Mekong Cuisine on Convoy Offers Lao Dishes
Plus: Learn about Neighbors for a Better San Diego, Coffee with a Cop Scheduled for LV, Free Summer Lunch Program, Summer Book Reviews, and LV Poetry Corner
We here in Linda Vista are lucky to have diversity in population and in food. There are so many choices, Vietnamese, Thai, Italian, Chinese, Philippine, Mexican, American, and more. We have tried many different restaurants and are always looking for the next interesting one. As part of our quest, we noticed last week that there was going to be a Lao Festival at Mira Mesa Park and we decided to try it since they announced 20 food vendors and we have not really tried Lao food. The Festival was very nice and well attended with thousands at the park. The program included traditional dancing as well as many informational, craft and food booths. The lines were extremely long for the many food booths, but we got in line and we were somewhat confused because the menu was in Lao, not English. When we got to the front of the line we asked what they had that had no meat and were told that the sticky rice with mango had no meat. We erroneously thought it was a meal and found out after we ordered that it was dessert, but we ate it and it was good, but not really what you could call a Laotian meal. So, we decided to look for a Lao restaurant in the area and try some real Lao food.
We discovered Mekong Cuisine Lao and Thai in the same shopping center as the Original Pancake House across from Costco on Convoy, and we recently went there for lunch. It is very nice inside, with only about a dozen tables, nicely spaced, and the staff was extremely nice. We asked our server to point out some authentic meatless Lao meals on the menu as it included many Thai dishes which we have already eaten. Although most Lao meals include meat of some kind, she did point out one that had no meat – Mok Pah which is herb marinated fish, steamed in banana leaf served with sticky rice and steamed vegetables. This is what Steve ordered. Another famous Lao dish was Nam Khao Tod which is crispy coconut rice, onion, ginger, peanuts, scallion, cilantro and chile (although usually with sausage, she told me I could order it with Tofu) so I ordered it.
The presentation of the meals was very exotic. My meal was surrounded by lettuce leaves which she told me I could use to wrap the food. Steve had little packets with the banana leaves and sticky rice. My portion was huge, and I ended up taking more than half home.
We enjoyed the lunch very much although the texture of the rice was different from what we are used to. Our server said they also serve jasmine rice, but the sticky rice is more authentic.
Both dishes were spicy, but not overly so. Of course, I removed all the chilis from my meal.
The combination of ingredients in my meal were flavorful and unusual, especially the crispy coconut rice, but overall I liked it.
I tried the fish in Steve’s dish and it was very tender and flaky.
So, now that we have tried the Lao food, we will probably go back sometime and try the Thai meals as they seemed more plentiful than Lao. I understand that Lao and Thai food contain some similarities, but are also very different in some ways. So, on to our next adventure.
Mekong Cuisine Lao and Thai
3904 Convoy Street Unit 112
Hours every day:
11:00 am to 3:30 pm
5:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Neighbors for a Better San Diego Advocates and Raises Awareness
Many San Diego residents have grown to accept the old adage “You can’t fight City Hall,” They don’t believe the average citizen has the wherewithal to take on the city’s elected office holders, wealthy and powerful political donors, and the vast city bureaucracy to effect change. However, there is one group of San Diego citizens that thinks otherwise. They have banded together to mobilize city-wide support to counter the adoption of housing regulations they see as harmful to the quality of life of San Diego neighborhoods. Neighbors for a Better San Diego (NFBSD) is a local grass roots volunteer organization that seeks the creation of policies that benefit homeowners, renters, small businesses, and other stakeholders. This organization offers the opportunity to join an activist effort to San Diegans concerned with such issues as single family zoning changes, accessory dwelling units, and City planning policies meant to transform our transit corridors, .
Affordable housing is obviously a major concern for Linda Vista residents. The high costs of housing has financially squeezed many local families in recent years. Though there is no quick fix answer for this housing crisis, some have looked toward the building of Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs, as one possible way to alleviate the magnitude of the problem. An ADU—sometimes known as a granny flat—consists of an additional small building on the property of a homeowner. They are seen as beneficial options because they typically cost less than other forms of housing and make efficient use of existing land. The City of San Diego has viewed ADUs in a positive light. In 2019, San Diego passed a series of bills to make it easier for homeowners to build ADUs. These bills made major changes to zoning regulations, permit requirements and developmental standards and superseded previous restrictive regulations. As part of this effort, the City of San Diego continues to see possible adoption of California’s SB 10 as way to facilitate the addition of even more ADUs in San Diego.
We have seen a few of these ADUs pop up in the Linda Vista area. But as pointed out by a few LV residents at recent Linda Vista Town Council meetings, ADUs pose their own potential problems when introduced into a neighborhood of single family homes.
Instead of just grumbling about these problems or shrugging their shoulders and uttering “There’s nothing we can do about the rules,” the members of the NFBSD have been able to raise awareness of the ADU issue and mobilize support to bring about possible change for the City government’s plans and current regulations. The organization was started a few years ago in the Talmadge/Kensington area to protect neighborhoods from the development of apartment buildings in the backyards of single-family homes. The organization’s leadership has worked hard at educating homeowners on the negative impact that recent single-family zoning changes will have on their neighborhoods. And the organization has since evolved to advocate for San Diego government officials to reconsider urban development plans and encourage the City to “transform our transit corridors with environmentally friendly and inclusive development, which will benefit homeowners, renters, and small businesses alike.”
Representatives of NFBSD are always present at City Council meetings and Planning Commission hearings to advocate for their recommendations regarding housing, but activist enthusiasm and commitment are not the organization’s only assets. The NFBSD also prides itself in having members who possess advanced analytical skills and who ensure all recommendations are data driven. As explained to the LV Update by NFBSD board chair Geoff Hueter, the organization takes a very “analytical approach. We look at issues objectively, figure out the needs, and take time to research and analyze the data.” Hueter, who possesses a PhD in Physics from UCSD, believes his organization’s capabilities to research and analyze land and demographic data often equals or surpasses that of the City staff.
NFBSD maintains San Diego’s ADU regulations do the following…
Encourage the building of unlimited ADUs per single family dwelling.
Allow ADU’s with heights of 30 feet.
Allow building ADUs in Very High Fire Hazard Safety Zones.
Encourage density further from transit where people won’t use it.
Disregard quality of life for homeowners and renters by resulting in higher land values and rents and no parking for renters.
The organization has also mobilized support against the possible City adoption of California SB 10, which is wrapped up into the City’s Housing Action Package 2.0, and which will be voted upon by City Council later this summer. As mentioned on the NFBSD website, some of the objections to SD 10 include:
Allowing up to 30,000 sf, 14-unit buildings, three stories high in residential neighborhoods.
No on-site parking requirements for the majority of eligible lots under the pretense that residents who live a mile away from ineffective transit won’t need cars.
Development is allowed on almost an entire lot.
Based in part on the work of the NFBSD to push back on SB 10, the City’s Planning Commission delayed any decision on SB 10’s adoption this month and chose instead to review its proposed plans/regulations. You can read all of NFBSDs objections with SB 10 by clicking here.
Though NFBSD critics accuse the organization of being made up of NIMBYs, Hueter maintains that what the NFBSD seeks is for San Diego’s City government to come up with and articulate a planning vision that that will be “inclusive” and “environmentally friendly,” and ensure every neighborhood’s density is made up of residences and small businesses that “will allow everyone to walk to everything.”
If you are a Linda Vista resident who is concerned about ADUs or the perceived lack of a well thought out planning vision on the part of the City of San Diego, you may want to study the contents of the NFBSD website, and even go a step further by getting on their mailing list. You can do so here.
Linda Vista to Hold Coffee with a Cop
Mark your calendar. On July 13, Linda Vista residents will have the opportunity to participate in a Coffee with a Cop event. If you have questions to ask members of the SDPD, here is your chance to do so and get answers. Check out the below flyer for details. We hope to see many of our readers there!
Free Summer Lunch Program for Kids
The Linda Vista Recreation Center, located at the Linda Vista Community Park (7064 Levant Street) will be offering a free summer lunch program for Linda Vista youth from June 20 to August 11. Lunches will be served from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm Monday-Friday during this time. Young people 17 and under are eligible to receive the lunch.
The lunches will be served by the San Diego City Parks and Recreation Department in partnership with the San Diego Unified School District and are meant as an extension of the lunch program students get during the school year.
Lunches will consist of such items as chicken nuggets, corn dogs, and pizza. All lunches will include milk, grain, fruit, vegetables and meat.
Lunch will be served at tables set up in the Recreation Center auditorium.
Snacks (i.e., juice, bread or chips) will also be served between 4:00 pm and 4:30 pm.
Please check out the below poster for further details on where else free lunches will be served.
Summer Book Reviews
It’s summer time and we know our newsletter readers are looking for some leisurely, entertaining summer time reading material. Accordingly, we recently went to our favorite intellectual book reviewers, Martha B. and Marla M to give us some good recommendations. As usual, they came up with a couple good ones.
From Martha B….I am in the middle of a P.D. James listening binge and my current book recommendation is A Certain Justice, a murder mystery featuring P.D. James’ usual detective Adam Dalgliesh. P.D. James was a prolific English writer of award winning and best selling mysteries, many of which were made into TV series or movies. As usual for James, this book is a satisfying exploration of the human strangeness, sexual and power machinations, marital struggles and macabre in lives of seemingly stolid respectable citizens. Her books also contain meditations on issues usually reserved for serious literary fiction. In the case of this book, the reader is left with the question of whether justice has or has not been done, or done at least well enough, although not finally through the legal system.
Because P. D. James died in 2014 and many of her finest books were written in the 30 years beginning in the 80’s, it is an added bonus that most of her writing can be easily and quickly obtained for free through the library, either in digital or audio format. Her writing stands the test of time, so it is a treat to visit her books for the first or second time so easily, while current bestsellers may take many months to obtain through the library, or cost a lot in hardcover at your favorite bookstore, Costco or Amazon.
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From Marla M….For you Alex Cross fans, this new adventure will not disappoint you. James Patterson and Brendan DuBois have taken Alex out of his comfort zone of Washington, DC and made this into a global experience. In addition, it gives Alex’s long time partner John Sampson, a major role rather than subordinate to Alex.
Alex Cross, with his partner and best friend John Sampson, finds themselves caught in the middle of what appears to be random deadly attacks across the United States. Detective, John Sampson is called upon to investigate. During latest attacks on the streets of Washington DC Alex Cross sustains life-threatening injuries, leaving Sampson alone to find the source of these deadly attacks.
After discovering that soldiers are called to secret assignments, while others mysteriously disappear, John Sampson must revisit his military past with two things in mind : Save the nation and Trust, no one!
I know you will enjoy this book as much as I did.
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We wish to thank our two great book reviewers for their submissions!
LV Poetry Corner
Linda Vista seems to finally be experiencing its usual sunshine after a spring that saw a prolonged stretch of gray sky days. The weather was very un-San Diego like for a number of weeks..
We wish to employ the below poem to commemorate the challenging experience of having to endure that drab spring weather for such a long time.
Linda Vista’s Long Overcast Spring
I barely made it through the bleak May gray.
How much longer must we wait for the sun?
Now the June gloom is depressing the day.
Dreariness threatens a summer‘s delay.
Morning mist dampens the patio grill.
I barely made it through the bleak May gray.
Shrouded sky conditions appear to stay.
San Diego endures this weeks-long stretch.
Now the June gloom is depressing the day.
Yesterday released the glimpse of a ray,
but after an hour the clouds slammed shut.
I barely made it through the bleak May gray.
LV aches for a luminous display;
the glow of a July celebration.
Now the June gloom is depressing the day.
The overcast pall that swathes Mission Bay,
deadens the view from atop our mesa.
I barely made it through the bleak May gray.
Now the June gloom is depressing the day.
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