A Wok Inn To A Different Perspective...

As much as I care to ensure that the food I make is delicious (well, to me anyway), I'm a little bit of a dice roller when it comes to dining out in low to mid price restaurants. While I frequently yelp to find new restaurants, I am almost as likely to try a place for some odd compulsion often understood only by my subconscious mind.

Their version of red curry.
P.S. If you look real close, you can see Christmas...

This is supposed to be the pahd kee mow.
It looks a lot like pahd thai.
It tastes like neither.
But that's ok.

And having moved from Orange County to coastal North San Diego County (with short in-between stints in other places), and no longer being willing to drive more than 20 minutes for a casual meal, I've had to reset the bar when it comes to dining out. It's not exactly a culinary desert out here, and it's easy enough to find decent food of a few sorts, (I'm particularly pleased to have found a decent sushi joint), but the food scene in North County is still somewhat unpolished from a lack of demand and competition it would seem...

But back to my whack methodology of restaurant selection, which is not unlike the way I pick football teams if someone is dumb enough to ask me to make picks. Sometimes it's the fonts and colors on the signage, other times an intriguing name, and yet other times the nearest option that suits the current craving. Yesterday, we picked Door Number 3.

A little bit of everything on my plate.
P.S. If you look underneath, you'll see London.

I saw London, the Man saw France...

I wanted something generally Southeast Asian, and as luck would have it, The Wok Inn - which happens to be five minutes from our place and run by a middle-aged, peroxide blonde, half Vietnamese, half Thai lady named Linda who reminds me of every madame I've ever seen in a Vietnam War pic - serves Vietnamese, Thai, AND Chinese food.

Three - count 'em - THREE cuisines.
That's Linda up top.
'Ssup, Linda? :)

???Three cuisines under one roof and no talk of fusion. Isn't that a red flag, Shinae??? 

Why, yes. IT IS. A HUGEBIG, HONKIN' RED FLAG, and precisely the strangely compelling kind of reason that makes me want to shoot craps for my lunch and eat there.

Turn on, tune in, drop out.
Is that a dog made of pink feathers???

And by *there*, I mean dusty, old silk flowers strewn all over the place, some with lights hanging from them, blown up pictures of someone's daughter's prom night hanging on the east wall, garishly red cheong sams and designer knock-off purses for sale in the southeast corner (along with other things that look vaguely like Beanie Babies and a stuffed Ziggy), a whole bunch of other things tacked (literally) onto non-strategic places on the wall that range from menus to baskets to photos to paintings to newspaper clippings that tell me this place has been in business for over 20 years, and finally a piece de resistance of sorts to cap off the dizzying array of everything some Asian person's hillbilly cousin might find aesthetically pleasing, light fixtures that remind you of a brothel and Valentine's Day at the same time.

Something to take the edge off the heat
and the *TRIP*py Chic decor...

I don't know what it is about Thai food that
makes me double up on the starch...
P.S. If you look real close, it's leaves this time.

Overwhelmed by three cuisines' worth of menu options, we told Linda we wanted something spicy, and she told us to order anything off the Thai menu. We ordered red curry and pahd kee mow, both with shrimp, because the shrimp was good and plentiful on this day according to her. So, apparently, were the red and green bell peppers that managed to find their way in large quantities into both dishes, neither of which tasted quite like the things they were supposed to be, and yet oddly edible in that way they become so when you decide you're not going to judge them as the things they purport to be. Both a little on the sweet side and likely adapted to the palates of the Marines who live and work just down the street.

These lights made me consider telling the Man that
 I'd love him long time when we got home,
but something about garlic and chilies
keeps a decent woman from
doing such a thing...

But sometimes you walk into a place, hopefully for the food, and you walk out having experienced something else that makes you think your time and money weren't spent for naught even if the food was fair to middlin'. This restaurant, which has been in operation for twenty-five years now, appears in so many ways to be a monument to this woman Linda's tenacity, adaptability, persistence and resourcefulness.

Thai cuisine if Vietnamese doesn't suit you, Vietnamese if Chinese doesn't suit you, Chinese if Vietnamese and Thai don't suit you. Don't want to eat? Howzabout a purse? Don't need a purse? You might like this stuffed Ziggy. Don't like Ziggy? Maybe you need a new cheong sam...

Pictures of family and friends, probably to remind her of the people and things she's giving her life to this restaurant for. Bright, colorful, mismatched things that remind her of home, or maybe just look pretty to her. After all, she's gotta be there all damned day, 7 days a week, 11 AM to 11 PM. And plates of every design from who knows how many seasons of her life. Crappy yelp reviews from snarky young hipsters who can't see beyond the tacky decor and less than perfect food to a woman who probably shed more blood, sweat and tears just getting to this country than they've seen in their entire, short, and fabulous lives.

And still she triumphs, one scrappy day after another, twenty-five years and going...

We foodniks tend to believe it's always all about the food, but often, life is about so much more.

In all honestly, I'm not sure how likely I am to return anytime in the near future. There's a lot more ground to cover in this place I now call home. But despite getting something other than I bargained for, I'm not one bit sorry for my lunch at The Wok Inn.

The Wok Inn
511 Mission Avenue
Oceanside, CA 92054
760.754.2167

shinae

P.S. I don't crave neoprene dogpile football or football players in any way, shape, or form, ever.