Romo’s Tacos Keeps on Truckin’

It was Amico del Signore who first tried the taco truck on Westside Road, and reported with huge enthusiasm how fabulous the food was.

When he first stopped by, a fellow diner waiting hungrily in line told him, "It's the sauce. The sauces are way better than anywhere else. The enchilada sauce -" His voice trailed off, his eyes glazed over with shimmering images of rich dark red chile sauce. Amico del Signore is an experienced consumer of Mexican food and knows a rare gem when he tastes it, so it was just a matter of time - a couple of weeks - before Femme de Joie went with him to check out Romo's Tacos.

Now, just stop with the catcalls of Roach Coach. Yes, mobile food trucks have had a bad rap over the years, and sometimes it was deserved. But the same could be said for just about any type of dining establishment. Femme de Joie can think of a few inexplicably popular places around town where she wishes she had thought to bring hand sanitizer to use after elbowing her way out of the ladies' room, but that is another subject for another day. Check out Romo's Tacos on the Food Facility Inspections page at http://www.co.shasta.ca.us/EHI/frmPubInspViol.aspx, then compare other well-known restaurants... or your favorite restaurant. You might be surprised. Or appalled.



Monday through Friday, Nemecio Romo (he took over the former Taco Loco business from his father) drives his truck to a parking lot on Westside Road between the Capri Motel and Northern Roots to set up shop. (Romo is also the proprietor of El Paraiso in Anderson, where he serves an expanded menu in a pleasant sit-down cafe.) Though the truck is convenient to workers in a mainly industrial section of Redding that's short on restaurants, patrons not working in the immediate area gladly drive miles to enjoy fantastic Mexican food at rock-bottom prices.



What you don't get: a fancy table and chair, ceramic plates, a glass of water, a basket of chips and salsa. What you do get: substantial portions of amazing Mexican food.



Femme de Joie loves what are politely called variety meats, and she specified lengue (tongue) in this super burrito. Loaded with the works and topped with not-out-of-a-can tomato-and-chile sauce, there was a ton o' tongue here - a moist, tender and incredibly flavorful part of the cow that is unfortunately spurned by many. Too bad, because it makes very fine eating. It's still beef. What are you waiting for? Give it a try. For $5.50, this has to be one of the biggest bargains in Shasta County.



Romo's cheese enchiladas are simply the best of any available in the North State. (If you think you've had better, M. de Joie wants to know about it.) M. de Joie dreams about this sauce. It is by far the best enchilada sauce she has ever tried; the cheesy filling is not so fatty and overwhelming that it overpowers the other elements. Good Lord, these enchiladas are fantastic. There's no other way to describe them.



Femme de Joie has tried tortas before and was underwhelmed. They just seemed like an average filling stuck on a cute little round bun with nothing special to recommend them. But the carne asada torta from Romo's Tacos - well. The flavor of the marinated, grilled steak, combined with guacamole, tomatoes, sour cream, on a bolillo will make you rethink all those fast food sandwiches you've been snarfing up all these years. For one thing, the bolillo is bread worthy of the name - not a bland Wonderbuns instafallapart roll, but a roll that holds together with texture and heft and won't collapse in your lap. For another: steak nubbins cooked to order. Fresh guacamole and tomatoes are not just the usual suspects, but actually enhance the grilled meat. Amico del Signore believes this was the best sandwich he ever ate.



Tamales are one of those foods that fans love to debate. "Oh, man, the tamales we had at this restaurant in Lake Elsinore were the best ever." "Are you kidding? Lake Elsinore? There's no good Mexican food around there. You gotta go to this place on the highway outside Del Mar. It's really a bar, but.." "I know you're gonna think we're nuts, but we had the best tamales at a gas station outside of Downieville." And so it goes. The best tamales have yet to be universally agreed-upon, but the ones served up by Romo's are in M. de Joie's personal top five. Heavy on the masa, medium on the filling, light on the sauce, these aren't meant to be an entire meal by themselves, but a few delicious savory bites of pork filling encased in a corn envelope.



As mentioned in this space before, Amico del Signore is a huge fan of chile rellanos. He visited Ramo's Tacos twice and both times they had already sold out of that day's supply of chile rellanos. The third time he was waiting when the truck drove up and pounced before anyone else had a chance. It was worth the wait: fat fresh green chiles stuffed with cheese, dipped in an ethereal egg batter and fried. These are superb.

Obviously if you've read this far, it's clear that both Femme de Joie and consort Amico del Signore are besotted with Romo's Tacos. The food is fantastically cheap, overflowing, and luscious. While lack of indoor dining facilities might be off-putting to some, it's also a maxim that food tastes better outdoors. But if that doesn't please you can always grab it to take home and scrape it onto your own plates. It doesn't lose much in the translation. The same food is served at El Paraiso in Anderson (though the prices are higher), so you can indeed have it your way and order a beer to go with.

And how does Nemecio Romo view his adoring fans who make the drive to his truck, parked in a ever-so-slightly dodgy area? Nearby, as the bright yellow truck of a local sandwich shop opened for business, Romo told Amico del Singore that he doesn't mind if anyone else wants to try to share the spotlight. "For me," he said, "it's all about the food."

Romo's Tacos, Westside Road Parking Lot between the Capri Motel and Northern Lights (south of El Reno Lane). Open Monday-Friday, 11:00 am - 5:30 PM. Cash only. No alcohol. Takeaway service. On-site parking. Vegetarian options.

Golden Lantern – Have Wok, Need Flavor

Did you ever see “Eat Drink Man Woman”?

The story revolves around a gifted, skilled chef who has lost his sense of taste. (It's the same exact plot as “Tortilla Soup,” where the characters are Mexican-American instead of Chinese.)

Or how about the Food Network show, “Restaurant: Impossible” in which beefy Robert Irvine, on a mission to save failing restaurants, berates chefs who don't use any seasonings? “I don't use salt in case we have a customer who can't have salt,” says one clueless chef, to which Irvine snorts, “You don't have any customers.”

Which brings us to Golden Lantern. Occupying a prime spot of real estate on Churn Creek at Four Corners near Hartnell since 2007, this restaurant ought to be packing them in. It's on a busy corner with plenty of parking and lots of seating. The interior is well-lighted, clean, and attractive; service is unfailingly friendly and helpful; the generous servings are bargain-priced. But on each of three visits during peak lunch dining hours, M. de Joie observed that no more than five tables were occupied. So why isn't Golden Lantern busy?



Seafood tofu soup (medium $62.5, large $7.50) was very long on tofu and very short of seafood. There was what seemed like an entire cake of diced firm tofu in a bowl of hot but flavorless broth, bobbing along with diced carrots and some peas. After a few drops of soy sauce yielded only minor improvement, M. de Joie requested some chili paste: a driblet or two finally added some much-needed savor. As for the seafood, about 10 cocktail shrimp had sunk to the bottom of the bowl, where they nestled among an infinitesimally-small dice of an unknown sea creature.



Amico del Signore ordered almond chicken ($5.95 lunch special with steamed or fried rice and chow mein or sweet and sour pork). It looked good, it smelled good, and the zucchini and chicken were perfectly cut and cooked. But there was no flavor – as the dish cooled it seemed to become blander. Garlic and ginger are usually stir-fried together as a preliminary seasoning for most Cantonese dishes, but there was no evidence of either. The only seasonings were some chicken broth and perhaps a teeny amount of soy sauce. Fried rice was freshly prepared but likewise bland. Pork cubes had a lovely crisp coating but the sweet and sour sauce was neither. "The more you eat it," he sighed, "the less you like it."



Beef with broccoli ($5.95 lunch special) suffered the same fate as the almond chicken: great care had been taken in the prep and actual cooking, but there was no discernable flavor other than a very small amount of soy sauce. And here the two dishes collided and crawled all over each other - not the most appetizing presentation. Chow mein noodles were very overcooked and the entire dish was unfortunately quite oily.

Note: M. de Joie took the leftovers home and stir-fried them together the next with a shot of Sriracha, and that flavoring alone made them spectacular. Too bad they couldn't have been so tasty when first served.



In contrast, someone took pride in the hot and sour soup. This was a winner, with an almost creamy texture and good balance of neither too hot or too sour. Amico del Signore had never tasted hot and sour soup before, but he declared this a winner. Though there could have been a little more heat for M. de Joie's taste, it was still the best dish of the day.



Chinese chicken salad ($5.95 as an appetizer) was sloppily thrown together. Normally shredded chicken breast is used in this salad, both for aesthetics and for its ability to absorb flavorful dressings, but here some random pieces of lukewarm dark meat was scattered around the platter with large leaves of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, peanuts, and a few none-too-crispy rice noodles. Plain rice vinegar was the only dressing. This could have been so much better with a careful presentation and a creative dressing - perhaps with sesame oil, ginger, sugar, and garlic to cut the tartness of the vinegar. As it was, the vinegar puddled on the bottom of the plate and didn't provide a cohesive element to bring the dish together.



When M. de Joie ordered beef pho ($5.50 medium, $6.50 large), the waitress asked her if she wanted the bean sprouts and Sriracha, which seemed an odd question. The accompaniments are as much a part of that warming bowl of soup as are the rice noodles. It's like asking if you want ketchup with your fries.

Right away M. de Joie noticed the thinly-sliced beef: it looked unusually white. Plucking out one slice and tasting it alone, it proved to be not beef but pork. A broth that smelled enticingly of star anise turned out to be miserably weak and thin – watery chicken and pork with little beef taste. Usually a mouthful of the rice noodles comes dripping with beefy goodness, but here they only tasted of unseasoned rice: there was no flavor to absorb. Adding a minced slice of Jalapeno, some hoisin, Sriracha, and soy helped somewhat, but still: this was a huge disappointment.

When M. de Joie had eaten about half of the pho, the waitress came by and asked if she was done with the condiment tray. Upon receiving an affimative answer, the waitress took the tray to another table – the only other occupied table. Do they only have one set of Thai condiments?

Obviously the owners of Golden Lantern are invested in this restaurant. The place is spotless, service is good, and the prices are rock-bottom. It should be successful. But there are some decided issues with the food. The chef obviously has cutting and cooking technique down pat, but isn't using the flavor card to his advantage - in fact, the flavor card seems to have been put back in the pack. And taking the time and care to present dishes appetizingly costs nothing, but seems to be getting short shrift.

Some corners are being cut – pork instead of beef, a real dearth of seafood in a seafood soup, no one in the kitchen taking time to turn out broths and sauces with exciting flavors. This may save money in the short term, but as a long term practice is ultimately destructive. Femme de Joie hopes the chef & owners of Golden Lantern will honestly evaluate the dishes coming out of the kitchen. If prices are too low to afford filling a beef dish with beef or a seafood dish with seafood, then possibly the dish needs to come off the menu, or the prices raised. Both of those are painful choices, but the restaurant should be full during the lunch hour and it's not - and that seems more painful.

Golden Lantern, 2990 Churn Creek Road, Redding, CA 96002. 530-222-1166, fax 530-222-0918. Open Tuesday through Thursday, 11:00 AM - 9:30 PM, Friday and Saturday 11:00 AM - 10:00 PM, Sunday 12:00 PM - 9:30 PM. Closed Monday. Cards, cash, no checks. Beer and wine. Vegetarian and vegan options. On-site parking. Website at http://goldenlanterncalifornia.com/

Country Kitchen – Something for Everyone

Femme de Joie misses the old Omelet House, up there on North Hilltop.

No, it wasn't a transcendental experience, but it was a pretty good place to get breakfast in a town where decent breakfasts are thin on the ground. Behind the counter was a menu signed by Ron Howard, who stopped in one morning for provender. Whatever happened to that menu?

About 20 years ago Country Kitchen opened next door to, then moved into, that old Omelet House space. They've made a successful go of it, dishing up breakfasts and lunch for some years now - they were even mentioned in the New York Times "36 Hours in Redding" (http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/travel/escapes/07hours.html ). It's the kind of place where you pick up The Nickel outside to peruse while you wait for your food, in case you were in the market for eustachian equipment, a dowsing class, or Pearl Harbor pups.

Country Kitchen is known mostly for their generous servings of breakfast, though they do lunch too, as well as sell bread and cinnamon rolls from their bakery. Generally customers are shuffled first into the smaller dining room, mostly booths with a couple of tables in the center. But if it's busy, the larger Omelet House area handles the overflow. Customers are a mix of retirees, families, working men, and an aging hippie or two. Service is friendly, if occasionally somewhat scattered - the person who brings the coffee may be quick to tell you she isn't your waitress.



Scrapple with hash browns, a biscuit, and eggs, $9.55; side of gravy, $1.99.

Oh, it did gladden M. de Joie's heart to see scrapple on the menu. If you're not familiar with this delicious dish, it's what was made with the remainder of the pig once the chops, ribs, roasts, and so on were removed - the small, flavorful scraps were boiled with cornmeal to make a thick pudding, which was fried until crisp. This version is topped with bacon to reiterate the porky goodness, and served with potatoes and eggs. Lovely crisp scrapple cakes were tender on the inside with a crunch on the outside. You wouldn't want to eat this every day unless you carry a defibrillator in your back pocket, but it's a treat once in a while.



Special of the day, sourdough pancakes with peaches, sour cream and brown sugar cinnamon sauce, sausage, $8,25.

When this plate was first set before M. de Joie, it truly looked like fried eggs on top. Nope - it was canned peaches. The pancakes were delicious, but M. de Joie could not bring herself to appreciate the oddly bitter creamy cinnamon syrup. Too bad - the pancakes and peaches (out of a can) would have been better served with plain (imitation) maple or fruit syrup.



Chinese chicken salad, $9.75, served with house-made cornbread.

You wouldn't expect a salad so blatantly healthy and colorful to come out of the kitchen of a mainly-breakfast cafe, but there is was. This was excellent - freshly-grilled chicken on top of a beautiful array of crisp vegetables. If there was any complaint, it was that the dressing was so thin, it didn't stick to the salad and puddled underneath. Other than that, Chinese chicken salad was a winner, as was the crunchy cornbread served alongside.

The only item Femme de Joie tasted at Country Kitchen that was a misfire was chicken fried steak (not pictured) - the doughy, undercooked crust was unappetizing and the steak was very salty. as was the gravy that day.

Though there are some misses on the execution, M. de Joie likes Country Kitchen and could be persuaded to go back. It does get crazy busy at times, especially Sunday mornings, so call ahead if you're with a group. There's something for everyone on the menu and the prices are fair for the large portions. If you're out on Hilltop waiting for the mall to open, stop by.

Country Kitchen, Town and Country Plaza, 1099 Hilltop Drive, Redding, CA 96002. 530-223- 5438. Open daily from 7:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Breakfast and lunch, bakery. No alcohol. No checks accepted; cards, cash. On-site parking. Vegetarian options. Website at http://www.countrykitchenredding.com/

Lim’s Cafe – Retro or Relic?

Serve piping hot, with a pitcher of Soy Sauce for those who want a higher and more truly Chinese flavor. - From the instructions for Chinese Fried Rice, Sunset Magazine, 1936

Back in 1933 when Lim's opened, Americans were afraid of Chinese food. It could be argued they weren't wild about the Chinese people themselves and the fallout from that fell on the food, but that's a discussion for another time and place. In addition to quasi-Chinese dishes, restaurateurs added some foods familiar to Americans to their menus. BLTs, hot roast beef sandwiches, cottage cheese and canned peaches were borrowed from diners and became staples in a lot of Chinese-American cafes.

Over the decades, Americans gradually became more familiar with the formerly scary ingredients common to Asian cookery - sesame oil, fresh ginger, vegetables like winter melon and tatsoi, and - yes - soy sauce, which became an ingredient instead of a sauce. Some of the old-style cafes closed. Some adapted to changing tastes, adding Mongolian lamb and Buddha's Jewels to their menus. And a few refused to change at all. Lim's Cafe is one of those.

The menu is half Chinese, half American. The Chinese dishes are things like chop suey, chow mein, etc., - and are organized that way on the menu, rather than by beef, chicken, vegetables, etc. American choices include Chip Steak with French fries ($6.50), Full Order of Tomatoes ($5.00), and Denver Sandwich ($6.50) - all very retro items. There's a dinner menu as well - Fried Shrimp Dinner ($14.25), Grilled Pork Chops ($10.50), New York Steak ($16.00). You get the idea. The tropical drinks list includes the usual Mai Tai and Pina Colada, but also the Ding Ho ("Feeling Blue? Try One of These and It'll Pick You Up") and the Moon of Delight ("Very Mild, We Recommend for Lady").

When Femme de Joie first visited, she stood uncertainly near the door until a waitress yelled to sit anywhere. She'd hardly sat down before a waitress appeared at the table with water, ready to take the order. Apparently the vast majority of Lim's customers have the menu memorized.

Nearby, a young couple exulted over their lunch. He: "I'm so glad we didn't go to Grand Buffet!" She, to waitress: "This is his first time here!" Waitress. "If I'd known it was your first time, I would have warned you. It's addicting! Almost all our customers have been here before."

In a fit of retro nostalgia, M. de Joie ordered Pork Chop Suey, simply because it had been so long since the last time she's had it, she'd forgotten what it tasted like. The waitress brought squeeze bottles of ketchup and hot mustard, and asked if M. de Joie required a plate to mix rice and chop suey together. No.



Chop Suey, $7.50

Chop suey was composed of very freshly cooked bean sprouts - a LOT of bean sprouts - bok choy, carrots, pork, bound with a thick cornstarch sauce, along with a very small bowl of steamed rice. No seasonings such as ginger or garlic had been added. It was freshly cooked and hot, but they forgot to add any taste.

On Femme de Joie's second visit, a nearby table of elderly gentlemen discussed baseball at great length, especially the Giants, as well as each other. "Bob, you're lookin' good." "Yup. 82 next week." "82? You don't look a day over... 74." They were clearly regulars, exchanging razzing with the waitress. They had the menu memorized.



Chinese BBQ ribs, $8.75 appetizer

A large portion of pork ribs was served with a small mound of steamed rice. While the ribs were perfectly cooked and very moist without being greasy, after a few bites M. de Joie became aware of an odd off-taste. It may have been something brushed on the rubs as they were cooking. After a few more bites, the odd taste morphed into a not-tasty taste. This is where those bottles of ketchup and hot mustard came in handy.



Cashew chicken, $9.00

Again, a generous portion of food, freshly cooked and colorful. But there was a large amount of very overcooked bok choy stems and celery, no seasonings, and the cashews had just been dumped unceremoniously on top of the completed dish. Bland, bland, bland.

The third time M. de Joie dined at Lim's, she sat near a man who was clearly enjoying his food. He did not attempt to disguise his moans, slurping, and lipsmacking. Thinking back now, perhaps she should have said, "I'll have what he's having." Instead, Femme de Joie ordered one of the four lunch specials always listed on a card on each table.



Special #1 - pork chow mein, egg foo yong, fried rice, $5.60

At first glance, there appeared to be a salad on the plate, but that turned out to be the chow mein. A more truthful name would be Soggy Cabbage on Lengths of Chewy Stuff. There was a small sprinkling of shredded Chinese pork on top; a powerful taste of star anise fairly overwhelmed the cabbage. Fried rice was nothing more than overcooked rice with a lot of soy sauce. At least the egg foo yong was harmless - there were shreds of an unknown green vegetable inside but there was simply no seasoning at all, not even salt, and it was blanketed heavily with a brown sauce that owed a lot to a packet.

Femme de Joie can understand some of the allure of Lim's. It's very cheap and you get lots of food. Service is very fast and very friendly. The retro ambiance can be charming in a late-night diner sort of way. And if you grew up here, you probably have fond memories of meals shared with family and friends.

M. de Joie has talked to numerous people who state matter-of-factly that Lim's has the best Chinese food around, so it does have a solid fan base. But M. de Joie finds the adulation given Lim's inexplicable and mystifying. In saying so, she's aware she's trampling on feelings and toes and happy memories, but there is far, far better Chinese food to be found in Redding.

Lim's Cafe, 592 North Market Street, Redding, CA. 530-241-9747 or 530-243-2991. Serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Open 7:00 AM - 9:00 PM, Monday-Thursday, 7:00 AM - 10:00 PM Friday and Saturday. Cash, cards, no checks. Small parking lot behind restaurant. Full bar. Vegetarian and vegan options.