P.F. CHANG'S DOES NOT SERVE CHINESE FOOD

If you go into P.F. Chang's thinking this, you might not be too disappointed. Actually, we've had a few more crappy meals this month than we normally do. I don't think our experience at P.F. Chang's was as bad as Vong's, but it was pretty terrible. But let me back up a little. First, why were we even at a P.F. Chang's? I had managed to avoid this nationwide chain of "Chinese Bistros" for quite a long time. I just refused to eat at a place that'd put China + Bistro in the same title AND used funerary statuary as it's primary decorative element (I don't know, it just kinda creeps me out - kinda like having a sarcophagus decorate a restaurant). But they lured me in by sending me an offer for a free entree off their new grill menu. Well, if they were gonna give me free food, we may as well try it out.

So after a bit of shopping at Ikea, we headed over to the closest location, in the Emery Bay shopping mall. I was kinda of surprised that there was a wait for a table for 2 at 7pm, but we were given a little buzzer and wandered over to William Sonoma for a bit. After about 20 minutes, our buzzer went off, and we were seated. The interior of the place was quite expansive, with high ceilings and fairly modern decor. (but I repeat, the funerary statuary creeps me out). After we were seated with our menus, we were left alone for quite a long time, without anyone coming by to ask us if we wanted something to drink or if we had any questions. And as I looked around, I realized that the place was really understaffed. We weren't forced to wait not because there weren't tables available, the restaurant was pretty busy, but because there wasn't enough wait staff to serve everyone. (and not enough staff to even clean the bathrooms - toilet paper would've been nice).

Looking over the menu, I was not surprised to see the typical Americanized Chinese food being offered - like General Tso's chicken and Moo Shu whatever. But to my dismay, there was no sign of the new grill menu. I looked over the little card I was sent, thinking maybe they hadn't started offering the new menu yet, maybe we were too early. (Even though I'd seen it on the website) So we decided to order a few items off the regular menu.

When our waitress finally showed up, she took our orders. We decided to share two appetizers and each got an entree. Our appetizers showed up pretty quickly. One was a vegetarian egg roll, but I found it odd that they had rolled it in cornstarch of flour prior to frying, and there was a strange residue left on the exterior of the egg roll. Plus the serving was kinda wimpy. Our shrimp potstickers turned out to be a bit better. They were pretty plump and filled with ground shrimp, carrots and other stuff and tasted decent enough, though they weren't really that hot.

As for our entress, I got the Dan Dan noodle, which I didn't think were that terrible. Tom thought the noodles were kinda gummy, and my main criticism is that it was on the salty side. Otherwise, it was edible. Tom ordered their version of General Tso's chicken (below), which was basically pieces of fried chicken covered in some sauce. The sauce had so much corn starch in it, that as it sat, it kinda solidified, but the worst part of his meal was the brown rice. On the menu, they said they had steamed it, but the rice was so overcooked that it was bordering on the texture of porridge. It kinda reminded me of when I lived in Italy and didn't have a rice cooker. I didn't know how to cook rice on the stove (and I still don't) and so my rice would always come out overcooked and mushy.

My favorite part of the meal was the fortune cookie. It was actually pretty good, though I don't think they made it. Tom said he liked his Pellegrino. Maybe our experience would have been slightly better had we had better wait service that evenly midly showed interested in us, but that wasn't going to happen. I told Tom that I might email P.F. Chang's and complain about the lack of a grill menu, but he said why bother, we'd never be coming back, and I agree.

OUR TRIP TO NY

As I do every year, a few weeks ago, I attended the Fancy Food Show in NY. But it was a different situation for me. In previous years, I'd always attended the FFS as a buyer, walking the floor and checking out new products and trends for the next year. This year, I was at the show on behalf of work, and I was now a seller, and I gotta say, it's much more fun to be a buyer than a seller. But I won't complain too much, since working at the FFS provided me with a free trip (well, at least they paid for the flight) to NY and a mini break for me and Tom. I also got to hang out with my friends, Harin and Big Ed, whom I hadn't seen since moving from Boston last year.

Of course, upon finding out that I would be in NY, I started planning on where to eat. After I bit of effort, I landed two reservations - one for Casa Mono and the other for Sfoglia. Any reader of this blog knows that I'm a huge fan of Batali-Bastiniach restaurants, and I was greatly looking foward to visiting Casa Mono. As for Sfoglia, after our memorable meal in Nantucket last year (I still think of the radish bagna cauda), I was looking foward to visiting their NY location.

Our first night in DUMBO, we landed in the early evening, which allowed a casual dinner with my friends, Jayna and Juliet. We decided to stay in Brooklyn, and visited a Japanese restaurant near my cousin's house (which we'd gone to before, and I think I've blogged about it). Afterwards, we went over to the promenade to check out the NYC Waterfalls, but while over there, we decided to get in line for ice cream at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. Now, I've always seen the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, but the last time I'd tried to go, they had amazingly run out of ice cream. This time, they definitely had ice cream, so we got in the "express" line (limited menu and you order from a window). We stood in line and chatted, and it took us nearly an hour (so much for express) before we got to the front and ordered our ice cream. Ultimately, it really wasn't worth it. The ice cream was allright, nothing amazing, and by the time we got it, they'd shut off the Waterfalls for the evening (we thought they ran all night). Oh well.

The next day, was Sunday, and the beginning of the show. It was crazy and tiring and after it was over, I was ready to eat. We had our reservation for Casa Mono and headed down to Union Square. (sorry, no pics, it was a small place and I didn't want to disturb other diners). When we approached the restaurant, we found a tiny little place packed full of people. We were a little bit early for our meal, but they sat us anyway. We got a seat by the windows, but the place is literally so tiny that they table had to be pulled out before I could get to my seat.

Tom and I ordered quite a few dishes. The menu changes pretty frequently, but I definitely enjoyed a lovely plate of grilled sardines (it was also Tom's favorite dish of the night). The pimientos del padron were allright, but they for some reason included sweet peppers with it. At least they were cooked well. I also got a plate of mushrooms, which were too charred for my taste, I wasn't even able to finish it. But I did get this amazing dish of soft shell crab. I forget what else we ordered, but I do remember that this was some of the best tapas I've had in the U.S. and I certainly wouldn't mind going back. (I will say it was pretty pricey, though).

For our second night in NY, we had dinner with Tom's parents and brother, at a casual neighborhood place in near his brother's house in Brooklyn. The following night we had our reservations at Sfoglia, however, we ended up having dinner with my cousin and Juliet, so I had to search around for reservations elsewhere. I did a quick search at Opentable and after looking at the available options, I chose Vong. I'd heard of Vong before (it's a Jean Georges restaurant) and after taking a quick look at the online menu, it seemed like a decent bet, it was also located very close to my cousin's condo.

Upon entering Vong, we found a very modern looking restaurant, with lots of cool bamboo work and decorated in dark reds and browns. We were seated right away and as we waited for the rest of our party arrived, I noticed a rather ominous thing - the dining room table was barely 1/3 full and it was already 7. As we looked through the menu, I noticed another ominious sign, Vong offers a prix fixe menu all the time. After our party arrived, we were able to put in our orders. Juliet and I went for the prix fixe menu, while the other two menus over our party ordered from the regular menu.

Juliet had also put in a drink menu, which never showed up, she actually had to ask for it. And in fact, our wait service was pretty slow and spotty. The appetizer I started off with was decent, but nothing amazing, just a seared tuna roll served like a summer roll in a thin, soft rice paper wrapper. After waiting nearly 25-30 minutes, our entrees finally showed up. It's the kinda of waiting that makes you wonder what the hell happened to your food. I had a dish of chicken which was supposed to have lemongrass (though I never really tasted it), long beans and sticky rice. It wasn't a memorable dish. Just a chicken dish that was ok. Meanwhile, Tom was having a much worse time. The crab spring rolls that we got for his appetizer were pretty good (again nothing memorable), but his tuna burger was memorable for a bad reason. It arrived at the table lukewarm, and the fresh potato chips it had been served with had sat so long, that they were cold and greasy. After eating it, he actually began feeling sick, and ended up with a mild bout of food poisoning later that evening.

Meanwhile, service was neglectful and sluggish. We did end up ordering a few desserts. Actually, both Juliet and my meals came with dessert. None of their dessert options truly appealed to me, so I went with something I felt was pretty safe, a tropical fruit salad with, interestingly enough, white pepper ice cream. Let me just say that people should not make a white pepper ice cream. As for the "tropical" fruits, apparently that meant a whole lot of kiwi and bananas. I was looking foward to maybe mango and passion fruits, but just picked out all the kiwi and ate that. We also got a passion fruit souffle to share, which was ok, the texture was a bit strange, and I think Juliet got the typical warm chocolate cake, it was the only decent dessert, but really, it's a hard one to screw up. In Tom's words, Vong sucked. It's clear that after opening over 15 restaurants, Jean Georges is just resting on his name for this place, which I should've known, with warning signs like reservations available at all hours and a dining room that never became more than half full.

And the last meal I'll write during our trip to NY, was my lunch at Google. That's right people, I finally made it into the Google cafeteria (who knew it'd end up being the NY one). My coworker's boyfriend is an employee at Google, and was working out of their NY office while we were at the FFS. And since my co-worker new that I'd always wanted to dine at the Google cafeteria, she invited me to lunch after a meeting with our publicist.

They actually have two cafeterias at the NY location. We checked out the first one, which was smaller, and they had a lasagna bar going on. They also had an area where you could pick up sushi in to go boxes and any drinks that you wanted. But we weren't too interested in the offerings and headed up stairs to the main cafeteria. The main cafeteria is on the top floor of the building, affording a nice view of the city. It had lots of different themed stations, but I stuck with the salad bar offerings. There was certainly a lot of variety and lots of nice fresh veggies, but to be honest, this wasn't the most amazing food I'd ever experienced. I mean, the selection of food is readily available to anyone who's ever been to City Bakery or an type of gourmet food market. The difference is at Google, you don't have to pay, and you can eat as much of it as you want. I did enjoy my meal there, but overall, it wasn't the transcendent experience that had been described to me.

So that as our trip to NY. I don't know if we'll be back next year, because the FFS will be in D.C. But we'll certainly return in December, to visit Tom's folks. I'm already thinking about where we'll be eating....

OUR FIRST (AND LAST) TRIP TO YANKEE STADIUM

As most of you know, Tom and I just got back from NY last week. I'll review some of the restaurants we visited in my next post, but I did want to do a quick post about my meal at Yankee Stadium. Now, in the title, I said that this was our first and last trip to Yankee Stadium. Tom's been a lifelong Yankee's fan, but he has never seen a game at Yankee Stadium, so when I knew we'd be going to NY, I also checked to see if they would be playing at home. Luckily, they were, and there were tickets available, so I got us tickets to see the Yankees v. Texas.

Many of you may also know that this is the last year for Yankee Stadium. They're building a brand new stadium directly across the street from the old stadium. We got there early so Tom could watch batting practice (missed it, but saw the Texas batting practice) and visit Memorial Park (also missed getting in by 5 minutes, we'll have to see it when we visit the new stadium). That means we had plenty of time to get few bites before the game started.

While Tom went for hot dogs, I actually had plenty of choices, and decided to go for a chicken cheesesteak. Here it is below.I even surprise myself when I say that this was pretty damn good. The bun was nice and soft, the chicken was decently cooked, and I enjoyed the cheese and onions on top. Overall, the food at Yankee Stadium is so much better than the stuff at McAfee. In fact, the entire experience of going to Yankee Stadium was better then McAfee. (though I can't say it was better than going to Fenway). Best of all, Tom had a great time, and I got to watch the cleaning crew do the YMCA before the 7th inning. I hate to say it, but I actually really enjoyed going to a game at Yankee Stadium, even if they painted the women's bathroom pink.

KATHMANDU RESTAURANT, BERKELEY

Ah, it's my day off, so I'm sitting in front on my TV, watching Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel while blogging. Eventually I'll get up and runs some errands, but for now, I'll just keep up with my blog. So Mondays are my day off, but Tom has to work, but we still like going out to get lunch. This gives us a chance to try new places at typically lower prices than you'd be paying at dinner, and a few weeks, I figured we'd try out a restaurant called Kathmandu Restaurant.

Located in the Gourmet Ghetto, we'd actually walked by this restaurant quite a few times, but we'd never stopped there. After doing some research on Yelp, though, it turned out the reviews were quite positive, so we decided to check it out.

When we entered the restaurant, it was totally empty (it was admittedly an early lunch), but we were greeted warmly by the staff and seated quickly. After looking at the menu, I discovered that this place didn't really have a lunch menu. The just had the same menu for lunch and dinner, so it was actually kinda pricey for lunch. Luckily, on a menu board placed on the street, they did list like 3 lunch specials, and I ended up ordering one of them.

So we both started lunch off with a cup of lentil soup. It was actually pretty good. Not anything I couldn't have made a home by myself, but quite nice.

Next, we ordered one of their famous appetizers that everyone raved about online - the momo (basically a meat dumpling). They have different versions, but we ordered the chicken ones, and here they are below.

I gotta say, these were really good. They actually remind me of soup dumplings (which I haven't eaten since I gave up pork over nearly 13 years ago) and they're served with a very yummy red pepper sauce (that orange colored stuff in the middle of the plate). I would go back just to order these again.

For lunch, Tom ordered this enormous plate of mixed grilled meat.
He thought his dish was pretty good. By putting all different types of meat on the same plate, not all the meat cooked evenly, so things like the shrimp were a bit overcooked. Meanwhile, I ordered the lunch special of grilled chicken, which was served along with rice and veggies.
I liked my dish. It was a generous portion, and actually cost a lot less than Tom's meal (probably half as much). I wasn't feeling so great during the meal, so I didn't end up eating most of this, but I did take it home and managed to make two meals out of the leftovers.

Our meal at Kathmandu Kitchen was pretty good, but it ended being a bit pricey for lunch. I thought the food was pretty good, and would gladly go back for some more momos, but I don't think it'll ever become a regular dining destination for us.

BOUCHON, YOUNTVILLE

With so many friends visiting for Kjell and Huong's wedding, we decided to take a trip up to Napa to spend some time together and visit a few wineries. Of course, we had to have a great meal, and started the day with a lunch at Thomas Keller's Bouchon. Now, I've actually been to Bouchon before, but it was years ago, right after it had opened, and I went to a New Year's Eve dinner with my family. I didn't think it was all the spectacular at the time, but it was worth another try.

We didn't have reservations, but since we arrive fairly early in the day, they were able to accomadate us. They started off by serving us a lovely warm baguette along with some butter.

I wasn't actually that hungry, so I decided I'd just have a salad and soup. Of course, I did order a pretty heavy salad and soup. I started off with a duck confit salad served on frisee with poached cherries and pickled turnips. Let me say, this dish was wonderful. The duck was cooked perfectly and was soft and delicious. The pickled turnips were really well done- crisp, tart, and still tasting of turnips and lastly the cherries. I'm not a fan of cooked fruit, especially if it's going to be served to me cold, but those cherries really were great.

I then ordered a traditional onion soup. It was actually much heavier that what I wanted, but the only other soup involved fennel and I hate fennel. So I had this bowl of soup, covered in an enormous layer of cheese. It was too much for me. I had a few bites of it before I gave up and handed it over to Juliet to finish off. (She's kinda like Tom, finishing off the things I'm always too full to eat).

Overall, we had a really enjoyable lunch at Bouchon. The service was friendly, everyone enjoyed their dishes and other than the slightly high price tag (which we expected) it really did meet all our high expectations.

AN OAKLAND WEDDING BANQUET

As many of you know, Huong and Kjell got married in the Bay Area a few weeks ago. Their ceremony was on Sunday, but they had the traditional Chinese banquet on Saturday evening at the Restaurant Peony in Oakland Chinatown. We arrived a bit late (having been told that everyone shows up late to these things), so food started being served shortly after our arrival.

We got seated at a table with all of our friends, and the table next to us was filled with even more friends (it's nice going to a wedding when you know so many people). And even though some of the food was unfamiliar to Tom and other guests at our table (and I just didn't eat a lot of what was served), we still enjoyed the plentiful food.

We started off with the typical plate of cold cuts, filled with slices of pork, pickled veggies and jellyfish. I enjoyed the jellyfish, though would have preferred it with more pickled veggies.

The next item that followed were these tasty fried crab balls. (There was also a plate of roast suckling pig, which I didn't photograph since I didn't eat any)

Next up, a dish or broccoli, shrimp and scallops- all very fresh and tasty.

Next, my favorite dish of the night, the Peking duck with those fried shrimp chips that my sisters and I used to fight over when we were kids.

Here's a photo of the duck after we had consumed the skin with the little pancakes (unfortunately, the didn't give us nearly enough scallions or plum sauce)

A plate of ginger scallion lobster was served.

Followed by a plate of pan fried noodles:

And the final dish, the steamed fish with soysauce, ginger and scallions.

Overall, the food was decent enough, but it was actually really oily and greasy, thus it was a heavy meal. Since it was so oily, I actually didn't end up stuffing myself and walked away from the meal a little hungry (amazingly enough). I'm not a huge fan of the banquet food at Peony, but I've heard from many sources that they have a great dim sum, so I'm hoping to try that out in the future.

Oh and to finish the meal, we had a bowl of red bean soup (the Chinese aren't really known for their desserts), but at least this was a nice, light way to finish the meal.

CITY BAKERY, LA

Many of you may have visited the original City Bakery in NY, but did you know that there's also a City Bakery in LA? I knew it existed, but had not yet visited, so early on a Monday morning, we headed over to the Brentwood Country Mart where City Bakery is located.

The space that City Bakery is located in used to be a supermarket, so it's quite a large space, but it's set up quite differently from the NY location (which I just went to last week). Unlike NY, the LA City Bakery actually has counter service, so you can order food and have it made for you - totally unlike the cafeteria only service in NY. I'm not sure if this is because the cafeteria only thing didn't work in LA, or if they had always planned to have counter service. Anyway, here's the one of the interior shots of the place. What's funny is that the cafeteria part of it isn't very large at all - the entire right half of the picture is actually like a little gourmet market place where you can buy different ingredients and foods.

They had just brought out the mac and cheese, so of course he had to get some, and I must say, it was excellent. Buttery, cheesy and with crunchy bits, I enjoyed it quite a lot.

And here's a pic of the bakery case, with their famous giant morning buns right in front. I actually wasn't that hungry, and other than the few bites of mac and cheese, I had a coffee.

Overall, this location of City Bakery is a little unusual, but early in the morning, it was a great place for a casual breakfast. I'm sure it gets packed in the afternoons, and they don't have a ton of seats, but I wouldn't mind going back in the future for some more of that delicious mac and cheese.

PATRICK'S ROADHOUSE, LA

A couple weeks ago Tom and I were watching TV, and he saw a burger restaurant that served a burger with caviar and sour cream on it. As we watched the show, I realized that I recognized the place - it's located right on PCH, less than 10 minutes from my parents' house, and even though I'd never actually been there before, I promised him we would go the next time we were visiting my parents.

Well, a few weeks ago, we were down in LA visiting my parents, and took the opportunity to meet Katie and Dustin for burgers at Patrick's Roadhouse. Though we had all driven by the place hundreds of times, none of us had ever gone. Parking isn't very easy to find in the area, but we lucked out and found a spot right out front. When we entered the place, it was actually pretty busy inside. The front room is filled with a bar, but in back was a narrow space, decorated with funky decor, a small dining room and a view right out onto PCH. We were seated right away. Here's a shot of the interior.

After Katie and Dustin arrived, we did our ordering. I actually wasn't very hungry, so I ordered a pretty simple turkey burger. Here it is below.

My turkey burger was pretty well prepared, and actually tasted like turkey. Still, I prefer my well charred burger from Al's Big Burger more. But here's the reason we went, Tom's Rockefeller burger.

You can see the mound of caviar and sour cream on the burger, but there wasn't a price on the menu (just a little note that said if you need to know, you can't afford it, but it was only $15). Tom actually thought his burger was pretty good. (I enjoyed the fries most of all).

I thought Patrick's Roadhouse was a really good burger joint. The prices were pretty reasonable and they had a lot of choices (including a veggie burger for Katie). I don't know if we'll be back, just due to the tough parking situation, but if you're ever visiting the beach, it's a great place to stop for a quick bite.

900 GRAYSON, BERKELEY

We continue in our search for yummy breakfast places in our area and we recently found a great one called 900 Grayson. This place is located literally blocks from my work, and I know I've driven by it half a dozen times, but I never noticed it since the place faces a small side street, rather than the main street. When we drove up, we found a restaurant housed in what looked like a cute little red house from the exterior, but was painted in a warm yellow on the interior. It looked incredibly cozy and though it was early in the morning, there were already several locals having breakfast there.

This place is famous for it's fried chicken and waffle breakfast, but that was a little too heavy for us. I just had a waffle, while Tom had corned beef hash.

My waffle was actually quite tasty, but I'm a fan of crispy waffles and though this one was served was real maple syrup and a dollop of Plugra butter on top, I still prefer the Fat Apple's waffles. Tom's corned beef hash was a bit of an unusual version of hash- the corned beef and potatoes were served in large chunks, rather than all diced up together. Though the ingredients were incredibly fresh and well prepared, he still prefers the traditional version of hash.

Overall, we still had a nice, relaxing breakfast at 900 Grayson, and we've already been back. It's just a lovely place for a casual breakfast and I think we'll be going back often.

BAR CESAR, BERKELEY

A few weeks ago Sue Min arrive in the Bay Area. She'll be starting dental school in a few months, and stayed with us a night before we got ready to head down to LA together. So for dinner, we decided to take her to tapas (having just arrived from Singapore, she was in no mood for Asian cuisine). My friend had told me of Bar Cesar, a popular restaurant in the Gourmet Ghetto, and since we had not yet had tapas in the Bay Area, we figured it was worth a try.

When we arrived at the restaurant, it was packed. It was a beautiful, sunny day and lots of people were out. Luckily, we were able to snag a table pretty quickly and only waited about 10 minutes before we were seated at a table right on the sidewalk. They started off with a small dish of olives and then we ordered quite a number of dishes to share.

First I got a dish of deviled eggs, which were pretty good.

And we got a plate of three Spanish cheeses which Tom and Sue Min enjoyed.

But all of a sudden, they started bringing out all the dishes at once. We started running out of table space and they had to bring an extra small table so we'd have enough room for everything. Below is a plate of orange & avocado salad with orange red-wine & cumin vinaigrette (not enough avocados) and a spicy tuna and egg sandwich. (which was pretty good).

By this point, the food started coming out so quickly, that I didn't really have a chance to take pics. Below, you can see a plate of patatas bravas. It was not my favorite version of this dish. The potatoes were cut into large hunks, covered in a sauce and then in a garlic aioli. It was just too heavy. In the rear is a plate of anchovies, which Tom loves.

We also got a pan of paella, which oddly enough, was served with an enormous dollop of garlic aioli on top. I've eaten paella in Spain several times and have never seen this done, and was actually kinda appalled. We ate around the aioli, and our server was actually pretty surprised that we didn't touch the aioli.

Overall, the service was quite nice and the tapas were decent enough. Oh, one of my favorite tapas dishes that I ordered, a plate of pimientos del padron, weren't well cooked, and ended up being quite a bit greasy. The thing was, this place was really expensive, and so, I don't think the cost was worth the quality of the food. We'll keep looking for a good tapas place in the Bay Area- perhaps with a trip to SF.