Ba Ren

[Update - Closed in early 2012]

After reading so many posts from Kirk 's foodblog, Mmm-Yoso as well as the reviews from Yelp, I had the opportunity to finally eat at Ba Ren. Earlier today, I met up for lunch at Kirk himself and Captain Jack of one of my other favorite food bloggers, of San Diego Restaurants fame or notoriety - take your pick. Ba Ren is located right off Clairemont Ave, on Diane Ave. I almost missed it - it's on the right hand side after you turn the corner. They have a parking lot in the back too.

They specialize in Szechuan cuisine, which is pretty hot and spicy! Wonder why the menu has a question mark after "Sichuan Cuisine with a Flair?" For more background on Ba Ren, their food and their chef, just go to Kirk's blog for a more thorough smackdown of Szechuan cuisine.

We met before the lunch crowd. It was pretty empty with just a few occupied tables and one booth.

Dig those green booths! Plus they had fancy draperies - tasseled swags here and valances in the picture above.

Kirk chose a few cold items - boiled bamboo shoots with beef. I chose the boiled peanuts with fried mini fish:

Here's a shot of the other side of that same plate with thin sliced beef and tendon:The thin sliced beef was really delicious. It would taste really good with rice. There was also thin sliced tender, which was tender. I was expecting it to be soft and slimy, but it wasn't. I chose the peanuts because I wanted something crunchy. For the photo below, that is Chongqing style chicken with peppers. It turned out that it wasn't something Kirk had ordered, but for some reason they served it to us. But, alas it was taken away. It looked good though - I was about to dig in too! Kirk ordered for all of us and we shared the dishes family style. I pretty much trusted him to order whatever and I would be willing to try it all.

#171 - Braised fish-flavored eggplant casserole ($8.99): According to Kirk, the term "fish-flavored" is a misnomer because it doesn't taste like fish. Rather, the term refers to the flavoring used for fish, which is vinegar based. He said this as a classic preparation of eggplant, which,was fall apart in your mouth good!

Below is #122 - Boiled fish fillet in hot sauce ($10.99):

Here's a closeup of that fish fillet. OMG, this was sooo good. I don't know what kind of fish it was but it was so soft and tender. Even though this dish looked hot, it really wasn't. There was chili galore - paste, peppers, seeds and oil coloring the oil, but it wasn't as dangerous as it looked.

#121 - Double Cooked Fish with Chili Sauce ($12.99). Those are green bell peppers and leeks. This was also quite delicious! Every dish had a different heat level and used different types of peppers.

#221 - Hot Pepper Prawns ($14.99). Now these were awesome. Those are chopped up chili peppers and Szechuan black peppercorns all over the fried prawn pieces. At Kirk's suggestion, I bit into a peppercorn to taste the heat and it wasn't so bad. It kind of numbs your tongue. Then, when I took a sip of water, my mouth and tongue had a tingly sensation, like the water was carbonated. Interesting effect! I was too chicken to eat any of the red peppers, but the Captain was eating them like it was nothing. Both of these guys were sweating too. I didn't break a sweat but then again, I didn't eat the peppers! Seriously, my stomach had been doing flip flops the night before and I didn't want to fk up my GI system even more. But at this point, I don't think it would have made a difference! These dishes had a bit of fire to them which churned things up a little. TMI? Like that ever stopped me.

Kirk, Captain Jack and myself and the remains of our lunch, which I took home. Bert ended up eating some of the leftovers for dinner. He loved it! TC ate our leftovers from Lisa's Filipino "Cuisine" (and I say "cuisine" with sarcasm).

This was dessert:

These are rice grains in some sort of gelatinous soup. It was slightly sweet. Kirk said it would soothe the stomach and make you feel better. Captain Jack said the consistency was like 'mucus'. I had a few spoons of it, but didn't care for it too much. At least I tried it. I had a great time at lunch with the guys. I'm glad they could be themselves and not feel that since they're with a chick, they have to watch their mouths. It's not like I'm Miss Priss and don't curse myself. F Bombs Galore!

We chatted about a lot of topics but mostly about food. It's great to be in their company because most of my friends just eat their food and aren't really interested in the ingredients, preparation, history, and cultural aspects of food. I don't feel like such a food geek when I'm in the company of other foodies.

Just a few updates:

So, we tried Lisa's yesterday which I posted previously. Masarap Restaurant is now CLOSED! Can you believe that? It was a new upscale Filipino restaurant in the Gaslamp, on C between 7th and 8th. It occupied the former Jade Theatre (which I didn't realize had closed). Masarap barely opened at the beginning of January. I was planning to have dinner with my 4 GF's there next weekend. I saw a post on Yelp that they had closed already. That really bites. Now I'll have to find another place for us gal, which isn't a problem, but we were all looking forward to some upscale Filipino food.