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June 30, 2006

Le Soleil

Le Soleil is the best Vietnamese food I've had outside Vietnam (though I haven't been to the Slanted Door in SF). More to come.

Posted by brentbuford at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)

June 08, 2006

El Regio

Imagine a bucket of chicken – you know, a "family" meal – that doesn't involve ten pounds of batter or a protest from PETA, and you have some idea of El Regio's offering. You walk up, specify half a chicken or a whole one, pay six bucks for the former or about eleven for the latter, and depart with a full plastic grocery bag about 30 seconds later.

Inside is a well-seasoned pollo asado, a stack of corn tortillas, two kinds of salsa, rice, beans and – I'll be goddamned – an entire grilled onion. If you haven't had pollo asado (grilled chicken), this is a competent, juicy, well-seasoned undertaking, and the sheer volume of the place more or less guarantees a fresh heap of bird.

The kicker here is the avocado salsa, which has that creep-up heat that can get you in trouble if you grab too much at once. It looks innocuous enough, all cream-green and summery, like someone made a lawn-clipping milkshake, and it's damn refreshing. But it's got a blast of peppers in there that'll get you coughing and reaching for the Tecate if you lay it on too thick.

Still, I ate it up, and the "family meal" fed us for a couple of days. Good stuff; recommended.

Posted by brentbuford at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)