Yesterday, I went up to Southern Pines to have lunch with Deborah and Russ Savage.  They had just gotten over the flu the previous week.

I ordered the General Tso’s Chicken with Spring Roll and fried rice.  Russ had the Thai Basil Chicken lunch special.  I don’t recall what Deborah had.  These lunch specials are only $7 plus tax, with water.  The three meals came to a little over $22.

My meal was good, but looking at Russ’ food, I thought, “Now that looks really delicious.”  Russ bit into something that was spicy, and we finally demised that it was probably a slice of jalapeno pepper.

We finished and walked outside and talked in the parking lot.  We were discussing on what we were going to do the rest of the afternoon, but my stomach was upset and I bowed out to return home.

Next day, I decided to come back up to Southern Pines and to Maguro’s to try the Thai Basil Chicken lunch special.  On the way up, it started to rain and very quickly the rain came down so hard that it was difficult to see.  I would have pulled off the road if there was a spot, but the heavy rain was brief and I made it to the restaurant without further problem.

I sat in the first booth, just inside the entrance.  The male host recognized me from the previous day.

I ordered hot tea.  It was a green tea, and was in a cast iron tea pot.  The tea was in several bags and the tea appeared to be a relatively bright shade of green but looked minced and not the usual tea fronds.  I didn’t like the flavor, but drank several cups.  Reminded me of grass.

I ordered the Thai Basil Chicken lunch special with fried rice and a spring roll.  I asked the waitress if they had “hot mustard” and she thought quickly and said no.  I said, “That’s okay.”

The meal arrived shortly, I had been looking at things on my phone.

It was a good looking entre.  The chicken appeared to have been flattened and lightly breaded in small portions.  Some of the other ingredients were egg plant, jalapeno slices, spring onion, red, yellow and green bell peppers, mushrooms and onion.  The Spring Roll was more like an Egg Roll and was cut in half on the bias, with a sweet garlic sauce in a small bowl.

The restaurant is relatively large with a large Hibachi section, a small bar area with TV and a smaller divided boothed area.

This was a good experience and good food for a great price!

So, I’m watching a cooking show today and it’s really about pizza, but they are using tuna on a specialty pizza… and viola.  I see that there is a type of tuna called Maguro (ha!)

Maguro (mah-goo-roh) or hon-maguro, is the Japanese term for bluefin tuna, perhaps the best known and most commonly eaten fish in all of sushi dining. (Definition from Yahoo Search.)

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ADDENDUM [07/07/22]: I had lunch at Maguro’s again today. But, I only ate about half of the meal and got a “To Go” Box for the remainder. There was quite a bit of chicken left over, and a good amount of rice, but only one half of a small egg plant, a little of the Thai Basil, Bell Peppers, and onion. And, half of the spring roll. *I think of Maguro’s spring rolls as more of an egg roll. It has very good flavor.

I got home around 6 pm. I had planned on fixing some corn on the cob & fried okra to go with a little bit of left-over steak, but when I put the bag with the To Go Box of lunch down, I decided to fix some peppers & onions to add to it. This was the perfect addition. I sliced up a little Red Jalapeno, and some yellow, orange and green peppers that I had bought at the State Farmers Market on Tuesday. And, I sliced up some Vidalia Onion and fried it all, using some Grapeseed Oil & some Toasted Sesame Oil and a little dried Basil (not Thai). Once done, I added all of this to the left overs, and mixed it all up.

This was excellent! Maybe better than the original meal. All the peppers seemed to have a little heat, although I had been told several were “sweet”.

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