Vegetarian Singapore Rice Noodles at Dim Sum Inn in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Vegetarian Singapore Noodles at Dim Sum Inn in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

I chose to order vegetarian Singapore rice noodles at Dim Sum Inn on North Main Street in Salinas, California to try a Hong Kong classic dish that probably refers to a light lunch you can eat in Singapore’s heat using exotic curry powder from India. (Singapore is not in China though most of its inhabitants have Chinese ancestry.) 

Singapore rice noodles usually come with meat or shrimp, but I chose a lacto-ovo vegetarian version that came with scrambled eggs stir-fried into the mix.

I consulted www.recipetineats.com for a Singapore rice noodles recipe. According to this site, to stir-fry Singapore rice noodles, you heat sesame and peanut oil and add fresh ginger, fresh garlic, green onions, hot red chiile peppers, curry powder, and white pepper to the hot oil. 

Once the oil is thoroughly impregnated with those flavors, you add bite-size pieces of the following vegetables:

-baby bok choy (similar to cabbage, but bulb shaped) 

-broccoli 

-celery 

-carrots 

-green peppers 

-green beans 

Once those vegetables are blazing hot you add in the eggs to stir-fry scramble them. The rice noodles come last to be stir-fried. Rice noodles just need to be hydrated in warm water and drained before adding them to the stir-fry. 

This fragrant dish arrived hot on a waiter robot for a Silicon Valley touch at the table. The robot is operated by a waiter, which liberates the waiter’s arms to safely bring additional dishes. 

The Singapore rice noodles are a lunch special at Dim Sum Inn, which come with egg flower soup or hot and sour soup. I drank a strongly perfumed jasmine tea with my meal for the perfect afternoon lunch. 

Dim Sum Inn serves dim sum tea lunch daily in addition to lunch specials except Tuesdays when the restaurant is closed. Dim Sum Inn is in a large shopping center opposite Northridge Mall with lots of parking. The restaurant also has a large banquet room and an equally large menu for planning banquets and dim lunches for private parties in a friendly atmosphere. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Beach Fare at Michael's Taqueriía in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Beach Fare at Michael’s Taquería in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

The La Playa Combo (Beach Combination) at Michael’s Taquería in downtown Salinas, California reminds you that Western America Salinas is only two miles away from the Pacific Ocean on the Monterey Peninsula. 

This generous combination platter has charbroiled shrimp (large enough to be considered gambas), blackened chicken, and a cheese enchilada covered in mild red chile sauce. The sides that come with this dish include refried black beans, Mexican rice, lime-chile sauce, fresh red salsa, and warm tortillas. 

I like to use the warm tortillas to make soft tacos. I make one taco with the charbroiled shrimp, Mexican rice, black beans, and lime-chile sauce. For the other tacos I make with the warm tortillas, I slice up the blackened chicken and add the chicken strips to the tortillas along with the Mexican rice, black beans, and fresh red salsa. 

After eating my little beach tacos, I feel like the cheese enchilada in mild red chile sauce is a dessert. I like the asadero melting cheese made from goat and cow’s milk, which comes from the northwestern Mexican state of Chihuahua. 

I drink Topo-Chico Mexican sparkling water with the La Playa Combo or Negro Modelo beer from Mexico and feel like I am on vacation in Mexico without leaving Salinas, California. 

Note: There is a parking garage by the Steinbeck Center on Main Street by Michael’s Taqueria.

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Blackened Shrimp Quesadilla at Michael's Taquería in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Blackened Shrimp Quesadilla at Michael’s Taquería in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

Shrimp taco lovers might enjoy the blackened shrimp quesadilla (pronounced “kay-sa-dee-ya”) combination plate at Michael’s Taquería in downtown Salinas, California. 

A quesadilla is a large flour tortilla that is grilled with fillings inside and turned in half to look like an Italian calzone. 

At Michael’s, they fill their quesadilla combination plate with blackened shrimp, sautéed mushroom slices, green onions cut on the diagonal, and melted asadero cheese. 

The quesadilla comes with a small helping of guacamole, pico de gallo salsa, and red salsa. Pico de gallo salsa is made with chopped peppers, chopped tomatoes, chopped onions, and chopped cilantrao. 

The sides that come with the blackened shrimp are refried black beans with softened asadero melting cheese on top and Mexican rice. 

Asadero is Mexican cheese made of goat and cow’s milk that mostly comes the Mexican state of Chihuahua in northwest Mexico. Mexican rice at its most basic is made from chicken broth and tomato juice, which gives it a beautiful orange-red glow. 

I like to eat Mexican rice with the refried beans that I mix with red salsa. I can use these two items mixed together as a dip for the tortilla chips that come with the meal. 

This delicious blackened shrimp quesadilla combination plate at Michael’s Taquería in downtown Salinas might appeal to shrimp and chicken taco lovers alike.

(Note: There is a parking garage by the Steinbeck Center on Main Street and street parking by Michael’s.) 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Seafood Noodle Phô at Saigon Noodles in Salinas, California

Seafood Noodle Phô at Saigon Noodles in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

I learned to love Vietnamese food when I lived and worked in downtown Chicago (Illinois) and ate at the Mekong House Restaurant after work. I had graduated with a degree in East Asian Studies from the University of Chicago and considered myself to be doing graduate work in Southeast Asian Studies when I ate at the Mekong House. 

I mostly ate deep-fried egg rolls that I wrapped in a fresh mint leaf and tied with a string of fresh carrot before dipping them in sweet-and-sour sauce. The lemongrass chicken stir-fry I ate and loved was a close cousin to the Chinese stir-fries I also loved. 

I did not venture into Vietnamese soups until I moved to Monterey County California and ate them at the Orient Restaurant in Seaside, California. 

I like how phô soup has three layers of food items surrounded by delicious broth: 

-half a bowl of rice noodles or glass noodles 

-half a bowl full of sliced beef, sliced chicken, or seafood 

-garnish toppings such as bean sprouts, fresh basil, lime wedges, and jalapeño slices 

I recently tried seafood noodle soup (phô) at Saigon Noodles in Salinas, California and liked the large bowl of rice noodles and seafood ingredients that came with a container of broth that was large enough to fill the bowl twice. 

The flavorful broth tasted like a bone broth that had been boiled with shrimp shells and strained. The soup was full of curled shrimp, scored squid slices, fish dumplings, fish balls, and imitation crab made from fish. 

The soup came with packages of hoisin sauce for salt and sriracha for salt and spice. I like hot, spicy broth so I added sriracha to the soup. 

Flavor and quantity of food in the seafood noodle soup (phô) at Saigon Noodles in Salinas, California make this dish a great deal for an international lunch. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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3-Course Vegetarian Lunch at Alvarado on Main Brew Pub in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

3-Course Vegetarian Lunch at Alvarado Main Brew Pub in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

Alvarado on Main Brew Pub in Salinas, California is well known for entrées like wagyu smash burgers and salmon yakisoba, but you can also eat a three-course vegetarian meal here with regular menu items. 

Market day on Saturday mornings is an especially good time for a vegetarian lunch at Alvarado on Main. The market begins in front of the brewpub, but you can park in the nearby garage by the Steinbeck Center, which is just two blocks away on Main Street. 

The day my daughter Florence Paget, husband Laurent, and I went to lunch, we began our meal with crispy, long pretzels that came with warm bar cheese for dipping. Lacto-ovo vegetarians eat dairy and eggs, so this was a great vegetarian beginning for market day lunch. 

I ordered blackberry-burrata salad as my main dish. Burrata cheese comes from Apulia (also known as Puglia) Italy, which is located in the heel of Italy’s boot-shaped peninsula on Italy’s eastern coast by the Adriatic Sea. It is served as a large disc of milky white cow’s cheese with a thick soft layer of edible crust surrounding a creamy interior. 

Alvarado on Main inserts blackberries into the creamy interior of the burrata cheese from the bottom of the burrata. The cheese is placed in the center of a large bowl of baby spinach leaves that have been mixed with sautéed shallots. Blackberry halves were scattered around the burrata on top of the baby spinach and shallots. 

The salad was so beautiful to look at that I kept rearranging it for artistic presentation each time I took a delicious bit. Blackberries and burrata cheese could be a dessert on their own. The crunchy spinach leaves and salty shallots added to the surprising and pleasing sweetness of this dish. I think an iced tea would be perfect with the blackberry-burrata salad. 

I shared a vegetarian and antioxidant dessert with Laurent – a stout brownie with pineapple ice cream. Stout here refers to a brownie made with a frothy and chocolaty beer. Adding beer to a brownie recipe makes the brownies very moist. 

The brownie we ate had a pronounced chocolate flavor, which makes me think it was made with bitter baking chocolate, which is a strong antioxidant. 

This already great dessert came with whipped cream and caramelized slices of fresh pineapple that were sautéed in butter and brown sugar and candied shavings of coconut. 

That glorious dessert was also vegetarian. It was high-calorie, but worth the off-diet delight. The stout brownie would be great with coffee alone as a “sugar meal” as the Austrians say. 

This delicious vegetarian meal is a winner that you can order everyday from the regular menu at Alvarado on Main brewpub in Salinas, California. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Dibi Lamb at African Soulfood Restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia by Ruth Paget

Dibi Lamb at African Soulfood Restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia by Ruth Paget 

The last time I visited Atlanta (Georgia), I tried dibi lamb from Sénégal, a former French colony in West Africa, at the African Soulfood Restaurant. 

Dibi lamb is delicious and requires very little effort to make according to food.com, which lists a recipe that takes half an hour to make on the grill. 

In this recipe, you make the sauce first from vegetable oil, chopped onion, Dijon (France) mustard with large grains, water, and optional sugar. 

Once the sauce is done, you grill lamb chops 6 – 8 minutes per side for medium chops. When the lamb chops finish cooking, you place them on a serving platter with onion-mustard sauce spooned over it. 

I ate my dibi lamb with spicy rice and thought this was a great little dish to eat in the Georgia heat. 

(Note: Other websites mention that you can make dibi chicken in the same way as well.) 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Taquería Jackpot in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Taquería Jackpot in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

I love Mexican food, so I was very happy to move to Salinas, California with its many taquerías and restaurants serving food from all the regions of Mexico. 

I did an online search to see how many tauerías there are in Salinas and counted 68 as of May 2024. It is very easy to do Taco Tuesday in Salinas with that many taquería in town. 

Almost all of these taquerías can do a combination platter or platillo for about $15 to $20. Taco combination platters usually come with the following items: 

-2 blackened chicken tacos with shredded cabbage or lettuce and melted Swiss cheese 

-refried black beans with softened cotija cheese on top. (Cotija cheese is like Greek feta cheese in that it does not melt and has a slightly tangy flavor. Cotija comes from the western Mexican state of Michoacán on the Pacific Ocean.) 

-Mexican rice, which at its most basic is boiled with chicken broth and tomato juice to give it a nice orange-yellow glow.

-2 small containers of pico de gallo salsa made with chopped hot peppers, tomatoes, onons, and cilantro 

-2 lime quarters to squeeze into beer, diet soda, water, or tacos 

I think this is a nice combination of food for $15 to $20. Almost any taquería can do catering for combination platters with some advance notice, too. 

Having food like this available allowed me to have a simple yet cost effective food system in place when my daughter Florence Paget was a teenager. Anyone in the family could make the following items or buy them from a restaurant: 

Monday – pasta night with marinara sauce, shredded gruyère cheese, boiled eggs, prosciutto, and salame

Tuesday – Taco Tuesday with combination platters 

Wednesday – Pizza Day 

Thursday – Asian Restaurant Day or Costco Yakisoba at home 

Friday – Baked fish with onions and potatoes or baked fish with chopped tomatoes and onions 

Saturday – Baked chicken 

Sunday – Macaroni and cheese or lasagna

I would serve lettuce, fruit salad, and a slice of cheese to go with these meals. 

I did not always stick to this plan, but it helped me take inventory to make shopping lists and have items on hand to easily make these meals. 

I am a big fan of Taco Tuesday for making food systems like this possible and love it that I can get tacos at 68 food outlets in Salinas, California. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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