A Shout-out to San Diego:

I recently went to San Diego, so thought I would share my stand-out eating experiences: Burned into my memory was Swadee Thai, in Coronado. So often, I have gone to restaurants where extra spicy disappointingly turns out to be mildly spicy. I want my food to make me cry, and Swadee Thai did that. The servers ask about the level of spice you prefer on a scale of 1 to 10. Based on my past experience, I requested a 10, but was warned off of it. And I am glad that I was. We ordered a papaya salad, which was an 8 and it had some real fire that required me to take a break while eating and made me gulp a lot of water. For my entree, I ordered a whole fried fish with fabulous chili sauce. A definite winner. I also visited the Mission for breakfast. It had a nice vibe, delicious, freshly squeezed orange juice, and a decaf capuccino that was so good that it made me wonder whether it was decaf at all. Finally, I wish I could have spent more time in Kearny Mesa. We found our way out there because we were trolling for a late night meal, and consulted an awesome late night dining guide, available here. There was a ramen shop open until 2 am, so we went. We jumped at the chance because of the dearth of noodle houses in the DC area. Surrounding the noodle shop, we noticed a lot of other promising looking Asian restaurants, including a tea house that I'd like to hit up if I'm ever back in the area.

Original Pancake House

After running the Army 10-miler, I treated myself to brunch at the Original Pancake House in Falls Church, Virginia. It's a chain that I'd return to. It has locations spread across the country. It wasn't out-of-this world, but there are so many creative pancake varieties on the menu, that I want to go back and try them. Most importantly, it has really decent coffee. Courtesy of my friends sharing, I tried three different types of pancakes. Gingerbread, pumpkin, and wheat germ with pecan. My friends preferred the wheat germ pancakes, which were packed with pecans. I thought that they were fine, but liked the gingerbread ones the most even if they were a bit tricky. How can a pancake be tricky, you ask? Well, I thought that a gingerbread pancake would be dark and molasses-y, but these pancakes were more just ginger-flavored pancakes. Really tasty, but not like any gingerbread I've ever had. The pumpkin pancakes were "fine." Other observations. The bacon is nice and thick and crispy, but the eggs were a bit weird. I ordered them fried over hard and they came in this unnatural looking omelet form; they reminded me of Waffle House eggs. Don't get me wrong; Waffle House has a special place in my heart, but there's something about the cooking spray it uses that makes the eggs taste a little off. I want to try the apple pancakes and the Dutch Baby pancakes and the crepes!