Food, biking, more comedy....Day 40

We had a fabulous lunch today. It was a bit of a comedy getting there, though. We were told by a local that the best place for Asian food in San Diego is Convoy Street. And, we were pointed to a restaurant called "New Seoul Barbecue". We did not have a decent map, so were navigating by an inadequate hotel map. After several misturns, we finally did get there. By then, we were starving. But, the restaurant was closed! We almost gave up, but went one strip mall up the road to a very nondescript looking restaurant called "Phuong Trang"; wow....it was quite an experience. We knew as soon as we walked in as we were just about the only non-Vietnamese in the place. Mark looked over at another table and asked the waiter for "that." "That" turned out to be a meal for two people called "Beef 7 Ways." They brought out a huge plate of vegetables to start with - lettuce, mint, basil, cucumbers, carrots, some other greens we couldn't identify and pineapple. Then, they brought rice wrappers for us to briefly soak. Next came two plates of thinly-sliced beef. One was to be cooked (by us) in butter with lemongrass and onions. The next was to be cooked (again, by us) in vinegar. Then, we made wraps with any combination of the beef/veggies that we wanted. It was amazingly delicious. Next came a beef, vermicelli soup. Yum! And, next 5 different combinations of rolled beef - with spring onions, with edamame etc. It was a real experience overall and we were very happy to have gone there.

To help work off that amazing meal, we took our bikes to Balboa Park and rode around before the play, Alive and Well at the wonderful Globe Theatre there. The play was very good and very new. It was about a Southern Civil War re-enacter and an uptight New York journalist who go on a camping trek from Petersburg to Antietam. Of course, along the way, they fight and...fall in love. It was very well acted and Mark immediately thought it might be a good play for Theatre Workshop, but not for high school.