Hakkasan

1 Kearny St * San Francisco, CA

It's been a while since I've done a restaurant review post. Since +Steve Nguyen brought up the fact that my blog has been lacking reviews, I thought this would be appropriate, as he treated us to a holiday luncheon at Hakkasan.

Hakkasan recently opened this San Francisco outpost on the 2nd floor of what looked like an all but abandoned building on the corner of Kearny and Market. I've seen a lot of posts and reviews lately about it even before it opened, so I was glad to get an opportunity to check it out.

You walk into a very chic and sophisticated dining room separated by interesting wood frames. The centerpiece of the restaurant is gorgeous bar.

We started off with a few dimsum items:

Clockwise, starting from top-left: King crab noodle roll; har gau; crab and taro croquette; daikon cake

The dimsum was all cooked nicely. My favorite was the crab/taro croquette. It was perfectly crispy on the outside and the taro was smooth and creamy inside. This is usually one of my favorite dimsum items to get, but the crab version made it more luxurious. My least favorite was the daikon cake, not sure if the ratio of rice flour and daikon was off, but it turned out alittle too mushy for my liking.

For our main course, we ordered the spicy prawns, black pepper rib-eye with merlot, and chicken fried rice with salted fish.

The dishes were all executed well. The prawns were cooked perfectly, not overcooked at all.

For dessert, we had a steamer full of macarons. I don't remember all the different flavors, but there was a blood orange, burnt caramel, jasmine tea, and yuzu. I thought the macarons were good and a good deal (7 for $12...many places around here charge close to $2 for a macaron)

Overall, I thought this was a great meal, with the prices, definitely not an everyday place. But they had great service and a wonderful ambiance.

Paws: 4

House of Prime Rib

1906 Van Ness Ave * San Francisco, CA

For our anniversary, mr. Lee decided to chow down on some prime rib. this was his first time and my multiple time. We arrived a few minutes early for our reservations and were promptly seated in a cozy booth in the back by the fireplace.

We perused the menu, which is fairly simple with 4 different cuts/sizes of prime rib. There are a few other items, but why would you go to the HOUSE of prime rib to eat anything but that.



We both ordered prime rib. I had the English cut and he had the House of Prime Rib Cut. The meal includes a salad, potatoes (mashed or baked), creamed veggie (spinach or corn), and yorkshire pudding.

The hunk of warm sourdough arrived at our table just as we were being seated

Sourdought Loaf crunchy crust and a soft springy inside


House Salad Lettuce, beets, eggs, and tomatoes with a delicious creamy thousand island-like dressing

I've always loved their salad. Maybe its because they toss it table-side making for a dramatic approach to salad. More probable is the fact that its super saturated with dressing.


Left: HOPR cut Right: English cut we both got ours with mashed potatoes and creamed corn (the yorkshire pudding is not pictured here)

The prime rib was carved tableside to our liking. We both ordered it medium, although looking back, I should have ordered mine Medium Rare since it was cut thin and placed on a super hot plate. Nonetheless the meat melted and was flavored really nicely. the creamed corn was a newer item on the menu, it was nice, could be a tad more flavorful.

Overall, it was a delicious meal with great service. We had a great time. I recommend it for special occasions or if you want to get a prime rib fix.

Paws: 4

(apologies for the fuzzy pictures, it was quite dark in there and did not want to flash the other diners)

E'Tutto Qua

270 Columbus Ave * San Francisco, CA

This past Friday went out with a group of friends for a night out on the town...decided to give E'Tutto Qua a try before hitting up Bubble Lounge (sorry! no pictures, no post) Our reservations were for 7:30, but at 7:15 our friends called to say that they were stuck in traffic by SFO. So i called the restaurant and asked if we could push our reservations back and the maitreD was very nice about it. good thing we pushed back our reservations, it took us a good half hour to find parking :( no fun...

The food was delicious here with homemade noodles, lotsa italian accents all around, and a great atmosphere!


(debuting my new logo!)

elbow pasta with Italian Sausage & Mushrooms in cream sauce


Spaghetti Neri Squid Ink pasta with Seafood


Swordfish Pasta Special


tonnarelli di mare Homemade Spaghetti noodles with seafood


Scallop Pasta Special


Shells from our delicious meals

There were too many dishes to write a lil blurb about each. I didn't get to try all of them, but the reaction from the rest of my party indicated that the dishes were all good.

Paws: 4.5

Blowfish Sushi to Die For

2170 Byrant St * San Francisco, CA

Ed took me here for a celebratory dinner to congratulate me on passing my exam. We got here early, which was good, because apparently our reservations was not found in their system. It's an unassuming place in a not-so-great neighborhood. (I've come to the conclusion that all the good restaurants are in not-so-great neighborhoods) The atmosphere was definitely different for a japanese restaurant.

It was a fairly quick meal, I think we were done in under half hour? Overall, the food was at par. A little pricey for the amount of food. quality was good. However, I still have my preferred sushi places.


Seabass Broiled sea bass in a sweet vinegrette soy sauce with zuchinni-squash medley, mashed yams, and string beans

The photo was not that great, but the food was pretty good. though the portions were not great. the fish was cooked to a good temperature. i enjoyed the sauce that they used to glaze the sea bass. The zuchinni squash "cake" (see photo below) was pretty well done, interestingly it had some cheese to bind it together. The other sides were nothing special



Sashimi Baby Hamachi and Tuna
Isn't it interesting how when you take the photo from this again it doesn't look as appealing. It rubs me the wrong way when I look at a picture taken from this angle. The fish was fresh, portions were small. I don't mind thin and small cut fish, but a few more slices wouldn't have been a bad thing...


Miso Soup with LOTS and LOTS of green onions

Overall, this place was interesting with good food. Unfortunately, it did not meet my high expectations.

Paws: 3

Ella's Restaurant

500 Presidio Ave * San Francisco, CA

We had been eyeing this breakfast joint for a while. decided that we would go on a breakfast date. Unfortunately, they only serve brunch on weekends, so the menu was not quite what we were hoping for. The food was pretty good. The restaurant was packed with people. We were able to get an upfront view of the chefs preparing all the food that went into our dishes and other dishes as well.


Chicken Hash
Shredded chicken mixed with potatoes and spices. two eggs. toast

We both ordered the Chicken Hash, only difference was how we had the eggs cooked. I found that the hash needed something extra to kind of give it alittle life. for me that was tabasco and some ketchup. The hash had some good size strips of rotesserie chicken with nice chunks of seasoned boiled potatoes. The jam that they had at the table was quite delicious and went perfectly with the toast.

We both had leftovers of the hash, it doesn't look that big but the potato fills you up. It was quite tasty when we reheated it.

paws: 3.5

Slow Food Nation

I won't be around for all of this but if you are, I would definatley go check this out

slow food nation

It spans from Thurs - Sunday of Labor Day weekend. It's goal is to teach people about eating locally, eating fresh, eating seasonal. it tries to change to way we eat to save our bodies and change the world. hopefully it'll get people back in the kitchen.

There are various events from restaurants, to speakers, to exhibits. sounds exciting. I will try to attend something on Friday.

an article in the Chronicle

Hard Knox Cafe

2448 Clement St. * San Francisco, CA

We went there one evening after work. it was a hot hot day. the restaurant was not very a/c-ed, but cool enough. we went while they were still in a soft-opening stage. they still had some work to do on the restaurant. Hard Knox is a southern soul food restaurant, very casual, very relaxing.

Below are a few images of the food we got.


Catfish Po'Boy
Fried strips of catfish with special sauce on bed of lettuce and tomato in a white roll. plus a side of corn

The catfish was cooked perfectly, juicy and tender. the sauce was really good! the corn was the perfect compliment. the sandwich doesn't look too big, but it filled me up to a good degree.


Fried Chicken
Three pieces of fried chicken. with a side of redbeans&rice and mashed potatoes

Fried chicken was good. nice and crispy. the pieces weren't huge. however with the sides, you get filled up.


Ribs
BBQ ribs with mac'nCheese and fries as sides
The ribs were pretty juicy and tender. the french fries weren't anything special. the mac and cheese was decent, could be a little thicker and stronger in flavor.



Us Chowing Down

EveryBlock.SF

I found this website today as I was perusing the internet. It provides all sorts of information about 3 cities (SF, NYC, Chicago) in one location. It draws upon many government databases and allows users to access the information "easily."

http://sf.everyblock.com/

I will try to pull restaurant inspection scores from the SF restaurants I review going forward. (hope it doesn't scare people away)

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Also, I've been given a suggestion to come up with a rating system for the restaurants/food I consume. I am going to work something out. It will probably be broken into categories


(www.cleanscores.com)

Ming's Coffee Shop

54 2nd St. * San Francisco, CA

"hey guys, what's for lunch today?" I ask. "MING'S!" (of course, they always want to go to Ming's). My co-workers have this infatuation with Ming's and I don't quite get it. Ming's is a fast food, steam tray, Chinese restaurant. Today was my 2nd time there and I thought I'd give it a review.


"two items" String Bean Tofu + Pepper Pork + 1/2 steamed rice 1/2 chow mein
This was my order. The tofu was alittle bland, I'm also not a huge fan of the starch-ed sauces (think it has to do w/ my upbringing). Not the tender-est string beans eitehr. The Pepper Pork was decent, what you would expect out of a steam tray. My one little gripe is that the chow mein is overly peppered. it was better this time.



"two items" String Bean Tofu + Orange Chicken + steamed rice
This was my co-worker's order. The string bean tofu was the same so i will not re-discuss it (see above). the orange chicken is alittle diff't than panda's orange chicken. the ming's OC has less batter and more meat, hence the smaller pieces. the sauce is also not as sweet. i think i like the ming's OC alil better, but i could go for either depending on my mood.
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Overall, Ming's is good for a quick bite, but don't expect cleaniness or great service. Be ready to order or the lil ladies behind the counter will shoot you dirty looks.

(apologies. photos taken off of bbphone. so not too clear.)

Food Foundation

I thought it was appropriate for my first official post to give a glimpse into the food I grew up with. This is my kind of comfort-homestyle cookin' - mama's food.



One of my mom's signature dishes "luu nieo ro", sauced beef shank, and "luu nieo jing", sauced beef tendon. She has this sauce recipe which she's perfected over the years. This sauce can be used to simmer and injects intense flavor to a variety of foods (bean curd, beef, tofu, egg, etc).




Dinner will usually include at least one stir-fried vegetable. Recently we have been eating alot more veggies, which may not seem evident in this post. I'm not sure what exactly this veggie is, it is some Chinese vegetable bought at the Chinese market.



This is catfish steamed with soy sauce, garlic, green onions, and a touch of oil. Catfish is a good "boneless" fish and when steamed right has a good semi-oily texture. I am not a big fan of the skin, however some find it tasty with an interesting texture.



Sea Cucumber. Probably one of the more interesting foods out there. They come in diff't types of textures and degree of crunchiness. This one was more on the soft side. Simmered in a sauce made with garlic, green onions, stock, and soy sauce. The sauce is great over rice or in a bowl of noodles.



The claypot holds some delicious braised pork ribs. That is one of my favorite foods. The meat is braised for an hour or so..and the meat just falls right off the bone. The green stuff in the front of the picture is preserved pickled lettuce stir-fried with some garlic; it adds alot of kick with just a tiny amount.

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These next few pictures are kind of random ones from this past weekend...
Went to Japantown in SF for their annual Cherry Blossom Festival. There was a booth there called "Flying Pigs". They had these adorable wood pig hanging decals.



This is the bottom of the particular hanging pig

This is the top of the hanging pig


Go A's!! :D