Would you eat at a place that looked like this:

I know Matt G. wouldn’t. He wouldn’t even walk down the alley it takes to get over to this place.

And seriously…is the name of this place really called “New Hong Kong Menu”??? ::shakes head:: oh those Hong Kongians. lol

Our team manager recommended it. He said it was good and it was a really good deal: the lunch specials were $5. I thought to myself….hmm…well, it’s in Chinatown, I guess cheap food is what you’re supposed to find in Chinatown. Little did I know that they really know how to stretch $5 in Chinatown.

When you order from the menu, you’re given a choice of about 6-8 items that you get over rice. Ok, I’ll go with the Beef curry over rice. Hopefully it’ll be enough.

After we ordered, we were all given a little bowl of soup. It was different. I’ve worked in a chinese restaurant and I’ve never had a soup like this. It was tasty, sort of a smoked pork flavor, with beans or something. You never know in chinatown. Who would’ve guessed we got served an amuse bouche course in a $5 Chinatown restaurant for lunch?

So next my curry came out. Nothing special. It was your typical beef curry, and the rice was a little dry.

But wait! Twenty seconds later, we get served this bowl of soup! ANOTHER BOWL OF SOUP!? This one had bok choy and wontons! WONTONS! Holy frogs legs in a blue canoe! The simple beef curry over rice just got a lot more interesting with its back-up support.

Our manager also ordered a dish of pork ribs for all of us to share. These were damn good. I don’t remember what they were called, but it was really, really good.

Ok this is when I really freaked out. WE GET DESSERT TOO?!?! ::faint:: What kind of Chinese restaurant is this?? Just giving away all this food for $5!!!! I’ve officially freaked out, I’m in shock. We got this lycee or something tapioca thingie, and it was the perfect dessert. It was light, refreshing, and cleansed the palate of the spicy and salty main entrees. We went back a few weeks ago, and they gave us a mango flavored one. It was yum!

I have to admit, I was really surprised by this lunch. We ended up paying slightly more than $5 since we ordered some extra plates and tipped as well, but it was still a great deal for what we got. If you’re ever wandering down Commercial Street in the City, hit up New Hong Kong Menu for lunch. It’s a good deal.

One of the best spots I’ve had a burger at in the City has been at Mo’s Grill in North Beach.

When you cook your burgers on one of these things, how can they NOT be good!?! Thank god for my professional training, otherwise, this was enough to make me drool.

Oh yah…that tasty, tasty center chuck.

Is that grass-fed, certified organic?? hmm…

So we got the impression that they had a really good salad on the menu. I’m sorry, let me clarify: A VERY good salad. lol

Mo’s grill makes all their burgers in house, and they serve all the typical burgers you’ll find anywhere else. Except they use really good, soft yet toasty buns. And they don’t skimp out on your toppings. They cook your burger exactly to how you want it, and they do it well.

Our burgers teasing us like an exotic dancer on a rotating grill of awesomeness.

I ordered the Alpine Burger – Imported Gruyere cheese and sauteed mushrooms, cooked to a perfect medium. I always order my steaks medium rare, but I order my burgers at a medium; I like the slight bite you get when it’s cooked a little longer, instead of the mushy softness when it’s rare/medium rare.

My god. It was really damn good. We also ordered the chili cheese fries….

But they weren’t nearly as good as the burger.

If you’re looking for a simple place, no frills, but a really damn good burger, go to Mo’s. NOW. You’re not going to get service that reminds you of home, but the prices are very reasonable, the ketchup bottles are always full, and they make sure you go home thinking: That was a really good burger.

One of my pet peeves lately is the haphazard labeling of restaurants as “fusion”, when in reality, there’s nothing fusion about a restaurant’s cuisine! A fusion restaurant would have either two or more different traditional cuisines ‘fused’ to create a new genre that is neither one or the other. Whereas, some restaurants take their cuisine more down a contemporary path. Contemporary would just mean taking old classics and giving them a fresh twist to please modern palates and trends.

The House restaurant in San Francisco(their pictures are way better than my camera phone ones!) does a great job of creating a unique fusion that’s full of energy and life in every dish. Everything we ordered had a jolt of flavor; prodding your taste buds with every bite. It’s a refreshing and excellent blend of mostly Japanese flavors with new American contemporary techniques.

We started our lunch of with a round of appetizers to share. Haha, we definitely decided to pig out. The steamed mussels with garlic infused shrimp broth was awesome. The broth definitely made this dish. It was flavorful and addictive, I wanted to just drink the whole bowl lol.

You can never go wrong with soft shell crab. Crispy outside, soft inside. I wasn’t sure if it was stuffed with something, but I vaguely remember it being a good contrast to the crispy texture. It was one of their specials, but if they still offer it, it’s definitely worth a try.

I wish this photo came out better! But it was the grilled calamari with tomato sauce. Another one of their specials for the day. The calamari was slightly overcooked, which made it a little tough. Calamari is one of those tricky ingredients where in order for it to stay tender, you have to either flash fry it really quick, or let it stew for a while. Anywhere in between and it’s usually a little tough to chew.

The fried tempura greenbeans were nothing exciting, however the presentation was nice, and the sauce served inside the ‘structure’ was tasty.

We also ordered Sesame Soy glazed salmon, which was cooked perfectly! The glaze was sweet and salty as expected, and the salmon cooked slightly underdone in the center. Also, the Grilled Sea Bass with garlic ginger soy was tasty.

By far the most favorite dish was the Warm Wasabi house noodles with Grilled Pork. If you’re a fan of the flavor of wasabi, this is a MUST have dish! It is an interesting blend of warm wasabi flavor, with the sweetness of the grilled pork. We also ordered the Udon soup with grilled chicken and nori, which wasn’t anything extraordinary, but had a wonderful, clean broth that was great in it’s simplicity.

It was too bad by the time dessert came around, my mind was too preoccupied with the meal that I didn’t even think about taking anymore pictures lol. However, the nectarine and blackberry pie was sooo good. As well as the coconut creme brulee with passionfruit glaze. Both were awesome desserts.

I can’t wait to go back and try out their dinner menu! Being as good as it was, I wasn’t too shocked with the rating The House got on yelp – 4.5 out of 5. What did shock me was the number of reviews! I had never seen a restaurant have 590 reviews and STILL receive such a near perfect rating!! The numbers don’t lie, this place is well worth it. And the price is very affordable for the quality of food they are offering.

I think the first thing you realize when you become part of the “real world” is that you don’t really get to sleep in as much as you used to. Oh, you can try…but the truth is, unless you were piss drunk the night before, chances are you got sleepy by 10 or 11pm and crashed out around your normal boring bedtime.

That’s what happened to me last Saturday. And so I was up at 8am, and willing to get up when my Mom told me to go with her to the Filipino market.

Who knew that the Pinoys(that means “Filipino person” for all my white friends), would congregate so densely in an area that they would build their very own Super Market!?

So authentic they even BBQ outside of the store!

 

So part of the deal of me actually getting out of bed at 8am to kick it with my brown brothers is that Mama buys me breakfast – Filipino style! Luckily, attached to the market is a little restaurant by the name of Good-Ha!!

Good-Ha!! Get it? “The food is Good, Haa?!” …..nevermind.

 

 

Besides the goofy name, this place is legit. I mean, you want some grubbin, greasy filipino food…it doesn’t get much better than this.

We got there so early, they were barely putting the food out. It was all fresh!

 

The infamous Dinuguan(wiki’s got a pretty good summary of what it is). Basically, it comes from the Tagalog word Dugo, which means blood. And since this pan of yumminess is made out of pork’s blood, it kinda fits. Please, for the love of apple pie, DON’T call it Chocolate meat. Filipinos will do nothing but laugh at you when you call it that and when we convince you to try it. I know I do.

 

This is Love in a hotel pan. Lechon is suckling pig slow roasted over a fire. They baste the pig with it’s own fat, and eventually the skin become crunchy. Bad for the body, Good for the soul. I just drooled on myself…

 

 

When it comes to breakfast, fried fish is a typical item on the menu. Fish like bangus and talapia are always around. There’s also Longanisa, which are pork sausages.

 

Don’t be surprised when everything on the breakfast menu ends with “-silog”. This is basically an abbreviation of two words: SInangag, which is usually a garlic fried rice, and itLOG, which is eggs. Being goofy people, Filipinos mashed the two, since everything is served with fried rice and eggs, and thus the SILOG was born. Here’s what i mean:

This is the Tosilog – the meat is called Tocino, it’s like a cured, sweet pork and when you cook it, it gets really sweet and savory…it’s REALLY f’ing good! See what I mean about the rice and eggs?

 

 

Ma had the Jefroxsilog….which i guess is thin fried fish. I didn’t like it, it tasted like salty, crispy air. blech..

 

 

Here’s the typical line up of condiments you’ll find: fish sauce, banana sauce(the ketchup of the Philippines), vinegar with chilies and seasonings, white vinegar with garlic, and soy sauce.

 

 

Filipino food has a lot of sour flavors, as well as salty, so you’ll find a lot of people putting vinegar in dishes, or using them as condiments.

 

 

Kinda like this!

 

 

God…let’s look at that pork one last time…

“Cocaine is a helluva drug” -Rick James

There’s a restaurant in Alameda that’s tucked away from Park St. on Lincoln Ave. It’s the Speisekammer restaurant. With its brightly lit sign out front, it’s a wonder how you can miss it. Speisekammer?? What the heck is that?? What does that even mean??

 

I decided that for my birthday(January 9 for all those who wanna put it in their calendars ) we give the Speisekammer a try. My family hasn’t been there, and I felt like having some good german beer.

 

The Speisekammer definitely has a real homey feel to it. The have old school wooden tables, big back wooden chairs, and all the decorations of an old school pub. I’d like to think it looks particularly German, but I don’t remember any places in Germany looking like this haha. However, it does seem to fit.

 

I think the coolest thing on the menu is their beer. They’ve got a great selection from what I can tell. And since it was my birthday, I thought I’d be a little ballsy and order the 2-liter “boot”.

 

I was a little disappointed that they didn’t have the real deal boot, but they did have this ginormous mug! Geeze that’s a fricken huge mug!!

 

haha, 2 liters is a lot of beer…with dinner taking up space, I need help!!

 

I really like lagers, so I recommend the Helles. It’s a lighter, more refreshing beer than the ales and pilsners they had. Also, as an appetizer we ordered the “Reibekuchen mit hausgemachtem Apfelmus”; which is pretty much a potato pancake with house made apple sauce.

 

If you love hash browns, you’ll LOVE this dish. When I read “potato pancakes” I expected more of the Latke type variety of potato pancake – lighter, fluffier, and less crispy. If you like the hash browns at McDonald’s then you’ll find a winner with these. I, however, won’t be making the same choice twice.

 

Luckily, they know how to serve up some mean dinner rolls for an appetizer. Nothing beats warm bread and herb butter…nothing. After finishing up the hash browns, wiping the crumbs of the rolls off, and washing down more beer our food finally arrived. I ordered the Roasted Pork in Beer sauce with Sauerkraut, Mashed Potatoes and Cranberries. I was really impressed! The pork was rich and fork tender, and the tangy sauerkraut was a great balance to the beer sauce. This ain’t your Costco’s saurkraut, that’s for sure!! Comfort food – German style!

 

Who knows…maybe drinking all that beer helped us admire the flavors of the dish more. Who cares, it was good!

 

After clicking a few google links, I’ve narrowed down that Speisekammer means “pantry”…interesting. Pantry would fit this restaurant quite well. Pantry has a real homey connotation, and it works well with this warm, cozy restaurant, with it’s relaxing comfort food.

 

The only knock I have about the place is that the service is slightly slow. It’s a good space of time between meetings with our waiter. But other than that, I highly recommend this place. You can’t beat the beer and on Friday’s they supposedly have a Pirate night!?! Awesome!!

 

Oh, and don’t forget to order the Boot!!

Who wants to guess what the Taco Mac Restaurant is known for??

…anyone?

If you said Tacos, you couldn’t be more wrong!! Despite the misnomer, Taco Mac is….

A BUFFALO WINGS PLACE!! I love Buffalo Wings!

As the story goes, a couple of guys from Buffalo made their way down south to Florida. They stopped at Atlanta, and I guess they fell in love with the place. They decided to stay and introduce their northern cuisine specialty to the region. So they took over a small taco shack – thus the name Taco Mac, and had to decide whether to remodel the kitchen or change the sign. Haha…I guess it’s more important to have a clean working kitchen than it is to have a more fitting name.

If you ask me, I think it’s really cool to have a story behind a name…it adds character to a place. The place is pretty popular and they have locations everywhere in the South.

They have a real throwback to the typical Sports Bar. The booths were big and huge, and everyone had a great view of the flat screens to catch their favorite game.

One of the great things I fell in love with this place was the beer selection. This is a separate menu just for their beer!! They even have a beer of the month, where they promote a specific brew and you even get a souvenir pint glass for $5.

It just would not be right if I went to Taco Mac and didn’t order the wings. So for about $16 you can get a double order of wings, which comes out to 20 wings.

Their wings come in 5 levels – Mild, Medium, Hot, TMI, and Death. Normally, I really love spicy food, but I wasn’t feeling particularly brave to try Death on the first time out…so like a pansy dipping his toe in the pool for the first time, I ordered “Hot”.

I dunno if they thought I was some left-coast yuppie who couldn’t handle the heat, or if the Hot just really wasn’t even a real world Medium…but it was definitely not spicy enough for me. I’m definitely ordering Death next time. As far as taste goes, these were probably the best wings I’ve had deserving of the Buffalo name.

Buffalo wings are a simple recipe really – deep fried wings tossed in a cayenne pepper hot sauce(typically Frank’s Hot Sauce), which is mixed with butter or margarine, served with celery and carrot sticks with bleu cheese dressing. It’s not all that hard to mess up Buffalo wings…but it can be done!

Taco Mac’s wings were flavorful, cooked perfectly, and just enough of the vinegary goodness from the hot sauce. I shouldn’t have ordered the flautas for appetizer(which were yummy too), and just ate the whole plate of wings.

Oh and be careful of your fellow table mates – they may get cranky when you eat the last wing!!!

Every time I go to Atlanta, I tell my girl that I NEED to have some Southern food. And what’s more Southern than good old fashioned BISCUITS?!

So finally she takes me to The Flying Biscuit Cafe.

Only biscuits made from flying babies can be this good!

 

The Flying Biscuit Cafe is an awesome little spot in the Candler Park neighborhood of Atlanta. Who’d have thought that a part of Atlanta would remind me of Berkeley? It has a very hippie, tree-hugger feel to it. I guess it’s nice to know that there’s a pocket of blue in a primarily red state. =D

It’s not hard to figure out that the specialty at The Flying Biscuit is, of course, biscuits. And oh what awesome biscuits they are. They’re tender and flakey, soft and warm. I wouldn’t say they’re the best ever, but they’re pretty damn good. What I really liked was how they serve you up a portion of Cranberry Apple butter with each one.(I may be wrong about the cranberry part though)

Nothing beats warm biscuits.

 

As far as the rest of the food goes, it was pretty good. The flavors were fresh and tasty, and they use quality ingredients. It kind of gives you the feel of some good hippie home cookin’. Jessica had the Meggxican Wrap; a spicy scramble of eggs, cheddar cheese, onions & serrano peppers wrapped in a flour tortilla, topped with our oven-roasted tomato salsa & a dollop of sour cream.

I snuck a taste, it was good!

 

I ordered some special of the day. From what I remember it was a scramble with eggs and sausage and such…I forgot already, but it was good! To be honest, the reason why I forgot about everything else was because of the grits!! I’m new to the whole Southern goodness thing, so I never grew up eating grits. But holy moly…these were the creamiest, cheesy grits I’ve ever had. They were SOO good! Definitely order the grits.

I probably should’ve just had the grits and biscuits.

 

All in all, I would highly recommend the Flying Biscuit Cafe. You have to go at least once, and from what I hear, make sure to go to the Candler Park location instead of the Midtown one. It’s super quirky and fun, the service was great and quick, and the prices are pretty decent. Breakfast for two was about $22 or so after tip.

And maybe afterwards you can stop by a few doors down to Donna Van Gogh’s and check out all her crazy, loopy local artists’ artwork.

I don’t even know what to say about this. haha.

Every so often you get an opportunity to be part of something really cool, culturally, in a city. Last month, I got to be part of a select group of people to be the first ever audience at Yoshi’s Jazz Club in San Francisco. Thanks to Laura, Jessica and I were invited to enjoy a soft opening of the new San Francisco location, and take part in an exclusive show.

Located in the heart of a revitalized Fillmore jazz district, Yoshi’s is a great addition to the historic neighborhood. The new San Francisco location is a masterpiece – a state of the art jazz club, swanky, modern lounge, and tantalizing restaurant all in one.

The two level jazz auditorium has great sound!
Photo: Kevin Bond

The space is taunts an impressive 28,000sq ft venue, capable of 417 people in the jazz club and 371 in the restaurant and lounge areas. When we walked in, the lobby area wasn’t quite finished, but you could tell it was going to be something special. The spacious lobby area opens to the restaurant on the left side, with a large staircase leading up to the lounge above; connecting the gap between restaurant and auditorium. Straight ahead from the lobby is the ticket booths and jazz club entrance.

The restaurant had a more modern feel to it – with an open kitchen and a private party section enclosed in glass.
Photo:Kevin Bond

We were treated to a sample dinner menu, where each guest was allowed to order one item from the menu. I ordered the Yaki Hirame: pieces of roasted halibut cheek on a cedar plank, with tomato miso. It was delicious! The fish was fresh and flavorful, and the miso sauce was great. We also had the Edamame in shallot, garlic soy and the Black Tiger Shrimp. Both were wonderfully prepared…too bad they weren’t serving the whole menu, I wanted to try everything on it!

The band playing that night was Times Four I believe. Since I don’t typically listen to jazz, I don’t know how well they are compared to other jazz bands. But there’s just something about live music that just makes it easier to appreciate.

All told, I’m really excited about this place to open. Yoshi’s gives you the feeling of a classy, old school joint, with the modern twist in their design and food. It’s really a great combination. The Bay can never have enough world class places, and with world class music and cuisine, Yoshi’s is one of them.

Thanks for inviting us Laura!!

Earlier this year I began my quest of conquering the CPA exam. I really detest studying at home. For some reason I never feel like I am getting the things I need done while I’m at home.

I really needed to find a place where I could settle in, break out my laptop and books, have some great coffee and treats, and get some work done. Luckily, I found Julie’s.

Julie’s is a quaint little coffee and tea shop located on a rejuvenated Park St. in 1950′s Alameda. Having been born and raised in Alameda my whole life, I could appreciate finding such a jewel of uniqueness in a stretch of washed up businesses.

First, and foremost, a great cafe needs to understand great product. Julie’s has an excellent selection of coffees and teas, mostly organic and fair trade brands. The coffee is really fresh, and they really know how to make a great espresso. The teas served there are fresh, delicious and really flavorful. She has a decent selection of green teas, black teas, as well as herbal tisanes. There are daily specials of iced teas and herbal drinks; my favorite is the Lavender Lemonade!! If you’re into gingery drinks, I highly recommend the ginger-lemon brew.

There also is a small selection of food available. I highly recommend any of the daily special salads. I loved the Roasted Beet salad. The tartine open sandwich is really great too, with fresh mozzarella, heirloom tomatoes and basil. Pizza slices like pesto and walnut, and artichoke and mushroom are great deals for $3 a slice.

What I love most is the atmosphere. There are various sized tables and chairs for you to kick back in, have some coffee, break out a book or just hang out and talk. They change the artwork roughly about every month or so, keeping the design and look of the place fresh and different. In back they have this awesome garden patio with picnic tables and benches to hang out on warm, sunny days.

I really found a winner here when I decided to use Julie’s as my place to settle in and break out the books for hours and hours. Thankfully, I can say that all the money I spent here paid off, and I got just enough studying done to pass my exams!

So if you’re ever in Alameda, go ahead and pass up Starbucks and Peets, and make your way to Julie’s Coffee and Tea shop.

Do you love sandwiches??

Well, I do. And how can you not love a sandwich that looks like this:

This beauty is called the Susan’s special, on Dutch Crunch, Mixed meat, everything. That’s how I order it anyway, and it’s one of the best sandwiches you can find in the East Bay.

The Susan’s special is turkey meat, jack cheese, bacon and cranberry sauce. The thing about Sandwich Board is that they use roasted turkey meat for their sandwiches, not pre-formed deli turkey. They even ask if you if you want White, Dark or a Mix of white/dark meat. Once you bite into one of their turkey sandwiches, you can taste actual white, or dark, meat carved straight from a turkey.

It’s definitely better than any turkey sandwich you’re ever gonna make after thanksgiving.

They say they’ve been serving roasted turkeys everyday since 1983. Who would have thought that this little hole-in-the-wall place, with hardly any seating, would survive the Subway “Eat Fresh!” era, the Quizno’s “MMMM…Toasty!” push?? It’s definitely a hop in, order, hop out type of place, with no fancy slogans or exotic ingredients that’ll remind you of the motherland; and that’s ok.

Because what Sandwich Board serves up is a damn good sandwich, and that’s what any man would want.

So go ahead….take one last look…

I’m speechless.