Convoy is one smorgasbord of delicious Asian food. It’s a street in the neighborhood of Kearny Mesa that’s filled with eats from Thailand, China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and The Philippines. Food is usually cheap and almost always authentic, but the problem is picking a place. How do you know what’s best when there are so many options?
Well, you blindly pick one.
OK, maybe you shouldn’t do that, but that method worked well for me on Saturday night. If my recent hunger pangs for pho meant anything, we started knowing that we wanted Vietnamese food. Since Yelp and its too-many opinions can be overwhelming, I flipped through San Diego Magazine‘s Asian Food Guide issue instead and took a shot in the dark.
The place? Phuong Trang. The prices? Crazy good. (Like $6.25-for-a-large-noodle-entree good.) The food? Also crazy good — Vietnamese with everything from pho and noodle bowls to hot pots and rice paper wraps (a DIY dish Eaman loved in Vietnam). Apparently my blind pick was pretty on-target because the next morning a friend told me that Phuong Trang comes highly recommended from her Vietnamese friends.
Between the six of us, there were shrimp noodle bowls, vegetarian noodle bowls, pho and garlic chicken wings. The bun xao bo hoac ga — a beef noodle dish and our favorite street eat in Hanoi — was a faithful rendition and the garlic wings had a nice kick and tender meat. Oh and as for the pho, after all those dreams about hot, tangy soup, I wasn’t even paying attention when I ordered and asked for the vegetarian noodle bowl by accident. (It comes with its own non-fish, vegetarian sauce!) Fortunately this place is so good that even when you order just as absent-mindedly as your process was to pick the place, you still get something worth writing home about. (See: this blog post.) And I don’t totally mind that I messed up my own order; it’s a good excuse for going back sooner rather than later.
Whether we’re new to a city, travel often for work or have hectic daily schedules, what manages to set our heads straight, re-calibrate our emotions and give us a sense of quiet is routine. For some people it’s reading the New York Times with a cup of tea every Sunday morning. For others, it’s a weekly bike ride through their favorite neighborhoods. And for many, it involves a couch, popcorn and Netflix. I know for me, moving to a new city and starting from scratch has been more overwhelming than expected. I often feel like so little is in my control because I’m still green, but what keeps me from pulling my hair out are simple routines. They help create a sense of a home even if I still need a GPS to get anywhere.
But I know it’s not just me. How many times have you heard someone say that they need to start their day with a run or else the whole day seems off? Or that a week without watching Nashville is a sad one. (OK, that last one may or may not be me.) Routines take on an almost religious quality because they become a way of life. It’s only fitting that they be called rituals.
So that’s what I’d like to explore with this new weekly series my rituals: What are the rituals that make us tick, give us comfort and are almost mandatory to feel sane? I’ll be featuring notable folks from a variety of backgrounds and professional paths, who’ll share with us their rituals and why they’ve grown so accustomed to them. And to start, I’m sharing mine! I’m still in the process of figuring out the day-to-day in a new city, but these are the things that are keeping me happy at the moment.
Name:Archana Ram Age: 27 Hometown: Cherry Hill, NJ Current:San Diego, CA Profession:Freelance writer and social media manager for PR agency
Our living room wall will soon be filled with paintings and photographs from our travels, but there’s a lonely space above my bedroom dresser that’s just asking for some sort of art. I teeter between something feminine versus something totally neutral (see tropical fruits print above), but I do know I want a piece that complements our white- and turquoise-colored bedroom.
A part of me just wants to paint something on my own, but I couldn’t help but fall for these seven prints. No matter the outcome, it doesn’t hurt to window shop for now, right?
1. I like that Jessica Durrant’s Pink Peacock Feather is simple with a twist. Blue feathers are so been-there-done-that; this one is fiery hot pink — my favorite color!
2. But then I started looking at Jessica’s other works and fell in love with this “Chevron Tunic” portrait, too. I generally shy away from those overly feminine prints (i.e. a Chanel perfume bottle or the red Louboutin soles) that make women think they’ve inherited Carrie Bradshaw’s life, but this one feels different. I don’t know if it’s the blue color or the dripping paint or the fact that she’s wearing winged eyeliner just like I always wear, but this is my favorite of the group.
Two weeks after this, I was back in L.A. This time, I headed over with two new San Diego girlfriends, Jessica and Conni, to hit up a West Elm/Etsy event hosted by the hilarious, self-effacing and talented Emily Henderson, interior designer and star of HGTV’s Secrets From a Stylist. But what started as a visit to the event turned into a full-blown foodie girls weekend.
Now, I’m more a low-key, off-the-grid kind of traveler/diner, but every now and again, I like to splash out and try buzzed about places to see, well, what the buzz is about. This getaway was a splurge, but I took it as an opportunity to eat at some places on my Life List (a less gruesome way to say the Before I Die list), and once I got past the very L.A. crowds at these places, I could appreciate the great food and even better decor. (But I gotta say, every trendy restaurant in L.A. is obsessed with the same black stools. What gives?)
I ate. I window-shopped. I waited in line for scene-y brunch spots. And I took notes. Take a look at the 8 simple steps to a trendy, seen-to-be-seen kind of L.A. visit.
Step 1: Fancy brunch. We started the weekend not by checking into our hotel, but by settling into the beautiful interiors of Laurel Hardware, a former hardware store that’s been converted into an industrial-styled restaurant. I just about died over that wallpaper and light fixture. And then I died when I saw Rosie Perez in the restaurant because girl is awesome. And then I died over my fruit scone, which was more like a warm toasted biscuit topped with berries and clotted cream. It was delicious so long as you’re OK with dessert for breakfast. And why wouldn’t you be?
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a bit of a food snob after living in New York for four years. But it’s not just about the quality of food; sometimes it’s about that feeling of dinnerbeing the main event. San Diego is decidedly more casual and far less rabid about its food scene than New Yorkers, but it was like a breath of fresh air to eat at Bencotto in Little Italy this week. It was there that I finally felt that same excitement about eating out.
Bathed in red and black colors (my favorite combo!), Bencotto has that inviting feel like it would be perfectly acceptable to settle into a four-hour dinner. The longer, the better in my opinion. It’s the kind of place where you wouldn’t seem out of place for getting dolled up, and frankly, I had been missing that now that I work from home and log more time in sweatpants than jeans. So thank, you, Bencotto, for giving my skirts and heels some air-time.
