Cherimoya 2

Lemon grass grill pork on vermicelli with Thai ice tea

We were in Golden Gate Park area on our pokemon hunt and decided to stop by this place. My original planned lunch location turned out to be closed on Sunday. I was disappointed but this place got a high customer rating so I was curious to check it out.

When we got there it was lunch time. The place was small and more suitable for take out place. There were maybe 5 tables altogether with some plastic chairs and some built-in seating along the wall. Quite interesting. The wall was painted cheerful bright green. And when we walked in I was expecting someone to sit us down. But then there was a register just outside their small kitchen opening with the sign “order here”. Their menu was small and more or less a repeat. You can have grilled lemon grass pork/chicken/beef/tofu as topping for garlic noodle/vermicelli/rice/salad. And then there was menu for the spring roll and a few drinks. That’s pretty much it. Nothing soupy like noodle soup.

Bangkok West - Roseburg, OR

Stir fry vermicelli with tofu

We found this restaurant sort of last minute as we were cruising on highway 5 approaching Eugene, Oregon. This restaurant was located in a small town just off Eugene though. Our Google navigation brought us there and we looked around having difficulty locating the restaurant. Turned out that it was at a corner of a deserted strip mall.

I was a bit skeptical but there were a few cars parked outside even though it wasn’t quite dinner time yet. So we went in and I was surprised to see that there was a big table of 8 people and a few other smaller tables occupied.

Blurr Kitchen - Santa Clara

grilled pork banh mi (Vietnanese style sandwich) side by side with garlic fries

We found this establishment on Yelp when we were looking up restaurants in the Santa Clara area. It’s located at the corner of San Tomas Expy and El Camino Real in a busy strip mall. Parking was a nightmare since that location now has 2 restaurants, Starbucks, T-Mobile and Noah’s Bagel. We ended up parking on a smaller side street about a block away.

When we walked in there was only like 2 customers in there finishing up. It was around 2pm so I wasn’t expecting too many people in. They offer a small menu consisting of Vietnamese sandwich (banh mi), cooked food (Panda Express style) and some appetizers made to order. The girl on the counter was very nice and gave me a sample of the lemon grass fish dish. I wish they had display of the name of the dishes so we didn’t have to ask.

I picked a five spiced marinated chicken on my fried rice combo and picked the stir fried green bean as my greens. Hubby chose the banh mi with roasted pork since everyone seemed to be talking about it on Yelp. For side, he chose the garlic fries over salad. I wonder if anyone ever chose salad instead.

Northern Style Pho - San Francisco

Chicken pho @ Turtle Tower Restaurant

The following 2 Vietnamese noodle place mentioned below have been around forever. I had the review from the previous visit to Turtle Tower Restaurant here. And Pho Quan Ngon here. We have been able to stop by these two restaurants recently just to refresh our memory.

Turtle Tower Restaurant

This northern style pho restaurant has a few locations in San Francisco according to Google. I am not sure if they're related. The one we went to was on Geary. The other two were on Larkin and on 6th St.

The pho served here uses fresh rice noodle which was a bit wider and more slippery. But since it's fresh so it absorbed the broth flavor better. At this location we ordered chicken pho and bun cha hanoi which were more typical to the northern style Vietnamese cuisine.

It Ends With Us - Colleen Hover

Lily Bloom met a rich, handsome stranger who happened to be a neurosurgeon. She ended up spilling some of her darkest secret thinking they never meet each other again. One day they ran into each other. Each of them had different principle when it comes to relationship so initially they were sure they’d never date each other. Till one of them change their minds.

But then, one of Lily’s darkest secret came back in her life in a form of a chef owner of a restaurant. By now, readers were already filled in with how they got to know each other. And it’s really hard to decide. Both men are handsome. One is a neurosurgeon and the other is a chef. Hmm.

Ipoh Garden - San Jose

Ipoh Garden Hainamese chicken

This review is so over due. We went there around end of August on a Saturday afternoon. We brought with us our friends’ kids. I was excited to check out this place because it’s a relatively new Malaysian restaurant. And I thought so far no Malaysian restaurant has come close to our expectation when we are missing any food from that region.

It was past lunch time when we got there around 2 pm. But there were like four tables occupied so I guess business was decent. The décor inside was simple and modern. The wooden table and the chairs made the place looked elegant and a bit more expensive.

The kids love char kway teow and roti paratha so we made sure to order those two items. Beside they didn't care for anything else. I sort of went over board and lost track of our orders and went with Hainamese chicken rice and prawn noodle. Forgot that hubby already ordered mee siam. But in the end was happy that we got to try a few items.