Dinner last night inspired lunch for today...sorta

We went out for dinner last night. I didn't feel like cooking and I really wanted some good/not so good for you Mexican food. You know the place, where they bring never ending baskets of chips and salsa, the food has a little more melted cheese than necessary, the food comes out really quick on super hot plates. We love this type of restaurant usually owned by a family. My kids called these type of restaurants "chips and salsa place".

Since we have moved to the OC we have yet to find a little hole in the wall Mexican place, but we still keep trying. There are a million yummy and fairly healthy Baja Mexican restaurants. We tried a new place last night called Las Fajitas. As we walked up to the strip mall location we passed a Vietnamese restaurant and it looked and smelled delicious. I was plastered to the windows! But we still went to the Mexican place because everyone was excited and hoping this place would be the "one" we have been looking for. It wasn't.

It wasn't awful but it wasn't great but we probably won't visit it again. This was my plate, the whole time I was eating I couldn't stop thinking about the Vietnamese place next door.

So today thinking about the restaurant next door I made this dish...a Vietnamese inspired soup. It was great! I still want to go to this restaurant Pho Ba Co (It means three Vietnamese women). 

Using what I had in the pantry: Instant Miso Soup for the broth, Fresh spinach chopped, 1 carrot thinly sliced using a vegetable peeler, white mushrooms thinly sliced, 1/4 cup brown rice, 4 oz. thinly sliced leftover peppercorn pork tenderloin.

I placed the rice on the bottom of the bowl then added the rest of the ingredients in their own little quadrants.

I added the broth on top of all the ingredients. This helped warm all the veggies and meat without overcooking them. Delicious and filling soup. Hopefully this will tide me over until I make it to that Vietnamese noodle house.