DA LIAN, BERKELEY

You've seen me write many times that Tom and I are big fans of a local food TV show called "Check Please, Bay Area." We've tried quite a few places that we've seen on the show, so when my parents came to town, we decided to try out a Chinese restaurant we'd seen on it, called Da Lian.

Da Lian is actually located really close to us, but it's not a place we would've tried normally. We tend to just walk by it, and check out other restaurants nearby. When we arrived at the restaurant, it was pretty empty, which was a good thing, since we had a party of 8. My mom and dad did all the ordering, and tried to gear it to more healthy stuff since my cousin, Cindy, was there and she's doing the vegan thing.

We started off with some vegetarian lettuce cups, which were pretty good. In the background, you can also see a grilled scallion/sesame pancake thing. Their version was quite good, and my little cousin, Max, liked it so much that we ended up ordering an extra one for him to take home.

Here's a pic of the lazy susan loaded down with food. I didn't bother taking individual pics of everything since there was so much of it and it all arrived pretty quickly.

Overall, Da Lian was a pretty good place. It wasn't the best Chinese food I've had here, but they made an effort to cut down on the sodium and make things a little healthier for us. Also, they did have a good variety of dishes, so I was glad that I was able to find a good place fo my parent's and Cindy's family. I don't think Tom and I will be going back on our own any time soon, but it's a good place to take a group, and I don't doubt that we'll be back at some point.

UBUNTU, NAPA

Ok, I know you hear it from me all the time, but I've been really busy and it's been hard to keep up with the blog posts. I make up for this by doing a whole bunch on posts at once, so just get used to it- my busy schedule isn't going to be changing any time soon.

So about a month ago, my parents came up to Napa with their friends for the weekend. They initially were just planning on coming down to have dinner with us at some point, but then my dad decided he wanted to go golfing- and he needed my car. So Tom and I had to go up to Napa, give my dad my car and then spend the rest of the day driving my mom and her friends around. So to make the trip worth it, I made sure that I made reservations at a restaurant that I've wanted to eat out for some time, Ubuntu.

You may have heard of Ubuntu, because it's gotten amazing reviews since it opened at last year. It's the restaurant with yoga studio on top, well known for it's take on vegetarian cuisine. In fact, Frank Bruni called it the second best new restaurant in the U.S. this year. I was able to get us an early reservation, right when the place opened, so when we first arrived, the place was basically empty. Here's a shot of the interior.

Being a yoga studio, it had a zen-like feel, but I liked the high ceilings, stone walls and big windows. The restaurant is big into sharing, so I did the ordering for the table, starting with a number of small starters, continuing with entrees and then finishing with some desserts.

For the small starters, we got a number of dishes:

Lavender dusted marcona almonds (though I didn't really taste the lavender)

Polenta fries (I liked the red pepper coulis it was served with)

And my favorite of the three starters, fresh veggies pickled in white wine. I like the sweet/sour/crunchiness of this dish.

Next up, I ordered two salads:

This is a beet salad with red quinoa. I liked the colorful presentation a lot. Plus, I'd never had red quinoa before- it was quite tasty and had a much better texture than the quinoa I make at home. It was much springier and I hope to find it and try to cook it myself at home. I also like the texture of the avocados along with the beets.
We also ordered a second salad, which I'm surprised that I didn't photograph because my mom's friend liked it so much that we ended up ordering two of them. It was a green salad made with a bunch of different baby greens and it also had strawberries it in. It was pretty tasty, since the greens that they chose were so flaorful and I did like it quite a bit.

And then I ordered three larger plates, which really weren't all that big, but along with everything else, it ended up being just enough. The first dish was a farro dish with peas. Again, it's a really lovely presentation, and I thought it was pretty good.
My favorite dish of all, though, was this mushroom pizza with an egg on top. You might think the egg sounds kinda crazy, but it tasted great when you cut the runny yolk and it gets all over the pizza. Plus, the mushrooms were super fresh and just very nicely done.
Lastly, we ordered their signature cauliflower dish, which is basically a mini cast iron pot filled with cauliflower in many different ways- making all different tastes and textures. Frank Bruni raved about this dish, but it wasn't my favorite thing. I guess having all those textures and flavors in one pot caused them all to just get lumped together. So even though it tasted good, I didn't find it as amazing as people have said it is.
We finished our meals with two shared desserts (no photos of that). Overall, I did like Ubuntu, but I won't be running back there any time soon. I found the food quite yummy, but was it amazing enough for a second visit? Not for me. I do like vegetarian stuff, but I guess I like more simple things, and maybe Ubuntu was just too innovative for me.

WARNING SIGNS

As you all know, Tom and I go out for breakfast a lot. Since we're both early risers and share only one day off, breakfast on Saturday mornings is one of the few times that we can share a meal together and neither one of us is exhausted after a day of work. So we're always on the look out for new breakfast places. We certainly have our favorites, but one that I had seen and not yet tried was Chester's in the Gourmet Ghetto.

We got there a little before 8:30 (when they open), so decided to walk down to use an ATM on Shattuck. While we were walking over, we could smell the fresh bread baking at Cheeseboard and we saw the line of people waiting to get into Cheeseboard (which also opened at 8:30). We almost considered going to Cheeseboard and getting some cheese sticks, but were set on going to Chester's and headed back over.

By the time returned, I had kinda expected other diners to have shown up. I should've taken this as a warning sign. People in Bay Area are all food fanatics. You've gotta get to good places early, even for breakfast, if you hope to snag a seat. Look at Bette's Oceanview Diner- if you get there after 8:30, plan to wait 45 minutes for a table. That applies to Fat Apple's and many other places, so the early hour was not a good explanation for the empty seats.

When we were let it, it was by a hostess/waitress who seemed rather displeased to see us. I don't expect servers to be super cheerful and excited - after all, I work in the service industry, too, but her dour attitude started off our meal on a down note. Out of all the seats she could've chosen for us in this empty restaurant, she sat us in a corner seat, with me sitting on a very uncomfortable, hard bench. When we looked at the menu, there wasn't anything particularly special, but I did notice the high prices- starting at around $12 for everything on the breakfast menu. Here's a photo of the empty interior.

We finally place our orders, and then the long wait began for our food to arrive. During this time, one older couple entered, were seated, took a look at the menu, were kinda ignored and walked out. They were smart.

Let me remind you that we were the only people sitting in this entire restaurant, and the first customers of the day, and it still took almost 20 minutes for our food to finally make an appearance. Here's a photo of my breakfast scramble- it involved tomatoes, cheese, turkey sausages, eggs and I dont' remember what else. It was ok, but I could've done better at home.

And here's Tom's order of steak and eggs. His steak was a cheap cut with more fat than anything else that made it pretty inedible. Overall I would sum up our experience by saying it sucked.

We're certainly never going back to this place, but the take home lesson is this: if you're in the Gourmet Ghetto and see an empty restaurant, walk away and go to the closest place with a crowd or a line. You may have to wait, but your meal will probably be worth the wait.

TAYLOR'S AUTOMATIC REFRESHER

Ok, I know it's been a while since I've blogged, but I warned you guys about this. We're having a super busy month, with Huong and Kjell's this past weekend and the house guests leaving this morning. That doesn't leave much time to blog, but I'm trying to do some catching up now.

So a few weeks ago Dustin and Katie came up to visit. I love living in SF, because much like Boston, my friends pass through here pretty often. So even though we've only lived here about 10 months, it's been great having all the visitors and seeing all my friends. So on Sunday morning, we decided to check out the Ferry Building. Unlike me and Tom, Katie and Dustin are not early risers, so while we would've headed into the city early to avoid the crowds and traffic, we actually didn't make it there until later in the day- in time for lunch. By this point, the Ferry Building was packed (a beautiful, sunny day in June) and we decided to find somewhere to eat quickly since we were all hungry.

We headed over to Taylor's, cause I knew they had seating, and I need they had burgers. There was a pretty long line going out the door, but there were plenty of seats in doors. The line was just so you could place your order. So while we waited in line, we looked at the menu, and it was pretty typical California burger fare. After placing our orders at the front, we paid and were given little buzzers that went off when our order was ready. When then snagged seats at a communal table. Here's a view of the food prep area.

I got a lemonade to drink, and just wanted to show off my biodegradable cup made of corn (also typical CA)

I ordered some chicken finger and fries. The chicken fingers were pretty good- nothing spectacular, and the fries were also ok.

Meanwhile, Tom got a hamburger [It was actually a BLT - Tom], which he probably liked a lot, cause he was starving, and also a side of sweet potato fries- probably my favorite thing out of all the things we ordered.

Overall, it was a good place to stop and get a quick bite - albeit a heavy bite. And it turns out that Taylor's is actually a chain. I saw the original location a week late in St. Helena and it was an old fashioned burger stand - actually a pretty cute place. Maybe we'll try the original one the next time we're up in Napa.

DIM SUM AT LEGENDARY PALACE

We're still trying to find a good dim sum place. I know it exists, we just probably need to go into SF to find it. But we made another try at finding dim sum in downtown Oakland with a trip to Legendary Palace. I knew of Legendary Palace because it's this giant gaudy restaurant that sits on a prominent corner in downtown Oakland. Plus, Huong and Kjell had considered having their wedding banquet there, so we thought it was worth a try.

When we entered (it was pretty early in the morning), the first floor seemed pretty full, so we were shown to the second floor, which was much emptier. This wasn't the prettiest restaurant in the world- the carpet was worn and generally not very welcoming or clean feeling, but that's often how dim sum restaurants can be, so we went with it. Here's a view of the upstairs banquet room where we were seated.

We ordered a few of our usuals- shrimp in rice noodles, steamed chicken buns and steamed pork buns. All of it was ok, but nothing spectacular. Plus this place was certainly not a friendly place for those who don't speak Chinese (or really Cantonese for that matter).

We wanted to order some har gaw or siu mai, but after giving a few carts a try, we finally gave up on it and felt it was time to head out. I can't say I was full, but I'd had enough at Legendary Palace. Overall, we don't plan on going back and are still looking for a great local dim sum place. I subsequently told Huong about our visit there, and she agreed that it wasn't the best place for dim sum. And so the search continues....

DINNER IN THE MARINA

A few weeks ago we were running an errand for a friend in SF. It was a Monday, and the errand ended up taking much longer than we'd expected. So rather than fight the traffic back across the Bay Bridge, we decided to stay in the city for dinner. We had picked a restaurant in the Marina district, but when we got there, it was closed for some strange reason (there was a note on the door, but we didn't really bother reading it). Luckily, just two doors down from the restaurant we had wanted to try was another restaurant which we'd found out about while watching "Check Please, Bay Area" (we really like this show and have visited a few places we've seen on it). The restaurant, Isa, was open and it was pretty empty inside (it was early), so we headed inside and grabbed a table for two.

They seated us at a cozy table near the front windows of the restaurant. The interior is really modern, and there's a cool covered garden area out back. The menu is really designed as small plates for sharing. I decided to get the prix fixe menu, which involved getting 2 plates for $21.95 and Tom ordered a few additional plates for himself. Tom started off with some of his favorites- raw oysters, which he thought were pretty good.

He followed this up with Grilled Honey Spiced Calamari with rice beans, arugula & lemon. I actually ordered this as my first plate in my prix fixe, but I ordered it for Tom, since I wasn't super hungry. Tom felt the calamari were well cooked, and I did have a few of the beans with arugula. He didn't feel it was the best combination of ingredients, but finished the plate off anyway.

Meanwhile, I got my second dish of Organic chicken with herbs under crispy skin & mashed potatoes.

I really liked my chicken and felt that it was a generous portion that pretty much filled me up. Meanwhile, Tom had a grilled flat iron steak as his main course, which he enjoyed a lot. It was well prepared and he can only describe it as "GOOOOOOOOOOD."

We finished off with dessert, which I'm having a hard time recalling right now, so I guess they weren't very memorable. As for service, it started off very good and attentive, but as the restaurant got my crowded, we got less attention and it definitely took longer to get our check. Overall we had an enjoyable dinner at Isa. I wouldn't rush back, but I certainly wouldn't mind going again in the future.