kids.  We were accompanied by Bill, a dad and skier who, when chatting with Ellie-ko at their kids' curbside drop-off the day before, asked if he might come along too.

Our foursome was complete, and the Jeep was loaded with gear by 7 a.m. behind the local Peet's Coffee & Tea.  The sun just rising--which, by the way, it does here 10 minutes after it does there, at Sugarbowl--a medium half-caf and petite vanilla bean scone in hand, I hit the gas and we hit the highway.

We were among the first customers to arrive at Ikeda's in Auburn.  This is a popular half-way point where travelers load up on road food, mountain snacks, and fresh baked pie.  Apparently the chicken pot pies are to die for.  Ikeda is located a few doors up the street from Lou La Bonte's.  Lou La Bonte's has always fascinated me from the freeway.  It's the kind of dark, windowless restaurant that was popular in the 1940s.  I imagine very senior citizens pulling their oxygen machines along with them on the way to their dinner tables as they talk through their cigarettes.

This fellow had already put 30 hours into clearing this private driveway.

Just before Donner Pass, the slopes, sun kissed, white, and mostly empty, came into view.  Did I mention it was already 50 degrees?  We parked, stepped out of the car, and removed layers of clothing.  This was spring skiing, right on time.  And if you've ever boarded or skied on peanut butter, you know exactly what it was like.  I heard someone refer to it as "trying to board on thick cake batter."  The waxing hut was busy all day.

We made our way to the top of Mt. Lincoln.  I like to traverse almost all the way over to the west, past Silver Belt and across The '58 to just before The Palisades.  These are a series of tall butte-like cliffs, which, to descend safely, require a measurably higher level of skill than I have right now.  There is a lot of terrain along this north face to explore--mostly trees, chutes, and cliffs.  After a few runs here, we slogged our way over to Mt. Disney, met up with our friend Liz who moved from San Francisco to Truckee a while back, and carved our way through very forgiving snow on the wide groomers.

One of the highlights of Sugarbowl is the Angel Hair Pasta dish that you can get at the Nob Hill Cafe. We met up with college friends Mike and Margot and ate this lazy meal on the deck in the sun before we geared up for the afternoon.  More Disney, more Mt. Lincoln, and one by one we dispersed across the mountains, finding our own favorite spots.  I had lots of slope to myself after 3:00.

The plan was to meet at the bar at 4:00, which is exactly what happened.  Equipped with Bloody Marys, beer, and wine we sat outside in sunshine and t-shirts and recounted the day.  Helmets and goggles off, our faces exposed, we felt the burn in spite of two applications of sunscreen.  The big ball of gas was low in the sky when we gathered our gear and pointed the Jeep down the mountain.  We stopped in Auburn, again, for an al fresco dinner, and filled our bellies with Tio Pepe's Mexican food and margaritas.

My face is still burning.   I need to dig up that little jar of Darphin Purifying Baum that I got on Cape Cod a while back for sunburn.  It's predicted to reach 80 degrees here today, and the sun coming through the southwest facing window is approaching my computer screen.  I can feel the salty Pacific breeze on my arms.  The air smells warm.  It was a good day on a snowy mountain with old friends and new.