We made sure we were here fairly early. You know, Ranch 99 on weekend can get pretty crazy...
We wanted to try out this new Taiwanese cafe located within the market. It's all the way at the back corner, near the back exit/entrance.
Tea eggs were in the red steamer. What was ironic was that we talked about trying these during the car trip here and then we promptly forgot about ordering them in our excitement.
I was afraid we'd hit the weekend lunch rush but it was still early around 11:15'ish and there were seats all around.
Cute lanterns, eh!
We decided on a couple of hot pots to share between the four of us - The Seafood and the Southeast Asian Meat Bone (pork). Only $10.99 each.
These were the appetizers - two tiny dishes of pickled vegetables. I wasn't very fond of this. The pickling liquid was a bit too pungent for me.
The hotpots come with a huge beer mug of tea (only two). D ordered the Peach Black Tea. The server gave her the Peach Green Tea.
TORC also ordered some tea drink and the order came out wrong. KD ordered a different tea drink (mango I think) and the server gave her the wrong one as well. Instead of green, she got black tea. I think there was a big language barrier. The server was apologetic and offered to get the correct tea for them but my friends wanted to keep their teas because they ended up liking it. Holy cow. I don't think I could finish a drink that size!
Small bowls of vermicelli and rice for the hotpots along with four different sauces (soy, chili, bbq and one other that I don't remember).
In addition to the hot pots, we ordered the fried chicken appetizer. The breading looked very "grainy" and I didn't like how this looked. The meat was dark and the batter was also dark. It looked a bit unappetizing to me like it was burnt but it wasn't. The chicken pieces also tasted dry.
We liked the fried calamari rings a little better. Looks like the same kind of batter. The squid rings were larger than i expected. No tentacles or small squid bodies here. We forgot to order our tea eggs so we made do with the fried appetizers before our hot pots arrived.
And arrive they did! Steaming hot and chock full of delicious ingredients. The one in the foreground is the seafood hot pot which had clams, octopus pieces, fish balls (or were they squid?), Krab pieces, and shrimps. And you can't see it, but there were vermicelli noodles in both of the hot pots. It was just buried underneath all the ingredients.
This was the Pork Meat Bone hot pot which also came with tofu chunks and some sort of leaf vegetables (I want to say it was napa cabbage but I'm not sure)...
Of the two soups, I liked the seafood the best although the pork bone soup had a lot of flavor. Everyone enjoyed the experience of grabbing bits and pieces of the hotpots into their own little bowls. Despite the drink mix up, we had a good time here. I think I'd like to go again with Bert and TC to try another hot pot and maybe one of those gigantor iced teas.
Our past birthday outings for D:
2011 - Brunch at Extraordinary Desserts
2010 - Pho Convoy Noodle House - Chula Vista
2009 - Royal India and Extraordinary Desserts
2008 - Ruths Chris Steak House (I went solo with D)
2007 - I couldn't find a post but I'm sure we went somewhere!
2006 - Vagabond (back when it was new)
Who else ate at E & Drink?
Cathy of Mmm-Yoso went here last month along with Kirbie, who also paid a visit that same month! Their posts and recommendations prompted us to try this place out!
E & Drink (inside Ranch 99)
7330 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, #112
San Diego, CA
Up next, the girls were willing to try something different for dessert. Man, I'm so glad that they
5 comments:
Oh they now serve egg waffles! I saw it in the picture you took of the register. I will have to go back to try it. I love that dessert.
ooh I didn't even notice that! must try that too in the future, along with those tea eggs.
I'm curious about their tea eggs now too. I usually don't buy tea eggs since my mom makes them every time I'm home, but I am curious.
The hot pots look great! We rarely go out for hot pots since I usually make them at home but I'd definitely would try both of those.
hi kirbie - cathy from mmm yoso has a post on how to make them. i'm sure your mom has her own recipe too.
i want to try that egg waffle now. it reminds me of the one we had at eggette's in san francisco.
hi cab - not counting the one time we had shabu shabu (also in s.f.), this was my first time to do chinese style hot pot. i liked the seafood one better (more ingredients) but the pork bone one had a bit more flavor in the broth.
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