Flavor Boulevard

This is Vietnamese clay pot rice at Saigon Express. The pot comes sizzling hot, and after 5-10 minutes, we have a nice rice crust at the bottom, while the top is flavored with the sauce from the meat and vegetable. I wish there were more rice just because the sauce is so good, but I already get quite full with this portion every time.

The closest resemblance I can think of is the Korean dolsot bibimbap. In this Vietnamese case, there’s no kimchi, no gochujang, you don’t have to add anything to the already well seasoned toppings. I like this completeness of the rice bowl, as they say about the donburi (watch this Shokugeki no Soma episode for the donburi reference – ignore the sexy stuff, though, just focus on the food).

It’s amazing how much a restaurant can change over the years, or how much dining with a companion can change your perception of the restaurant (did they even have this clay pot rice back then?). I was not so impressed before. This time, it’s a change for the *much* better.

Side details: the hosts are nice, welcoming aunt-like ladies, who are more than willing to customize your order (cut the broccoli, not too much carrots, etc.). Each bowl costs around $9.

Address: Saigon Express
2045 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley, CA 94704
They close on Sunday (T__T)

Years of slouching at the computer and frozen pizzas have finally shown in my belly. The realization came when I bought a dress the other day without trying on, and if I grew just another quarter of an inch, the button would fly (… could it just be poor design? T__T). In any case, midnight pizza will have to go.

The problem: when you know you shouldn’t have something, you want it more. Every night, the hunger looms over me like a bright full moon….
The solution (maybe): pluots are in season again! YAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!!

Pictured is 4 point something pounds of pluots. From darkest to lightest color: Flavor Royal, Eagle Egg, Tropical Plumana, and Golden Treat. (づ￣ ³￣)づ

There are a few unexpected things for me about Koi Palace. I didn’t expect it to be in the middle of PetSmart, Ross, 24 Hour Fitness, Outback, and CVS. Nor could I fathom why it was completely full at noon time on a Wednesday. People in Daly City don’t have to work on weekdays? What about schools? (plenty of school-age glanced at me mid-bites when I tried to spy the food on their table…) Inexplicable.

Perhaps the food here is really so good that work is meaningless without it? Among the things we got, a few really gave us that instant burst of satisfaction like when you pop a bubble-wrap bubble and made me forget work for a second. Such as the grilled chive and shrimp dumplings. Each ball plops into your mouth and fills the void so perfectly, you sink into a plump piece of shrimp every time you move your jaw. It takes some time to chew, and you kind of wish it would last even longer.

The espresso coffee ribs are another. You can definitely taste the coffee in that succulent, rich piece of meat. This is one of those examples of candied meat, an odd-sounding but undeniably addictive entanglements. If Koi Palace were a buffet, this would be what people pile on their plates.

Not all items were unanimously favorites, however. Most were oily, regrettably but not unexpectedly, such as the roast duck with the perfect-looking burnt orange glaze, the lo mai gai (sticky rice with dried scallop and lap cheong wrapped in lotus leaves), and the cheong fun with BBQ pork and crispy rice.

This cheong fun is interesting, though. The crispy rice part is some type of crispy rice noodle made into a mesh and deep-fried, then rolled next to typical Chinese red-and-sweet BBQ pork cubes inside thick sheets of rice noodle. Finally, the rolls are doused in a sweet soy sauce. We see that they’re trying to go for a soft-versus-crispy-versus-meaty (?) texture harmony thing, but the crispy rice couldn’t stay crispy very long. I like them still, but had I not been Vietnamese and a fan of the much-thinner-rice-roll banh cuon, I would have liked these more.

We always order xiao long bao as a standard measure of how good the dumplings are at dimsum houses. Unfortunately, the xiao long baos here are a bit of a disappointment compared to Shanghai Dumpling King’s (I’m convinced that Shanghai Dumpling King actually has the best Shanghai dumpling aka xiao long bao aka soup dumpling in the Bay Area). They’re not juicy enough. The stuffing is lackluster. They won’t be ordered again.

The remaining fares were neither dream nor embarrassment. There were the fairly commendable congee with pork and pidan, although I would prefer it 30% less thick, sliced jellyfish and green seaweed salad that got stuck in my teeth forever, really nutty gailan in oyster sauce, which was a nice break from all the meat, some Sichuan spicy seafood dumplings in red peanut sauce that looked like little green aliens but thankfully weren’t too spicy, and the unassuming but lovely Peking-style steamed chive and pork dumplings, which never go wrong.

Although the porridge was brought out near the beginning as it should be, the rest of the food arrived in no predictable order. Lo mai gai came first. Deep-fried sesame balls for desserts came at the same time as the green aliens, then they kept pouring in and dangerously took over our table. I stopped taking pictures at one point to start eating so that we could get rid of the plates…

Speaking of desserts, if there is one thing you should never get at Koi Palace, it’s Number 501 under “Sweet Heart” – “Grilled Black Sesame Filled Glutinous Cake”. They are deceptively cute – each is a little squishy ball coated with sesame seeds and contains a gooey black sesame core, kinda like the Sno Balls(*). They are death. Not in a good way, because they are so oily that you are afraid of swallowing, so you have to chew them to death. The problem is that the core is too little and the skin is too thick. If you want black-sesame dessert balls, go to Shanghai Dumpling King, they serve it boiled and full of sesame. On the other hand, the deep-fried balls with lotus and bean paste inside are actually good.

The take-away message: when you’re at Koi Palace, order “espresso coffee ribs” and “grilled chive & shrimp dumpling”. Do NOT order “Grilled Black Sesame Filled Glutinous Cake”.

Address: Koi Palace in Serramonte Plaza
365 Gellert Blvd, Daly City, CA 94015
koipalace.com

Foodnote:
(*) Sno Balls are the best American sweets ever invented.
(**) Photo credit: some photos were taken by bnibroc.

Living in the Westbrae area of Berkeley, I used to drive past Mama Lan’s daily. In its heyday Mama Lan’s was a great example of a neighborhood cafe – terrific dishes that satisfied with affordable prices. Mama Lan passed away before 2000 and her son took over the shop, keeping it open for a few years after. During Mama Lan’s time in the kitchen, the Vietnamese/Thai menu skewed French in an elegant way – she had a light touch with the hot peppers and garlic and her dishes often had a sweeter, more herbaceous profile. Seafood (crab!) was her specialty, coupled with rich chicken or pork – based broths, rich in ginger, cilantro, lemongrass, lime and coconut milk.

A version of the Thai coconut milk and chicken broth soup with mushrooms and vermicelli noodles, and all the aforementioned seasoning (tom kha) was served piping hot and super thick from the noodles. I LOVED that soup. Green papaya salad containing both shrimp and julienned pork was tangy with lime, not hot, and umami- rich from the pork- it was addictive. After Mama Lan died, the dishes were substantially changed: the tom kha mainly tasted of evaporated milk and the papaya salad was a pallid shadow of its former self. Thanks to Tycoon Thai, I found the taste of Mama Lan’s soup again.

Tycoon Thai Restaurant recently opened on O’Farrell, between the Little Saigon district and the theater district west of Union Square. Yes, I am talking about the northern end of the Tenderloin district, but don’t let that stop you from trying out this chic addition to the neighborhood. We tried it after spending the morning at the Asian Art Museum.

On our first visit Ken and I shared the requisite order of spring rolls- satisfactory, if not special. Then out came the tom kha and the Thai version of green papaya salad (they also have a Lao version, hotter and more sour tasting). Both the salad and the soup were of a generous size and more than enough for two. The tom kha with chicken option, sweet and tangy from lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves, tasted just like that remembered soup from Mama Lan’s.

I also ordered a lunch entree of “Tycoon Sexy Lamb Chops” – three tasty marinated and charbroiled lollipop chops, sitting on a tangy mango and red onion salad with a side of cooked zucchini. I’m not sure what made the chops “sexy” (and I don’t want to know!) but by the second chop I was feeling mighty happy.

On our next visit, we shared an appetizer of sai ua – grilled links of sausages (3 per order) – full of pork and herbs, earthy and not at all “hot”, pad see you – a thick rice noodle stir-fry with broccoli and beef, and a big bowl of cellophane noodles in a rich broth with both pork spare ribs and ground pork balls (guay tian kra dook moo). There are also numerous curries, stir-fry dishes, and noodles available; one can even get a whole Tilapia, deep fried.

The food selections here are a bit more expensive than the utilitarian but busy Turtle Tower on Larkin, but parking was a wee bit easier on both occasions. Tycoon Thai puts a big smile on my face just thinking about that tom kha (and those lamb chops, too!). We’ll certainly be back!

Address: Tycoon Thai
620 O’Farrell St. (at Leavenworth St.)
San Francisco, CA 94109
(415) 796-3391
Open time: 11 am – 10 pm Sun-Thur; 11 am – 1 am Fri-Sat

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Guest post by Nancy Togami, an expert on neighborhood favorites such as Shanghai Dumpling King and Jodie’s.

Kaze, Berkeley:  tonkotsu ramen with a side of gyoza. ($10.99)

This little shop opens sometime last winter, it looked unassuming then, but now it is packed every time I come, so I think it’s safe to assume that it’s packed almost everyday if not always.

People on the East Bay think of The Ramen Shop when they think of ramen, simply because until now there has been no other shop that really specializes in ramen. There’s ramen at sushi places, izakaya places, and some random places that should have nothing to do with ramen. Hence, the consistently ridiculous 2-plus-hour wait at The Ramen Shop. Now, let’s do a check-and-compare list between Kaze and The Ramen Shop (TRS):

1. Taste: Kaze/TRS = 8/10. TRS is 10 only for comparison purposes between the two, not because it is the best I’ve ever had in my life (there are many better, just not in the area). Kaze is 8 because on certain days it comes close to TRS, on other days the soy-sauced egg is a little too soy-saucy, but it has the right creamy gooeyness of soft-boiled eggs, the chashu is meaty (it sounds obvious but not enough places get this right), and the tonkotsu soup is rich and satisfying.

2. Location: Kaze/TRS = 10/5. I’m biased. I live in Berkeley, Kaze is in Berkeley, TRS is a 30-minute bus ride away plus the time to wait for the bus, which is indefinite.

3. Wait time to be seated: Kaze/TRS = 10/1. Kaze is busy too, and it’s half the size of TRS, but it doesn’t have the bar and the hipsters lingering after dessert without thinking of other customers in line (a table of 4 at TRS, sitting right next to the people in line, was taking their sweet time after coffee). Naturally, the wait at Kaze is 15 minutes at most.

4. Cost: Kaze: 8.99 for normal ramen (shio, shoyu, miso, tonkotsu), 9.99 for black garlic oil ramen (basically a spicy tonkotsu ramen). TRS: 16.5 if you want veggie ramen, 17.5 for ramen with meat. TRS, thank you for adding stuff like innovation and atmosphere to the ramen, we wouldn’t know what to do without them.

5. Atmosphere: who cares about atmosphere when you eat ramen?!

It is not to say that I don’t like TRS. It’s a great place, and they use sustainably grown ingredients. But with Kaze’s opening, my ramen craving is satisfied for so much less time and effort.

Address: Kaze Ramen
1956 Shattuck Ave (2 minute walk north from downtown Berkeley)
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 883-1388

While turkey, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole (which I haven’t had in years and REALLY want some) make up the traditional Thanksgiving feast, I will keep up the tradition of posting something different for Thanksgiving (like duck and avocado pie). Not necessarily better, just something different, because no Thanksgiving dinner is the same, right? 🙂

So here it is: the fried chicken stuffed with fried sweet rice at Yum’s Bistro in Fremont.

Known on the menu as “crispy chicken with flavored sweet rice”. The sweet rice (sticky rice) with diced bits of Chinese sausage, chicken, shrimp and mushroom are made into fried rice the normal way, then stuffed into the chicken skin – a fully intact continuous chicken skin from head to leg – which is then fried or broiled. How they skin the chicken, I’m not too sure, this dish may only be feasible to make at home if you’re a chef… but it looks interesting, and it tastes GREAT.

Like the Thanksgiving dinner, this chicken fools you into thinking you can eat more than you actually can. Two of those sections (any section) on the chicken would be plenty in one sitting because that fried sticky rice is compact steel.

When Oanh and Dang took me to Yum’s Bistro, there was a middle-aged man (presumably a regular customer) standing outside (presumably to wait for someone), who cheerily told us in the typical friendly way of old Chinese men that everything’s good at Yum’s. Oanh readily agreed, she has been here several times, each time trying a few new dishes AND the stuffed chicken. I agreed soon after I tasted the squab.

Of course, when did I ever say no to grilled game?

Beef claypot (12.50), Western China style, I believe, because of the prominent cumin flavor.

Hong Kong Spicy Crab (seasonal and no price was listed). It says “spicy” and looks spicy but it really isn’t anything more than a hint of pepper. The salt and spice mixed with which they generously coated the crab makes you want to lick the shell more than actually eating the meat.

Almond milk and egg white dessert (Chef’s special and pre-order is recommended, also no price was listed?!). Oanh wasn’t a fan because she’s sensitive to bitterness – there’s a faint bitter aftertaste at the back of your tongue if you really search for it, but I like some types of bitter when it’s also sweet (hello, bitter melon and tea! 😀 ), so I’m a fan.

Near the end, the chef walked out to each table to greet the customers. We thanked him and smiled to our ears, he smiled back and nodded, I don’t think he knows much English. That’s all good, of course, he’s happy to make food, we’re happy to eat it, we understood each other just fine. 🙂

Address: Yum’s Bistro
4906 Paseo Padre Parkway
Fremont, CA 94555
(510) 745-8866 (if you want to pre-order the Chef’s specials)
website and menu

Clockwise from top left: “Oregon finger food”, smoked trout salad, fava bean cannelloni, Liberty Ranch duck. Image courtesy of Nancy Togami.

Hi! I’m Nancy, one of Mai’s intrepid partners in food and tea adventures. I’m guest blogging about a wine dinner that I enjoyed not too long ago…

Baywolf on Piedmont Avenue is well known in the Bay Area for its duck dinners (Nov 2012). An opportunity arose last month to indulge in the duck again, along with some mighty fine Oregon wine. Of course, this is where Mai and I part ways, as I usually enjoy a glass or two of fine wine with a special meal. We agree to disagree 😉 A treat for the evening included appearances from Dick Ponzi from his eponymous winery and Harry Peterson-Nedry of Chehalem Wines.

I called to reserve a spot and was asked if I’d be willing to sit at a ‘community’ or shared table. Of course I would! All my prior experiences with wine dinners have included the convivial memories of shared passions of food and wine with new friends…the more, the merrier! But when I arrived at Baywolf, I found that dinner times were staggered for different parties, even at the same table… bummer! It looked like I would be dining alone after all. As I was finishing my amuse-bouche, Joanne T. was seated opposite me. We hit it off immediately and I gladly waited for her to be served, to be in sync with her courses while I sipped a nice Chehalem sparkling wine. After another 15 minutes, a party of 4 joined us at our table.

Two wines (a dry Riesling and a rosé) accompanied the amuse-bouche plate, which consisted of duck pâté crostini with gherkin slices, prosciutto rolls with arugula, and red radicchio “boats” filled with a creamy goat cheese and nectarine slices. The bitter herbal elements played well opposite the Riesling, bringing out its spicy fruit, and the rosé brought out a nice sweetness in the pâté, prosciutto, and nectarine.

The salad course was paired with a Pinot Gris from each vintner. Arugula made another appearance to give the salad an herbal pungency that underlined the savory meatiness of the smoked trout and the crunch of the hazelnuts. When the pasta course arrived (a fava bean and ricotta-filled cannelloni), it looked so much like the salad that it was slightly confusing. Arugula showed up yet again, this time as a garnish. I think I would have gone with a more typical chiffonade of basil, both for the color and herbal variety. Having said that, the dish was lovely, especially when accompanied by Chardonnays from both wineries. The ricotta filling in the house-made sheet of pasta was creamy and sweet from the fava bean and green garlic. Young cepe mushroom slices added an earthy texture and taste to the dish.

Finally, two Pinot Noirs appeared (the Oregon wineries of Willamette Valley have built their reputations on the Burgundian style of Pinots.) These accompanied a terrific plate of Liberty Ranch duck breast and leg, both nicely done, over a sweet creamed corn and polenta mixture. Berries and a pinot noir sauce provided a counterpoint to the rich bitterness of grilled white radicchio which served as a garnish… notice a theme, here ? 😉

A sweet Zinfandel rosé from Sineann Winery accompanied Point Reyes blue cheese and plump Bing cherries, and a sweet dessert wine from Elk Cove Vineyards arrived with buttery short bread cookies.

The classic duck dinners at Baywolf have some element of duck in every dish. Here, the meal was full of other flavors suited to the Burgundian white wines served and allowed the duck to shine on its own at its most pristine and simple. I have to say, I was hoping for more Pinot Noirs and would have been interested in their pairing with the cannelloni. However, I found myself truly satisfied at the end of the meal with both the progression of courses and the depth of the wine varietes from Oregon’s Willamette Valley. And, of course, the high spirits of the table companions made everything seem even tastier. It was a lovely night!

— Guest blogged by Nancy Togami, undoubtedly one of Berkeley’s most avid and knowledgeable aficionados of the finer things —

Pulled-pork sandwich, beans and sweet tea. Image courtesy of bnibroc.

Big Pine has few options for dining out, but what it has leaves little to be desired.

“Adam’s Favorite Pulled Pork” sandwich ($8.25) with cole slaw is the definition of juicy pulled pork on a burger bun, despite the scorching 105 F heat in the desert that sucks the life out of our dry throats. It’s become our favorite, too. (To maintain some hydration, we got a glass of sweet tea with special High Sierra crushed ice. Highly recommended.)

The store is easy to spot, right on Highway 395/the main road that goes through Big Pine. What I like about small towns like this is how their menus breathes personal connections: Adam’s pulled pork, Granny’s potato salad, Joe’s yard bird. Adam probably certainly knows everybody in town.

Address: Coppertop BBQ
310 N Main St
Big Pine, CA 93513
(760) 970-5577

This restaurant…

The plus: 1. their steamed dumplings, despite being stuffed with 95% tofu and 5% unidentifiable substance (probably also tofu, but Cheryl and Eric hoped it was pork, so let’s go with pork), were big and well seasoned; 2. their kimchi seems homemade and tastes fresh.

The minus: well… where should we start…

So, food-wise, things are pretty average (homemade level – neither in the “hole-in-the-wall heaven” kind of thing nor in the trendy meaning that restaurants advertise themselves as these days). We were disappointed, but this is not unusual – we’re so used to being disappointed with average food that we might just be disappointed (with ourselves) if we’re not disappointed. Now, the service is something else. They weren’t outwardly rude, they just maybe discriminated, a little bit.

We were the only non-Korean customers at the time. Cheryl asked for recommendation of a noodle dish, the lady said “we don’t have any noodle now, it’s a summer specialty only” (supposedly referring to the naeng myeon [냉면, cold noodle]). Okay. We ordered oxtail beef soup (꼬리곰탕, ggori gomtang), which came out as a few (I think 5?) pieces of oxtail helplessly drowning in an ocean of broth. Then we looked over at the neighboring tables to see cheerful Koreans (and some hard-to-please-looking old men, also Korean) slurping noodles from exactly the same type of hot stone bowls, containing most certainly also some kind of gomtang. We couldn’t help but wondering. Finally, when another hostess, a girl about our age, came to take our credit card, Cheryl asked what the other Koreans were having and included “so that one comes with noodle?”, the girl, somewhat reluctantly, replied:

– Well, you could have noodles too, if you had asked. We give them noodles so that they feel full.

Um… perhaps we like to feel full, too, don’t you think?

I won’t go over how they left us alone between the time the food arrived and the time we were ready for the check (and after we got the check), that would just be nitpicking. Actually, this isn’t the first time I feel a little discrepancy in service at Korean restaurants. One time at Kang Tong Degi, my non-Korean friend and I were completely ignored while the two Korean girls sitting across from us got all the attention. If you’re going to be nationalist or discriminative, or just have bad service in general, at least make sure that your food is so %^$&!#! good that I’d have to beg for it.

Address: Seoul Gomtang
3801 Telegraph Ave,
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 597-9989
Dinner for 3: $54.37
[Seoul Gomtang specializes in soups (탕, tang), and if you’re lucky (or Korean), you’ll get some noodles in the soup too, a type of white, round and thick wheat noodle (곰국수, gomguksu). Kimchi juice or pepper paste should be added to the soup to taste, or you can eat the soup like I do  – not adding anything at all – and just taste an ABSOLUTELY bland but fatty broth, the way Korean tangs always are. (I come to appreciate that blandness after some time.) The banchan are limited to napa cabbage kimchi, radish kimchi and cucumber kimchi, all of which taste milder than they look.]

Pub foods for Vietnamese are pretty diverse (**). The menu at Danh’s Garden in San Jose is basically a book, plus some handwritten ones on the wall. I single-handedly narrowed down our choices by a page when I refused anything goat or lamb (I often wonder why my friends can be so kind and still go to eat with this oddball).

We picked 5 dishes at first, thinking it should be enough for a party of 5 – Vietnamese pub foods are no tapas or izakaya, things are not served in dainty palm-sized saucers, they’re entree-portion. With them come a plethora of dipping sauces and salt-and-pepper mix for who knows what. Honestly I don’t think we even used all of those sauces. The food were plenty seasoned already.

Mực dồn chạo tôm – squid stuffed with shrimp paste. Light on the seasoning. Rating: 8/10. (It’s tasty and I can’t think of any flaw, but will I crave it? Probably not.)

A dish of freshwater snails that I can’t for the life of me remember the ingredients. I’m so embarrassed. And I didn’t even have a drop of beer for an excuse of braincell loss. It’s sweet and savory, lemongrassy, a tidbit spicy, the snails are crunchy-chewy, small, addicting. Rating: 7/10. (Again, no apparent flaw, but snails are something I can live without. Also, for some time now I just feel bad eating little creatures, shrimp included…)

Ếch chiên bơ – butter-fried frog leg. Bland. Too dry. 2/10.

Giò heo giả cầy – braised pig trotters with galangal. The meat is doused in a tad curry-like sauce, some steamy white rice would be perfect. 9/10.

Bò lá lốt – grilled beef sausage wrapped in piper lolot. Served with rice paper with bún (rice noodles) and fresh herbs to make into little rolls that are dipped into a pineapple-anchovy dipping sauce (mắm nêm). My mouth is watering. 9/10. (We ordered this beef midway through the meal because we felt the previous four were just appetizers and I was dying for some starch.)

The greens to go with the bò lá lốt. Most of us were thrilled to see slices of green bananas and good old homey herbs of the motherland that I can’t name… I was thrilled too, but my general enthusiasm for herbs is about the amount of homework a normal student is eager to do everyday.

Lẩu lươn bắp chuối – hot pot with eel and banana flower. Also served with rice noodle. I only started to like eel because of Japanese food (unagi don… I might want it for my last meal…). I used to hate eel after the first time I ever had eel: I eagerly bit into a plump round of meat and nearly broke the roof of my mouth with the hidden eel bone. Well. This eel hot pot is perfectly seasoned, the julienned banana flower has a nice crunch, the eel is fine but kinda… unnecessary? 7/10.

Desserts. Chè thập cẩm đậu – mixed bean chè (left) and chè long nhãn hạt sen – longan and lotus seed chè (right). The mixed bean one has coconut milk topped with peanuts, looks pretty filling and interesting. Mine (longan and lotus) is more of a sweet drink with longan and lotus seeds, which I like, but it was too loaded with ice to do anything. :-/ 5/10.

Most online reviews complain about the rudeness of the waitressed at Danh’s Garden. To be honest, they weren’t the friendliest people I’ve met, but they weren’t rude. They were just cold. Their responses were terse and they didn’t refill my water because they were busy tending the full house. Now, they were laughing and joking with some of the regulars, but that’s just a perk of being regulars. Who goes to a pub and expects bistro service? Yelp dummies who classified this place under “Chinese”, that’s who.

Address: Danh’s Garden
2635 Senter Rd
San Jose, CA 95111
(408) 293-3990
(No reservation)
Dinner for 5: roughly $150. Average score: 6.7/10 (the frog legs’ fault).

** FOODNOTE: I used the word “pub” to loosely describe the type of food here – food to eat while downing alcohol – but Danh’s Garden and all Vietnamese pub food establishments are not pubs, they’re just restaurants that make that kind of food and cater to middle-aged men going out for drinks.