A Journey

SGD Tofu House - San Jose

2012-02-19T11:22:00.000-08:00

This restaurant took over the RIP New Kang Nam restaurant that closed down about 1.5 years ago. Hubby was so excited about it when he found out that the spot was finally taken over by another Korean restaurant. So we picked a day to go and check it out. The auspicious day was Valentine's Day.

We went early to beat everybody but there were already at least five tables occupied when we arrived. It's only after six pm. Don't these people need to work or what ?

We were seated and given a small menu. Not just physically small, the menu was mostly consisted of soft tofu stew (soon do bu) with different varieties of combination (eg beef, seafood, kimchee, etc). They offered a few appetizers like seafood pancake (haemul pajeon), spicy rice cake (tteok bok ki with squid), steam pork and oyster with spicy vegetables. We settled with a seafood tofu stew and a bbq spicy pork.

banchan (side dishes)

While waiting for the banchan to be served which took a while I noticed the same song was played three times within fifteen minutes. Was the CD skipped and replayed it again or maybe the person that burnt the CD loved the song so much and decided to put it every other songs...ha..ha..

spicy bbq pork

We felt that the service was a bit slow and at the time it wasn't very busy. And I guess it wasn't us that felt that way because I noticed another patron asking for the banchan to be served as well. They came in after us. And as we were eating our dinner the few earlier tables were already done and left but the tables weren't cleared. So when more guests came they had to wait for those tables to be cleaned first.

The banchan were typical napa cabbage kimchee, soy bean sprout, fish cake, stir fry vermicelli (japchae) and pickled seaweed. Nothing too special about the banchan. I noticed some of them were pretty bland.

The soft tofu stew was very flavorful and packed with tons of seafood. The bbq spicy pork was abundant but not sizzling enough. I wasn't sure if they were too busy to heat up the iron plate hot enough to make it sizzle but it seemed like the plate wasn't even hot and the pork was just piled high on it.

Well, all in all it wasn't all satisfactory on every aspects. This restaurant is close to home so we'll be back again. Hopefully they'll be more efficient in the future.

SGD Tofu House
832 Blossom Hill Rd, San Jose, CA 95123
Ph (408) 227-8583

Happy Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T21:04:00.000-08:00

photo : chocolate and vanilla cheesecake from Wholefoods Market.

Use those leftover food : mashed potato omelette

2012-02-10T21:32:00.000-08:00

The recipe I tried out the other night was inspired by a recipe I found on Epicurious.

Ingredients :
1 cup rough chop broccoli
1 cup sliced mushroom (use your fave mushroom)
2 slices prosciutto - slice thinly (use canadian bacon or bacon bits)
1 medium size onion - slice thinly
5 medium size eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed potato (from about 3 medium size yellow potato)
1/2 cup milk
1 cup shredded cheese
1/2 tea spoon salt
a little bit ground black pepper (optional)
3 tbs oil
ketchup (optional)

Preparation :
Preheat the oven at 325.

Heat up about 1 tbs of oil on a medium size frying pan. Fry the onion until fragrant about 1 minute. Toss in the broccoli, stir around for another 1 minute. Toss in the mushroom. Pour in about 1/2 cup of water and cover the frying pan to make sure the veggies and mushroom become tender (about 5 minutes). Stir in prosciutto and let it fry another minute. Turn off the fry and set the stir fry veggie combo aside.

On a big bowl, crack all the eggs, pour in the milk and add salt and pepper. Beat the egg well using a whisker. Put in the mashed potato and cheese and stir well to combine.

Put in the stir fry veggie combo to the egg mixture and stir to combine.

Heat up a clean frying pan with 2 tbs oil on medium heat until hot but not smoking. Pour in the egg mixture and set the frying pan in the middle of the oven to bake. If the handle of the frying pan is plastic make sure to wrap it with double thickness of aluminum foil. Or use a corelle or pyrex baking dish (but make sure to brush some oil or spray a thin layer of oil).

Bake the omelette in the oven at 325 for about 25 minutes. Then increase it to 375 and bake another 10 minutes or until the egg is set.

Take it out from oven and let it cool off slightly. Serve warm with ketchup if desired.

sliced onion

thinly sliced prosciutoo

stir fry onion on hot skillet

toss in broccoli and mushroom

Last item to add to the egg mixture is the stir fry veggie combo. Mix well.

Voila. After 35 minutes, the omelette is ready to be served.

Thai Spice - Los Gatos

2012-02-05T19:52:00.000-08:00

This weekend we went to do take out from this restaurant. The place is small and cozy and busy when we walked in. We placed our order and went about doing other errands and went back about 25 minutes later to pick up the order.

We got eggplant with garlic and basil, fish cake (tod mun), pad thai (rice noodle with peanuts), pad see ew (stir fry wide rice noodle with broccoli) and the chef's special crispy trout with mango salad.

Since everybody was hungry I didn't think of taking any pictures this time. But in general the food was so so. We have better Thai food elsewhere so none of the dishes were impressive. The crispy trout came out a winner this time since we have nothing to compare to. It was trout fillet with light batter presented on a bed of shredded iceberg, julienned green mango and cucumber and thinly sliced green onion. A cup of sweet, tangy chilli dressing was on the side.

The fish cake came out a bit dry and seemed tired. Twice fried, maybe ? The pad thai and pad see ew were on the sweet side which didn't suit my palette. The eggplant was too soggy. All in all I am sure we won't go back again.

Thai Spice
337 N Santa Cruz Ave
Los Gatos, CA 95032
(408) 354-2785
www.thaispicecuisine.com/menu/Losgatos.pdf

Happy Lunar New Year - year of the dragon

2012-01-23T20:52:00.000-08:00

Homemade Chinese Style Pork Jerky aka bak kwa

2012-01-21T14:58:00.000-08:00

For us bak kwa is not just CNY snack, it's everyday staple. Love it with rice or congee. Thanks a billion to Sonia from Nasi Lemak Lover me and hubby could stop being smugglers of bak kwa and risked being deported. :) The recipe seemed simple enough yet yielded amazing result.

Recipe (some measurements converted for US households)
1 lb minced pork (at least with 10% fat)
1/2 cup sugar

1tbsp light soy sauce
1/2tbsp Chinese rice wine
1/2tbsp fish sauce
1tbsp oyster sauce
~~1tsp dark caramel sauce~~
~~1/8tsp Chinese five spices powder~~
A dash of Pepper
1/2tsp-3/4tsp salt or to taste
2tbsp honey

Lulu's notes :
We didn't use those striked out ingredients but instead used about 1 tbs cayenne pepper to make the spicy version.

Method
1. Put all ingredients in a big bowl and start mixing them with a pair of chopsticks. Blend and stir the mixture in one direction until the meat becomes gluey . Store in the fridge for several hours.
2. Spread the marinated minced pork thinly onto the baking tray (using fingers to spread).
3. Bake at pre-heated oven at 320F for 20mins Remove from oven. Increase the oven temperature to 340F.
4. Wait to slightly cool, cut into your desired size and shape using scissor, knife or pizza cutter, place them in the same baking tray.
5. Grill (top heat only) one side at 340F for 10mins, remove from oven, flip over another side, wait oven back to 340F and grill for 7mins or until golden brown with slight burnt.
6. Once done, let it cool and enjoy!

**you may store Bak Kwa (at stage 4) in the freezer for later consume. Defrost and grill (stage 5) before serve. It will be even taste perfect if you charcoal grill it. Adjust your oven temperature accordingly, you know your oven better !!

Additonal notes from Lulu:
We added extra step by finishing it off on the gas bbq grill.

Spreading the minced over baking tray

Finished product - cooling off stage.

Indonesian style pineapple filled cookies

2012-01-19T21:05:00.000-08:00

In Indonesia we call them kue nastar. This cookie is usually one of the staple for Chinese New Year. Growing up my mom made them quite a few times but honestly the ones she made were not as good as the bought ones. Later on she stopped making them altogether. Living in US made me appreciate some of stuffs I took for granted. Now when I miss this cookie (and also other snacks) I just have to try to make them myself.

The first attemp came out very flaky and melted in mouth but they looked horrible due to lack of flour to hold the butter together. Second attempt - slightly better. Third attempt came out best so far.

edited (01/26/2012 after third attempts)

Filing :
1 pineapple. Grated.
Strain the juice out. Pour the pineapple into a small sauce pan over a medium heat. Stir until all of the liquid is gone. Season with sugar to taste. It takes about 3/4 cup of sugar for mine since the pineapple I got was pretty tangy. One medium to large size pineapple yielded about one cup of pineapple filling. Get the filling prepared one day ahead so it has time to dried out a bit overnight. It will make it less watery when filled in the dough later on.

Dough :
2 3 stick butter - room temperature
1 3 cups all purpose flour
2 4 tbs sugar
2 4 tbs milk powder

Method :
Using a mixer, beat sugar and butter on low speed until mixed well. Put in the dry ingredients and mix well.

Using your fingers, grab the dough enough to make a ball about the size of quarter. Shape the dough to form a small ball. Using your thumb press down on the ball to make a shape of small bowl. Then slowly with your fingers, shape the press down area to make it wider so it will be able to contain pineapple filing.

Use a small spoon or a chopstick, pick some pineapple and drop it into the rounded area of the small ball dough. Pinch around the dough to close up the ball and shape it back to a rounded ball. Place it onto a tray covered with parchment paper.

I put too much pineapple filling here. Don't put so much because it will overflowed and harder to pinch close later on.

When all done, make egg wash out of one egg yolk. Using a brush, brush the ready made ball with the egg wash. Drop the tray in the oven preheated to ~~280F~~ 310F. Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

yield : 40-45 cookies.

Baking Kuih Sapit

2012-01-16T21:09:00.000-08:00

Depends on where you come from, this snack has different aliases. In Indonesia, we call them kue semprong, the Malaysian call them by kuih kapit and the Bruneian call them kuih sapit. The English translation for all those is love letter.

Hubby loves them as part of Chinese New Year tradition so I try to find them here. But none of them tasted like back home. A couple of years back I got a krumkake maker to try to imitate but they came out not thin enough so they became soggy pretty quick. Last year I came across a friend who has kuih sapit mold so I borrowed them last week to try making our own kuih.

Find the recipe here.

kuih sapit molds

Tips for using the mold :
-Preheat the mold on medium heat on your stove top. Try one tiny spoon on the mold. You want it to be hot enough that it sizzles when the batter touches the mold. But not too hot until it burns as soon as it gets on the mold.
-Put your mold over the batter bowl and laddle the batter onto the mold and let the excess drip back into the bowl.
-It's best to recruit an assistant. One person will watch the molds and the other could help roll the dough once it's out of the mold or scraping excess dough of the mold.

preheating the mold

Finally we could enjoy them..

As always, practices makes perfect. I burnt quite a few and undercooked a bunch before figuring out what works best with those molds. So, never give up and have fun !

Marukai Supermarket - Cupertino

2012-01-11T22:02:00.000-08:00

This supermarket has been opened for a couple of years by now. Only recently we discovered they served a varieties of Japanese style cooked food. From tray of sushi roll, gyoza, stir fry noodle all the way to grilled octopus. Recently we stopped by there to grab our lunch. We chose a tray of sushi roll with combination of shrim sushi, unagi, spicy tuna, etc. And then we found a bowl of colorful edibles and picked that one as well.

The bowl felt pretty heavy for its size. The printed label said "Rainbow Poki Don". When we opened the cover, we could see green seaweed, chunk of tuna, sliced of salmon, cubes of eggs and also chopped cucumber. The heaviness of the bowl came from the rice that packed the bottom of the bowl. As we dug into the rice and we could taste different texture of all the ingredients that made up the bowl.

Pacific Catch - San Francisco

2012-01-09T21:19:00.000-08:00

Ever since our office dinner last time at Pacific Catch, I know that I'd be back one day. And the chance came last weekend. We planned to go to the Campbell location but I remember that they have a few San Francisco locations. And it turned out that one of them was around the corner from Golden Gate Park. What a coincidence.

We had a late lunch there around 3 pm. The place didn't look big from outside but when we were finally seated I looked around and it's a lot bigger inside than it seemed.

Pacific Ceviche Trio

Their crab feast was still on so I got the crab melt and hubby got the trio appetizer. He let me chose for him which I did since I was sure he'd like the Pacific Ceviche trio. The trio appetizer consisted of Baja shrimp ceviche, Hawaiian poke and Peruvian ceviche. They were served on different chips - tortilla chips, potato chips and strip of wonton chips. They gave different taste and also texture when dipped into the ceviche. Of all those three, the least favorable was the Hawaiian poke. For some reason it was too salty for our taste buds. I could imagine it would taste way better served on a bowl of rice.

Crab melt

My crab melt was made of ciabatta bread, gruyere cheese, chopped celery with mayo and of course crab meat. Yum.. It was served with pickled cauliflower with one choice of sides. Pick from regular fries, spicy fries, sweet potato fries or salad. I chose salad as my side since I imagine the crab melt would be all crispy. I need something cool to go better with the crab melt.

Pacific Catch
1200 9th Ave, San Francisco
(415) 504-6905

Texas Police Discover New Way to Deal with Troubled Teenager

2012-01-05T19:23:00.000-08:00

Beware boys and girls of Texas. Don't get yourself in trouble with the police or you get deported to Columbia.

This whole thing happened when the 15 year old Texas girl who was deported to Columbia claimed to be a Columbian woman named Tika Lanay Cortez. The grandmother of the 15 year old blamed the police for not doing more to identify her. The Columbian Government gave her a Columbian citizenship the moment she arrived. So everybody messed up in my opinion.

But think about it, it's not a bad idea after all. It could easily solve our problems here in California since our prisons seemed to be overflowed. Maybe we should start sending them to Columbia.

California Academy of Sciences - Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

2012-01-02T10:06:00.000-08:00

Source : Wikipedia

This new location was reopened in 2008 after being remodeled. We tried to visit it during one of the free days a couple of years ago but failed to go in due to the long line. Check the website for the free days opportunity but make sure to be there really early. Or sign up as members and you have special member hours to explore the museum.

Giraffe exhibit

Once we went in we straight away went to pick up the free pass for the planetarium show. It has only one show each hour so if you miss it you'd have to wait another hour. The one it's showing right now was "Life: A Cosmic Story". The six projectors that were used made you feel like the images were alive. But personally I think the documentary was too technical.

Albino alligator

From the planetarium we paid a visit to the albino alligator in the swamp area. The alligator was so pale and so not real. If it wasn't moving when we were there I would have thought it was a plastic decoy. The opening area where the alligator was resting is part of the big swamp area which could also be viewed when we went down to the aquarium.

Source : California Academy of Sciences website

The aquarium was also a nice place to view so many different shapes and color fishes and other ocean creatures. Another exhibit that was also impressive was the rainforests of the world. It started at the level 1 and goes up to level 3. Visitors were first 'quarantined' in a small contained area before allowed into the rainforest exhibit. As soon as you walk in, you could feel the temperature was humid and warm. It was around 74F and 91% humidity. Towards the level 3 we were greeted by roaming butterflies. It was cool to see the butterflies flew so close to us. A lot of them too. To exit the rainforest, we took the elevator down to level 1. But we were warned before we entered the elevator to check our surrounding and make sure no butterflies happened to stick to us and get into the elevator.

Our last exhibit before we left for the day was the living roof. The museum roof was covered with green areas of plants and grass with round glass window that could open to let air in. The green roof keeps the building cool during hot days and warmer during winter time.

California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Dr
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA 95118
(415) 379-8000
http://www.calacademy.org/

Leftover from Bali Trip

2011-12-22T19:57:00.000-08:00

This trip didn't happen just recently it was waaay back in summer. I happened to stumbled upon these pictures and decided to post them up. Some eating places we stopped by on our short trip to Bali, Indonesia this summer.

* Babi Guling Ibu Oka *
Heard the name babi guling (suckling pig) before but never thought of trying it out until it was featured on one of Anthony Bourdain's show No Reservation.

Deluxe platter (served with soup)

Very nice color soup

Suckling pig - combo platter

The location we went to wasn't the original location. This one was kinda out in the suburb of Ubud and the place was more touristy. Maybe that's why the items weren't as good as we expected ? The combo platter came with rice, slices of suckling pig, pig skin, greens, fried 'stuffs'. The pig skin was chewy and not crispy at all. I could imagine if it had been crispy we would be convinced of the popularity of this restaurant. But sad as it is, I came to conclusion that other location of that restaurant may have served a fresher suckling pig to Bourdain.
Babi Guling Ibu Oka
Jalan Tegal Sari No. 2, Ubud - Bali, Indonesia

* Bebek Bengil *
When you're in Ubud, make sure to stop by this restaurant. It had changed quite a lot since the last time I've been there about a decade ago ! ha..ha..

Banana pie with ice cream

Bebek Jambul Putih

This time there we stopped by only for the view because that's what reminded of this place. Avoid sitting in the front facing the road and asked to be seated towards the back where you could see the paddy field. Since we were still full from the suckling pig, we only ordered banana pie with vanilla ice cream and Bebek Jambul Putih (which literally means white crested duck). The banana pie was the best I've tasted. Never quite fond of pie before but banana pie there was really good. The white crested duck thingy was some sort of dessert the local usually call es puter which taste like ice cream and has consistency like half melted ice cream. It usually has pieces of jackfruit but the taste was so reminded me of my childhood dessert.

Bebek Bengil (Dirty Duck Diner)
Jalan Sugriwa , Ubud - Bali, Indonesia

Pacific Catch - Campbell

2011-12-18T08:07:00.000-08:00

Our office has tradition of going out for holiday dinner each year. I have been the one to make arrangement and also reservations. And most of the time I also get to choose the place since democracy in my office sometimes also means democrazy. Nothing will get done when everybody has their own opinions. :) So I volunteered myself as the dictator and made the decision for them. This year I chose a new restaurant that was just opened a couple of months ago. The idea came from my coworker, the same one that told me about Patxi's.

But Pacific Catch isn't really new in business. They have a few other locations in the Bay Area. I made the reservation through Open Table and got 7:45 pm. But a few days before the H day I called to see if I could change it to 7 and they gladly changed it for me. That was awesome. I was surprised though since I thought they'd be very busy.

When we got there the restaurant was busy but there was no line of people waiting. We waited just a little bit for them to get our table ready. The special that day was cod. But me and my other coworker were already set on the crab feast which was also the special through January 8.

For appetizers we shared Cabo Calamari, Pacific Catch Trio and Thai Coconut Shrimp. Later on we added Inside Out which is the sushi rolls with California roll inside and spicy tuna outside. The calamari and coconut shrimp were good but not impressive. The highlight was the Pacific Catch Trio which consisted of Baja shrimp ceviche, Hawaiian poke and Peruvican ceviche. All three were fresh and very tasty even for some of us who don't usually enjoy eating uncooked fish.

I ordered their whole crab which was on special right now as part of their crab feast. It was whole dungeness crab pan fried and served with garlic noodle. The crab was lightly seasoned so I could taste the sweetness of the crab meat but still has a bit flavor of garlic. It was sooo awesome. I was also provided with some garlic melted butter but I am not fans of melted butter so I totally skipped that.

Their crab chowder was also good. Served on a bowl with scattered crab meat on top. It's rich and bursting with flavor. If digging in the crab isn't your thing, at least give this crab chowder a try.

The other dish that also caught my attention was the swordfish with grilled zucchini and corn on the cob with some green sauce on the side. It was served with sweet potato fries. I so wanted to go back and check this dish out myself.

The rest of the table ordered the island tacos with different combinations. Choose fom crispy True Cod, spice rubbed mahi-mahi, spice rubbed chicken, crispy shrimp or marinated grilled steak. That's also on my list to try for my next visit. ha..ha..

Since we went there as a group, we had chances to try out different desserts. We got the mochi fondue, fried dulce de leche 'spring rolls' and macadamia nut brownie. The mochie fondue was a platter of three mochi with some hot chocolate dipping on the side. The 'spring rolls' as it's called did look like a spring roll served with ice cream. And the macadamia nut brownie was rich. I am not big fans of anything sweet so I gave them a try but I didn't really enjoy any of those. But the rest of the group agreed that the desserts were good.

Pacific Catch
1875 S Bascom Ave, Ste 550 Campbell, CA 95008
(408) 879-9091

Gamjatang (Korean style pork bone soup)

2011-12-10T16:09:00.000-08:00

Inspired by our reason visit to Jang Mo Jib when we were in Vancouver, I decided to make my own version of gamjatang. These links are my main sources for the recipe which I combined to make my own :
http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/gamjatang
http://korean-cuisine.blogspot.com/2008/06/gamja-tang.html
http://mykoreankitchen.com/2007/01/31/pork-bone-and-potato-soup-gamjatang/

Even though the name is gamjatang (gamja - potato; tang - soup), the main ingredient is pork bone. It's hard to find pork spine bone so I settled with whatever pork bones I could find. As long as they come with meat instead of just bones. It does take long time to boil the bones. Give yourself around 3 hours time to cook. So if you're preparing it for dinner, get it started earlier or else it will end up as supper. :)

Ingredients :
For soup base :
2 lbs of pork bones
6 cloves of garlic
1 thumb of ginger
10 whole black pepper
1/2 green onion
2 dried shiitake mushroom

For stew :
1/2 napa cabbage
1 medium size bowl of kimchee
1 lb soy bean sprout
1 medium size yukon gold potato
1-2 serrano chilli
1-2 green onion (green parts only)
3-4 perilla leaves

Sauce :
3 tbs minced garlic
1 tbs hot pepper flake
3 tbs rice wine
3 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs kikkoman soy sauce
1 tbs belachan mix (South East Asia style shrimp paste with chilli)
2 tbs Korean hot bean paste (gochujang)

Put the bones in a big pot and covered it with cold water. Make sure the bones will only take up half of the pot. Just because we are going to add more stuffs to it later so reserve enough room in the pot. Put 1/2 ts coffee powder. This supposedly helps to get rid of the smell of pork bones. Put the pot on the stove under high heat. Bring it to a boil and turn it off. Using a colander, pour the bones and water into the colander. Then rinse the bones under cold water. Make sure to wash off all the scums/blood that may stick to the bones. Pour the bones onto a bowl. Meanwhile wash the pot clean. And then put the bones back in the clean pot.

Put all other ingredients for the soup base into the pot with about 10 cups of water. Turn on the stove at medium to high heat. Bring it to a boil and then turn the heat down to medium low just enough for the soup to simmer.

Make sure you set the alarm to check every 30 minutes. Let the soup simmer for about 2-2.5 hours.

While waiting for the soup to get ready. Prepare the sauce by mixing all the ingredients for sauce.

Also get the greens ready for the stew. Slice the perilla leaves about 1/2 inch wide. Cut the green parts of the green onions about 1.5 inch long. Wash about 1 small bowl of soy bean sprout. Cut 4-5 leaves of napa cabbage about 1 inch wide and 3 inch long.

Peel the potato and cut into 1.5 x 1.5 inch cube. Boil in cold water with a dash of salt until half cooked. Drain the water and set aside.

After 2.5 hours, turn of the stove. Depends on how many people you're preparing the gamjatang for. If you're feeding like 4-6 people, you could use up the whole pot. Since we're only feeding two people. I used another medium size pot and laddle soup from the big pot along with the pork bones. Be careful not to scoop up the onion or ginger etc. Fill half the medium size pot with the soup and bones then arrange the veggies, kimchee and potatoes in the pot as well. Put about 3-4 tbs of the premix sauce in the pot. Slowly mix them well and let it boil for about 10-15 minutes to get all the veggies cook through and the sauce mix well into the soup. Now you're ready to enjoy your gamjatang. It can be served with rice and banchan (Korean style side dish.

Patxi's - Campbell

2011-12-04T08:10:00.000-08:00

Found out about this pizza place from a co-worker at work. Me and hubby love Chicago Pizza and their deep dish style pizza. But since they only have two locations and none close to home so it's only once in a blue moon that we go out of the way to get the pizza.

Patxy's is located at the Pruneyard shopping center. The parking there could be tricky during weekends and especially closer to holiday now. Get ready to fight with those shoppers that go to Marshalls or Trader Joe's.

We called in the order ahead of time and ordered our pizza and just stopped by to pick it up. It was a nice day so we had packed our drinks and planned on having pizza picnic in the park. The order took about 35 minutes to be ready. By the time we got there the pizza was all ready to be devoured.

I didn't pay attention but hubby did make a point that there were almost more employees working than the guests. We were greeted at the door and then pointed to the cashier. A girl at the cashier area asked for my name and went to pick up the order. I handed her the cash but she pointed me to another man who walk over to take my cash and rang me up. Very confusing. We were out pretty quick but then again another guy that looked like waiter said good bye to us on the way out. Wow..

Let's get to the pizza. It was a spicy bacon cheeseburger on Chicago style deep dish pizza. When I opened the box the only thing that caught my attention was the amount of tomato sauce on the pizza. It was all covered up with sauce and the jalapeno was scattered on top of it. The crust didn't taste like bread. It was more like pie ! And as we bit into it, we could taste the bacon and the mince meat in it.

It's different from Pizza Chicago that we tried before even though both claimed to be Chicago style pizza. And I can't say that I like this one better. The amount of tomato sauce kinda of make the pizza taste like tomato pie. It's just not proportional with the toppings and crust.

Patxi's
1875 South Bascom Ave, Suite 405

The Pruneyard Shopping Center
(408) 559-0700
http://patxispizza.com/menu.html

Getting Around Vancouver

2011-11-23T21:18:00.000-08:00

Vancouver just like most metro area has a well structured public transportation. It covered bus, skytrain and water bus. So unlike Singapore which you have to buy separate tickets for MRT and bus, when you're using translink in Vancouver, you could use the same ticket to jump from skytrain to bus.

There are different types of fares available. If you're going to be out whole day travelling from one place to another you should invest on one of the day pass. It costs $9 but it's a better deal because those single tickets could easily add up to more than $9. If you are just going from one place to another use one of those fare saver tickets. The catch with fare saver tickets is you have to buy a booklet of 10. For the one zone tickets the cost is $21 for 10 tickets (compare to $2.5 per ticket if you're paying cash). Or $28.50 for 10 tickets for the two zone tickets (compare to $3.75/ticket cash price).

The first thing you need to figure out is whether you need the one zone or two zone tickets. If you're coming from airport, you'll need two zone ticket to get you downtown. But once you settle downtown and just getting around in the area then you'll just need one zone ticket for the most part. Look at the map below.

For the most part, you could just invest in a booklet of one zone fare saver tickets. You could use the same ticket to travel two zone by adding the difference at the machine just before using it. If you're using the same ticket to travel within one zone just validate it before using it. Once validated, you are given 90 minutes to use the same ticket.

Depends on what you do and where the locations are, you could probably get to a few places with the same ticket. Jumping from station to station on sky train and bus stop to bus stop on buses. Just make sure you get it all done before the expiration time printed on your ticket. If it expired then you need to pull out another ticket from your booklet for your next leg of journey. And so on.

Jang Mo Jib - Burnaby, Canada

2011-11-19T19:29:00.000-08:00

On the weekend we were in Vancouver, we got together with friends and met up for dinner. Destination : Jang Mo Jib, Burnaby. I was excited about this since some of those friends are Koreans so if they picked this place it must be a good sign.

When we got there that rainy night the location had small parking lot which was full. So we had to park on the street. Surprisingly the restaurant wasn't very full. But the size was more like a Denny's style diner instead of mom and pop restaurant so it could handle bigger capacity.

We were brought menu as soon as we sat down but I didn't even bother to look at the menu since we had Korean friends with us. Let them do the ordering. They settled with haemul pajeon (seafood pancake), gamja tang (potato stew) and bulgogi. I thought it wouldn't be enough since the gamjatang was only for 3 people. The rice brought out was only four. One of our friends said that they charged $3 for each bowl of rice. That's how they make money according to them. But we don't really need a lot of rice since the gamjatang came with huge chunk of potatoes.

The seafood pancake wasn't too special. Not enough seafood but it was crunchy since the top had scattered shredded potatoes. Interesting. I had seafood pancake at a few other restaurants before but it didn't taste like this. This one is thinner and slightly crunchier.

The bulgogi was served with tons of sliced onions and rice cakes. That's also new to me. But I guess each restaurant has different way of doing same dish. When we go to Korean restaurant we seldom order bulgogi so I don't care for much of this one either. But I think the whole dish didn't have much meat compared to the onions.

I would say the highlight of the dinner was the gamja tang. That was our first gamjatang experience so I was easily impressed. First the waiter brought us one of those portable propane stove. Then the gamja tang was brought out on a big shallow pot. Of all the stuffs in the pot, the one thing sticking out was big chunk of bones with meat. According to our friends it's pork neck/spine bones. Those bones were already cooked and was just rearrange on the pot with red pepper powder, green onion, slices of onions, slices of serrano chillies, perilla leaves and perilla seeds. Hubby was in charge of manning the stove since he sat closest to it. He laddled soup and slowly mixed all the red pepper powder and other ingredients into the broth. Then we
sort of let it boiled for a good ten to fifteen minutes while we enjoyed other dishes.

When it finally boiled for quite a while then the gamjatang was finally look well mixed and fiery red from the red pepper powder that had blended in. The bones was boiled for hours so the meat came off easily. Even the big chunk of bones wasn't too hard to separate. The broth was not spicy enough (for my taste) but flavorful. Even though our friend warned us that it was spicy but since we are used to spicy food that wasn't a problem at all. I went for second round. And by end of the night I was looking up recipe for it, ready to try it at home myself.

I didn't take pics myself that night. A few pics below courtesy of Wikipedia and Mykoreankitchen.com.

Jang Mo Jib

5075 Kingsway, Burnaby

(604) 439-0712

Golden House Seafood Restaurant - Vancouver, Canada

2011-11-17T21:28:00.000-08:00

This small restaurant at the corner of 49th Ave and Fraser St didn't look like a busy place. But when we went there last week, there were like two tables of big group and another table of smaller group. The similarity of them all are their range of age. It seemed like everyone in the room had an average age of at least 60 years young.

The relatives that brought us there claimed that they served the pork feet with ginger and black vinegar. It is supposedly a dish good for healthy joints. I had a similar dish before at my sis-in-law's house so I was curious about this one.

We were seated quickly and given a paper menu. Simple menu with both Chinese characters and English translation. I noticed typical dim sum items like shu mai and spare ribs. My relatives mentioned a few items that are must try and I checked them on the menu. Some items that I couldn't find, she just told the waitress when she came over and the waitress jotted them on the menu for us.

Service was a bit slow since there's only one waitress serving five tables. She also handled cashier as well. I suspect they only started steaming the dim sum items when an order was placed.

Our first order looked like egg rolls. Upon biting on it, the inside was actually chopped shrimp with mayo. Interesting and yummy too. Just be careful eating it since it's so hot. We also shared an order of the legendary pork feet with ginger and black vinegar. Unlike the one I had before, this one was strong of rice wine. A bit over powering for me and almost too strong. I like the pork feet since it was tender and sweet but I could use less of the alcohol taste.

Another dish worth mentioning was the fried eggplant with ground shrimp. Greasy but yummy served on some sort of black bean sauce.

All we had seven dishes and the total bill was $36 (for four people) before tips. That's a very good value. I would definitely go back again when I have a chance.

Golden House Seafood Restaurant
6520 Fraser Street Vancouver, BC, Canada (604) 321-3866

Mojo Burger San Jose Airport - San Jose

2011-11-11T15:43:00.000-08:00

We don't usually eat out for breakfast unless we're travelling. That's when I would have an excuse to stop by McDonald for their breakfast items. So this time flying out early morning from San Jose Airport (SJC) I was looking forward to that. But surprisingly McDonald was no where to be found at that newly constructed terminal B. What a bummer.

So we walked down the corridor checking out other options. Brioche Doree Cafe looked like they only do pastries. Jamba Juice ? Nah..too cold for breakfast. Peet's coffee ? I need something more solid. We decided to stop by at Mojo burger. They do offer breakfast item which consisted of scrambled egg, english muffin, sausage patty and hash brown. Sounds like a no-brainer. So I ordered one of those.

Total $7.57 after tax. It's really nothing much considering what I got (look at the picture). Anyhow I started arranging my sausage and my english muffin and divided it into two to share with hubby. But he decided to dig into the scrambled egg first. After one bite he declared it not edible. Taste of chemical. That's what he said.

I didn't believe him. I thought he was just being picky since he didn't have appetite for breakfast. So I took a bite myself. Yuck. It wasn't chemical that I tasted on the scrambled egg. It tasted rancid. It's most likely from the oil they used. I took another bit just to confirm it and then decided that I'd leave it alone.

Mojo burger. I wouldn't pick you for breakfast again. But I'm also skeptical about their other items though. Mr. Mayor Reed, what happened to the local taste that you wanted to show at our San Jose airport ? Why couldn't I find pho there ? :)

If you want to know what else is available at Terminal B SJC, check out this link.
http://www.sjc.org/travelers.php?page=services/b_services&subtitle=Shops+and+Services+|+Terminal+B

Sushi Kuni - Cupertino

2011-11-05T17:58:00.000-07:00

This tiny Japanese restaurant had been around for at least ten years. It’s been a while since we’ve been there. They’re pretty authentic and pricey. We think it's pretty authentic since you could always find a bunch of Japanese businessmen being entertained there.

That’s where we took our guests there last weekend. We got a reservation for 7:15 even though it said on Yelp that they don’t take reservation. I don’t know what happened or whether we were just lucky. So we waited around ten minutes and were whisked into their tatami room. It’s a small but cozy room towards the back of the restaurant. I was a bit worry that I would have to keep my legs crossed the whole time I sat down. Turned out that this tatami seating was ‘westernized’. It had area where we could stick our legs underneath the table. *phew*

We were brought menus. But they have ‘extended’ menu that is usually reserved for Japanese who asked for more homely items that are not usually served at Japanese restaurants. For example I found onigiri which is rice ball with ume (pickled daikon). From the regular menu, we got Chirase (deluxe) which is a bowl with seasoned rice underneath and topped of with slices of yummy sashimi. We saw one of the table got this and we questioned the waiter about it. We also ordered the typical California roll and spicy tuna roll. Agedashi tofu (deep fried tofu) and grilled octopus were the other items we ordered from the regular menu. Those were all yummy especially the octopus. And then we ordered sliced tuna with shredded taro. This dish turned out to be pretty slimy and bland. It’s probably the only one we agreed that it didn’t quite work out for us that night.

After sweeping all those down which wasn’t that much anyway. We looked at the menu again and this time we got the omakase (chef’s special) for sashimi. It’s a platter of different types of fish. Since we already got the special Amber Jack sashimi which was the special of the day. We were given option if we wanted that on our platter again.

After fifteen minutes the sashimi platter arrived. Very pretty with the fish skeleton arranged on one side. This platter of sashimi was as good as the special of the day. The fish were very fresh and soft. Then our waitress came back to collect our plate with the fish skeleton and asked us if wanted the fish skeleton deep fried. Well, of course. It took about fifteen minutes and then it was brought back to us all nice and crispy with a slice of lemon and some salt on the side. We pretty much ate that whole Spanish mackerel all the way to the head. What a deal !

After all those, we still had room for dessert. We shared an order of green tea crème brulee. This one was also a winner. It’s not very sweet and it had a hint of green tea on it. The top was a bit crunchy from the caramelized sugar. Yum..yum..

Sushi Kuni
10211 S De Anza Blvd · Cupertino, CA 95014 · (408) 257-5864

Chavez Supermarket & Taqueria - San Jose, Blossom Hill

2011-10-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

We found out about this place one day when we went next door to Sports Authority. Then we noticed this supermarket and went inside to take a look. We didn't get anything then but took a note that there was a taqueria linked to the supermarket. Last weekend when we felt like having Mexican food off we went to that Chavez Supermarket & Taqueria.

We went there almost lunch time. When we walked in there was only about one table occupied. We were not sure whether we should went straight and sit ourselves. But it seemed like the menu was posted up so we stopped by to look at it. The guy behind the counter greeted us and we told him our orders. From there we walked down to the cashier to pay and order our drinks.

As we sat down, more patrons trickled in. We watched how each one of them ordered like us and we were wondering if anybody would get wrong order since they didn't go by names or numbers. It took about ten minutes for us to get our orders. I got a super quesadilla and hubby got a camarones a la diabla (spicy shrimp). For drinks we got horchata (cinnamon rice milk) and watermelon juice. Both were good and refreshing. Though hubby was rather disappointed that they didn't have tamarindo (tamarind juice).

My super quesadilla was huge. It resembled burrito instead of flat like pancake. It had chunk of roasted chicken, shredded lettuce, shopped tomatoes and juicy with some sort of sauce. Hubby's spicy shrimp was very nice. It's packed with enough heat but not too over powering. The shrimps were huge and very decently priced at $8.99. My super quesadilla was only $6.99. I was so hungry yet in the end I had to request help to finish the quesadilla.

http://www.chavezsuper.com/
Chavez Supermarket & Taqueria
646 Blossom Hill Rd, San Jose, CA 95123 (408) 226-1452

Minh's Restaurant - Sunnyvale

2011-10-24T19:51:00.000-07:00

This location was occupied by Pho Binh before. A couple of months ago we went there and the place was closed down with a note that it's going to be taken over by Minh's Restaurant. We haven't been back ever since until today we decided to give it a try.

When we walked in we noticed the place was totally different. Outside may still has the same old look but inside has tiled floor now instead of old carpet. They used dark color tables to give it an expensive look. It helps especially with the combination of white table cloth. There was a big vase of fresh flower arrangements just by the entrance giving it an extra elegance feel to the whole restaurant.

The menu was simple and mostly consisted of noodle and rice. It's different from the other Minh's Restaurant in Milpitas. Hubby picked the grilled pork with rice noodle (Northern style) and I chose the combo rice noodle soup. We both shared an order of fresh spring roll.

For a place that wasn't too busy at the time, our orders took quite a while to come out. The spring roll when it finally came out was pretty good. Though the skin was a bit thick but it was nicely wrapped with enough combination of rice noodle, bean sprout, shrimp etc. The sauce was thick enough too and not runny like some other place.

Hubby's grilled pork with rice noodle was the star of the day. The meat was well marinated and the sauce it came with (a combination of fish sauce and sugar) went well with the rice noodle and fresh herb provided. I suddenly remembered that I had similar item before at a restaurant at San Jose Century Mall. Too bad that restaurant was closed down now.

My combination pho was packed with more meat than I expected which I gladly shared with hubby. Too bad it came with a smaller bowl and the broth wasn't hot enough to heat up the basil and bean sprout. Side by side with the grill meat, the pho broth tasted a bit boring. But I think there was no MSG used that's why the broth wasn't very strong flavored. I still enjoyed it though.

It's a bit harder to decide whether we'll be back since beef pho over there still couldn't beat our fave Pho Hanoi in San Jose. So that leaves us only with a few other items that we could try from their simple menu.

Minh's Restaurant
1274 Persian Drive
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
(408) 734-2200

Bonjour Crepes Company - Cupertino

2011-10-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

Purchased groupon for this establishment a month ago and only recently had a chance to redeem it. One thing learnt from using groupon was not to redeem it too early when everybody else are also redeeming it. From Yelp reviews on Bonjour, it seemed that the restaurant was not ready to have so many patrons coming due to the groupons they had. It's sad that groupon which supposed to help them get more business turned out to backfire instead.

But I think the restaurant itself was not set up efficiently. We were there during lunch time and when we walked in a guy behind the registers handed us the menu and told us to take a table to slowly decide what to get. But a few tables that were not taken were all still dirty. So we decided to just sit at a bench by the register area.

We presented our printed groupon and started ordering. One crepe with chicken, mozzarella, avocado, basil pesto and one southwestern chicken with salsa and sour cream crepe. Those crepes will come with french fries. For drinks we wanted cappucino but were told that for the groupon deals, the drinks will only include soft drinks, orange juice, orangina, etc. Fine, so we settled with orange juice. The groupon also gave us each a scoop of ice but we could order them later. The bill came up to $38 some change and we had to pay for the sales tax for that amount. We were given a number and sent our way to grab a table.

Our orange juice came out fast. We never ordered any orange juice in a restaurant before but boy the OJ here came in 3/4 full cup. Not the best deal in town. The crepes came out like ten minutes later. Mine was good though the crepe tasted a bit too sweet so it didn't quite go with the savory theme. Hubby didn't like his gooey filling crepe. My chicken crepe combined with basil pesto and mozzarella was good but didn't last that long. Soon it felt to be too heavy. I think crepes would go better with fruits and creme and not so much with savory filling.

With a combination of french fries and the crepes we were so full that we didn't go back for the scoops of ice cream.

We are not going back there again. It's not a good value for your money. The savory crepes didn't suit our palette. It's a good experience to try savory crepes but in our opinion, crepes should stay with the sweet theme. I'm not sure if they are the only one that venture on savory crepes or is there other place out there that also do savory crepes. I would like to find out.

Bonjour Crepes and Sandwiches
20371 Stevens Creek, Cupertino, CA (408)973-8553
http://www.bonjourcrepes.com/

Sa By Thai - San Jose Downtown

2011-10-10T10:49:00.000-07:00

This restaurant is located on William St in downtown San Jose just a few blocks away from San Jose State University. That afternoon when we walked in there were only two tables occupied. But I think they are busier with patrons that do take out than eat-ins.

The place inside is spacier than what it looks outside. The decor was simple. Some tables on one side and a few booths seatings on the other side.

The menu was nice though and seemed pretty intensive. Noodle soup, soup, curry, etc. I chose seafood tom yum noodle soup and hubby chose spicy rad na (stir fry rice noodle with gravy).

Our orders came out in like ten minutes. While waiting, I was entertained by their flat screen TV that serves like a picture menus going through so many mouth-watering dishes. Spicy chicken with eggplant, seafood salad, panang salmon were just among a few that caught my attention.

My noodle soup featured spicy sweet sour broth with rice noodle, prawns, squid, imitation crab and fish ball. The spiciness was perfect but it was a bit sweeter than I expected. Other than that, everything else was perfect to my liking.

Hubby's rad na came with chicken. First impression looked yummy. But after he started eating it, the noodle seemed not fried. Rad na supposed to be wok fried first and then has the gravy served on top of it. But the noodle didn't have the typical smoky wok fried smell to it. It's quite a disappointment because it looked so good. Also, even though the plate looked big but the noodle used was actually not that much compared to the veggies (broccoli, carrot, bamboo shoot, etc).

All in all the food was okay since our expectation was a bit high so we were a bit disappointed. I guess our quest continues to find place that serves good Thai style noodles in the South Bay area.

Sa-By Thai
346 East William Street San Jose, CA 95112
(408) 286-5807
http://www.sabythai.com/

Athena Grill - Santa Clara

2011-10-01T07:43:00.000-07:00

Tucked in the neighborhood of warehouses and offices just off Hwy 101 is this Greek restaurant called Athena Grill. We happened to be in the area and decided to swing by. To my surprise even though it was weekend the place was pretty busy considering the location.

We went straight to the counter and ordered. A seafood souvlaki for me and gyro plate for hubby. The gyro plate comes with fries but we were given option to change it to fruits. And we also got this Greek sour cherry drink that comes in a small bottle.

We chose an outdoor round table under the awning. A waitress brought us a plate of bread with some dip which I think was called melitzanosalata. The dip was olive oil based with roasted eggplant, roasted red pepper, lemon and either parsley or green onion. The taste was mild.

My seafood souvlaki came with a skewer of prawn, sword fish and scallop. I was a bit disappointed. I thought the seafood would be a lot more. But it was fresh and well seasoned - a bit too salty for my taste actually. The rice was also seasoned and the platter came with some stewed pumpkin, long bean and zucchini along with the salad. It's a mixture of different taste and texture. Sweetness of the seafood, saltiness of the olive, tenderness of the pumpkin and crunchiness of the lettuce.

Hubby's gyro plate came with a huge pile of fries. The fries was served with some sort of mayo mixed dip. His gyro was huge with slices of beef and chunks of tomatoes. It was almost difficult to fit that big pack in my mouth when I gave it a try. The beef was well seasoned and juicy. The first few bites of fries with the dip tasted wonderful. It's a change from eating fries with ketchup. But in the end we couldn't finish the fries. Maybe we could have been better choosing the fruits as the side. ha..ha..

Athena Grill
1505 Space Park Drive, Santa Clara, CA 95054 (408) 567-9144
www.athenagrill.com

Something from Eat Real Festival 2011 - Oakland

2011-09-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

I missed the first two Eat Real Festival and wasn't keeping it up with it until hubby told me last night that today is going to be the last day for this year's. So we woke up early this morning and found our way there.

We parked on one of the event parking just next to Jack London Square. It cost $10 but I think it's worth every dime of it. I guess being one of the earlier visitors did pay off. It's only a few steps a way from the festival itself.

First we noted the empanadas and the long line next to it. They looked so yummy so I made a note to stop by. I wanted to check out the rest first before deciding on what to eat. There's only a limited amout of space in my tummy so I had to be choosy.

The Eat Real Festival is like a gathering of street food vendors in the area (San Francisco, South Bay, Oakland, etc). It also promotes eat fresh, local and sustainable food. It gives local food stores a chance to come out and meet the potential customers. And for food lovers like me to come to one place where all different food trucks come into one place. Awesome. You don't even have to track them down one by one anymore.

Sam's Chowder House
This truck featured New England clam chowder, mini po' boy shrimp and mini lobster roll. When I got in line I only meant to get their clam chowder. But then while waiting I saw people with the lobster roll and they looked so delish. I just had to give it a try.

For $5 each, I'd say the mini lobster roll was a damn good value. You got chunks of lobster meat. Way more than I could imagine. And it was yummy. The clam chowder was good but not hot enough (for me) and a bit smaller than what I wanted it to be. But they made up for it for the lobster roll. :)

Curry Up Now
This truck offered tikka masala burito and deconstructed samosa. Each with different varieties of topping. We got a chicken deconstructed samosa. It was the second best items we tried for the day (after the lobster roll). The dish had an open up samosa and then topped up with chutney and some chickpea curry with a sprinkle of tiny samosas on the side. Cute and yummy at the same time. It offered different taste altogether. Sweet, spicy, and tangy with a hint of lingering heat left in the mouth afterwards.

El Porteno
This is the empanadas stand that I saw when we just arrived. I made sure to spare room in my tummy for these empanadas. The line was pretty long but it moved every now and then. I didn't see the menu for this but I was thinking of getting a chicken and beef. Turned out that for this event, they only offered carne (beef), champinones (mushroom) and the banana with cream. So heck, we tried each and every one of those. The total bill for three empanadas came to $12. Later on I found out that it was $5 each for the chicken and beef. Pretty steep. They did packed them up with lots of filling though.

There were quite a few other stalls that looked interesting but we simply didn't have room to fit in our tummy. Chairman Bao's truck featured five spice pork belly, crispy garlic tofu, and braised pork shoulder. There was an African cuisine stall that featured slow cooked chicken with spinach and chicken cooked in coconut.

http://eatrealfest.com/event/Oakland/California/2011

Make your own onigiri (Japanese rice ball)

2011-09-24T07:17:00.000-07:00

A friend recently came back from Taiwan and brought us a pack of nori. Or what I originally thought was nori (thin seaweed used for soup or sushi). At the time I saw it I was wondering why she gave us nori. Must be some special nori. But then she pointed out that it's a DIY onigiri. Make your own Japanese style rice ball.

The package came with sheets of nori, a mold for the rice ball and plastic sheets to wrap up the onigiri. Onigiri was meant as an easy way to bring rice, either for lunch or picnic. In Japan, the rice used for making onigiri is sometimes lightly salted and some others have filling like pickled ume, salmon, kombu,etc.

Anyhow, after it's been seating a while in our pantry, we finally got to make our onigiri. When we first tried it out, we tried with the furikake (rice seasoning) as the filling. But it didn't turn out well because the rice ball tend to split up due to the filling. Later on I figured out another way which is to mix the rice well with the furikake before shaping it in the mold. This way all the rice will get more taste of the seasoning.

We used up our plastic sheets wrap on that one occasion. These days when we make our onigiri, we use the shrink wrap. It's not as pretty but works well.

Changi Terminal 3 Kopitiam - Changi Airport, Singapore

2011-09-21T19:44:00.000-07:00

If you're flying out from Terminal 3 Changi in Singapore, come earlier and check out their food court. It's located on the basement 2. Your last chance for the local fares before you leave the country !

That's where we headed the day we flew out from Singapore. The basement 2 area was still not totally done yet. You can tell that certain area was still being renovated. Some stores were not opened yet. When it's all ready it's going to be another shopping area just like the inside terminal of Changi as well.

The food court there was run by Kopi Tiam food court chain. They offered quite a varieties of local fares like Char Kway Teow, Indian cuisine, Japanese cuisine, Malay cuisine, dessert etc. It's not your typical California food court that consist of McD, BK, A&W. Most of the stalls here are mom & pop business with their own family recipes. :)

I ordered yong tofu. I picked my choices of veggies, tofu, wonton, etc. Tell the lady behind the counter why type of soup and what type of noodles. Whoa..I didn't realize that since they charged 60c on noodle, they gave me a whole bunch. That bowl of yong tofu was probably the biggest bowl I've ever had during my Asia trip this time. But it took care of my tummy for the whole trip back to SF. I skipped most of my meals back. :) Btw, if you like it spicy, choose the Thai tom yum broth for your yong tofu. Slurp...yummy.

Hubby chose roti prata from the Indian cuisine stall, chicken rice and topped it all with char kway teow. My friend chose rice with 3 dishes from the cook dish stall. Well..well, if you think we had so much. Think again. That was our last day of our trip so we celebrated by getting 2 types of dessert - bobo cha cha and another colorful dessert which I forgot the name. But they both filled the spot ...er and also our tummies all the way back to San Jose.

Yo Pho - Milpitas

2011-09-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

This establishment is still pretty new. I guess it's only a couple months new. And we finally got to give it a try. When we walked in nobody greeted us. I was wondering whether we should just take a seat ourselves. But finally one waitress walked us to a table.

After we ordered I looked around the shop. It's nicely decorated with cheerful bright color - orange and hot pink wall. They had some booth seatings but only a handful. The place is not very spacious and due to it serving frozen yogurt also so part of the wall was reserved for dispensing frozen yogurt. Some tables seemed a bit out of place due to that. But I like the fact that this restaurant is trying to give it a cafe feel instead of plain 'ol pho place.

Okay. So we ordered seafood pho, egg roll (cha gio), pho with chopped beef and a dessert drink that was made of pandan and green bean. Considering that they seemed a bit disorganized when we walked in, the service was actually pretty fast. We got our order within like ten minutes. The egg roll was served later after we got our noodle soup. But that was understandable because it does take time to freshly prepared the egg roll. And our egg roll was hot which I totally appreciated. I hate places that served egg roll warmed by microwave.

My seafood pho had a few large pieces of squid, one huge prawn, one crab leg and one piece of fish cake (?). The broth had a unique taste of ginger which I should say was the first time I ever tasted quite distinctly on a seafood pho broth. And it still comes with enough greens floating on my bowl despite their intention of trying to be cafe like. Improving the ambience without sacrificing the taste. Awesome.

Hubby's chopped beef pho was also good. Enough beef to flavor the broth. Though they couldn't provide him with wide noodle for his pho so he was rather disappointed. But the beef was tender and the broth was rich.

The dessert drink was a rather thin smoothy-mixture-like of pandan water and green bean. I loved it. The flavor of green bean and the fragrant of pandan leaves was an excellent combo. Hubby didn't quite like it as much due to the gritty taste of green beans. But it's a very unique drink. Give it a try.

It's a nice place to have pho but not the best value for your buck.

Yo Pho
242 Serra Way Milpitas, CA 95035
(408) 935-8285

Kome Sushi Buffet - Daly City

2011-09-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

After thinking about it for quite a few months we finally got to try this buffet in Daly City named Kome Sushi Buffet. A couple of years ago we went there when it was still under Todai management. Food varities were good then. It was one of the buffets that left us quite an impression that we still remembered till now. We were deeply saddened when we found out that it had closed down.

We arrived on a Saturday afternoon. Best time for buffet would be when it was busiest. Food should be most fresh then with the high turn over. But we were also worried that it would take a while to get in. I guessed we got there in time and beat everybody else. It's only the two of us so we didn't have a lot of problem getting a table especially since we 'promised' that we would finish our meal in one hour. Yup. I guess the seating area was reserved for a party that would start around 1 pm.

They do provide a huge varieties of food. We started with sushi. Tons of different types of roll and nigiri. We only managed to pick up one piece for each type and even then it seemed a bit overwhelming. Definitely a place for sushi lovers.

They offered a few types of soups. Hot and sour soup and chicken ginseng soup seemed to be very popular. Another ones would be seafood soup that looked like egg dropped soup. Then of course juk (rice porridge) which unfortunately I didn't get to try.

First round of hot dishes. Singapore style rice noodle stick, hor fun with beef, manila clam with black bean sauce and sticky pork ribs. Those were all yummy. Especially the ribs - a must try. The ribs were deep fried first then threw in this sweet sticky sauce that covered it all up.

And then I went and picked up a wonton soup with egg noodle. I already planned this out. I dropped of my bowl of noodle with hubby and then went and lined up for the char siu because the line was sooo long. But the char siu was worth the wait. It was freshly cut and not dried at all. All the other patrons were hitting the soy sauce chicken which I also tried but didn't think there was any special at all. The chicken wings were also freshly fried but were a bit too salty for our taste buds.

By the time all those went inside my tummy I was about to call it a day. But hubby reminded me to check out the dessert corner. I dropped by and picked up a few mousse and cake with mousse. They were seriously pretty but tasted almost the same except for the color and artificial flavor used.

We finished just a couple of minutes before the time we were supposed to leave. Wow..I didn't think that we would have stayed that long. All in all it's worth $14.95/person. A lot of varieties of food and some with good qualities too. I think their strength is the sushi and barbecue (charsiu, bbq pork, chicken, etc). They didn't offer as much seafood as other buffet eg. Tomi Sushi.

Kome Sushi Buffet
1901 Junipero Serra Blvd, #A , Daly City, CA 94104
(650) 992-8600
http://www.komebuffet.com/

Makan Time in Singapore

2011-09-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

We always enjoy a stop over in Singapore wherever we are in Asia. Singapore is a like a heaven of good food. This time around we met up with a friend at Fullerton One.

Char Kwe Tiau (fried wide rice noodle)

Fullerton One is a place overlooking the Marina Bay and of course the new Marina Bay Sands Hotel that was just opened this year. There were quite a few restaurants at Fullerton One. I'm not too sure the quality of the food there. I think it's more like a place to see and be seen. Awesome view by sunset and slight cool breeze to lighten the heavy humid Singapore weather.

Hokkian mee (Hokkian style noodle)

But when it comes to food in Singapore, I would rather go to food court or Kopitiam which usually gives you mom and pop businesses that some of them has been established since you know when. Most of them just specialize in just a few dishes that they're best at. So just go to the stall that offers the dish you want and order there.

Ohr luak (Singapore style oyster omelet)

So when our friend Rachel offered to buy us dinner at Fullerton One, I told her that we don't really have to go to a fancy place. But in the end we agreed to meet up there. All this time I've heard that there are some good food by Esplanade which is just a stone throw away (but you better be an Olympian to do that). So we walked to Esplanade which also has a bunch of restaurants. Since we couldn't decide yet so we walked around and to our surprise just at the other end of Esplanade we found like an outdoor style food court. There were only around eight stalls and a bunch of tables and chairs some under a huge canopy and the rest open air seatings. The name of the food court was Makan Sutra Gluttons Bay.

We checked out all the stalls before deciding on char kwe tiau (fried wide rice noodle), hokkian noodle, Singapore style satay and Singapore style oyster omelet (ohr luak). I would say those dishes are quite a must to try when you visit Singapore. The char kwe tiau that night was easily the best I've ever had. I'm not usually to crazy about char kwe tiau but that one was really...really good. Not too oily and all the sweet and saltiness were blended well. I wasn't surprised because the line to order was soo long. And it's a self serve style so you ordered and waited until the uncles were done with your order before they moved on to the next patron.

Satay & Gado-gado w/ satay

The Singapore style satay were delish as well. The peanut sauce was more on the sweet side and oilier than the Indonesian style one. The satay was served with chunk of rice cake. And we also got to try some gado-gado that was served with satay. Interesting.

If seafood doesn't cause allergic reaction to you then by any means you should try the oyster omelet. Singapore is the only place I've ever tried an oyster omelet before. It's really eggs with a bit flour mixture and oyster pan fried into a thin omelet.

Ice chendol (red beans, chendol - green 'worm-like' rice dessert)

Ice kachang (red beans -buried down by tons of shaved ice & syrup)

As if those dishes haven't caused our tummy to waive the white flag. Rachel and my hubby were all ready for a round of dessert. So we went to get a bowl of ice cendol and another bowl of ice kachang. The ice cendol is basically this green 'worm looking' rice dessert that's mixed with coconut sugar, coconut milk and shaved ice. While the ice kachang is red bean covered with shaved ice and different types of syrup. I honestly couldn't enjoy the dessert that much because my tummy has sent out an emergency signal to my brain threatening all my senses to shut down.

Mayo Inn - Singapore

2011-08-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

This time going to Singapore, it took longer than usual to figure out where to stay. Last year's stay at Fernloft didn't turn out well so we needed to find another place better (location wise as well as quality). Looking up and down Agoda and also Tripadvisor, I finally found a place called Mayo Inn. It's located pretty close to Bugis and it's between Bugis MRT and Little India MRT. Unfortunately the reservation can only be made straight with the hotel. I said unfortunately because it took a few emails later before we finally got a confirmation. That was also made complicated due to our request of having a window room. They did fulfil the request though with a note that the window couldn't be opened.

One thing worth noted since Mayo Inn is a small hotel (only around 16 rooms) so when we requested a reservation, it couldn't really be guaranteed unless we paid for it. For us that's not quite a problem since we really needed a room anyway.

Okay let's talk about the hotel/room itself. When we first got there, it took us a while to figure out the route to the hotel. But later on we found out the best route so we stuck to that. It only takes about less than ten minutes walk to Bugis MRT. The road next to the hotel is always bustling with traffic but as soon as we walked in the lobby area it's totally different. There was like a small water fountain that brings calm and the AC was cold as it can be compared to the almost 90F outside. Check-in was a breeze. within minutes we took the interesting elevator up to third floor. I said interesting because unlike ordinary elevator that has two layers of doors, this one only has one layer. So walk in the elevator and stay to the back of it because the elevator has a censor that will tell it to stop working if somebody stay to close towards the front. It's pretty scary looking at each floor the elevator went through and looking at the wall outside. But for the one night stay we only used the elevator twice. I would rather climb the staircase. Just think of it as exercise. :)

The room was small. The bathroom on the right hand side when we walked in. Then a tiny vanity with mirrow between the bathroom and the bed area. There was a huge window but partially was covered with stained glass. The other part that was clear glass was blocked by those older style window that has unmovable blinds. So the hotel rep was right we couldn't opened the window. And even with the all covered glass window, we could still hear the traffic downstairs. Not to mention that at the time there was this big construction happening just about twenty yards away. But I tried to tell myself and hubby that by night time the construction was going to stop and it's going to be less noisy. Nope. Apparently in Singapore, construction work didn't stop at night. But we were so tired from walking around whole day, even hubby who was usually a light sleeper passed out as soon as he touched the bed.

The bathroom was small and cute. It's shower on one side, sink in the middle and toilet bowl on the other end. Of all the place with standing shower, this is the one I didn't feel gross using it without my flipflop. The door to the bathroom was a big piece of thick tempered glass with rubber sealed around the edge of the door. So even though the bathroom was tiny but when we showered the water didn't leak out at all.

All in all we were quite happy with the room. Though there was no phone at all in the room. When hubby got a phone call from his friend, the front office girl walked all the way up to our room to give us the message. Due to the noise coming from the street, I am not sure if we'll be using this hotel again next time. Maybe we could ask for a room that doesn't face the street but then it most likely would be windowless.

Mayo Inn
9 Jalan Besar, Singapore Ph 6295 6631
http://www.mayoinn.com/

Knitting little elephant and little giraffe

2011-08-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

Last minute I found out that my nephew wanted safari animals for his birthday. I started looking on the internet for the pattern. Voila, I found this website http://www.christinelandry.com/ where I found just the perfect pattern for my project.

The little elephant may look big in picture but it's only around 5 inches (12.5 cm) from trunk to bum (to borrow Christine's measurement) and 5.25 inches (13.5 cm) from ear to ear. While Christine knitted hers with US 6 double pointed needles I did mine with US 7. It's still tight enough to stuff with the filling.

The best of all, if you're tight on schedule, you can get this done within days. I got the little elephant done within two days and in between I still had to get my daily stuffs done. So I didn't really spent 48 hours, it's more like maybe 5-6 hours. And I didn't knit that fast either.

As soon as I found out that I still had time, I quickly started the second project from the same creator, Christine Landry. The little giraffe.

This second project seemed a bit slower at first because I never get used to knitting with more than one color. Beside I also have to follow the pattern provided. But after I got my first leg done, the rest seemed a lot easier.

All in all, the instruction was easy to follow. I only came to a halt understanding the last part of the little giraffe instruction about shaping the ear. It was just the night before my due date and I was almost upset that I didn't understand the instruction. But I thought I just gave it a try as it read on the instruction and it came out better than I expected. :)

Indonesian snacks

2011-08-13T14:26:00.000-07:00

A few things that I usually look for when I go back to Jakarta (not in any order of urgency)

* Baso or bakso

This comes in different varieties and style. Basically it is a combo of meat balls, tofu, rice noodle/yellow noodle with beef bone broth. Everybody has preference on taste that's why you have to season according to taste. Ground chilli, sweet soy sauce, vinegar are among condiments to go with. Depends on where you go to, some baso comes with fried garlic some with fried shallot and chopped celery. Same goes with meat balls. The meat balls for baso can be meat only or meat with tendon. Some places offer thinly slices of beef tendon and tripes in the soup.

* Siomay bandung
Believed to be influenced by the Chinese shumai (hence the name). But this siomay is actually served with peanut sauce. It's made with a combination of fish, chicken and shrimp. Ground to paste and mixed with tapioca starch and seasoning. Then shaped and steamed. Some wrapped with cabbage leaves. Served with peanut sauce and side of chilli sauce.

* Pempek

It's a snack made of fish paste mixed with tapioca starch and seasoning. Shaped and boiled to cook. Depends on preference, they could also be lightly deep fried before serving with the sauce called cuka (choo kah) and sprinkler of powdered dried shrimp and cut off cucumber. Cuka in plain Indonesian means vinegar. But cuka is not just made of vinegar, it also contains brown sugar, garlic, chilli and salt. These days, some vendors actually mix vinegar with tamarind juice to give less vinegaric taste to it.

* Asinan
Asinan is almost like salad. A combination of shredded vegetables - cucumber, lettuce, bean sprout, preserved vegetable (hamchoy), carrot. Top of with crackers (kerupuk mie and regular kerupuk). Then drizzled with the dressing. The dressing is made of combination of ground peanuts, chilli, sugar, salt, and vinegar.

* Otak-otak
Otak in Indonesian means brain. But otak-otak doesn't mean lots of brain. In fact it's a yummy snack made of ground fish, salt, sugar, starch and coconut milk. The mixture is then shaped in a long shaped like a small ruler with a length of 4-5 inches and wrapped in banana leaves. This tiny package of fish is then grilled and served with peanut sauce.

* Soto mie
Mentioned soto in Indonesia and you'll be surprised to know that there multi variants of soto. Sotos are soup with tons of stuffs. Depends on which type of soto, the broth could be clear or could also has coconut milk. It could be beef based or chicken based. The one I'm talking about today is beef based clear broth. When it comes to soto mie, it is usually serves with a combination of rice stick, yellow noodle, slices of beef/beef tendon, thinly sliced tomato,potato, cabbage and risoles (snack pocket with veggies and rice stick noodle).

Ramayana Resort & Spa - Bali, Indonesia

2011-08-08T20:51:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to check this hotel out. Last year we passed by this hotel and I told hubby next time we should give it a try. Then when I found out that we'll have a few days in Bali, I went and checked out the price. Wow..not cheap for our budget. But it's hard to get a room even for one night. I'm not sure if it's just Agoda or it's high season.

We got our air tickets from Mutiara Travel in Jakarta so I figured that they could also arranged me a hotel. But the only rooms they have are for Kuta Beach. They were sold out for Ramayana and I asked for Hard Rock they said they'd get back to me on that. Later on they told me they couldn't find any room at Hard Rock. I guess each travel agency has an amount of rooms that they can sell. Or maybe they bought a bunch of rooms from popular hotel and resell them.

Anyhow, by then since I have purchased the air tickets, I asked hubby to look again at Agoda to find a room at Ramayana. He couldn't get three nights. But he could get one night. At one point, that one night 'disappeared'. I was so mad at him. I went back and tried it again and it showed up again magically. We quickly purchased it. I wasn't sure what's going on. Maybe somebody back out of the reservation ? He offered to look up another room for different night. But I really wanted to get the reservation done. So in the end I called Mutiara Travel back and bought two nights at Kuta Beach Club instead.

From the decor and condition of hotel, Ramayana is definitely newer than Kuta Beach Club. The hotel has two restaurants; one by the road side which is also used for serving breakfast and the other one next to the pool. We didn't have chance to try any of the restaurants. Our purchase through Agoda didn't come with free breakfast. Nor did we have any chance to hang out by the pool since we were there only one night.

Our room was nice with a small bench that's nice for sitting down looking for inspiration. ha..ha.. The bathroom was not very big but clean. Drainage worked well which was important. Too bad we only had one night available there. But next time we'll be back if there's a good deal from Agoda.

Ramayana Resort & Spa
Jalan Bakung Sari, Kuta-Bali, Indonesia
Ph 62 361 751864
www.ramayanahotel.com

Beverly Hills Town House - Bandung

2011-08-06T23:03:00.000-07:00

View through front door from inside

Located not too far from the busy Jalan Juanda (aka Dago) is a small establishment for rent. From the small road outside, one can only see the front office building. We parked our car and I walked inside to request the key. After the check-in process done, we followed one of the employee through a small road on the side of the building. We drove slowly while looking at each of the town homes we passed by. Some looked a bit deserted. I started to worry what kind of place we'll be staying in the next few days. Finally we stopped at one town house with a tiny pond in front. Wow..not bad from outside. Glass front door all the way from the bottom to the top.

View of backyard through glass door

When we walked in, straight away we could see through another glass door to the back yard. Kitchen was modern looking with glass countertop and island in the middle.

Kitchen with glass countertop

Second floor bedroom has door to a small balcony. Our requested additional mattress were placed in the closet area. Third floor bedroom was slightly smaller with neither balcony nor closet.

Restroom with pebbles bottom

Second floor bedroom

Closet area

The town house supposed to fit only four people. But we were allowed to add another three mattresses. For around IDR 2 million/night (around USD 235) it's not exactly cheap. But we were able to fit seven adults and five children altogether under one roof, so it's not a too bad of a deal.

Beverly Hills Town House
15 Sangkuriang, Dago-Bandung, West Java, Indonesia
62 22 2534888
http://www.beverlyhills-townhouse.com/

Fat Dragon - Bandung, Indonesia

2011-08-01T03:23:00.000-07:00

This restaurant is part of the resort hotel GH Universal in Bandung. We were there to redeem our free porridge buffet dinner. My brother got those vouchers last time when they dined in.

We got there around 7 pm on Friday night and the place was packed. We waited for around 10 mins and were seated. The concept was grab your bowl and fill with porridge. There were few types of porridge available. Plain, beef, chicken, phi tan (thousand year egg) and seafood. The basic condiments like green onion, celery, fried shallot and fried wonton skin were free. Other condiments like fried chinese doughnut could be ordered with additional charge.

We shared some of the fried chinese doughnut and picked a few types of dimsum from their dimsum list.

The shumai, lo mai kai and chinese doughnut we got were just average. One dish that deserved to be noted was the fried pork. Tender and yummy with part of meat and fat. Served with a tiny dish of chili paste.

I am not sure whether the slow service was due to amount of patrons that night or they were just plain inefficient. The porridge itself can't be differentiate between one flavor to another. We were given more vouchers for next visit. But I doubt we'll be going back in the future.

GH Universal Hotel
Jl. Setiabudi No. 376
Bandung, West Java, Indonesia
Phone : 62-22-2010388
www.ghuniversal.com

From Jakarta to Bandung

2011-07-30T03:36:00.000-07:00

Due to time constraint this time we decided to just spend most of our time in Indonesia. But Jakarta, the capital city, is not exactly a touristy place. Growing up here, I spent most of my weekends at the mall. Window shopping, meeting up with friends, catching a movie or taking family for a weekend out. I noticed there are more malls this time than last visit.

Another way to spend your weekend would be to take a short out of town trip to local cities like Bandung. Bandung is located in West Java. It's about 150km from Jakarta. Years ago it took hours to reach Bandung. These days due to the new Cipularang Tol (highway), Bandung can be reached within two hours from Jakarta.

Located 2520ft above sea level, Bandung has cooler temperature than Jakarta. During our stay there, night time's temperature was around 75. Day time was mild, over casted and very comfortable.

Around Bandung, you could visit Ciater where the hot spring is located. I remember visiting the hot spring during my childhood. The smell of sulfur in the area. The water was warm so it's nice to dip yourself in when the temperature was a bit cool. Another touristy place was Tangkuban Perahu crater.

Rumah Mode on Jalan Setiabudi
pic courtesy of http://mattingtong.blogspot.com/2007/02/rumah-mode-bandung.html

These days another attraction for local tourists would be shopping trip to FOs (Factory Outlets) that have mushroomed on a few streets in Bandung. If you're going, make sure to stop by Jalan Riau, Jalan Setiabudi and also Jalan Juanda (aka Dago). The items sold there are supposedly excess export quality clothing. But having checking out a few stores, the only ones worth visiting if you're looking for branded clothing are The Secret on Jalan Riau and Rumah Mode on Jalan Setiabudi.

Kosher meal from Singapore Airlines

2011-07-24T16:34:00.000-07:00

Learning fom my previous experience flying with Singapore Airlines, I decided to order a special meals this time. If you're picking the special meals for either religious or dietary reason, it would be a lot easier to decide. But for me it was a bit harder since I was doing it for no other reason other than trying it out. So I finally decided on kosher meals. Mind you, the special meals options will stay with you for the whole trip (either outbound or inbound). I was going to apply the special meals for only the SFO-HK leg but nope..I ended up having it all the way to Jakarta.

I was too sleepy when the flight attendant brought me the sealed pack of my supper. I didn't quite comprehend what he was telling me. Later on the next meal, a different flight attendant again brought me a sealed pack and asked me to break it open. It was way early in the flight to serve meal. But turned out that he only wanted me to break open the seal myself so he could warm it up later on.

From SFO-HK, the meal I received was quinoa with bolognese sauce. The next leg was breakfast before landing in Hong Kong and I was served omelet. From Hong Kong to Singapore another omelet again. All in all the food was better than expected. The bread and pastries were not as airy maybe due to different yeast used.

China Palace Restaurant - Milpitas

2011-07-09T10:08:00.000-07:00

Running into restaurant by accident. One Saturday afternoon we were in the area and was looking to try some Chinese food. There was another restaurant next to China Palace that seems to serve the same style home cooking food. Correct me if I'm wrong since I can't read Chinese.

We chose China Palace to the other one because they were busier at the time while the next door one was empty. But again this was way past lunch time. While waiting to be seated I noticed their special menu for the day which was mostly written in Chinese except for a few English words which include crocodile, dear, etc. Interesting.

I had the take menu in hand which I grabbed outside and we knew what we wanted. But it took about a good 10 minutes before the waitress came to take our order. And that's only after I frantically waived my hand to get her attention. There were only two waitresses working at the time. Our waiter took our orders without anything written down. I was wondering if she would get our order right.

The first thing out was some boba milk tea. This is usually sold as dessert with different flavored tea with or without boba (tapioca pearls). We were puzzled as we didn't order any drinks. Turned out that they were complimentary. The drinks were watered down so even hubby who usually likes sweet stuff didn't drink more than one sip.

Next was the spicy bean paste noodle. It was one big bowl of boiled noodle with black bean paste stir fried with some sort of minced meat and pork skin (?). Next to the paste was thinly sliced cucumber strips. Mixed it well and we were ready to dig in. We were also brought two tiny bowls and small plates. I guess it's just common to share dishes so they were ready before we even asked for it. The noodle was pretty good but very oily. Not spicy at all for us. It had a bit after taste heat in the mouth but that's about it.

The fried rice turned out to be better than expected. Get ready to be fishy though even though we didn't really tasted any chunk of salted fish (except hubby). But it had a good flavor and taste. The chicken meat was a bit questionable. It looked and tasted to me to be mostly skin or some I-don't-what-chewy-stuff. So I picked them out and just ate the rice.

The hot wings were not as hot as expected but freshly prepared so it's worth extra point. All in all were decent meal but most likely we won't be back soon. Service was not exactly their strongest point. I think it's best visited with a group of people so you get to try different dishes. Price was decent and good for value.

China Palace
688 Barber Ln, Milpitas, CA 95035 (408)894-7060

Naturcolor - hair color

2011-07-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

The first thing I notice about the naturcolor was a lot of tiny little bottles. From my point this is a lot of waste. I like stuffs in sachet better it gives me the feel that it's greener. But it probably just as bad. Maybe somebody could give me an answer to that.

But reading the instruction, one could actually mix their own color. So you could get two different color and comes out with your concoction. That's why the empty bottle was provided to you. Just make sure there's always the same amount of gel developer and color.

So I read my instruction ahead of time just to make sure I didn't miss anything that needs to be put in the mixture. One time I used another hair color that has some oil thingy that supposed to be mixed with the color and gel developer and I totally missed that. Oops.

The gel eveloper was so thick that it couldn't come out easily in the beginning. I had to squeeze the bottle hard to try to get it into the mixing bottle. But once the pressure was release, the rest was easy to follow. Shake the bottle and you're ready to color. Make sure to part your hair ahead of time. And if you're like me with tons of grey, make sure you plan your coloring ahead of time so the most grey area got covered and left longest for better result.

I planned to follow the instruction and left it for 45 minutes. But by the time I rinsed it out I think it reached one hour.

The after color rinse was so watery I wasn't sure if it got anything in it at all. And also it didn't seem to be very sudsy either. Not sure what it actually does. The conditioner was so thick it took a while to squeeze it out. The conditioner has a very subtle fragrant almost none. And it didn't feel as rich as the Tints of Nature.

One thing to note. I accidentally squeezed some color on my sink and it didn't want to come off. I never seems to have problem with other hair color. So I make sure to scrub my tub after rinsing my color off.

I am happy with the result. I got all my greys covered. Let's see how long this will last. One thing I notice with this hair color was there was no abrasive chemical smell during the whole process and also after rinsing it off. Love it.

Ringer Hut - San Jose

2011-07-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

Settling on busy Saratoga Rd, this establishment looks just like any other diner. In fact if we weren't greeted in Japanese it could be easily another diner. I guess the restaurant took over like a Denny's before. ha..ha..But it featured an open kitchen and bar seatings. That kinda set it apart.

Menu were brought to us as soon as we were seated. Beside their specialty, champon, menu also has ramen and bento box. I chose gomoku ramen. Hubby chose champon with gyoza and our guest chose spicy champon with gyoza combo.

Ringer Hut is a Japanese fast food chain restaurant that specializes in Nagasaki champon and Sara udon. That's why between the three of us, there were two champon orders. I had champon before and I wasn't too keen on it that's why I decided to try gomoku ramen. A new name that I've never had before.

My gomoku ramen was thick to begin with. It seemed to me that the veggies and meat were stir fry first and thickened with cornstarch before topped on the ramen. After I stirred and mixed the ramen it seemed to be less thick. The ramen broth didn't seem to be strong and tasted more diluted. The spicy champon looked good with the fiery red broth but our guest that day didn't say much about it so I guess it was also a disappointment for him. He had mentioned of looking forward to try good ramen place in San Jose on this visit. But champon seemed to change his mind. I guess in the future, he'll stick to ramen.

The gyozas were good. Me and hubby mixed our own concoction of gyoza sauce with a little vinegar. The gyoza skin was crispy on one side yet still moist on the inside and not chewy at all. Perfect.

So far I haven't found any champon that suits my taste. Maybe champon was meant to taste that way. For now I just stick to ramen. Sorry champon.

Ringer Hut
1072 Saratoga Avenue

San Jose, CA 95129-3401
(408) 554-0877

Banana Crepe - San Jose

2011-06-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

I am not a dessert person so it's very seldom I find myself at a store that sells dessert only. This weekend we have a friend that came to visit so he had been looking up yelp to find out about shaved ice place in our area. That's how we came about Banana Crepe.

The location is at the corner of Jackson and 6th St in San Jose Japantown. Tiny place with only about four table that could fit around 12 people. They do have outside seating that could fit another two parties. That's it. There is a city marble bench nearby and also next door Nijiya's Market has a few seating outside. I guess most of their clients don't really need a table if they only order shave ice and it's hot outside. Just grab your shave ice and off you go on the street. In our case though it was different. We also ordered their signature double choco crepe. It was 60 degree outside. Ha..ha. A few spoons into the shave ice I started shivering. Anyhow if it's cool outside, try the inside seating. It's nice and warm and it smells so nice of crepes cooking in the air.

Okay. So when you walk in just go straight to the counter and order if there's not already a line in front of you. We got shaved ice with mango and lychee flavor with aduki beans (red beans) as topping. And then we got the double choco crepes.

I am kinda surprise that it took quite a while for the order to be ready. There were another two orders in front of us. But I guess they only have one crepes person ?

I would be able to enjoy more had it been a hot day like 80 degrees outside. But the crepes was good with chocolate ice cream and banana filling and also whipped cream oozing out of it. Swirl of chocolate syrup on top of it. It's not overly sweet and I don't mind going back for more. The shaved ice was nothing special. Our friend the one that was craving shave ice didn't quite like the shaved ice. He was looking for the shaved ice that was already flavored. Not plain ice and flavored with syrup. So he was disappointed.

Banana Crepe
248 Jackson St

San Jose, CA 95112
(408) 271-2644

Bob Sang Korea - Fremont

2011-06-18T22:18:00.000-07:00

Anyhow, we were starving when we arrived there. The place was surprisingly pretty spacious inside. And even though it was already passed 1 pm it was still busy with many tables occupied. We were greeted and seated quickly. Menus were brought to us. I already checked out the menu online but it's still not quite decided yet. In the end we ordered dubokki (spicy saute rice cake), spicy squite saute (from the lunch menu), and Korean style miso stew (don jang jjigae).

Found this place kinda last minute when we found out that we'll be going to Fremont area. Took a big round before we finally found the place. If you are going on North 880 - take the Cushing Pkwy exit. Duh.. The address for the restaurant was Cushing Pkwy. *shaking my head*

Anyhow, we were starving when we arrived there. The place was surprisingly pretty spacious inside. And even though it was already passed 1 pm it was still busy with many tables occupied. We were greeted and seated quickly. Menus were brought to us. I already checked out the menu online but it's still not quite decided yet. In the end we ordered dubokki (spicy saute rice cake), spicy squite saute (from the lunch menu), and Korean style miso stew (don jang jjigae).

The first item brough to us were salad. Very refreshing and I love the nutty flavor of the dressing. Then they brought us our cafetaria style tray that held rice and different types of ban chan. The ban chan we got today was potato (sweet, rich and a bit oily). Jap chae - stir fry korean style vermicelli noodle. Soy bean sprout - simple. Kim chee radish and cabbage - the radish one was a bit sweeter than usual.

Then the dukbokki came out. It had sweet chilli soy bean paste sauce and fish cake and tons of green onion and onion. I had tried quite a few version of dukbokki. This one was actually not as oily and not as shiny (maybe less high fructose corn syrup ). And the sauce tasted more of gochujang (Korean style hot pepper paste).

The spicy squid saute was smoky even though it was supposedly saute. Beside squid, it also had slices of zucchini, carrot, mushroom, onion and green onion. They were all covered with red sauce, not watery but more sticky to the squid, etc.

The miso stew was rich with mixture of meat, mix seafood, thinly sliced potato, in a pungent miso flavor. I never had anything like this before. We tried some sort of fermented soy bean paste stew before that had a very strong flavor. But this one was more mild. Even hubby could say that he enjoyed it.

All in all the dishes were all good. And we were given free yogurt drink as desert in the end. Good gestures. If we happened to be in the area, we'll surely be stopping by again.

Bob Sang Korea

4185 Cushing Parkway, Fremont, CA 94538 (510) 252-9844

Tints of Nature - hair color

2011-06-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

I don't usually write review on beauty products. I thought I started on this one just in case someone out there looking to use this and was wondering about it.

Just to give you my hair background. I had grey hair for quite a while and ever since I was waaaay too young to have grey hair. It never quite bothered me since it was under my top layer of hair. It's covered up by my otherwise black hair. But I guess finally my age caught up with my grey hair (or the other way around ?). Anyhow, I started to notice more grey hair on where my hair split naturally. So I started coloring my hair. I have used Garnier Nutrisse for quite a while. I have tried permanent and also semi permanent hair color. Semi permanent ones supposedly wasn't as harsh on your hair as the permanent ones. The latest one I tried before this one was the foam one by Clairol Nice 'N Easy.

Enough said, I know and realized that my grey hair is going to be a very long term issue. And all this hair color couldn't be good for me if I use it long term. So I started looking around for something more natural. Well, I tried henna powder in the past. The color didn't quite work out for grey hair. It made my hair orange. I tried it with indigo mixed but the indigo couldn't stay long enough.

Finally I decided to try this. Bought it from my local Whole Foods store. It was on sale for $13.99 (originally $17.99). There were a few other brands but this one was on sale. I decided to give it a try.

One thing I noticed was the smell. The product did have peroxide but the smell wasn't very strong. It kinda smelt like wine so I gave it a plus points already. The other thing was my hair didn't smell of harsh chemical afterwards. That's another plus.

The box came with instructions, a pair of gloves, a bottle of colorant, activator, twin pack of shampoo and conditioner. I did a skin test prior just because I didn't know if there would be anything different than the regular hair color products.

Other than the shampoo, the rest worked like regular hair dye. So I colored my hair and waited like about 40 minutes because my grey hair usually takes very long time to absorb the color. Regular hair supposedly takes only 10-15 minutes. Then I rinsed my hair and shampoo. Yes, shampoo. That's kinda unique since usually other hair dye wouldn't give you any shampoo. After I rinsed out the shampoo then I applied the conditioner and let it sat for five minutes. Rinsed out and I'm done. My hair smelt wonderful without any chemical smell left. One thing I am curious is how long this color will last. Hopefully it could last at least a month.

----UPDATED June 29, 2011 -------
My hair color lasted about 3 weeks. The top of my head started showing greys again due to new growth. I would say that I was surprised to find out that this hair color actually lasted as long as the regular brand hair color that I have used in the past.

I'll definitely use it again in the future.

Dental insurance is a scam !

2011-06-02T21:28:00.000-07:00

Me and hubby haven't had any dental insurance for going almost ten years now. Partly I remember that our last experience with one wasn't the best. Last December I had a toothache and I had to go find a dentist. It felt to me that my gum was swollen. I looked in the mirror and it seemed like there was something protruding out of my gum. I made my own diagnose that my wisdom tooth was finally coming out. So I made an appointment with a neighboring dentist and told them ahead of time that I was not covered with any insurance. They let me know the estimated fee before hand. I wasn't going in with no estimate at all. Never know, I might have to sell my car to pay for the bill.

So I went in and had my mouth looked at. What I thought was the source of pain was not even getting enough attention on. The dentist pointed the finger onto another tooth and had that one removed instead. The whole thing happened fast and before I knew it I had lost a tooth. With enough conviction from my dentist, I went and signed up for dental insurance for this year.

Here I am almost six month into the year finally using my dental insurance. I dragged my poor hubby to our first dental appointment of the year. The dentist listed a long list of 'work order' for us. Then the receptionist did her part trying to work us another appointment to get the 'work order' completed. On the top of my list was my bridge - it's due to be changed. Guess what's the cost ? About $1100 for one tooth, $250 for each post. Didn't seem to be a lot ? Unfortunately I have four teeth on my bridge. Beside that, my dentist also listed gum surgery for me. Hm..all this number kept dancing on my head when the receptionist trying to calculate our payments. I was busy thinking where am I going to get those money. It's going to cost around $700 for both of us to have deep cleaning for our teeth. Really ? Even after I already paid around $600 for my premium ?

The following day I called another dental office and straight away asked for cash price for deep cleaning. The price quoted was $400. Later on I was thinking to myself. Why do I even need or want an insurance. First I have to pay for the premium and then when I needed to use it guess what...?? I HAVE TO PAY MORE ! And for the expensive stuff that I needed done the limit was so low that I might as well don't have coverage.

In short : deep cleaning with insurance for both of us $1300. If we didn't have dental insurance : $800.

Now I remember why for so long we didn't have dental insurance.

Phuong Thao - Sunnyvale

2011-05-29T19:59:00.000-07:00

Last minute lunch decision brought us to this establishment on one Saturday afternoon. Upon looking up the location, it is exactly in Downtown Sunnyvale on Murphy. When we got there, the vendors of the Saturday farmers market were just finishing their packing. Too bad, otherwise we could have our lunch at the farmers market.

The menu was pretty extensive. I chose the stiry fry lemon grass chicken with vermicelli and hubby went with classic pho noodle soup with rare beef. While we were waiting for our orders I looked around the premise. The furniture were dark cherry color and the tables were covered with glass on top of white table cloth. The white table clothes made you feel like it's more classy yet it's easier for them to clean with the glass top on it.

Our appetizer came out first. It's grilled pork meat ball spring rolls. I had no clue what it supposed to look or taste like. We were used to order regular spring roll or egg roll and Phuong Thao offered more on their menu. The pork meat ball looked more like salami to us wrapped with the rice paper complete with rice noodle, bean sprout and lettuce. The dipping sauce provided were both sweet peanut sauce and fish sauce mix (that is typically used for eggroll). I couldn't quite decide which one went better with the roll. Both were equally good. Yum.

My chicken vermicelli was huge. It reminded me of the Korean bibimbap. A huge bowl of vermicelli on the bottom, topped with sliced cucumber, crushed peanuts,thinly sliced pickled daikon, minced mint leaves and then the stir fry chicken with bunch of red/green bell peppers. Mix them well and start digging in. It was refreshing with all the greens. Taste more like a salad than a fried noodle. Well, that's because the vermicelli was not exactly fried. The fragrant of the lemon grass was subtle and added much flavor to the dish.

Hubby's bowl of pho had a distinct smell of star anise. The broth was darker with chunks of green onion floating. The beef was a bit dry for his taste. He didn't like his order as much as mine.

I don't think we'll be back in the future. For sure not for the pho noodle soup. There are other places better for pho in the area. It's out of the way for us to go all the way there for the vermicelli bowl. I'll try to look around for vermicelli bowl at another noodle joints. Maybe I'll find my luck somewhere else.

Phuong Thao
155 S Murphy Ave Sunnyvale, CA 94086 (408) 737-7640

Yiasso - Cupertino

2011-05-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

This establishment has been around forever. Ever since we used to live in that area and that was like 10 years ago. Recently hubby went to have lunch there and rediscovered it. So off we went this weekend.

Dipping yogurt - up close and personal

The seating area inside was kinda tiny and that day were a bit busy even though it was way past 2 pm. The setting was more like fast food like. Go to the counter order from the posted menu (they also have special going on that day). I couldn't decide on what to get. So I got the combo souvlaki (not even knowing what a souvlaki was !). Hubby ordered a super gyros.

Souvlaki Combo

SUPER gyros !!

We picked a table inside because outside was chilly and waited for our number to be called. It took about 15 minutes but everything were prepared after we ordered. My souvlaki combo was a big platter of rice, four skewers of meat, salad, pita bread and yogurt for dipping. Everything was yummy. The meat was a combination of chicken (2 skewers), beef and lamb. The meat was surprisingly juicy even the chicken. The rice was a bit salty for my taste. But it went very well with the yogurt. I really enjoyed it and I actually finished the whole platter. Hubby also enjoyed his super gyros. It was big with way more stuffing than the gyros he ordered last time. The super gyros was like a huge over stuffed burrito without rice. Just thinly sliced barbecue meat, chopped tomato, chunks of feta cheese and tiny slices of iceberg lettuce.

Yiasso
10660 South De Anza Boulevard Cupertino, CA 95014
(408) 253-5544

Pholicious - Cupertino

2011-05-02T07:04:00.000-07:00

We visited this establishment a couple of years ago when the name was Pho Linh. Can't tell for sure if they owner is still the same. I decided to give them another try.

I picked their special Pholiciousl bowl of pho that offered combination of beef, chicken and prawn. Hubby chose a dry vermicelli combination of egg roll, bbq prawn and pork. I noticed there was a pho challenge on their menu. They offer a special size bowl of pho that features 25 oz of meat and 25 oz of noodle. Whoever that finishes it off in 55 minutes won't have to pay $19.95 for the pho and instead gets a t-shirt. I could only imagine what the t-shirt says : I love pho ?

Our order took about 15 minutes to be ready. The restaurant wasn't busy then. Just a couple of tables occupied. But I guess hubby's bbq order took longer to prepare. He loved his vermicelli combo. His complain was only one - the size was too compact. Not enough noodle. But beware though with the bbq

shrimps. The shrimps were bbq on a bamboo stick. And either the stick broke off afterwards or they were just cut off but was not removed. I bit into the shrimp and experience a hard piece. Pulled it out and it was a piece of bamboo. Same thing also happened to hubby.

My bowl of pho was short of greens. I love my soup with full of cilantro, green onion, and celery. This one was very scarce of it. I can't blame them though because it took me years to come to like those greens. I'm pretty sure most people out there can't quite enjoy it yet. The broth was darker in color than other pho places I've been to. And it had stronger smell of star anise. But other than that it was pretty plain. There was enough slices of beef but it wasn't rare steak so it was a bit dry by the time I ate it. The chicken was tender but the shrimps were too tiny.

It's sad that so far there's no pho restaurant in Cupertino that I can call my favorite place. I guess if I lived in this area I would have to drive to either Sunnyvale (Pho Nam) or all the way to San Jose.

Pholicious - 21271 Stevens Creek Blvd #410, Cupertino, CA 95014 (408) 777-8850

Secret Garden - Korean Drama

2011-04-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

picture courtesy of SBS

A romantic comedy drama about a CEO of a Dept Store (Kim Joo Won) that thinks of himself as a high social class person. He goes on blind dates arranged by his mother. He thinks of marriage as a business transactions that should benefit him and his company. A misunderstanding led him to meet Gil Ra Im, a poor stuntwoman. Ra Im was apparently different from all the women he ever dated before. First started as a fling and before they knew it, they switched bodies and lives.

picture courtesy of SBS

Other characters in the drama included Oska (Choi Woo Young), Joo Won's cousin and a populer singer that happened to be Gil Ra Im's fave singer. Yoon Seul, a past lover of Oska, that came back as Joo Won's blind date. Hmm...not complicated yet ? What about threw in Im Jong Soo, the head of action school where Gil Ra Im worked. Secretly, Im fell in love with Gil long time ago.

The arrogant Kim Joo Won and his tacky track suit is no mistake the star of this drama. His cute and romantic way of pursuing Gil Ra Im were very entertaining. A lot of girls would like to be in Ra Im's position - a modern time Korean Cinderella story (with a twist !).

Hyun Bin (as Kim Joo Won) and Ha Ji Won (as Gil Ra Im) played well in this drama. They showed chemistry and played comfortably as couple. I was quite surprise that for a Korean drama, Secret Garden had quite a lot of kissing scenes, some of them pretty long ones too. In the interview, Hyun Bin stated that both he and Ji Won got to know each other and talked a lot during the whole filming process. That helped them in avoiding being awkward with each other when it comes to physical contact.

For those that like comedy drama should totally watch this one. Secret Garden had a combination of comedy, romance, enough touching moments and a good story lines. Last but not least, the OST by Baek Ji Young is da bomb ! It had become my fave song overnight. Look for Baek Ji Young's That Woman on Youtube. Yay.

http://tv.sbs.co.kr/secretgarden/

Hot Pot Palace Buffet - San Jose

2011-04-06T19:19:00.000-07:00

We finally had a chance to try this restaurant. For some reason I thought this place would be similar to the hot pot city on McCarthy Ranch. So I was looking forward to have some grill meat for lunch. Walking in the restaurant, I looked around and saw only regular tables. Then it dawned on me that they only do hot pot and not grill.

The waiter seated us. On the table, there was a printed menu with different broth available to pick from. We both chose Thai tom yum. Another type of broths available were plain meat broth, Szechuan spicy broth, mushroom flavor, sauerkraut flavor, Vietnamese sweet and sour, Chinese herbal , etc

There were two bottom parts of hot pot on the table with some pink gel 'fuel' on it. ha..ha.. I'm not too sure what the pink stuff was. It looked like the sort of gel that made up candles that I bought before. Then we were welcomed to check out the buffet line. One side of the line was the ingredients that will go in the hot pot. Plates of thinly sliced beef and pork. Next to it was different types of noodle - yellow and rice noodle and also thinly sliced chicken. Different types of veggies - napa cabbage, cabbage, greens (that looked like spinach), etc. Another thing that I loved most but never get to cook at home is tripe. This chewy thing was already cooked, just need to be thrown in and heated up well. Awesome.

Btw, next to the first line of buffet was glass jars of minced different stuffs to make your own dipping sauce. Green onion, cilantro, garlic, ginger, jalapeno, bean paste, chilli paste etc. Then bottles of sesame oil, soy sauce, fish sauce, vinegar, etc. So grab your little bowl and prepare your dipping sauce to your liking.

Then on the other side of the buffet line was dimsum. The choices available for dimsum was typical shumai, chives dumpling, bao, egg rolls. Nothing too special about them. I also tried the phi tan congee and the hot sour soup. I thought the soup was pretty good even though the congee was just fine. But hey I have to work on my hot pot which is my main attention that day.

By the time I was done I didn't have much room for dessert. Hubby tried the dessert line which according to me was not special at all. Hubby put together a bowl of different types of pudding topped of with shaved ice. Seriously the idea was good but they should have put out better stuffs like mung bean/red bean, corn, nata de coco, etc. Those items would make better combinations for shaved ice than soggy pudding (even in the different color nonetheless). But hey, after a few rounds of hot pot, I couldn't complain much about dessert since I didn't have any room left. I needed to have special compartment in my tummy for dessert.

Hot Pot Palace Buffet
1628 Hostetter Rd, San Jose, CA 95131 (408) 392-0566

Thai Grata - San Jose

2011-03-28T20:59:00.000-07:00

With the crazy stormy weather that went through San Jose the past weekend, I woke up Sunday morning hungry. I craved the smell and taste of fried noodle. Rice noodle is even better. I put my brain to work. What's around our neighborhood that didn't require driving like 20 miles in that kind of weather. Voila. There's this Thai restaurant that we haven't had the chance to try yet. Thai Grata. And I know that they do have fried rice noodle on their menu because I saw their menu before.

So I looked up their phone number and menu online. Waited until 12:30 to call to give them enough time to warm up their wok and get rid of the previous day's left over. A woman picked up the phone and I told her my order. One pad see euw (fried rice noodle with egg and broccoli with meat) and pad kee maw (fried rice noodle with bell pepper, tomato, and basil). The fried noodle can be served with different types of meat - chicken, pork, beef or calamari.

Fifteen minutes later I was already over there picking up my order. There was only one table occupied. I walked up, paid and left with my lunch. One guy came in when I walked out.

Both fried noodles were yummy. The pad see euw supposed to be hubby's order but he liked mine better. The same goes with me, I liked his order better. The pad kee maw had some sort of sweet sauce on it that made it a little bit damp. But the sauce also made it sweet, that's why I didn't like it as much. The pad see euw was more simple and closer to my taste bud.

All in all we were happy and full with our orders. We may not go back pretty soon unless there's another storm again. :) The price was a bit high - average $9.5 /order before tax.

Thai Grata
846 Blossom Hill Road San Jose, CA 95123 (408) 224-8600

Athena - Korean drama

2011-03-16T19:08:00.000-07:00

The long awaited Athena finally was out. Aired on SBS started end of December 2010 and came to the last episode in February 2011. I purposely waited until it was almost coming to an end before I started watching it. Can't wait so long for each episode to come out. It's just too much torture.

The first few episode were pretty slow. Not like Iris which was very intriguing since the first episode. But I waited patiently for the plot to develop. Yes, there was a lot of action in the beginning, but it was kinda confusing as to who was the bad guy and who was the good ones. I was lost there.

Then finally the main character came out, Lee Jung Woo, a special agent with the NTS (National Anti-Terror Service). On one of his survaillance, he met Yoon Hye In which later on he knew worked as a guide at NIS (National Intelligence Service). As viewers, we knew from the beginning that Hye In was not as innocence as Jung Woo thought she was. Then the story continued and we can guess that Jung Woo will fall for her and of course he did. And viewers can only swear and scream wanting Jung Woo not to like her. At least that's what I hope. ha..ha..Especially later on when another female character showed up, Han Jae Hee whom was Jung Woo previous lover. They had to break up because of Jae Hee's father.

But this drama is not just about their love triangle or love square when Son Hyuk also played a big role in it. Son Hyuk was the main bad guy in this drama. I wasn't too sure if he was ever in love with Hye In or was he mostly just care about her as a big brother. Anyhow, Son Hyuk and Hye In were just a few members of Athena, a secret terrorist organization with so many members around the world. Their target was to control energy source around the world.

Jung Woo Sung as Lee Jung Woo didn't leave quite a deep impression at first. He didn't have that bad boy look on him. He didn't look like he could kick ass. I started to give him a bit respect after he showed his ability to save the president's daughter (episode 3 or 4). Supposedly he injured his ankle during the filming because he jumped out of the glass window and got run over by the kidnapper's car. You can see where I'm coming right ? I love Lee Byung Hun in Iris. He was the perfect cast for that character.

Son Hyuk on the other hand was played well by Cha Seung Won. Seriously, without the moustache, he might as well play Jung Woo since he looked so innocence. ha..ha.. I actually felt pity towards him in the end because his love was so deep for Hye In. He still cared for her even though Hye In by then was pretty much on the other side.

All in all Athena was an interesting action drama. Though the ending could have been done better. It seems like the writer was rushed into ending it. I guess they're capped to making only 20 episodes. :)

Bonchon Chicken - Sunnyvale

2011-03-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

Last week, as we drove along El Camino in Sunnyvale, we spotted a sign on one of the strip mall. The sign said 'Bon Chon Chicken'. Hubby was like what's that. I recognized the name as one of the franchised Korean style fried chicken that made it into Korea Town in Los Angeles. We haven't had it yet in SF Bay Area and I've been wanting to try.

So we made time to drive back to the location. Checked out the menu outside before we walked in. Place was kinda dark because the outside light came only through the glass door. The rest of the front side store was brick wall. There were only like two tables occupied when we walked in. One girl came, greeted us and seated us. Then we sat down for like a good five minutes or more. There was not too many patrons around so I ruled out the possibility that they were busy. So finally hubby went to the counter to order. The guy there told him that he'll be taking our order at the table (which was said on the sign at the counter). He and also the girl that seated us earlier apologized for the mishap.

The menu was small. Pick the size platter for the chicken, choose the flavor (spicy or soy sauce), choose the side dish. For medium size platter, we get a free side dish. Large size platter will get two free side dish. Additional side dish can be ordered at extra cost. We got medium size platter combo (mixture of drums and wings) and mixture of spicy and soy sauce. For side dish we requested kimchee coleslaw. We also ordered a portion of sweet potato fries. Then I looked at the menu and thought hmm...scallion korean pancake sounds yummy. I think we should get one of those.

Then our waiter brought our order, a big platter of chicken. I was too busy with my thoughts about the pancake but I noticed hm...that's quite a big platter. Guess what. The other girl came and told him that the plate wasn't for us. Bummer ! I was already drooling. So the guy took the plate away and brought it to the big table. He came back to us and apologized....again. We just laughed about it. But I was thinking it wasn't a busy day what caused all those mishaps. Imagine the place were packed. More people would be ignored and more orders sent to wrong tables.

Let's get to the food itself. Sweet potato fries were yummy. I'm a fan of sweet potato fries. They did it right. A bit dust of flour gave it the crunchy outside. The chicken were okay. Nothing too special. The spicy ones had a bit heat to them. But the soy sauce ones were just crunchy on the skin but inside were not too flavorful. According to the waiter, the LA area one had more spiciness on their chicken. Darn it ! Then I still have to go down there next time.

And don't even bother ordering the scallion pancake. It's so greasy. I don't know if they supposed to be like that. But the two different types of sauce they gave us didn't add flavor or make it better. Sorry.

Bon Chon Chicken
572 East El Camino Real Sunnyvale, CA 94087 (408) 720-8689

Nothing Bundt Cake

2011-03-11T21:53:00.000-08:00

One of my co-worker brought us a bunch of bundt cake from this place in Los Gatos. They were all nicely and cutely package. Easy to transport and perfect as gift. They came in different flavors. Cinnamon swirl, chocolate chocolate, red velvet, just to name a few.

The cake was moist and the middle part was filled with icing. I am not a dessert or anything sweet person. But I got to try a few flavor just because there were so many available. I think the lemon flavor one was best with fresh citrus flavor.

But in general I wasn't impressed. There's nothing really special about the cakes. They were too sweet for my taste. Surprisingly when I checked out their website, they seem to have quite a few locations around the nation. Not just limited to SF Bay Area.

http://www.nothingbundtcakes.com/

Habana Cuba - San Jose

2011-03-08T21:58:00.000-08:00

Had an office party here on a Friday night. The location was pretty easy to find. Just off San Carlos on Race Street. Parking on a busy night could be tricky. I pulled over to a parking lot next to the sign. Then I saw this big sign saying no restaurant parking beyond this point. And I was thinking, where is the parking for the restaurant then ? But just continue and you'll see on the other side of the building the real parking area for the restaurant.

They have quite a selection for drinks - both alcoholic and non. I can't say much about the alcoholic one even though I really wanted to try the mojitos. But I ended with a coconut soda - coco rico. It tasted quite different. Imagine combination of coconut juice and soda water. Yup..interesting taste. But another co-worker ordered Franca - peruvian beer. And they offer a few other imported drinks and a bunch of other juices like guava and pineapple.

We shared a combo appetizer. Plaintain chips, masitas (awesome !!), croquetoes (awesome !), yuca frita taste just like french fries served with garlic dipping sauce. But seriously the garlic dipping sauce was pretty bland. It's just chopped garlic in oil. A bit more seasoning would bring out more taste. But the masitas was the star of the platter. It's pretty much fried pork. Almost like carnitas in Mexican food.

For entre I got camarones al ajillo. It's huge prawns cooked in garlic, olive and white wine. Served on bed of rice and plaintain. The prawns were okay. Had a bit smell to it and another co-worker said it was overcooked. It was actually less garlicky than I thought it'll be. And for entree, there was option between salad or soup. I opted for soup which turned out to be pretty good. Chunk of chicken,corn and noodle in tomato based soup.

Pictures here were not taken by me. Borrowed from a few fellow yelpers (Tiffany M and Jackie S).

Habana Cuba
238 Race Street, San Jose, CA (408) 998-CUBA
www.998cuba.com

Taverna Bistro - Sunnyvale

2011-03-05T07:37:00.000-08:00

Finally get to use our groupon that I purchased like almost two months ago. We haven't been to downtown Sunnyvale for like ages. It resemblance Castro in Mt. View but a shorter form of it. When we were there yesterday, the weather was cold and wet. The street was deserted. The patio seatings were empty. We found Taverna Bistro and quickly stepped in, eager to hide from the cold wind.

The place was pretty empty. Just around three tables occupied. Quite surprising because it was lunch time but then looking at the weather I wouldn't be surprised if people decided to stay in. We picked a booth seating and sat down. The wall was decorated with stone paintings. It looked like paintings but we can clearly saw tiny cobbles that made it up. Interesting. During day time, the place already gave a cozy feelings. I'm sure it will be cozier at night when it's dark outside and the lights inside gives out warmth.

We shared a thin crust pizza-like appetizer called lamachun. It was soo good. Crispy with minced meat on top. For entree I chose chicken kebab with rice and steamed veggies. I love the rice, it's lightly salted and very fragrant. The chicken was all white breast meat so it was a bit dry. But I like it dry so no compain there. Hubby got the kobe beef burger. It came with a platter with french fries and salad. The patty looked thick and juicy. First bite into it, everything was good (because he was hungry) !! But then as the chewing continued, he declared that the satisfaction went down to 2.5 star (from 3 star). He said that the patty was made up of chewy meat (tendon ?) And the patty was dry. I had a bite or two of his burger. I think it was okay. I wasn't much of a burger person.

It's most likely going to be our only visit to Taverna Bistro. The food wasn't to die for. Neither was the price. Hubby wasn't impressed so it would be hard to convince him to go back. But it was a good deal to be able to try it with groupon. Mind you, though they claimed to be organic Mediterranean cuisine, but not all the dishes were organic. Or at least they put down which was organic.

Taverna Bistro
133 S Murphy Ave Sunnyvale, CA 94086 (408) 735-9971

Liang's Village Cuisine

2011-02-27T14:29:00.000-08:00

So me and hubby went and picked up his sister on Sunday. I didn't know that it was her birthday until the little one started mentioning it. So later on we all went out to have dinner together. Her chosen place was Liang's Kitchen in Cupertino. More like I kinda push the idea to her because I'm curious about the place. We've been to the mall before and saw that restaurant. But I never thought of going ourselves just because it's harder to order just two dishes when it's just the two of us. While with bigger group we can order and try more dishes.

We went in two cars and they got there first and was looking at the menu when we were trying to look for them. The place was not as big as I thought it was. It can only contain like 60 patrons all together. Even the waiting area was tiny and everybody kinda lined up against the wall.

I noted one item that was mentioned on a few reviews on Yelp which was the beef wrap. One thing learned though. Going to restaurant starving is as bad as doing grocery hungry. We ordered like mad. And some of the items we ordered double because we thought the size was going to be small. But actually the size was pretty decent. So that's other thing to note on.

When the first few items came out, we gobbled down like there's no tomorrow. The beef wrap was soo good. The skin was crispy. It kinda remind me of quesadilla in a roll. No cheese though. Spicy wonton, we had it at another restaurant. Good but nothing new. The garlic flavor went well with the wonton but it's kinda oily because of the chili oil they used. That night we ordered a bunch of little plates (that's not really little). In the end that's what this Liang's Kitchen is all about. They offered a varieties of small dishes, noodles (dry/wet), rice plate and dessert.

As you can notice from the pics, some of the dishes were very homely. Just a platter of rice, preserved veggies (hamchoy), minced pork and half an egg. Like something my mom would have made at home. I guess you live alone, eating out at this place won't break a bank. Average dishes go around $4-$6. It seemed that they started in Southern California (Arcadia, San Gabriel) and spreaded up here (North San Jose) and now in Cupertino.

Liang's Village Cuisine
19772 Stevens Creek Boulevard Cupertino, CA 95014-2456 - (408) 725-9999

Song Ngu Restaurant - Milpitas

2011-02-23T21:27:00.000-08:00

Always in search of a new pho place - that's our motto. So last weekend me and hubby decided to check this place out. I happened to see Song Ngu Restaurant when we were in the area a couple of weeks ago.

It was a wet, cold Saturday afternoon. Way passed lunch time. There were around two tables with guests when we walked in. The place was bright, spacious and clean. I picked a table for two by the huge window. Well the location by the corner and also the glass covering made the place looked bright even though outside was gloomy and wet.

I chose #1 pho dac biet - rice noodle soup with everything and hubby chose seafood pho. For appetizer I opted for honey glazed chicken wings. Something different since we were so used to spring rolls.

While waiting, we were already brought our drinks. Actually as soon as we were seated, the guy already took our drinks order. The music on the background was different. Not just intrumental, but more like remix instrumental. Interesting for a pho restaurant. :)

The highlight of the day was the chicken wings. Crispy on the skin but not dry. The skin still had a bit fat left. Bad. I know. But sooo good. Wings were lightly marinated with a hint of garlic. Our pho were good. I like the broth and the meat balls. The meat balls had a bit tendon that gave it a bit chewiness. Yumm. The only thing that I didn't quite agree was the noodle they used. The noodle was slightly thinner than regular rice noodle. Because of that the noodle even though didn't look mushy but tasted a bit too tender/overly cooked.

Song Ngu Restaurant
1203 East Calaveras Boulevard, Milpitas, CA 95035 (408) 946-5747
http://songngu.webs.com/

Kong Tofu & BBQ - Cupertino

2011-02-21T08:04:00.000-08:00

Now that this Korean restaurant opens in Cupertino, we don't have to go all the way to Korea Town in Santa Clara. Yay ! When I first found out about Kong, I told hubby we got to give it a try. So there we went on a sunny weekend afternoon.

We were seated immediately. I took a look around and everything look very clean and new. Supposedly they took over what used to be Wahoo - fish taco. Their menu was decent. They have most of the dishes we liked plus they also have dduk bok ki - the spicy rice cake. Awesome. I ordered one of those. Hubby got a soon do bu (tofu stew) with seafood. I ordered a seafood bibimbap on stone pot. And we sat there waiting for our orders when the banchan were brought out. Spicy cucumber, kimchi, bean sprout and potato. Pretty basic.

The dduk bok ki was good. Enough heat without being too sweet. Too bad, it didn't come with squid like the one in the Korea Town food court. There was a stall in the food court (the corner one) that sells dduk bok ki with squid. It was soooo good.

The soon dobu and bibimbap filled the spot. We found a replacement for our Kang Nam Korean restaurant. And when we were finished with our food, we got free cold yogurt drink. What else could we expect ? Oh yeah..maybe for Kong Tofu to add spicy squid/octopus to their menu. Then everything would be perfect. Yes.

Kong Tofu & BBQ
19626 Stevens Creek Blvd, Cupertino, CA 95014 (408) 863-0234

Steps of India - San Jose

2011-02-12T07:49:00.000-08:00

This restaurant is very close to my office. I have seen their signage by the roadside more than a few times. But nobody in my office had the chance to give it a try yet. So one weekend, I took hubby here for lunch. It's time for testing it.

When we walked in there was only one table occupied. From the hubby's look, I knew he wanted to bolt. LOL. We try to avoid going to a new place when there was nobody in or very few patrons in. It's just not a good sign. But I was happy that we sticked around and gave it a try. As soon as we sat down, a few more groups came in. And before we knew it, the place was alive !

The restaurant itself was not very big. One corner next to register was used as buffet table. It was a shor L shaped buffet line. Mixed vegetable pakora, tandoori chicken, and chicken tikka masala were a few dishes I remembered we had that day. Everything were freshly made. The rice was not just plain rice, it was cooked in some sort of curry type - yellow with a few pieces of cauliflower and onion here and there. Very nice. The naan was brought to our table. And the only waiter there was quick to bring us a fresh plate when he noticed it was empty.

I ordered mango lassi which was like a yogurt drink. By then since it was busy already, our waiter forgot about it. When I finally asked about it, another man (perhaps the owner ?) apologized and brought it out within minutes and said it was on the house. It was a very pleasant surprise. I didn't feel like we deserved it so in return we tipped generously afterward.

This will be our new togo place for Indian fare when we crave it. It's close to home. Clean place, fresh and very good food.

Steps of India
2062 Curtner Ave San Jose, CA 95124 (408) 369-1888
http://www.stepsofindia.com/

Health care becoming more commercial

2011-02-06T14:04:00.000-08:00

I had to visit an opthalmologist this week. No. I don't have red eye. No. I don't have any pain. No itchiness. It all started with my visit to an optometrist about two weeks ago. I haven't been to one in like ages. And this one I just picked because a few of my coworkers went there.

The doctor was talkative but pretty attentive and helpful. The eye exams were pretty thorough which involved dilating pupil and looked into eye nerves etc. I didn't remember any of those done by my previous optometrist. But then again it was ages ago. Maybe the standard changed. Who knows.

Okay, so during the exam, my optometrist found out that my eye nerves looked different from each other. And beside that, my eyes pressure were pretty high. He put me as 'glaucoma suspect' category. He told me nothing serious and probably nothing at all but it's best to have it checked.

So here I found myself visiting an opthalmologist who told me after his exam that my eyes were normal. Nothing to worry about and the optometrist was most likely being overly conservative.

But then it brought me into thinking. Really ? Was he just overly conservative or did he actually see that as an opportunity to send me as a referral to his opthalmologist 'friend/partner' ? And that would have worked out if I were not with Kaiser. And had I still with United Health Care, that visit to Opthalmologist would have caused me about $100 or more.

A couple of months ago, I went to see a dentist because my tooth was hurting. The dentist took care of it for like a minute. Pretty much took it out right there right then. But my concern was actually a wisdom tooth that I think is due to come out (and I was pretty sure was the source of the pain). I told him that but he didn't seem to pay much attention to it. He was too busy trying to get me to change my crown. That's because my wisdom tooth would have to be taken care by a surgeon. And also from hubby's experience, the price of crown was pretty much negotiable. That gives my dentist a lot of room to work with.

Seriously. There's nothing wrong with trying to sell your product. Yes, doctors should present the options for their patients. But leave it right there and be neutral about it.

Tomi Sushi and Seafood Buffet - Eastridge Mall, San Jose

2011-02-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since we had buffet so last weekend we decided to try one out. We chose Tomi Sushi which replaced Todai at Eastridge. It seemed to me that they were just opened recently since they still offer 10% discount until February 18.

We got there around 1 pm and saw like 20 over people sitting outside the restaurants waiting for their numbers to be called. I went and got a number and was told it won't be long. It took about 15 minutes before we finally got our table, so it wasn't too bad at all.

The food selection was good. Tons of sushi and sushi rolls. Then on the hot dishes were deep fried stuffs like tempura, fried prawns on batter, fried scallops on batter, egg roll, gyoza (dumpling). Then dishes like clams, charsiu, bbq pork, new york steak (yeah..really !). If you like noodle soup, select from wonton soup, wonton soup with yellow noodle or rice noodle with spicy peppery soup *yum..yum*. All noodle soup were made to order. Not to mention other soups like corn eggdrop soup, miso soup, hot and sour soup, lotus and papaya soup (sweet) and herbal chicken soup. Just for the varieties of soups alone, I'd give them 4 stars !. Last but not least, the dessert. There were varieties of ice cream - from plain vanilla, mango, green tea, strawberry cake and chocolate. And then the one we liked a lot was mochi with sesame paste. Yummy and freshly made.

Totally worth the $13.99/person. Give it a try while the food selections are still good. Hopefully they can maintain the selections and also the qualities.

Tomi Sushi and Seafood Buffet
Eastridge Mall - near JC Penney

Pho Hanoi - San Jose

2011-01-23T11:58:00.000-08:00

This is the only place (correct me if I'm wrong) in San Jose area to serve Hanoi style pho which uses wide noodle and no bean sprout for the soup.

Their menu is pretty short compare to other pho restaurants. No seafood pho. I got a combo with everything but kitchen sink and hubby got the rare meat. We asked for bean sprout to go with our soup. I noticed the servers were all women that day. I wonder if it happened to be that day or it was purposely that way.

Our bean sprout came fresh not blanched though I saw a few tables got theirs blanched. On a cold day having the bean sprout half cooked speed up the process and help keep the broth warm at the same time. I like the fresh wide noodle they use here. The noodle was very tender but not mushy. If you don't like wide noodle you could always ask for regular thin noodle. Another thing which I found quite different from another pho restaurants. The rare meat here was actually tenderized before served. You can tell from the way it looked and also from the continuing hammering sound coming out of the kitchen. :)

Pho Hanoi
1759 East Capitol Expressway San Jose, CA 95121 (408) 239-0888

Santouka Ramen and Mitsuwa Market - San Jose

2011-01-22T09:11:00.000-08:00

On one weekend we felt like having ramen and sushi altogether. So we went to Mitsuwa Market on Saratoga Ave to again try to get to that ramen store that was so busy the last time we were there. This time the line was not bad. It was maybe around four people in front of me. And the way it is set up, patrons won't be able to see the menu until they get to the display which means get ready to decide because you're next.

I liked the menu because you're given chance to select different sizes of bowl of ramen. Select the type of ramen broth you want - shio (salt), shoyu (soy sauce), miso (bean paste), then the size, then if you need extra topping of pork. Beside toppings, one could also get sides like rice or eggs. This are all marked with different number. Just tell them the number. Pay for your order and you'll be given a number. Take a seat, grab your water yourself and wait for your number to be called.

We ordered a large soy sauce ramen with no extra. Hubby went inside Mitsuwa Market and purchased a tray of sushi platter. There we had it, our dinner.

The sushi was good as always. But since it was night time already, they didn't have lots of choices left. The ramen broth was a bit too salty and too oily for our taste. But it will still be our choice to go if we feel like having ramen. I'd try another different broth next time. Mind you though, at lunch time on weekends the line could be overwhelming.

Mitsuwa Marketplace
675 Saratoga Ave, San Jose, CA 95129 (408) 255-6699
(Santouka Ramen is located next to the market - food court area)

Pho Saigon - Milpitas

2011-01-20T21:09:00.000-08:00

A friend of ours told us about this pho place that just opened recently. Coming to the plaza there, we thought we've been there before when it was under different management.

As we sat down, I noticed the inside of the restaurant looked like it had gone through renovation. Fresh paint, big LCD TV showing Dragon Ball, cherry color chairs and earth color tiles.

Both me and hubby ordered seafood noodle. Hubby only said seafood noodle and the man asked him what type of noodle he wanted. That's pretty cool. I just pointed to a seafood pho. And that's what I got, seafood noodle soup with thin rice noodle. Also we didn't see spring roll on the menu but asked for it anyway and they were able to make it.

The broth was good and rich. I thought I would be hit with MSG attack but it didn't happen so I gave it an extra point there. The spring roll was fresh and the dipping sauce was thick. Another extra point. Needless to say, we'll be back in the future.

Pho Saigon

1455 Landess Ave, Milpitas, CA 95035 (408) 263-8936

Valerio's Tropical Bake Shop - Milpitas

2011-01-16T09:47:00.000-08:00

This location near the Seafood City Milpitas is rather new. I think it was just opened last year. The place looked clean and well stocked. All the pan de ube were bagged and stacked up nicely. Most of them still have a bit condensation because they were sealed too early while they were warm. We picked up one of those. And a stack of dessert in the cooling area caught my attention. Nilupak. On the packaging the ingredients listed cassava, sugar, and margarine. I picked up one of those. Total about $4. I better walk away before I got lured into trying other very interesting snacks.

Pan de ube is basically bread filled with sweetened mashed taro. Bring it home, warm it up in the oven and you can have it for snack or breakfast in the morning.

Nilupak. This one I got was made of ground up cassava, mixed with margarine and sugar. The topping swirling thing looked like string cheese but it tasted like margarine. According to my find, nilupak can also be made of sweet potato or saba banana.

Valerio's Tropical Bake Shop
1535 Landess Avenue Milpitas, CA 95035-8208 (408) 946-8877

My Knitting Addiction

2011-01-14T21:22:00.000-08:00

When I first started I didn't know that I would get myself into this addiction called knitting. I started just for fun. Something to do on my spare time. Now it consumes my life. I just want to knit every minute. I do it while having my breakfast. I do it while checking my emails. I do it next to my hubby while we lay in bed. I do it while waiting for the traffic light to turn green. I wanted to do it while checking my reports at work but my boss gave me the WTF look so I put it away.

No more going to malls on weekends, no more watching Korean dramas. Or I once knitted and watched Korean drama at the same time and it caused me a hole on my knit so I stopped doing it.

Hubby told me to stop knitting and that I need help and that I should dial 1-800-KNIT-HELP ...just joking. I don't think the number even existed.

Free Ribby Socks Knitting Pattern

My second pair of socks. I also made one same exact one for hubby. Super easy to follow.

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/free-socks-knitting-patterns1.htm

yarn : Patons Classic Wool - forest

needle size : US 7

Simple Beanie
yarn : Caron Country - taupe and silver service
needle size : US 7

Bunny Balloon Animal
http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/L0014.html?r=1
yarn : Lion Brand Vanna's Choice
needle size : US 5

Pho Wagon - Sunnyvale

2011-01-09T15:33:00.000-08:00

What do you do if you find a strand of hair in your bowl of noodle ? First option is to pretend that you don't see it. Second, call the waiter and ask for replacement and risk them 'tampering' with your replacement order. Third, order another one separately.

That's what when through my head when hubby experienced it at Pho Wagon this weekend. I was surprised though because as we sat down I noticed the place was clean and looked kinda new. The floor was tiled with nice earth color. Wall was decorated with paintings. It had a feel of cafe instead of pho joint. Furniture was dark cherry finished with nice comfortable chairs. We were even talking about bringing our nephews here due to the cleanliness.

So we chose option number two. The same lady that took our order came and asked if we had any questions. I told her the situation and she apologized and took hubby's bowl away. His order was replaced within minutes. The lady that brough the order also apologized.

Then we talked about the possibility of them offering it as complimentary. I didn't think that would be possible though considering the place. I would be happy enough if they offered a discount for maybe our next visit.

Neither happened.

That day I ordered pho ga (chicken pho). Hubby ordered seafood pho. Hubby's seafood pho was better than expected even though the price was a bit steep ($9 - one size only). But considering the place and location, we understand why the price was set. My chicken pho was ordinary. The chicken meat was all white breast meat which was good but of course tend to be on the dry side. We also shared goi cuon (spring roll) which had very thin skin that the prawn almost sticked out. We loved the spring roll though even though the dipping sauce was a bit runny.

All in all a disappointing experience. It would be a while if we ever went back. The last time we visited that establishment was when it was under the name Pho Blossom ( a couple of years ago). Another disappointing point was the fact that they charged for tea. I don't mind paying for tea if only the tea had more flavor. If you're going to charge for tea, at least present us with real tea instead of watered down no-jasmine-flavor tea.

Pho Wagon
1627 Hollenbeck Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 94087-5402 (408) 720-1566

Main Street Burger - Los Gatos

2011-01-05T13:05:00.000-08:00

On New Year's Day me and hubby went to visit an old friend in Los Gatos. They took us to this burger place within downtown Los Gatos which surprisingly open on New Year's Day.

The place had a feel of oldies burger with white tiles and counters. I looked around to find a juke box but didn't find any. There were bar style seating where patrons sit facing the kitchen. We took one of the high table seating with six chairs. The place was busy but not packed.

They served burgers made with organic beef from Niman Ranch. Our friend ordered 'little deal' from their menu which gave them their side street original and milk. Me and hubby ordered spicy grilled chicken and chipotle chicken with a large order of mix fries - garlic and regular fries. We also shared an order of sweet potato fries.

I was expecting more taste of like sandwiches where you could taste different ingredients in it. But my chipotle chicken didn't give that flavor. It's mostly tasted of the sweet chipotle sauce. Same with hubby's spicy grilled chicken that supposedly had guacamole in it. I couldn't taste the guacamole.

The highlight of the meal was the garlic fries and sweet potato fries. Garlic fries was crispy but not dried with the right hint of garlic flavor. Sweet potato fries was crispy with a bit dusting of flour before they were fried. Very special indeed. I haven't had any sweet potato fries before but had deep fried sweet potatoes in batter when I was growing up back in Indonesia. It brought back sweet memory.

I don't mind going back to try out their beef burgers which sounded yummy. And of course another try of their sweet potato fries. Yum..yum..

Main Street Burgers
20 S. Santa Cruz Avenue Los Gatos, California
(Corner of Main Street)
(408) 354-1881
www.mainstburgers.com

California Cafe - Los Gatos

2010-12-31T08:52:00.000-08:00

A bunch of us from our office had dinner together the other night. Our destination California Cafe in Los Gatos. The menu online looked delicioso. Plan had been made since the week before. It was unfortunate that the weather that night was not on our side. It was wet and cold. I circled around the parking lot and couldn't find any spot. Argh..of course, when you most needed a spot closer to the restaurant on a stormy night and you couldn't find any.

Finally I made it in. We got a round table next to the kitchen. From where I sat I could see the big fire on their pizza oven. It's a very cozy feeling. I like the ambiance and I couldn't wait to try their food.

We agreed to share a few appetizers. Our first order was crab cake but was told that there was only one crab cake per order (of $8.75). Oops...not a good choice. So we stick with the jamaican spiced calamari and decided on the pizza instead.

It was quiet night at the restaurant so we got our orders pretty fast. The calamari was on a light batter and tossed together with alfalfa sprout, cashew nuts and some sweet spicy tangy dressing. Awesome. The pizza was also top notch. Thin crust, with mozzarella cheese, prosciutto, caramelized onion and arugula. Easily one of the best pizza I've ever had.

For entree I had green tea encrusted ahi tuna. Three pieces of tuna on a bed of greens (pea sprout?) with some sort of sauce. I also had a side of grilled broccolini that had wonderful smoky flavor but a bit too tough for my liking. The green tea they used was toasted tea leaves which was interesting. It gave a bit crunchiness to the outside of tuna and a bit hint of green tea when you bit on it. That was the second time I actually had tea leaves on any dishes ever since the tea leaf salad.

California Cafe is a nice place to have a quiet dinner with your loved one and friends. May not be family friendly especially with younger kids. In term of food, I liked most of the food I tried that night. But since it's on the pricey side I guess I won't be able to be back there soon enough.

California Cafe
50 University Ave Los Gatos, CA 95030 (408) 354-8300
http://www.californiacafe.com/

La Bodeguita Del Medio

2010-12-29T22:07:00.000-08:00

A couple of nightd ago we had a chance to try out this Cuban restaurant in Palo Alto, La Bodeguita del Medio. We drove passed but couldn't see the restaurant so we picked a parking lot and walked back. The night was cold and the air was crispy. The street was quiet almost had a deserted feel to it. A few restaurants we passed by was quiet. But to our surprise when we got to La Bodeguita, it was almost packed and very busy. There were 2 tables left and we chose one by the corner. The bar area was full too.

Most of the restaurants in the area were small but this one seemed like it had been widened by taking over the space next to them. We were brought the menus but I kinda know what I wanted already. Hubby ordered a ginger beer after he was told that the Cuban beer that he wanted was not available anymore. It turned ou that the ginger beer was actually from Australia !

Our appetizer was awesome. Camarones con mojo, I believe that's the name. Medium size prawns perched on top of toasted slice of bread with spicy tangy sauce. We can see slices of habanero pepper and garlic along with chopped pepper (?).

For entrees, I got masitas - spicy pork with rice and black beans. Hubby got ropa vieja - shredd flank steak with plaintain and yellow rice. I took a bit of his plaintain....sooo good. I envy his order. My masitas wasn't too spicy. It had more of sweetness on it than savory and left me with a bit heat in my mouth after the meal. Very nice.

It was our first experience with Cuban cuisine. I look forward to trying out more dishes from the area in the future.

La Bodeguita del Medio
463 South California Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94306 (650) 326-7762
www.labodeguita.com

Mogo BBQ - around SF Bay Area

2010-12-25T08:36:00.000-08:00

So I found out about this food truck by the name Mogo BBQ about a month ago. Finally a couple of nights ago had a chance to check it out.

We drove there and ordered spicy pork quesadilla and short ribs burrito to go. Within 10 minutes we got our order and went home to dissect it.

My first look at my quesadilla was like love at first sight. I love quesadilla and this one was just the one I was looking for. A bit browned on the tortilla and the smell was awesome. It had a drizzle of mixture of mayo (and cheese ?) on top of it. It was quite a healthy size for $7. I finished my first wedge and was eyeing my partner's burrito. My verdict : quesadilla was good but the spicy pork was a bit too much sodium for my liking. The quesadilla could use a little salad on the side.

The burrito looked compact but it sure got a lot of features. A good combination of rice, meat and veggies. It's, in my opinion, a balance meal. We could use one of those next time.

All in all was a good satisfying meal. We'll look forward to check out the other stuffs on their menu. Let's Mogo !

http://www.mogobbq.com/
http://twitter.com/mogobbq

Khanh's Restaurant - San Jose

2010-12-12T17:55:00.000-08:00

We were in Santana Row on one weekend and wanted something different than just mall food. We found Khanh's Restaurant on Yelp and it was just around the corner from Santana Row (on Winchester Ave).

Upon entering the restaurant, we were greeted and quickly seated. The place was a lot bigger than what it seemed outside. Menu was huge with varieties of noodle soup, appetizers, rice plates and even some selections for kids. We selected combination rice noodle soup for hubby, tofu rolls and saigon crepe (banh xeo) for me.

Tofu rolls came out fast. Nothing too special about it. It's like a regular spring roll minus the prawn and pork. The dipping sauce was a bit too watery for my taste.

We were done with our rolls within minutes. The waiters were quick in removing our plates. That's a plus. But from then on, it seemed like our orders took a while to come out. I suspected my crepe was slowing down hubby's noodle soup order.

Finally our orders came out. My crepe looked delicioso with huge plate of greens on the side. Hubby's noodle soup looked a bit plain with only a bit sprinkle of green onion on top. I know he likes his soup with tons of condiments. Not like regular pho that usually comes with basil and bean sprout, this one only came with bean sprout and iceberg lettuce. He claimed that his broth wasn't rich enough.

I actually enjoyed my crepe though it was quite a lot of work. See, you're supposed to wrap the crepe on lettuce with some mints, basil, coriander or whatever herbs they provided you. Then you dip the wrap in the dipping sauce. But it was worthwhile.

All in all we enjoyed our meal. The service was excellent. I had a chance to use the restroom and it was very clean. We may go back if we happen to be in the area.

Khanh's Restaurant
335 South Winchester Boulevard San Jose, CA 95128-2036 (408) 241-4940
http://www.khanhsrestaurant.com/

Lulu is learning to knit

2010-12-04T23:05:00.000-08:00

I had this desire to knit quite a while ago. Yeah..I know. Seriously, who knits these days ? I went to Michael's a couple of times to check out on starter kit. But it stopped right there. I wasn't too sure where to begin.

Then a couple of months ago, I had this little project - making a vest for my Halloween costume. All those visits to the fabric store, looking at those tiny, cuty, colorful crafts items just brought back my hidden desire. This time I decided to follow my call.

First stop the library. I searched on knitting and found a few books. Then based on a simple beginner's project I started my own first project. Now, knitting a simple scarf seemed a bit 'boring' for me. I'm ready to tackle more complicated projects eventhough I'm rather intimidated when I saw the pattern.

Btw, Youtube is a good source for beginners. The books I got had tons of pictures and projects but Youtube helped with stitches that's hard to understand on pictures.

Seoul Jung Revisited : Santa Clara

2010-11-14T09:52:00.000-08:00

We've been here when it first started about a year ago. (Read Seoul Jung). Recently we felt like having Korean food but didn't feel like giving tips (cheap mode on). So off we went to this Korean food court just off Lawrence Expy and El Camino Real in Santa Clara. A year ago it wasn't that busy. But the words are out and we've been there a couple of times the past week and it had been challenging to find a table.

There were like around five stalls (not including the dessert store) selling mostly Korean food. Our favorite so far had been Seoul Jung. On the past occasions we got to try chung gook jang (fermented soy bean paste stew), seafood bibimbap, kimchee jjigae (kimchee stew) and jeyuk bok eum (spicy pork with kimchee).

All dishes were wonderful. They all came in a try with a dish on the side filled with banchan. Lovely. The fermented soy bean paste had quite a strong smell but tasted pretty good. The lady at the counter actually reminded me when I ordered it, but I went ahead anyway. ha..ha.. The seafood bibimbap was awesome. Mind you though, both spicy pork and kimchee stew were made with fatty part of pork, so it takes a day break out of your diet.

Tii Cafe - San Jose

2010-10-31T10:16:00.000-07:00

Originally we were going to Thien Long next door but due to the line there we decided to check out the other restaurants in the area. We walked pass Tii cafe and saw that they offer noodles beside tea/drinks and decided to walk in.

The girl behind the cashier was friendly and helped us through the ordering process. We couldn't decide which snacks to order due to the long menu list they had. Believe me, it could be overwhelming. She told us the popular one which was the combo and we could pick three to try. Awesome !

So me and hubby got to try kimchi ramen with egg and minced pork noodle (dry). Those were combos and we got to pick either black or green tea as the beverage. For only $6.99 each, it was a good deal. Then for the snack combos, we tried salt pepper chicken, fried tofu and octopus ball. Yumm.

We like the kimchi ramen and minced pork noodle. The kimchi ramen was spicy enough for our taste and fragrant of garlic from the kimchi. The minced pork noodle was served with a bit pickled cucumber. It kinda reminded me of jajangmyun (the chinese influenced korean black bean noodle).

All in all, it was a good and very filling lunch. We even had to take a box to wrap up our left over snack. Good deal.

Tii Cafe
3005 Silver Creek Rd Ste 136 San Jose, CA 95121
(408) 223-2388

Sushi One - Milpitas

2010-10-22T20:52:00.000-07:00

We were there on a gloomy Sunday afternoon. There was a big grand opening sign outside. We looked at the menu and hubby was interested in their ramen. Yummy for cold rainy day. We almost didn't make it in because there was nobody inside. But I convinced hubby to try since I need stuff to write for my blog. :)

When we walked in, there was no greetings. The only person behind the counter had his back on us and didn't know that we were there. We waited a minute and decided to say hi instead. He turned around and quickly seated us. While we looked at the menu, a bowl of edamame was brought out. It turned out later on that was complimentary ! It was a very nice gesture.

I got a #9 bento combo - salmon teriyaki, tempura and california roll. Hubby got char siu ramen. My bento box was a really good value. Soo much food and I got to try so many different things. The teriyaki salmon though was a bit bland. Hubby didn't like his ramen. It didn't taste like ramen and the only thing ramen about it was the noodle they used. The broth and the condiments was more like a Chinese style noodle. Well, I guess it could pass as a fusion style ramen. The ramen came with a bowl of fried rice. I guess that's what lured us - or hubby in. He missed the ramen we had in Shinjuku where the ramen was served with a bowl of fried rice. But unfortunately, the experience wasn't even close to that.

All in all it was a good value. The food wasn't very authentic. It's more like fusion. When we got the bill, it seemed to me that there was discount given, maybe due to the grand opening. For sure we won't go back.

Sushi One
217 W Calaveras Blvd Milpitas, CA 95035 (408) 719-8882

Poklat's Lugawan Republic - Milpitas

2010-10-19T20:32:00.000-07:00

We were there on Sunday afternoon to try out their lunch buffet. Its location on the strip mall could make parking a little bit of challenge. Especially that day, the business next door had a special opening celebration. We found a street parking on the residential street down the road.

Upon entering the restaurant, there were a few tables occupied and we could see the buffet tables along one of the wall. There were nobody to seat us so I went ahead to the lady behind the cashier and asked if we should seat ourselves. Beside the tables inside, there were also patio seatings on the side of the restaurant. We chose a table at the corner and hit the buffet table.

Most of the dishes on the table didn't look familiar to both me and hubby. I only knew the beef stew but the rest of the dishes tasted very homely to us. There were sardines in tomato sauce and fried chicken (the bomb !) that totally stood out. There were also rice porridge that was tasty. Even though hubby complaint that it was too gooey. All in all we felt that Filipino cuisine was very much influenced by Chinese cuisine. I would go back other time to try other dishes to get to know more of the cuisine.

Poklat's Lugawan Republic

1466 N Milpitas Blvd, Milpitas, CA 95035 (408) 905-2243

www.poklats.com

Namu, Ferry Building Farmer's Market - San Francisco

2010-10-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to check out this stall since I saw it a couple of weeks ago. Finally the chance arrived. We lined up and placed our order and stepped aside to wait. There was nobody lining up when we got there. Compared to other stall, the line was nothing. There was a moment of doubt to the quality of the food. But as we were waiting, I saw the order was actually lined up inside waiting to be prepared. I guess they have more efficient way of managing orders.

We shared two Korean tacos and a gamja fries. The Korean tacos was actually a sheet of nori (seaweed) with like two tablespoon of rice topped with chopped meat, a bit of like diced tomato, green onion and finished off with sprinkle of sesame seeds. The taste ? yummy. The concept is so simple but packed with great flavor.

Gamja fries was another interesting idea. Fries with chopped meat drizzled with mayo and teriyaki sauce. Topped off with gochujang (korean style pepper paste) and a few green onion. Voila... I swear I'll never look at fries the same way again.

Ferry Building Marketplace

One Ferry Building
San Francisco, California 94111
(415) 983-8030

Layang Layang - San Jose

2010-10-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

Went there on Friday night. There were people sitting outside the two benches outside waiting. Our total wait was around 20 mins so it wasn’t bad. The place is small and tables are so close to each other. My nephew was elbowed a couple of times by one kid that sat behind him. And my back almost touched the table behind me. It didn’t feel that we have privacy at all.

We ordered char kwe tiau (fried wide rice noodle), roti canai, nyonya fish (fried tilapia with mango, onion and bell pepper), hainamese chicken,, fried kangkung, nasi lemak and rojak. All in all the food was tamed and felt like there’s something missing. Char kwe tiau was prepared with smaller noodle instead of wide and the noodle was dry noodle instead of fresh so the taste was different.

Roti canai was a big hit with two kids in our group that night. It was fun to eat. They tore off the roti and dipped it into the curry sauce that accompanying it. The curry sauce was more on the sweet side. It's still tasty.

Since we recently just checked out Banana Leaf (Vancouver), the nasi lemak here couldn't even come close to the one in Vancouver. The nasi lemak in Layang Layang only came with rendang, a few peanuts, sliced hard boiled eggs. A bit on the stingy side.

Layang Layang
1480 S De Anza Blvd, San Jose, CA 95129 (408) 777-8897

Banana Leaf - Vancouver

2010-09-25T14:37:00.000-07:00

We went there for lunch during weekday. It was around 1 pm and the lunch rush was over. We were seated within a few minutes. But then I realized that there were a few other tables available. I don't know why they couldn't seat us sooner than that. But no complaint since we still had to wait for my sis-in-law that went to park the car. Parking though was a bit challenging since street parking wasn't available and building was about a block away.

We shared half hainamese chicken, chow kuey tiaw with seafood, nasi lemak, sole fillet grilled in banana leaf, sambal chili fried okra, eggplant and green bean. We also had another order of coconut rice on the side. All dishes were excellent except for the fish. If I went back in the future I wouldn't order hainamese chicken just because it's not worth it. The dish was like $8.99 and there were only a few pieces of chicken. Same thing with fish, nothing quite special about it. The banana leaf was used only at the bottom of the fish so there wasn't much smell of banana leaf infused in the fish.

Banana Leaf
820 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C.

Reservations: 604-731-6333
http://www.bananaleaf-vancouver.com/

Hakka Restaurant - San Francisco

2010-09-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

I found out about the restaurant while looking for a Chinese restaurant to visit with my big family. Me and hubby been to San Francisco quite frequently but never checked out any Chinese restaurant because a lot of times we don't feel like having rice. Anyhow, we got there around 4:30 and there was one table occupied. We were seated and handed menu. My sister-in-law decided that we would go with the family set menu for 6 which offered 8 dishes with 1 appetizer for the cost of $88. For the complete menu look at the picture I took.

The soup we had was tofu seafood soup which I think was different from what it was printed on the menu. The soup looked like egg drop soup but had soft round tofu, squid, scallop, sliced gai lan, shrimp and straw mushroom. Very tasty and didn't taste like MSG soup. Another highlight was the Chinese pork bacon with preserved green. It's not the kind of food that you want to have every day but it was delicious. The pork just melt in your mouth and the saltiness went well with the rice. Other item that we would order again in the future is the salt baked chicken. Supposedly the chicken was covered with salt and then baked. By the time it's done baking, the salt will be as hard as clay and has to be broken open. Chicken is salty but not overly salty. Yummy. Lastly was the clam stir fry with black bean along with onion and pieces of bell pepper.

Hakka Restaurant
4401 Cabrillo St, San Francisco - (415) 876-6898

Moonstar Buffet - Daly City

2010-09-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to check out this buffet ever since I saw the commercial on the Chinese channel 8. But considering the location, we haven't had the chance for it yet until yesterday. Supposedly this establishment had been operating for years which I think is a good sign considering most of buffet restaurants come and go and change ownership every so often.

When we walked pass by the line of food, I was seriously impressed and couldn't wait to jump on it. Me and hubby first checked out the sushi/sashimi counter. There were at least ten types of different sushi roll, four types of sashimi, different kind of nigiri sushi and two types of sushi cone. With so many different types, there must something that will suit our taste buds, right ? But we were disappointed when we finally sat down to try out the sushi and sashimi. They didn't taste as fresh as they could be. The rolls (which I didn't know the name because it wasn't displayed) were pretty good except it got so much sauce (mayo, sriracha, etc) that I didn't feel like I was eating sushi anymore. I couldn't wait to try the very cute martini with shrimp cocktail. Except it turned out not to be shrimp cocktail. The martini glass had a few pieces of sashimi with some sort of wasabi sauce. Not good.

We then went to the special counter to redeem our coupons that were given when we came in. The options available : baked lobster, lamb chop, abalone and shark fin soup. I was going to try the abalone but changed my mind after looking at the size and the way they were cooked. Me and hubby both got lobster instead and I swinged by to pick up some clam and oyster. The lobster was halved, smeared with mayo and baked. I'm not big on mayo with seafood so that lobster didn't impressed me. Not too mention that the lobster was overcooked so the meat was chewy. Oyster was cooked with black bean sauce and clam was stir fried with some ginger.

Highlight of the night was filipino longganisa (Filipino sausage), chicken satay on skewer, grilled mackerel and unagi on rice. Moonstar has huge selection of dessert. Hubby loves the cheese cake there though he preferred them without different kind of topping sauce. Beside cakes/cookies for dessert, there were also five different types of ice cream, chocolate fondue and guess what... cotton candy !! Drinks seemed to be included in the price. There choices of soda, hot tea, hot choco and cappucino mocha. Btw, there were also noodle/porridge counter where one can customize their noodle (different varieties of noodle) and toppings.

I would say for selection, Moonstar has the best selection and wide varieties of food. Sushi/sashimi is not their strength. If you love seafood (crawfish, prawn, snow crab, crab, oyster) you should checked out this place.

Moonstar Buffet
383 Gellert Blvd, Daly City, CA 94015 (650) 992-2888
www.moonstarbuffet.com

Shabusen - Vancouver, Canada

2010-09-16T19:21:00.000-07:00

Decided to check out this place on the promise of combination of Japanese sashimi/sushi and Korean bbq buffet. When we got there on Wednesday afternoon we were surprised to find out that the lunch price was only $11.95. When we were finally seated, we found out that Korean bbq option is only available on weekends which of course has a different price tag.

Each of us were provided laminated menu and then two pieces of small paper menu where we could mark our order. We went pretty humble on our first round and finished everything with no effort. But got a bit out of hands on the second round and felt too stuffed afterwards. And we noticed that some of the stuffs that showed up on our platter were items that we didn't order.

All in all it was a good value for the money. If you like sashimi, pick between salmon or tuna and they were fresh. Big chunk of fish but fresh. It's too bad that the spicy sashimi was flavored with some orange color chili sauce that didn't feel right. The chicken karaage were also good - freshly prepared and delicious.

Some of the side dishes on the menu didn't have any English explanation on it so we were in the dark as too what we ordered. On our second round, we went and ordered each of the item on the menu and one of the item that came was a tiny bowl of cold vermicelli on tangy sauce. Hmm.... Agedashi tofu had a thick coat of batter which we didn't like as much since we were used to a more lighter version. The tea looked like green tea but I guess they missed the roasted brown rice so it didn't have the typical sushi place fragrant. So I would say the food were not very authentic but hey for that price, I couldn't complain.

I guess we won't be pretty soon since we were just there visiting. I read a few reviews complaining about lousy service they got. But seriously, it's a buffet place, what kind of service do you expect ? While we were there, we didn't feel like we were ignored or anything. Nor did we expect to be check on every so often.

Shabusen
755 Burrard St, Vancouver, BC V6Z 1X5, Canada
(604) 669-3883

A & J Restaurant - Cupertino

2010-08-26T19:13:00.000-07:00

This business is located at the Cupertino Village shopping mall. On the same side as Joy Luck. The first time we went there was more than two years ago. The fact that the business is still around showed that they are doing something right.

As usual, we went ahead and put a name on the wait list. But beware. Instead of calling names like other businesses, they actually called the number and the number of guests. Watch out for your number on the list and listened as they're called in Mandarin.

The beef noodle soup here got tons of raves. Me and hubby never tried it. We liked the minced meat noodle and the spicy wonton. Again, ordering could be a challenge as the menu has English translation but the ordering form doesn't. So what we did was matching the Chinese characters to know which one to order. Yup..that's what happened when you're illiterate.

If you don't have problem with all those and don't mind sharing a table with some strangers then you'll fit right in. Yes..one time, since it was only me and hubby and the only table available was a round table for five. We were asked if we mind sharing table. We didn't. It feels like eating in cafetaria when I was in college. :)

For our minced meat noodle, there was option of wide or regular noodle. I said regular even though when the option was presented, it sounded like thin noodle. It wasn't thin as I expexted and even bigger than what we usually have. But they went well with the minced meat once they're well mixed.

The spicy wonton were mostly flour and not much filling if any at all. And even though it sounded spicy, it wasn't. Good companion with the minced meat noodle.

A & J Restaurant
10893 North Wolfe Road Cupertino, CA 95014-0605 - (408) 873-8298

Spice Hut - San Jose

2010-08-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

Recently I just found out there's such thing as Indian Chinese food. Apparently some Hakka people travelled around India and brought their heritage there and created some chinese food that is influenced by Indian spices. Interested about that I started to find out where I could try that around Bay Area. My research brought me to Spice Hut.

There are three locations of Spice Hut - San Jose, Newark and Sunnyvale. But upon looking at their online menu, it seemed there was a slight difference between each one of the location. We decided on the San Jose locations since it is the closest one with the Indian Chinese food on their menu.

We got there around 1:30 and there were quite a lot of patrons. The set up is like a cafetaria style. Get in line, choose your order pay for it and they'll give you an electronic device that will buzz when the order is ready.

We chose an order of #4 paratha with vegetarian curry, chicken manchurian dry with rice and chicken tikka nanini. Total $25. As we were waiting for our order I just realized that all the orders either eat in or take out are all placed on styrofoam containers. They must have not any dish washer at that location.

Look at our order on the pictures and I felt like this place didn't offer good value for the price. The chicken manchurian was $7.25 and it didn't come with rice. I think if you're having lunch there, the chicken tikka nanini was probably a better deal.

Okay let's talk about the food itself. I started digging in on the nanini because I didn't want it to go soggy. It reminded me a lot of quesadilla. Outer layer of tortilla style bread made of flour with filling of curried meat, bell pepper, onion and cheese. Served on bed of shredded lettuce and carrot with cilantro like dipping sauce and ketchup. I could totally have this for my lunch, especially the price was $5.25 (before tax). Delicioso.

Manchurian chicken is actually chunk of chicken pieces breaded and deep fried then stir fry with tons of minced garlic, chilli flakes, onion, green onion, celery and ginger. It looked like regular sweet sour chicken but after a few bites, the heat started to build up.

The roti paratha was actually thicker than I thought. The vegetarian curry was thick, fragrant and rich. I'm not sure if paratha is usually eaten as a meal or more like snack. In Singapore where we had it before the paratha was thinner and airy and the curry was thinner and more like a dipping sauce.

We will be back but just to do take out which I think is going to be a better deal.

Spice Hut
1086 North 1st Street, San Jose, CA 95112-4922 (408) 977-0715
http://www.spicehut.us/

Home style noodle soup for entertaining

2010-08-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago, we were invited to a birthday party. The dinner consisted of noodle soup of two different kind, pho with rice noodle and rice noodle with green curry. Condiments include corn, chopped basil and green onion, stir fry squash, bean sprout. To spice it up, one could use chilli soy sauce and chilli paste.

Noodle soup broth was heated up on a small portable gas stove. Broth was rich with cinnamon, hint of ginger and beef stock. We started with rice noodle, condiments and then laddled up broth on our bowl. After a few spoonful of chilli paste, this is how it looked like.

The green curry was pretty mild. Sweet with a bit hint of beef flavor. Suitable for kids. Same thing with pho, stack up your rice noodle, top of with choice of condiments, laddle up the curry and spice it up to your liking. Yum...

It was a simple yet satisfying dinner for us. Not overly filling but then it's not a problem because the birthday cake was already waiting for us.

A few weeks ago, I was gifted with frozen oxtail. Not knowing what to do, I went to Epicurious and tried to find a recipe for it. An accidental recipe found turned out to be very good. That recipe I believe will be suitable if you want to try entertaining with noodle soup at home. An oxtail recipe with star anise from Epicurious could be the base for the pho broth. Just make adjustment to the amount of oxtail and soup amount and you're ready to start enjoying pho noodle soup at the comfort of your home.

Beef Noodle #1 - San Jose

2010-08-08T07:40:00.000-07:00

This establishment had been on that location way before the surrounding area changed so much. The biggest change was the Target just next to it. Years before, we went there once but couldn't get a parking spot due to Target construction so decided to abandon the plan.

Looking at their menu, they serve pho - mostly beef and chicken. Beside that also com tam and sandwiches. I saw a row of waffle maker on one of the table when we came in and the distinct fragrant that came out of it. So we ordered one while waiting for our order. For $1, it's worth every bite of it. Though if I could choose I'd rather not have the green color on it. It didn't add to flavor.

My special beef noodle soup (#1) was everything but the kitchen sink. If you like rare meat, tendon, tripe, this is the one you should try. But if you're like hubby who only take rare meat and meat balls, then you should try #4. The rest of menu is combination of different cut of the meat.

The soup was flavorful, fragrant and rich. If there was any MSG used, I seriously didn't feel it. I didn't feel like I needed to drink tons of water afterwards. We'll be back if we feel like having beef pho in the future.

1611 E Capitol Expressway suite 206, San Jose, CA 95121
(408) 270-0600