A Day in the Life: South Bay Edition

A lot of my friends live in the south bay and have been talking up a few places. It was just a matter of time before they let me in on their recent finds....

Korean bakery - what?? I didn't know such things existed. Paris Baguette is like a Guppy's/85 Degrees but Korean-owned although you wouldn't be able to tell. They have a lot of modern/westernized Asian pastries, some more traditional Korean buns, and of course, shaved ice. There isn't any point of reference in the photo, but our "mini" size could feed like 5 people.

A green tea cream cheese pastry, and a pastry filled with sweet potato mochi (very interesting and unexpected, texture-wise)

There's also an older Chinese man who sells roasted sweet potatoes in the same Korean plaza. Brings me back to China! Too bad it's freaking hot, or else I would've gotten some.

And then there's Mama Chen! Apparently this is the place to be for Taiwanese cuisine, and you can tell how popular it is by the availability of their dishes. Even at 7pm, they had run out of cucumbers and beef noodle soup. I will just have to go back another time! Mama Chen is also sporting a new 'do, much more chic than her previous stylish perm.

A glutinous rice bun filled with meat and stuff, doused in ketchup sauce. A little too chewy for my taste, but interesting (I can see why Cynthia likes this stuff). Lo mien, refreshing cold noodles with a touch of sesame oil.

Pork chops, flavorful and tender. Taiwanese sausage is much sweeter than its Canto counterpart, and Jess had to get popcorn chicken in the foreground

Ketchup fried rice with an omelet on top. Tofu skin filled with meat and onion, then deep fried (served with ketchup sauce of course).

We capped the day with some "roti" bread from Honeyberry, this yogurt shop that also sells other random sweets. Roti bread has absolutely no relation to the flaky, fried roti of southeast Asian cuisine. It's pretty much a Chinese pineapple bun, but the draw is that it comes in different flavors (plain which is mocha-ish, butter, and green tea) and they warm it up so it's nice and toasty right out of the oven. Really nothing special, but the craze is really impressive in itself.

Thus concludes my south bay day. It was really like being in a foreign land.

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Bits + Bites

Carte415: Alice, just a tad disappointed by their "gourmet sea salt chips." Grilled cheese w/ Mt. Tam a la Kathy


Liou's House: stuffed duck, winter melon soup


Lechon at Pistahan, Palabok and pork adobo = fatty goodnesssss

[not pictured] Flour+Water: good crust and pasta, but very skimpy on toppings and overall a bit unsatisfying. Very similar to Dopo, but not as good. Really great service though.

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Christmas Desserts A Plenty

I had a good amount of egg yolks, whites, and cream leftover after the wedding, so before I left SF I wanted to use it all up so it wouldn't end up in the trash.

- olive oil ice cream + fleur de sel ganache: When I arrived at my parents' house for the holidays, I mentioned that I had an ice cream base to spin and their eyes lit up as they inquired what kind. Olive oil, I said (adapted from a David Lebovitz recipe), and immediately their faces looked of disgust. After I made it my dad was like "it tastes too oily"... who would've thought. I used a really good bottle of olive oil that Mike gave me that was actually kind of old, so it probably didn't taste as good as it would have if it had been fresh. I made a quick 1:2 ganache using the leftover bittersweet chocolate from the truffles I made for the wedding and some fleur de sel to give the ice cream some contrast.

- leftover "vanilla" cupcake batter + vanilla buttercream

- leftover lime cream => lime meringue tart, pate sucree shell: Since the lime cream (adapted from a Pierre Herme lemon cream recipe) wasn't intentionally made for a meringue pie/tart it didn't really hold when I put it in the oven and the entire thing deflated by the end of the day. Usually you just use citrus curd, and not a cream that is mostly butter.

- butterscotch pudding a la tiffany from top chef holiday special: I put this, unwrapped, in a bag with a bunch of other stuff and left it in the hallway of my parents' house, and when I finally remembered I left it there, it was partially eaten! Sneaky little Bonnie (sister's dog)! This had very dark caramel flavors from the brown sugar, and was extreeeemely rich, but my dad made me throw it out since he was afraid Bonnie's germs might get us sick.

- round chinese pineapple cake vs. rectangular: We went to my cousin's new house on Christmas day, and they had a container full of round pineapple cakes. I had never seen them before, but they tasted exactly the same as the rectangular ones, except without all the extra cakey parts. Since it didn't have corners, there was a pretty even ratio of cake:filling, which made it ten times more enjoyable to eat since the cakey part is usually really dry. No pictures of it, but if you ever see it... trust me... it is a much improved eating experience!

- Egg custard tarts from Golden Gate Bakery: My family had dinner at the House, and stopped by Chinatown for a little pre-meal snack. As always, there was a line, but they are so worth it. Sure, you can find them for cheaper than $1.15 elsewhere, but there is no bakery in the bay area that makes them better. Always the best when eaten on the sidewalk - hot and fresh out of the oven! (The House isn't as good as it used to be, btw, although it was still packed).

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Catching Up

Here's a list of places I've gone to in the last few months but just haven't gotten around to posting about.

- Red Crane
- Beretta
- Q
- Spruce
- Fresca
- Koi palace
- Umbria
- Lobster shack
- House of Prime Rib

Brief "reviews" after the jump! (Useless yelp-style?)

Beretta: Italian in the Mission
Like SPQR, this new restaurant got a "blow job" by Michael Bauer (my old pastry chef's exact words). And just like SPQR, this Italian joint was just OK for me. I definitely enjoyed my meal there... but it was also quite forgettable. Pizzas are aiight, apps are decent, drinks are whatevs.

Q: Diner/Comfort Food in Inner Richmond
Slightly upscale diner food - add blue cheese to the burger and it's not even close to the Spotted Pig's, but it's still satisfying. Eat all the accompanying garlic fries and you'll definitely pass out. Definitely a must if you like tater tots.

Spruce: Contemporary American Fine Dining in Laurel Heights
Really upscale for the neighborhood - who would've known! Very pricey for what it was. Had the charcuterie, fries, lobster, some kind of med fish, and palmiers for dessert. Those heart-shaped cookies should NOT be on the menu. They have a side-bakery so I don't see the point in wasting a menu spot with those. We only got them because we didn't realize what they were. Doh!

Fresca: Peruvian in Lower Pac Heights (there are other locations too)
Why did I eat Peruvian right after coming back from Peru? Honestly, I didn't know until I got there. My friend invited me to join her double date (5th wheel!) and I just went in blind. I like Limon better, but honestly... it's hard for me to even think of spending $35 on a meal that would be less than $5 in Peru!

Red Crane: Japanese Asian Fusion in Cupertino
Despite its identity crisis of a location, this restaurant actually has very very good food. Although the sashimi plate (pictured to the right) looks very impressive, it isn't worth it. However, every single other dish we got was fantastic. The only drawback is the location - very Asian suburbia....

Koi palace: Dim Sum in Daly City
If you want to know where all the Chinese people eat, wake up at 9am to get here by 10am on a Saturday morning.

Umbria: Italian in SOMA
bsze wanted to bid SF adieu by going to Baron Davis's favorite restaurant. Olive Garden anyone?

Lobster shack: Seafood in North Beach
$20 sandwiches? (pictured at the top) They do leave you pretty comatose. They actually weren't very big, but they were generous with the lobster meat. I don't think I like lobster enough to justify the cost though.

House of Prime Rib: MEAT in Nob Hill
Four years ago HOPR used to be $30 total... those were they days.

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To Taipei and Back: Top 5

So I'm starting this post on my last evening in Taipei - my mom brought her laptop so we've been connected, and I am so incredibly stuffed that I don't want to get up.

SOOO a lot of my friends have gone to Taiwan regularly throughout their lives because of family and such, but this was my first time. My mom was born and raised there, and immigrated to the US for grad school. Since immigrating, she's gone back 3 times, the third being 25 years ago, or when she was pregnant with me! So times have been a changin' since her last visit. Anyway, since all my friends go here quite often, I heard many things about the food - mainly that it is amazing. I came with high expectations. I don't know if that was to my detriment, because as I'm nearing the end of my trip, I am excited to go back to Bay Area food.

But before I dive into my food experiences, here is my TOP 5 foods of Taipei:

1. Shaved Ice @ Ice Monster
2. Beef noodle soup @ that one place.... (see below)
3. the fake zwa bing
4. Lemon jelly drink
5. Large fried chicken

What am I talking about?? Sorry Alice, Jason, Kevin, Jess et al... but Taiwan's food AIN'T ALL THAT! At least not what I had. I talked it over with my mom, and I think it's just cause the Bay Area has such great food already... that it's pretty comparable... so I was expecting better and it wasn't necessarily. Granted, most of the food I had was Northern Chinese cuisine and I didn't have that much actual Taiwanese food... but I don't think that matters. My mom and I have come to the conclusion that... the food there is good, no doubt. But we're lucky to live somewhere in the US where the same food is just as good, or even better.

Sooo what did I have is the million dollar question. I obviously couldn't try everything, but I tried to at least cover what was hyped:

- peking duck at the Howard Hotel: this was pretty good. Not particularly special, but I did like it more than Great China. Because they left some of the fat on (not all of it was scraped off), it was more flavorful

- unique chinese banquet food: I've been to more than a fair share of banquets, and this was the first time I (and my mom) saw some of the dishes there, like a honey glazed pork with fried tofu skin wrapped in a wrappy thing

- Hello Kitty sweets: I didn't eat here, but this was right across the street from my hotel (my landmark for remembering where we were staying). This picture is really for Alice, since she LOVES all things Hello Kitty <3

- lots of guava, dragon fruit and starfuit: nothing new here, except that I had actually never seen actual dragon fruit opened (I had previously only had dragon fruit flavored things like in vitamin water, or seen the fruit unopened at grocery stores)

- all kinds of bing (bing!): hm I'm not really sure how to translate these phonetically... but we had many variations - tsong yo bing LOL... uhh that's supposed to be the green onion pancake. a leek one I don't know the Chinese name for... a beef one I also don't know the name for... and ... zwa bing? So, the "zwa bing" we had really wasn't zwa bing. I don't know if I've ever had the real thing, but although this one was very good (off the street), it was really just a tsong yo bing fluffed up, whereas real zwa bing is supposed to puff up naturally when it cooks (according to my mom)

- shaved ice @ Ice Monster: this was definitely good, and you can't get it in the US really. Well, Yogurt Harmony in Berkeley has some, but it's not nearly as good. At the same time... how hard is it to make shaved ice? My mom used to make it at home - all you need is... ice... condensed milk, some tea-syrup, and fruit. Ta da! But I wouldn't definitely not go out of my way to crank out that ice.

- Mochi thing off the street: best when eaten hot. Not good lukewarm

You can see the soup weighing down the skin on the left

- Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings) @ the wildly popular Din Tai Fung: I didn't like it, sorry. I think Joe's Shanghai or even Shanghai Dumpling King in my hood are better!

- these peanut and black sesame filled rice cakes: made by a deaf man, which threw me off because my interactions with him weren't far off from me communicating with a Chinese person who wasn't deaf

- beef noodle soup: this was another highlight - there are two noodle shops right next to each other that are well-known, and the one on the right (while facing the store fronts) is the good one. The beef is the key, and it was really soft and sooo good. The rest was whatever - noodles eh, and soup was good. This is going to sound blasphemous, but my mom and I both really like Panda Express' beef noodle soup, at least at the location near my parent's house in Fremont. Their beef isn't good, but they have good soup, and it was kind of like that but spicier. I have probably lost all credibility now. Ha!

- ro zou fan, kind of: so that's supposed to mean like this pan-fried ground beef/pork? in a certain sauce... there's this place in Fremont called Little Taipei that my mom always gets this at, and it's one of my favorites. But, people make things differently, and this was actually neur ro fan, not ro zou fan. Wow, I'm even butchering Chinese in writing, not just orally. At this same place, their pan fried ground meat was actually soupy and with noodles... before we knew what it was my mom asked if we could have it with rice and they absolutely refused. I guess it's no different than American chefs wanting to have their dishes eaten a certain way and not customizable

I tried to catch the sausage stuffed in the sausage (middle), but it's not a good picture

- lemon jelly drink: by the time I got to the Shilin night market, I was so full from my lunch that day that I just couldn't eat anything. I did manage to down two of these though. It's just lemonade with Chinese jelly in it, but it was just what I needed

- fat on a stick @ Shilin: there was this sausage stand where everything just looked amazing (or amazingly dripping with fat) that I had to force myself to eat something. I watched almost everyone in line get this big sausage cut in half, doused in sauce, ginger, and other condiments, then stuffed with another smaller sausage! Although I was curious, I knew I would pass out if I got that so I just got a small sausage which I took two bites out of then threw away

*** EDIT ***
So Jason said that the "bigger sausage" is actually rice in sausage casing. That definitely makes more sense! Less of a heart-attack-waiting-to-happen

- "large fried chicken" @ Shilin: this was another highlight. It was like eating popcorn chicken (Chinese style) times 10000!

So that wasn't bad, right? I thought I had a good share of what Taipei had to offer. There were definitely some things I liked, some things I wish I had tried... but overall, I'm not sad I'm leaving because I know I can get food just as good back home.

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Asian Food in the Sticks

At Geoffrey's request, here is my list of Asian food in the Richmond/Sunset

richmond:
- shanghai dumpling king (balboa & 34th): good xiao long bao (ghetto and dirty)
- shanghai house (balboa & 38th): hand-cut noodles
- oyaji (clement& 33rd): japanese tavern food
- burma superstar (clement & 4th): burmese - super trendy, long wait, but good!
- mandalay (california & 5th): burmese - less trendy, no wait, still good! and cheaper than burma superstar. the "special noodles" are really good
- tofu house (geary & 11th): korean tofu soup
- brothers (geary & 3rd i think): korean bbq
- taste of formosa (clement & 26th i think): taiwanese
- kitaro (geary & 18th i think): cheap japanese/sushi
- mayflower (geary & 27th): chinese - good for specialty dishes (and more expensive), supposedly good dim sum

sunset:
- san tung (irving & 11th): korean chinese, good dry fried chicken, dumplings, spicy peanut noodles
- "korean restaurant" (taraval & 40th i think): don't know the real name, but there's a sign outside that says "korean restaurant"
- cheung hing (irving & 30-something?): good BBQ pork
- PPQ (irving & 19th): pho and other vietnamese food
- pho hua (irving & 19th): I like their pho better, but some of my friends don't agree
- south seafood village (irving & 15th): decent dim sum
- ebisu (9th? & irving): decent sushi (a bit on the expensive side)
- hotei (9th? & irving): decent udon

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Great China

2115 Kittredge (between Shattuck & Oxford)
(510) 843-7996

Northern Chinese (Szechuan) in Berkeley

I've known about this place for a long time, and I have even gotten take-out (random veggies... I was hungry and in the area) during my college days without knowing what this place had to offer. There's a ridiculous wait, despite the 3 floors this place occupies. You can make reservations, and I'm glad we did. Thanks to my super yelper father, my family went here to try the peking duck it is popular for.

Why is this peking duck so lauded? Basically because they trim off the fat under the skin for you, and remove all the bones. This is perfect for the lazy (me) and the non-Chinese (stereotypically HM and afraid of getting down and dirty, which can also describe me). So was it as good as everyone praises it to be? Well, honestly, the only reason why I liked it so much was because it was so easy. If it had come normally (in bone and with fat), it wouldn't have been much different than your regular peking duck.

My mom agreed. She thinks that Mayflower in Milpitas is comparable, and that Mr. Fong's in Foster city is probably the best of the three, although the meat is fatty (Mr. Fong's is actually a roast duck).

Aside from the duck, we got some other dishes I have never seen before (nor had my parents). There was a "double skin" dish with the pea or whatever noodles (like vermicelli) and egg (the 2 "skins") mixed up with a bunch of other stuff. There was also a crab dish chock full of meat, but I had to hand over my portion to my sister because I could barely swallow my first bite. I hate ginger, and that's all I could taste. My aunt also didn't care for this dish. =P

So all in all, they have good duck, but not necessarily the best, although many people swear by it. My mom also said it probably depends on the duck, too, so who knows! I would probably go again because I like not having to work for my food (I don't like eat things with small bones, or shrimp still in their shells, etc).

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San Tung

1031 Irving St. (between 11th 12th Aves)
(415) 242-0828

Chinese-Korean in the Sunset

This is another of my favorite places in SF, and it never fails. Anything with dough is good (i.e. noodles, dumplings), and they're pretty well-known for their chicken wings.

What to order: chicken wings (dry), dumplings (either shrimp+leek or pork - i prefer the prior), fried shrimp (served with the same sauce as the chicken wings), noodles (their black bean noodles aren't that good... but the peanut sauce one is pretty decent, as is the spicy combo noodle soup thing). Their green beans aren't bad either.

This place is pretty much packed every night, and during lunch on the weekends. Expect a wait! It's worth it though.

*** Edit: There was a time when I ate here every week (good lord! I know. Almost as bad as Brian Sze and Hotei!). Now it's like once every other month after Kevin moved. However, the other day I tried their pork+pickled vegetable noodle soup for the first time (which is more of a Taiwanese dish), and it was quite satisfying. I like!

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Shanghai Dumpling King

3319 Balboa St. (& 34th Ave)
(415) 387-2088

Chinese in the Richmond

This is one of my favorite places in SF - not just because it's a few blocks away from where I live (please don't stalk me), but also despite it's ghettoness, it's damn good.

Their xiao long bao (soup dumplings) are "some of the best [jess] has ever had, including in asia." I would agree, but jess's opinion in Chinese food tends to be slightly more credible than mine. Regardless, their spicy beef noodle soup is decent, as is their pan fried rice cakes dish. I like their green beans, primarily because they're really garlicky.

The staff is nice and extremely accommodating. My apartment celebrated Chinese New Year here and brought our own bottle of wine (which we drank out of tea cups). Soon enough, people were randomly leaving their tables and coming back with brown paper bags. No corkage fee, and they also brought us extra plastic cups. Niiiice.

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Yank Sing

101 Spear (and Mission St. in the Rincon Center)
(415) 957-9300


Chinese, Dim Sum in Financial

The first time I was here was actually for my 2nd cousin's wedding reception - they rented out the place and it was reallllly nice, since the restaurant basically pours into the floor of the Rincon Center, surrounded by waterfalls and a high ceiling. =) The food at the wedding was fabulous - not exactly americanized Chinese food, but rather a western twist on non-traditional Chinese.

The second time was for dim sum with my family, and it was a good thing we got reservations (probably the only dim sum place that you would need reservations for) and it was verrrry good. =) They had your traditional dishes, as well as some interesting spins on what would usually be main courses. Their xiao long bao was very authentic (I'm not an expert obviously, but my parents agreed!) and the best I've had other than in China. Very delicate though.

Definitely a classy Chinese place that's actually good. Expensive though. If you're ever tempted to go to Yank Sing 2 -- DON'T!! It sucks majorly.

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Mandalay

4344 California St. (& 5th Ave.)
(415) 386-3895

Burmese/Chinese in Inner Richmond

I've been to this place twice (once with Shinie and Kyle, and once for Laurene's bday) and I just noticed that I've never reviewed it! Although Burma Superstar is a really popular place, I think the food here is better (with almost no wait, compared to waiting an hour or more).

Get the "special noodles" - a server comes to your table with all the ingredients in front of you and mixes them together right there. The flavors are reallly good... writing this makes me want to go there for dinner. Everything else is pretty normal but good. The service is decent, and if it's your birthday, you'll get a special happy birthday song played throughout the entire restaurant (that sound like "it's a small world" kids but creepier).

I say skip Burma Superstar and go here instead. Or just go here. =)

** Edit: I've been here a gazillion times since this review, and it never fails. I've tried their salads, desserts, drinks... everything here is solid. The special noodles is still definitely the stand-out dish, and if anything, go here to try it.

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