New Restaurant Opens in Linda Vista
Plus: County DA presentation, Farmers Market, LV Bulk Trash Pick Up, Equinox Celebration, Guide to SD Schools, Easter at Hope Lutheran Church, LVTC Membership, and Hope and Reality Conflict
We at the Linda Vista Update are happy to report that our newsletter can finally feature a new restaurant in beautiful downtown Linda Vista - the long awaited Xinjiang BBQ which recently had a soft opening. This restaurant replaces the old Saigon restaurant at the Linda Vista Plaza Shopping Center and is adjacent to Thuan Phat Supermarket. Its hours are 5:00 pm to 2:00 am, Mon-Thur, 5:00 pm to 3:00 am Friday and Saturday, and 5:00 pm to Midnight Sunday.
According to the website, this restaurant specializes in skewered meats and is the second branch of its Monterey Park flagship restaurant which opened in 2017. They hope to open another in San Diego. They specialized in late night dining.
A little research shows Xinjiang is a city in northwestern China where lamb is regularly consumed, so you will see the restaurant offers many lamb dishes (including lamb testicles). Although some of the menu items may be strange to you, chicken gizzards, squid tentacles, etc, they also have beef, pork, seafood, eggplant, tofu and many other items you may enjoy.
Armed with this information, we decided to give it a try. Although we usually do lunch (cheaper), this restaurant does not open till 5:00 pm, so dinner it was. We gathered up the Carnivore Sidekick so he could give some meat items a try (hoping he would stay away from gizzards and tentacles).
When you walk into the restaurant, be prepared for an explosion of color, including neon geometrical lights, projections of beautiful flowers and fish on the walls, and more. It was very spacious and very striking in its décor. Very techno-modern for Linda Vista. We were seated immediately and told the menu was on the QOR code and we would order from our table which had a code we input into our phone. We were each given a bottle of water. They do not yet have an alcohol license, but hope to soon.
The menu does not offer much of a description but does show a beautiful picture of each item.
The menu includes appetizers, skewers of beef, lamb, pork, chicken, vegetables, and seafood, soups, rice, noodles, and house specials including crawfish, clams, and enoki mushroom with bacon. They also have many beverages and a couple of desserts.
Steve ordered the scallops with garlic sauce with a side of rice (I asked what came with the entrees and was told it was just the entrée, so if you wanted rice or noodles you could order them). I ordered the eggplant with garlic and a side of rice, and the Carnivore ordered two skewered dishes, beef and pork belly.
Each item came out at different times, as is common in some Asian restaurants. Each was presented beautifully and the tables were uncluttered with no condiments. Steve said his scallops were delicious. There were five of them beautifully served in a garlic sauce on a bed of very thin noodles. My eggplant looked elegant on the plate and was topped with a garlicky red sauce. It was excellent but very spicy so I put the rice on top to lessen the heat. I ended up giving a bit of it to the Carnivore since heat is his thing. He said the pork belly skewers were tasty and had a good crunch to them. The beef skewers were tender and nicely seasoned.
The prices were very reasonable. In the future, I will ask about the spiciness of the items before I order. Thank goodness for the bottle of water which I chugged to put out the fire in my mouth.
I think you should give this restaurant a try. Take a look at the décor and the high tech aspect. I’m surprised they didn’t have robots serving the meals. I read they brought down their chefs from their flagship restaurant in Monterey Park and will make changes once they learn the tastes of the local residents.
LV Farmers Market Offers Free Vaccines
SD County’s Live Well San Diego Bus will be present at today’s Love, Linda Vista Farmers Market to provide COVID-19 and Flu vaccines. Check out the flyer HERE for details.
The Love, Linda Vista Farmers Market will be open from 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm at the Linda Vista Plaza Shopping Center parking lot.
San Diego County DA Speaks at LVPG Meeting
The District Attorney for San Diego County—Summer Stephen—gave an impassioned presentation at Monday’s night’s monthly meeting of the Linda Vista Planning Group (LVPG). During the presentation, Stephen advocated for the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act (Initiative 23-0017A1). This initiative “provides common sense, targeted reforms to Prop 47 that legislative proposals alone are unable to deliver.” Signatures are currently being collected to get this initiative on the November ballot here in California.
Stephen carefully detailed the unintended negative consequence of Prop 47, which was passed in 2014. According to Stephen, Prop 47 attempted to make California’s criminal justice system more equitable by reclassifying certain non-violent property crimes and simple drug possession offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, but it has resulted in an increase of thefts. drug addiction, and more dangerous communities. As explained by Stephen, “the laws have become out of balance” by favoring repeat offenders and discouraging law enforcement.
This measure will specifically address the fentanyl crisis by defining it as a hard drug, holding individuals convicted of trafficking fentanyl accountable, and granting judges greater discretion in sentencing drug traffickers.
Stephen encouraged voters to visit the Californians for Safer Communities web site at https://casafecommunities.com to learn more about the effort to get this initiative on the November ballot.
Upcoming Community Event
Celebration of the Spring Equinox
In the early morning of Tuesday March 19 a crowd of several hundred gathered at the ancient English landmark of Stonehenge to celebrate the Spring Equinox.
The Equinox is the point of the year when day and night are almost equal in length, and pagans celebrate it as a time of renewal and rebirth.
The celebration at Stonehenge included much chanting and drumming.
Many people believe Stonehenge to be an astronomical calculator, an observatory that helped demarcate the seasons for ancient civilizations. The massive stone structures known as megaliths, are aligned to the sunset of the winter solstice and the opposing sunrise of the summer solstice. Others believe the site was viewed as a site possessing mystical powers by such religious sects as the Druids.
In a related development, one LV resident and her dog were in attendance for the LV Spring Equinox celebration held at our own community’s version of Stonehenge, which is located at the corner of Comstock Street and Linda Vista Road.
There is much mystery surrounding the origins and purpose of this unique area, a place where it is believed Linda Vistans of days past used ancient technology to cleverly place megaliths formed in the shapes of giant plant pots and palm trees.
When asked if she believed this LV corner possesses any mystical or astronomical value similar to its more famous English cousin, the unidentified LV resident responded “No, but I discovered that when you stand here on a sunny morning and align one or more giant plant pots with the rooftop of Skateworld, you can catch a delectable whiff of fresh donuts emanating from the nearby Yum Yum Donut shop.”
We hope all of our readers had a great Spring Equinox, and that they further enjoy a great APRIL FOOLS’ DAY!
A Parent’s Guide to San Diego Schools
A significant feature of the San Diego City School District is the opportunity for choice given to parents when enrolling their children in school. Parents can enroll their kids in schools outside their respective neighborhoods/school boundaries. This option allows parents to select schools that may be more appropriate for their kids’ particular interests or strengths, depending on the academic programs or other characteristics of the schools in question. But how are parents expected to make such informed choices? How are they expected to know what schools offer which programs?
Fortunately, there is one document published each year that offers parents detailed information about each school in the district and throughout the county. The document is titled A Parents’s Guide to San Diego Schools. Available in both hard copy and downloadable versions, it is published by the non-profit digital newspaper Voice of San Diego.
In the Parent’s Guide to San Diego City Schools you will find valuable data regarding school demographics and standardized test score results. The guide also provides information on such things as special academic programs and after-school programs at each school.
In addition to data, the guide also provides a couple of informative feature articles about educational trends and critical academic programs that parents should be familiar with in order to help steer through the often confusing bureaucratic requirements and jargon of the U.S. public school system.
Representatives from Voice of San Diego recently held a workshop at the Linda Vista Library to educate parents about the guide. Leading the presentation was the talented Education reporter for the Voice of San Diego, Jakob McWhinney. In case you missed the workshop, you can still obtain a free digital download version of the guide (to include a Spanish language version) by clicking HERE. In the guide you will find information on schools in the Linda Vista area as well as other district/county schools.
Easter Events at Hope Lutheran of Linda Vista
Hope Lutheran wishes to invite members of the community to their Eastern worship services today, Friday and Saturday and their Easter Celebration on Sunday. Please check out the schedule below.
Linda Vista Town Council Looking for New Members
The Linda Vista Town Council (LVTC) is currently looking for new members. This non-profit civic organization aims to promote the civic, commercial, educational, and cultural interests, and the general welfare of Linda Vista as a community of greater San Diego.
The LVTC holds monthly general meetings to provide a forum for discussion of community issues and to communicate the views of the community to local governmental bodies. The next monthly meeting will be held April 17 (6:30 pm) at the Ba’ha’i Center located at 6545 Alcala Knolls Drive. The public is invited to the meetings.
Attending the monthly meetings is a fun way of staying informed on important community issues and keeping in touch with fellow residents.
If you wish to join, you can sign up at the organization’s web site. Just click HERE .
Commentary
Baseball Season: A Conflict of Hope and Reality
Hooray! It’s the beginning of a new baseball season. Today the Padres will play this year’s home opener against the San Francisco Giants.
This is a favorite time of the year for many people, primarily because the beginning of the new baseball season denotes hope. At this time of the year, the typical baseball fan forgets all about the past and takes on the belief that anything is possible.
Speaking of hope, I find it interesting this baseball season’s opening week happens to coincide with Easter. Both occasions offer us so much hope. But even I, a person as hopeful as anyone, believe that hope has its limits. You see, I contend hope sometimes has a way of lifting us up, only to cause a greater and more painful fall on the way down. I hate the idea of being the guy that has to break that disappointing news to people. But let me explain what I mean.
Just the other day as I was shopping at a local mall, I began walking past an outdoor display that featured a person dressed in an Easter Bunny costume. Parents were encouraged to line up and bring their kids to meet this six-foot Easter Bunny and take a photo with him/her. I stopped adjacent to the line to take a look. As I was doing so, a little girl tugged on my jacket sleeve, looked up at me, and asked, “Hey, mister. Is the Easter Bunny real?”
I thought long and hard before answering. The last thing I wanted was to destroy this little girl’s sense of innocence and hope. I thought seriously of saying, “Yes, Virginia, there really is an Easter Bunny.” But then I figured that would be wrong, not only because her name might not be Virginia, but because I was struggling with the notion that in perpetuating false hope, I would be setting this youngster up for disappointment somewhere down the road. I didn’t want that responsibility.
Readers, I am not afraid to admit I totally evaded my responsibility. I chickened out of providing any reasonable answer. Instead, I conveniently told her my cell phone was ringing, and that I had to take an important call. I then walked briskly away from the gathered crowd, cell phone against my ear, and sheepishly carried out this charade.
I felt great relief about not having to make a choice between hope and reality. Unfortunately, a similar thing happened to me later that night. As I was sitting at the bar of a local pub, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around, and a guy nursing a beer said to me “Is this the year the Padres go all the way and win the World Series?”
My first inclination was to say something like “No way. The Padres are in the habit of raising our hopes and then destroying them later in the season. Chances are great that Padres fans will have to endure another year of frustration.”
But then I thought better. What swayed me was the look in this beer drinker’s eyes. He seemed so sincere, as if he was really counting on this year being the year that Machado and Tatis hit the ball during critical junctures in the game, and that the pitching staff stayed healthy, and that extra-inning games ended in victory. I didn’t want to destroy that hope by telling him the truth. I thought it better to just let him enjoy this brief joyous spring interlude. So, instead of giving him my honest answer, I said, “Hey, buddy, let me buy you a beer.” That move was enough to distract him from any further fantastical thoughts of Padres’ trips to the World Series.
For the next half hour, he smiled and drank his beer with no more mention of baseball. I felt relieved.
It wasn’t until I was about ready to leave, however, when he tapped me once again on the shoulder and asked out of the blue…“Can I be reasonably certain that the City of San Diego was wise in recently approving the expenditure of 4.5 million dollars in our tax money to fund a study to determine what kind of trash and recycling services the City should offer?”
Once again, I noticed a sense of incredible hope in his eyes—a naïve, innocent, trusting look that said something akin to…“I believe that all politicians are wise, honest stewards of our tax dollars.”
And once more, I skirted responsibility for destroying this hope of such magnitude by saying…”I think my cell phone is ringing. I’m expecting an important call from the owner of the Chargers. He wants to know if hiring Jim Harbaugh will bring him a Super Bowl championship.”
I then walked away from the bar to take the call, venturing into the parking lot, and into the hopeful night.
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The Linda Vista Update is a weekly digital newsletter that publishes informative, interesting, and fun news about Linda Vista and its neighboring communities.
Love this! Question for you. Do you have an email address where we might be able to send story ideas out to you? I love all that you put together to share for our community!
Loved the Commentary!