JAC'S ASIAN BISTRO

We have a small strip mall just 2 blocks from our home. It's a little sketchy, with an "adult video" store, a strange massage parlor and a pizza place that never appear to be open - but it's also the home to our favorite bahn mi shop (Bah Le). So when a restaurant, Jac's Asian Bistro, opened there a few months ago, I was rather skeptical about it. Every time we drove by, Tom would jokingly say that he wanted to try it, so one evening I finally caved and we walked over for dinner.

The place was very minimally decorated, but it was nice to see some other Asians dining there. As we were seated, we were handed some massive menus, that went on for pages and seemed to have anything imaginable on it (including some dishes involving hot dogs.) We ended up ordering a few dishes to share (including several off the menu where all the dishes were $5.99 and under).

Before our food arrived we were given a couple of bowls of house soup, which wasn't too bad.

Then our dishes started to arrive. Tom had ordered a chili-garlic fish dish. And considering it was off that $5.99 menu, it was pretty good.

Next, my dish arrived. I had gotten a seafood chow-fun with XO sauce. It wasn't off the cheap eats menu, but it was only $7.99 and it was a pretty big portion.

Lastly Tom ordered this dish with mushrooms and bok choy, also off the $5.99 menu and it was surprisingly good. The bok choy was fresh, as were the mushrooms, and best of all, it was really cheap!

Overall, the dinner at Zac's was pretty decent. It certainly wasn't the healthiest or best Chinese food around, but for the price and quantity, we'd happily go back.

JAPANESE FOOD IN EL CERRITO

As many of you know, we're still searching for a good Japanese restaurant near where we live. We'd heard of a Japanese sushi place near our home called Yusan Sushi, so we wanted to check it out. Unfortunately when we arrived, we found the restaurant closed, with a pretty cryptic note on the door. It said "Reopening Soon", but was dated three days earlier. As we stood outdoors contemplating whether or not the restaurant would open that night, we noticed another restaurant next door called Yokohama Restaurant. Given that we didn't have many other restaurants nearby to choose from, we decided to check it out.

When we entered the restaurant, it was pretty empty, but it was cute, with your stereotypical Japanese restaurant decorations. We were seated right away and after putting in our orders, we were given a few freebies, a little plate of cold soba noodles along with some pickles.

They weren't too bad, and I was pretty suprised that they gave us these freebies in the first place. With my dinner, I also got a salad, which was pretty average.

For dinner, I ordered a combination- chicken on chicken. Well, it was more that I got to pick from a list of foods, so I chose chicken karage (which was done as chicken wings) and chicken teriyaki. Here it is below:

As you can see, the portions are pretty generous, and it wasn't too bad either. Tom and I decided that it certainly wasn't the best Japanese food that we've ever had (nor the cheapest, we spent about $15-18/ea for dinner), but it was better than some of the places we had tried previously (and certainly better then Katana-ya, where our cousin likes to visit frequently). I don't think we'll be back any time soon, we'll continue to visit LA for truly great Japanese food, but if we're ever in the mood, we'd certainly go back to Yokohama.