Chaya Venice - DINELA lunch

Finally, catching up to some old posts - a little late for posts on DINE LA, but wanted to share anyways. I wanted to really try some new restaurants, with a discounted price tag, and I had heard good things about Chaya Venice - well, the place looks dang nice from the outside, in any case.

Service was brisk and pleasant. I think I stuck with water but Owen got some iced tea.

Bread basket landed first to the table. A good crusty white bread, and oddly enough, a raisin bread. These were both amazing in their olive oil/finely minced olive dip. The raisins really shone through!

Owen kicked my ass in the healthy department that day, he ordered the
Wakame Seaweed and Organic Green Salad with Ginger Vinaigrette as his starter. I didn't think there was anything particularly special about this salad, honestly, I can eat this at home from a bag of organic salad from Trader Joe's. Owen's not really a fan of seaweed in this fashion so I took advantage of that by sneaking as much as I could on my plate, heh.


So of course, I order the most unhealthiest thing you can order from the appetizer list, the Fried Calamari with Cajun Spice and Spicy Marinara, with Curry dipping sauce. The batter was nice and light, very Japanese tempura style. The squid was nice and supple, not overcooked, this is actually one of the best preparations of calamari I can remember in recent days. The curry dipping sauce is what catapulted this to another level - a bit of a kick, and a different flavor that I'm used to having with calamari. I really enjoyed the combination.

Owen's main course was the Spicy Lobster Roll - Lobster, Shrimp, Smelt Egg, Cucumber, Avocado, which came with more of that salad. If he had known, he would have gotten the soup of the day for an appetizer instead! On to the rolls themselves...

...here's a blurry closeup. I tried one, and I didn't think it was any kind of special at all. I didn't really taste anything that resembled lobster, the roll was pretty dry and uninspired. I doubt I would ever get sushi here if I came back.

However, my meal was much more to my liking - a Kobe Beef Burger - Grilled Kobe Beef with Lettuce, Tomato, Grilled Onion, Aged White Cheddar, Mango Chutney, Spicy Mayonnaise and served with Beer Battered French Fries. This is serious stuff. First off, LOVED the fries. Why aren't all fries beer battered ones? The crispy flavorful texture on the outside, and the warm soft potatoey insides. The person manning the fryer here is a masterful one.


Here's a close up on that burger. It's a decent one, the meat was great quality (although, was it really Kobe? Will I really know?) It was a lot more done than I had asked for (medium), but it didn't detract from the juiciness and the overall satisfuying experience of the burger as a whole. The bun held up well against all the burger ingredients. A solid, filling burger, I only ate half and let Owen eat the rest of it later, which he throughly enjoyed.

Dessert! Owen's favorite part of the meal, he ordered the Profiteroles with Candied Pecan Ice Cream and Hot Fudge. He absolutely loved this. The creamy ice cream was distinctly pecan flavored, but had a subtle burnt sugar taste in the background. The hot fudge was just the right amount, and aided in the melting of the ice cream, which brought it to just the right temperature, soft enough to cut through with a spoon but still frozen enough to let you know it's still ice cream. I think Owen would order this again, definitely.

I decided to get SOME sort of healthy nutrition in me, so I opted for the Fresh Fruit with Green Tea Ice Cream. Nothing special, some of the fruit was off season and tongue punishingly tart, but the green tea ice cream healed all wounds. A welcome light finish to a heavy meal.

I would definitely come here again, even without the special DineLA menu, but I think it's best to stay away from the sushi here. This might be an asian food inspired place but it's no sushi bar.

Chaya Venice
110 Navy St
Venice, CA 90291
thechaya.com

VIP Harbor Seafood Restaurant

I had thought dimsum on the westside was almost completely nonexistent, but then I was taken to VIP Harbor Seafood by my coworker Kevin a few years back. I was pleasantly surprised - cart service, Cantonese speakers and lots and lots of shrimp...and it took me this long to go back and do a proper review of the place! A dimsum craving hit both me and Daphne, and we headed there to use a restaurant.com coupon. Here's some of the stuff we got:

My best guess was that these were supposed to be Xiao long baos, but these dumplings pretty much had no soup in them, so I'm just going to say these were pork dumplings. They were alright, but everything was pretty soggy. The filling wasn't horribly memorable but filled a dumpling craving.

Next up, Pork siu mai, one of my "must haves" when I have dim sum. These were not too shabby at all. Good sized, lots of meaty filling, these fared much better than the fake xiao long baos.

The other must have in my dimsum meal, Shrimp dumplings - har gao. These were good! The translucent wrapper was not too thick, which, I was told by my grandpa, is an indication of a "skilled dumpling maker". A dunk in some chinese hot mustard, a bit of soy sauce, and I'm tasting a bit of my childhood.

And what's dimsum without a bit of fried stuff? On one of the carts, there was a plate of Wu gok- fried taro crispy dumplings. I love how the fried outside is wafer thin crispy, nestling the bit of taro meat filling on the inside. This fried dumpling is all about the fried texture...how do they fry these? What are they made of? I have no idea but I'm happy to eat them.

This is my dessert of choice, Dan Taat-Egg tarts, but we got these before the end of our meal anyway. These could have been better - a bit overcooked, I like the eggy part to be almost a bit underdone, so when I bite into the delicate tart part, the insides spill out...this was definitely not the case here. It filled a craving but I've definitely had better.

Turnip pancakes were next. I think these are quite filling (the turnip paste is heavy!), but Daphne was curious about them. They weren't bad, but I like these to be really hot and crisp, which these were not. A lot of other dimsum places I've been to serve this dish from a specialized cart, that fries them to hot crispy perfection, tableside. Not the case here, they just came on a plate, amongst other choices on a cart. Eh.

Sticky rice in lotus leaf. I think Daphne and I were really gunning for these, and were really glad to find they had them. Really comforting dimsum food, the sticky rice encases a meaty mushroomy filling, with one duck egg yolk inside. So very good.

Another favorite - Rice noodle, with shrimp. The sweet soy mixture that they pour over the rolled noodles is what really makes this dish, although the slippery thin rice noodle is just a joy to eat. More shrimp, which I was a fan of. I'd get this over and over again.

We ordered a few more things that weren't pictured, to go - I got some sesame balls for Owen, which one of the cart ladies was nice enough to go to the kitchen to get for me, when I asked her if they had any. Nice and freshly fried, the insides were filled with sweet white bean paste that Owen was happy to eat later.

The service was actually very good, parking was forced valet but the lot was small so I was glad to not have to fight for a spot. A great option for dimsum on the westside, which is so very lacking in good Chinese food.

Huntington Gardens Tea Room

Daphne and I were planning to go to Huntington Gardens (she's a member!) and I had heard of their amazing tea room. Daphne insisted we needed reservations way in advance, but I checked their website the night before and snagged a 1:45pm seating for the next day! Whoo! What luck! (by the way, the reservation system is really a crapshoot...I would have to enter a time in, and it would look up in the system if it was available, and if it wasn't, it would say, sorry, not available, but not give you other times when they DID have availability. So you'd have to just keep trying different times till you got something that was free. DIFFICULT system, guys. Although a plus for having online reservations.)

After wandering around bonsai trees, Chinese gardens, sakura blossoms and fields of greenery, we were starving by the time we got to the tea room. We were immediately seated, and our server was very nice, and mentioned the special tea of the month was a raspberry tea. We both chose that to drink. This was what was here when we were seated...

Cream, jams and marmalade, and butter for the scones. Nice that they had freshly whipped cream, and I really liked the blackberry jam that we opened in the little mini jar.

The scones...these were fresh and warm from the kitchen, nestled in a cloth napkin. Ooo, these were tasty, and of different variety. Some were cranberry, some had bits of orange, one I had was studded with chocolate chips! These were some of the best scones I've had, and I've had my share of scones. Yummy, and not too big and filling, so I didn't feel too guilty having...I think 3...um...maybe I feel guilty now. With the blackberry jam, a quick smear of whipped cream, this was a taste of heaven.

My first plate from their high tea buffet. Yes. This high tea is a buffet, any kind of sandwiches, cheeses, pastries, salads...whatever you liked, and as much as you liked. A great set up. For some reason, I usually worry about getting full during high tea, but whenever I have had high tea, I always leave way too full. I think it's the high ingestion of liquids, perhaps? Okay, I'm feeling guilty again. Let's focus on the food...this plate had water table crackers, a smoked salmon finger sandwich, and various cheeses (blue cheese, smoked gouda, muenster, from what I remember.) I loved everything on this plate, but the smoked salmon was exquisite, and the smoked gouda I remember being especially memorable.

Second plate of sandwiches - from the front, a cucumber mint sandwich atop of some pasta salad, then a chicken salad sandwich, then a watercress sandwich, and way in the back, a prosciutto sandwich. I wanted to try every kind of sandwich they had, even though at this point I was starting to get a bit full, even from these little sandwiches. Everything was tasty, but I think out of this bunch, I especially liked the cucumber mint sandwich, which surprised myself. The bright flavors of the mint shone against the cucumber, and the bread was soft and delicate.

Last plate of savories. Some spinach salad, and cracker and pita, with some caviar. The salty caviar was REALLY salty, the cracker barely cut the intensity of the salt. Eating the salad helped though - the salad was pretty good. I felt bad leaving any caviar (cuz...it's caviar...I mean, I doubt this was the expensive kind but caviar sure is expensive) so I managed to eat most of it, even though I could have probably been good with a quarter of what I put on this plate. Argh, I can't waste anything...

A shot of our raspberry tea, with a bit of milk and sugar in it. Delicious and warming, I noted that this tea was at the PERFECT sipping temperature, not too hot or too cold. I was quite impressed!

Okay, the last plate. At this point I was pretty full but I HAD to get some dessert. On this plate, starting from the left going clockwise, I got: one more smoked salmon finger sandwich, a fruit tart with mandarin orange, raspberry and a blueberry, one more piece of smoked gouda, strawberry and watermelon. The fruit tart was really tasty, a perfect bite of sweet, fruit and custard. The strawberry was perfectly The strawberry was ripe, maybe not as sweet as the sweetest strawberry I've ever had but not too bad, and watermelon was good. A nice ending to a pleasant meal.

I think this high tea experience was really nice, and seeing the perfectly manicured roses outside the window was a nice touch. When I get the chance, I think I'll be making another reservation for this place!

Huntington Gardens Rose Garden Tea Room
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
(626) 405-2100

Wakasan

One late evening, I wanted to give Owen and his mom some time to hang out, so I went out to dinner with Scott to catch up. He had mentioned how he had indulged at Wakasan a few weeks earlier, and I had been hearing about their stellar budget omakase dinner, so I leaped at the chance to go.

The restaurant was pretty full, but I also noted that there weren't very many seats...which would be difficult during busier hours, but the nice part was that the restaurant was open a bit later than I'm used to, (which is one of the reasons why we went here.) As we were being seated, we were handed a drink menu, but I just wanted water. The only thing to order here is the omakase, so we chatted and waited for our meal to arrive...

Part 1 of Wakasan's Omakase - a bit of cooked veggies (mushrooms, spinach, carrot shreds), and some dried bonito flakes on top, in a light clear sauce. Yummy and light, this was a nice start to our dinner. The veggies weren't overcooked to mush and it was just fun to eat.


Part 2 of Wakasan's Omakase - shaved pickled slices of carrot and daikon, in a tangy vinagrette with some sesame seeds on top. This was just okay to me, pickled stuff is pickled stuff, and I wouldn't necessarily order this anywhere. A filler dish.

Part 3 of Wakasan's Omakase - Mini spaghetti "mac salad" - spaghetti noodles made into a cold noodle salad, with mayo and seasoned up mac salad style. Spaghetti mac salad? Well, why not - I think it was actually pretty tasty. The mayo wasn't too thick and it coated the noodles well. I finished this off pretty quick...what's next?


Part 4 of Wakasan's Omakase - Sashimi selection. From the left - scallop, medium tuna, and some sort of white fish (I forgot what it was.) Out of all of these, the scallop was the best, as the others had a lot of tendon going through them, which made eating them not as good. I had to pick out the tendon membrane from my teeth. Gross...but...well, since this is part of a omakase, leaving stuff on the plate is pretty insulting...so I ate what I could eat of the sashimi, but really, in any other case, I would have left the fish on this plate right where it was. Ah, well. Not every plate has to be a winner.


Part 5 of Wakasan's Omakase - Salmon, and a bit of bean sprout stirfry. Pretty tasty, nice grill on the salmon, didn't know what that gourd looking thing was but ate it anyways, bean stirfy was nice.


Part 6 of Wakasan's Omakase - Legs and part of the body part of a crab, the ponzu sauce was on the bottom of this dish. Yum, crab was quite a surprise, when it was brought to the table. The ponzu sauce was great to dip the crab meat in, a fun little interactive dish.


Part 7 of Wakasan's Omakase - Fishcakes and tofu in an oden stew. A little bundle of noodles, tied up, can be seen in the upper left corner. A smear of hot mustard adornes the lower left of this dish. I'm not really a fan of oden but I like tofu and fishcakes enough to ignore any misgivings I had about oden stew. I loved the little bundle of noodles, although maybe I should have untied them before eating? I just popped the whole thing in my mouth and it was gone in a second...drat, is there a knot of noodles in my stomach?? Also, hot mustard makes EVERYTHING better. (this is coming from someone who can eat wasabi by the spoonful though...)


Part 8 of Wakasan's Omakase - Tempura. Assorted tempura, nice that they included two shrimp tempura! Freshly fried, not greasy, and completely delicious! Yay!


Part 9 of Wakasan's Omakase - Chanwanmushi. Savory steamed egg, with special stuff at the bottom, like fishcake. The top is adorned with cilantro, which is not my favorite but I ate around it. Savory egg custard, I love it. It was such a nice flavor and delicately steamed, the consistency was like soft silken tofu. Awesome!


Part 10 of Wakasan's Omakase - miso soup with clams in it, the clams gave the miso soup broth a nice rich flavor. A nice little surprise and treat.


This is the last savory dish...by this time, I was pretty full...Part 11 of Wakasan's Omakase - Mini Beef shortrib bowl. The sauce really made this dish, as it flavored the rice underneat the meat. The ribs were good, a little fatty but the sauce made up for it. Nice way to end the savories.


Dessert! Part 12 of Wakasan's Omakase - one cute scoop of red bean ice cream. Love the dish that this was in, and love the adorable little scoop which matched the sakura blossom design in the bowl. Sweet, but not too sweet, I was DONE after eating this.

What a fun little place...I felt like I was eating at someone's house, with dish after dish arriving from the kitchen. On top of that, a pretty good deal, 35 dollars each. I'll be back!

Wakasan
1929 Westwood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 446-5241

Food adventures in the Bay Area

Okay, a long post here, and of course, a late post, as I'm still catching up on meals I mostly had late last year and right around New Years 2009. I was back in the bay area for the holidays, and wanted to partake in many of the restaurant offerings around my hometown, but for the most part, I actually ate at home. I did miss my mom's cooking, but I managed to ah, sneak out here and there and get a meal out at a restaurant. Here are a few things I ate...(sneakily...)

Brian and I went to visit Jay at his new workplace at Santana Row, where he's a sous chef. We went during off hours, inbetween lunch and dinner, so the restaurant was pretty empty and Jay got to leave the kitchen and chat with us a little, which was awesome. Brian and I just wanted a bit of a snack, so we decided to order the soup of the day, which was cream of mushroom soup, and share it. This was a really good soup, actually - deep meaty mushroom flavors, rich cream, nice and comforting and savory. Brian and I kept dipping pieces of bread into this, even though he usually has an aversion to carbs. Heh.

Along with our order of soup, I wanted something really bad for me. Since we were eat a seafood-east coast themed restaurant, I decided to order some fried calamari. This was a decent fry up - breading wasn't too heavy, wasn't too oily. Good pieces of calamari, although I would have liked more of the "squiddy" parts. Yey.

Another outing with Brian, we went down the street to House of Falafel, and to get some frozen yogurt at Yogurtland. I think I went to Yogurtland 3 or 4 times while I was at home - I love this place! But I had neglected to take pictures of it each time, as it wasn't horribly photogenic - it's a serve yourself kind of place, and a huge mixture of different kinds of flavors of yogurt isn't...appealing to look at, but it sure was tasty. Okay so back to the things I DID take pictures of...

This is an order of the falafel appetizer at House of Falafel. These are great! The crispy outsides were the best part. I think they could have used more seasoning on the chickpeas but Brian noted that sometimes they taste better, so it depends on the day. But they always have that really good crispy texture.

Here's a shot of one of the insides of the falafel. The chickpeas are mixed with parsley, which gives the insides that greenish hue. Could have used more salt or some sort of delicious seasoning, as I said before, but these would have been so good to have in a pita.

Just to try, I also ordered a chicken shwarma pita. The chicken was a bit dry, but the rest of it was nice. I liked how they also grilled the outside of the pita as well - gave it a nice charred taste.

Here's a close up on the wrap, after a few bites have been taken. They do not hold back on the amount of chicken, but as I was saying before, kinda dry, and all white meat (which is good for some, but I like dark meat better!). A bit of veggies and a bit of white sauce (what is in the white sauce? I don't know?), and there you have it. I think the falafel is definitely better, but this is not horrible.

Later in the week, we went to San Francisco, to meet up with a few friends of Brians' from UC Davis. Brian knew of a great sandwich place, so we met up in the Castro, at Ike's Sandwiches. We luckily snagged a table (there's like, 4 SMALL tables there, and no room to eat inside), and ordered our sandwiches. I was ready for some deliciousness!

This was Brian's sandwich, which, I THINK was named the MILF sandwich. (giggle.) I think it was a chicken mixture, with an amazing sauce, (I don't know what sauce it was), with lettuce, pickles, and tomatoes. The nice part about this sandwich is that if you request, they can scoop out some of the soft part of the bread so there's more room for the filling (as Brian says, so there's "less carbs!") This was so freakin' good! I really wish I had ordered this sandwich, (there are so many choices!) but I got a few bites of his sandwich, so I was pretty happy.

I don't know what the name of this sandwich was, but it's a tuna sandwich of some sort. This looked good, so i'm going to assume it was good.

I ordered a sandwich with turkey and bacon - basically a turkey club, with lettuce, tomatoes and hot peppers, on dutch style french bread. It was a good sandwich, although it was overshadowed by Brian's greater sandwich. The sauce really made his sandwich memorable.

Of course, we could not stop with our food-adventures in this area, so we walked down the street and went to Bi-Rite Creamery, which I was extremely excited about trying. The ice cream slingers were really nice, and let me try 3 flavors (the cooler part was that they gave me the samples with regular spoons - part of their whole "not making waste" thing, I think). I tried their three most popular flavors - snickerdoodle, lavender, and salted caramel. It was hard to choose, but with the line swelling behind me, I had to pick quickly. The salted caramel edged out the others!

I just got a kids cone of the salted caramel, and boy, was it delicious. The salt was an amazing activator of all the flavors of the caramel, making a great mix of savory and sweet. The quality of the cream used to make the ice cream was truly exemplary, some of the best I've had. I really enjoyed this small cone, even though I was quite full by then.

Brian got the snickerdoodle flavor, which was a departure for him because he swore by the lavender flavor every other time he's been here, but he tried the snickerdoodle and fell in love with it! BiRite makes their own snickerdoodle cookies that go into this ice cream, so the cookies were deliciously fresh and of equal quality to the ice cream. I love the whole design package too - the biodegradable cup, the printed-on ice cream tongue depressor. Totally nice.

After this, we took a little stroll down the street, and of course had to pop in to Tartine Bakery. Unfortunately, by this point, we were truly too full to even think about eating anything, but...well, that didn't mean that we couldn't get something for later right?


OMG look at the cakes...look at the tarts...eek....

why, hello quiche...I would love to be friends with you...

More quiches and tarts...but in the end, we ended up getting a gougere to go. I honestly couldn't have told you what a gougere was before that day. It ended up being a sort of savory puff - not filled with anything (like a cream puff), but the nice flavor of the outside puff was great enough itself. They used really good quality gruyere and black pepper, the two things I really remember when snacking on it while walking around. I will totally get another one when I visit again.

Our wanderings led us to Japantown, which I actually had never been to before in San Francisco. I can't believe that, either! We wandered around the indoor malls (so fun!) and bookstores, and ended up at Shabu Sen to eat. I hadn't had Shabu shabu for a long while, and I was excited to experience it at a "real" shabu shabu house (I've been to the one in Hollywood, but, I don't think I can truly call that an authentic experience).


I wanted to get a shot of the cool induction stove. Really neat! The surface of the stovetop wasn't hot at all, and didn't add too much excess heat, which was also a plus. Agh, I kinda want one now! Shabu shabu party, anyone?


The broth heats up instantly...so cool...

First, a delightful plate of mixed veggies. All these veggies were super fresh and of high quality, so everything really shone through with a quick dip in the boiling broth. I think the fresh chinese cabbage, shitake mushrooms, and udon were my favorites.


Dipping sauces! One is ponzu and the other was a sesame sauce. Way refreshing to dip the meats and veggies in here before quickly consuming your freshly boiled bounty. And the sesame dipping sauce was a nice tangy flavor. Awesome.

Now, to the meats! This is a small beef serving, that I ordered, as I was still fairly full from all the foodaventures earlier in the day, but everyone else ordered regular plates of beef, or combos. This was just the perfect amount for me. So the method of attack - carefully take a piece of beef from the plate. Quickly douse in hot broth. Swidge it around a bit, make sure it's nice and cooked. Dunk in dipping sauces, and ENJOY!

The bubbling boiling wok o' broth, doing its' job by cooking the veggies and meat and udon noodles. Pretty awesome. I'd love to go back.

A few days later, I took Vicky out for a late birthday celebration. We decided to go to Tomi Sushi, which came highly recommended by Brian and Owen, when they went there while I was at Judy's rehearsal lunch. The place was bustling with people when we got there, as it was during the busy lunch hour. We navigated the menu but in the end, I was swayed by the daily special. More on that in a few...

Miso soup came out first. Nothing to scream about but nice and savory, a good start.

Green tea came out, branded with the restaurant's logo. That's kinda nice.

Here's a thing of beauty - the lunch special. It comes with a salad, a small chirashi bowl, and various tempura. Just having this set in front of me made me extremely happy. Each section of this set deserves more exploration, in my opinion....so here we go...

The chirashi part of the set was the main focus, and contained, from the front going clockwise: 2 pieces of tamago egg, 2 pieces of overseared/overcooked (but still good) albacore, 2 pieces of salmon, topped with finely chopped seaweed, and rounding out the bowl, ginger and wasabi. I remember everything being very good, and although it was a smaller chirashi than I usually rock, this was perfect, because of the other stuff that came with it...

The other stuff, being the plate of fried stuff. Whoo! A plate of fried stuff, especially if it's Japanese style fried stuff, is especially appealing! A potato croquette, a fried shrimp, and a fried white fish gave me a lot of great things to try. These guys were experts at frying - nothing was oily, everything was perfectly crisp on the outside and moist on the inside. I really enjoyed this, especially with the chirashi - what a great and varied combo!

And just for good measure, there's a salad that came along with it. Iceberg lettuce, shreds of red cabbage and carrot? Looks like Owen's most hated "camp salad" to me (named that because he had this style of gross cheap salad while he was at day camp at the Y, when he was a kid.) Pretty unimpressive, but added a nice counterpoint to the rest of the meal.

Vicky had a nice sushi box set, which came with tuna roll (six of them, nice!), looks like whitefish and octopus sushi are also in that compartment. To the right, more sushi - shrimp, salmon, tuna, squid, another kind of whitefish. Clockwise, more of that "camp salad", an orange slice and a broccoli floret, and grilled saba (makarel) fish. I think she liked most of the sushi but didn't like the saba, but I admit, saba is a hard fish to like if you're not a fan of really fishy tasting stuff. I totally would have eaten it for her if I wasn't so full from my meal...heh.

We had also ordered some agedashi tofu, but it came the same time as everything else, even though I ordered it as an appetizer. It was good, but I wished it had come earlier, so we could have enjoyed it more before all the other food came. It was really delicious though, I could have had this on its' own as a meal, with some rice perhaps.

Another day, another different place - Hubert was home for the holidays from New York, and I really wanted to chat with him, over a meal, so we headed to this place that Brian had looked up - Harvest. It is one of those places where you order up at the front register, bring a number to your table and they bring the food to you. Here's the scoop on what we ordered...

Brian ordered some BBQ Chicken Sliders, which came with a side of beans. It looked okay and he seemed to enjoy it, but I don't know if I would order these myself. Maybe it's because when I think of sliders, they really should only be mini burgers. Ah, well. I think Brian ended up deconstructing these to ingest less carbs. Heh.

Hubert went the whole hog and got steak with green beans, mashed potatoes and mushroom sauce. Not too shabby, and the price point was okay, for a full dinner type meal. I don't know if I would order this myself (I like grilling my own steaks :) but Hubert tore into this so I'm assuming it was a slice of a-okay.

Bread! This bread just came with our meal, for no particular reason. We liked this a lot, actually - the nice zesty cheesy spread that came with it was a pleasant surprise!

I ordered some fondue for the table, which we liked dipping the aforementioned free bread they gave us. The things they actually gave us to dip into the fondue (whicih mostly consisted of gruyere) were kinda weird - a few piece of chopped tomatoes, and chopped bread (which was not as good as the free bread.). Fondue is naturally fun - and cheese plus anything is usually good. I like the setup, with the little ramekin over an open flame, to keep the cheese hot, but I don't think I'd order this again. I'd like a few other things to be able to dip into cheese.

My order was a cheeseburger with avocado, with fries. This was blah. The burger patty wasn't very flavorful or cooked medium as I asked (pretty much well done), the cheese wasn't very eventful or added anything to the burger. The nice part was the bunch of veggies that went with it (the pickle and avocado were especially nice), and the fries were decent. I should have ordered something else, drat.

One of my last days in the Bay area, I went to visit Judy and Kelvin, and our friend Krang came along too (a combo of his full name, no, he's not Krang of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fame.). We went to Stacks, which was close to their apartment in Campbell. The place was super busy, we got seated way in the back. I guess a lot of breakfast places are pretty bumpin' during holiday times, as people have time off. I liked the fact they gave out a whole carafe of coffee if you ordered coffe, and the coat racks next to the booths. That's always fun.

Even though I went to a breakfast place, I ordered me a club sandwich with a side of hash browns. That's how I roll! Half breakfast, half lunch. Aw yeah. The club was overwhelming, a turkey, ham, bacon, tomato and lettuce explosion. I removed the ham - what the heck is this doing in this sandwich? It added too much saltiness. After the removal, it was much improved. Hash browns were okay but not really crispy or browned enough. The salad AND fruit salad combination that came with it was something nice to chew on when all the savoriness got overwhelming, but really this whole plate was too much food.

Of course, there's more food. Judy got a single waffle for the table, to try. This was a waste of carbs. Not crunchy or crispy on the outside, the whole thing was soggy and uneventful. Never order waffles from this place.

Krang got himself steak and eggs, a protein combination of champions. (ha, insert snide remark HERE.) It came with white toast and hash browns. I didn't try any, but he cleaned off the plate so I'm thinking they were good.

Kelvin got a spanish omelet, I think. I assumed it was "spanish" because of the salsa, I honestly don't know what's in this omelet other than cheese, I wasn't paying attention when he was ordering. It came with sourdough toast (again, I think?) and hash browns (pretty sure of that.) He rocked this plate pretty hard so I think he enjoyed it.

Judy's plate o' breakfast - scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns, and a whole bagel. This was way too much food for her and she took home half of it. Quite generous with those portions.

My parents drove me to Santa Barbara, where Owen met up with us to drive me the rest of the way back to Los Angeles. We turned it into a sort of mini vacation, and did our best to find fresh fish for my mom (who LOVES getting fresh fish in Santa Barbara...) We went to Opal Restaurant at the beginning of State Street, the main touristy street of Santa Barbara. I had looked this place up on yelp, and it had gotten really high ratings, so I directed us there...the place really seemed like a place for locals, and we got excellent service.

Our bread basket, with white and wheat bread. Nothing spectacular but I was pretty hungry, so it was welcome. Wish they had warmed up the bread but wasn't going to complain.

We asked our server for a suggestion for the appetizers, and he recommended the shredded phyllo wrapped tiger prawns, flash fried, served with a coconut curry dipping sauce, on napa cabbage salad with mandarin oranges, toasted almonds, julienned vegetables and sesame asian vinaigrette. This was a great choice! We each had a tiger prawn, which were excellently fried, and the salad was nice and crunchy and flavorful. It kinda reminded me of having the chinese banquet staple, honey walnut shrimp, but Americanized.

I got the paella dish, as I wanted to enjoy some of Santa Barbara's amazing seafood. It included steamed mussels, manilla clams, tiger shrimp, chicken and chorizo sausage, on saffron rice with a garlic herb broth. (sorry for the blurry pictures, I didn't want to use flash and of course it leads to blurry snaps). All the clams and shrimp were plump, really fresh and flavorful. I was a bit disappointed with the rice, as it was swimming in a tomato based broth, which drowned out any hint of saffron they supposedly used. Plus, where's the use of a crispy pan, to get those crispy edges on that rice? This was more like cioppino, with rice. Disappointing for paella, but a thumbs up for seafood.

Owen got one of their specials of the night, a chicken pesto and bacon pizza. He gave me a slice and I was pretty impressed- the crust wasn't too thick and doughy, the toppings were generous, and the flavors worked really well with each other. He was quite happy with this.

Dad got another shrimp dish, their homemade basil fettucine with sauteed tiger prawns, with homemade pesto, tomatoes, fire roasted red pepper and smoked mozzerella cream sauce. I'm not always a pasta fan but these noodles were pretty good, al dente, and more of those tiger prawns, which are always welcome! The sauce was not overly rich. Yum.

Mom got a pizza as well - a prosciutto, goat cheese and garlic spinach pizza. As with Owen's pizza, the crust was good, the toppings fresh and flavorful. The prosciutto was really hard to eat though, because when you bit into it, you usually had to take the whole piece with you, which made a hassle of eating it. Also, the prosciutto was overly salty, even the goat cheese and spinach couldn't mellow it out. I still think this was a decent pizza, just maybe if they had cut up the prosciutto a bit more, to make it easier to eat.

Dessert! We got some peach sorbet, to clean the palate. The peach flavor in this sorbet was intense, and really tasted, like everything else that night, fresh. I really enjoyed this dessert, also, the chocolate "enjoy" written on my plate was a nice touch.

To appease Owen's chocolate cravings, we got the chocolate pecan tart slice, with vanilla bean drizzle and fresh whipped cream. The crust on this tart was nice, and the chocolate and pecan flavors meshed well together. This was demolished in a second.

One last shot - I made a dinner the next night, of breaded fresh red snapper (that my parents went and bought!), salad and bread. Yes, pretty simple, but sometimes, isn't simple best?

Now, back to our regularly Southern California-y scheduled program.

Yankee Pier
www.yankeepier.com
378 Santana Row # 1100
San Jose, CA 95128
(408) 244-1244

Yogurtland
19700 Stevens Creek Blvd
Cupertino CA 95014
(408) 996-1776

www.yogurt-land.com

House of Falafel
www.houseoffalafel.com
19590 Stevens Creek Blvd
Cupertino, CA 95014
(408) 446-2411

Ike's Place (sandwiches)
3506 16th Street
(between Sanchez St & Prosper St)
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 553-6888

www.ilikeikesplace.com

Bi-Rite Creamery
http://biritecreamery.com/
3692 18th Street
(@ Dolores)
San Francisco CA 94110

Tartine Bakery
www.tartinebakery.com
600 Guerrero St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 487-2600

Shabu Sen
www.somethingsfishyrestaurant.com
1726 Buchanan St
San Francisco, CA 94115
(415) 440-0466

Tomi Sushi
4336 Moorpark Ave
San Jose, CA 95129
(408) 257-4722

Harvest Restaurant
10630 S. De Anza Blvd., Cupertino CA
(408) 996-9700

Stacks Restaurant
139 E Campbell Ave
Campbell, CA 95008

www.stacksbreakfast.com

Opal Restaurant
http://www.opalrestaurantandbar.com/
1325 State St
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
(805) 966-9676