Genki Crepes

JT hadn’t been out of the house all day so I told her I’d take her out for dessert in The City. We wanted to try somewhere new and eventually settled on Genki Crepes on Clement. I started with Nutella and peaches, which was good, but even all that chocolatey Nutella goodness couldn’t hold a candle to JT’s that had cheesecake bits, blueberry sauce and whipped cream. Even after those, we still had room for another round of dessert: a coconut Egg Puff and a hot Ovaltine. I had seen the Egg Puffs advertised before, but never tried one, so I decided to take advantage of the opportunity. It was OK, but would have been better with a filling. JT thought the Ovaltine would be more like a malt, but she enjoyed it anyway.

Hana Zen

5 November 2009
JT and I tried this place as a potential spot to take Sensei. The food was OK, would be fine in any other city Sensei visits, but was not up to the high San Francisco standards. However, the most memorable part of the meal was the couple seated a few tables away from us.

Server brings out the orders of Dude and Dude’s Wife. Dude’s Wife is obviously immediately unhappy, complaining “I can’t eat this” with a grimace as Dude starts eating his own dinner. Server comes over to check on them, I hear Dude saying “Can you scrape it off?” Dude’s Wife’s dish returns to kitchen, and Dude keeps eating his dinner.

Server returns with scraped food. Dude’s Wife insists she still can’t eat it. Her problem was that she ordered chicken teriyaki but only wants chicken WITHOUT the teriyaki. Server tries to explain he can’t “scrape” anything else off because the chicken is cooked in the sauce. Dude asks how much they would charge to make another order not cooked in the sauce. By this time, Dude has finished his dinner. Dude’s Wife is still just sitting there sipping tea and looking increasingly more forlorn.

Nation’s II

Halloween 2009
While I was listening to the World Series, JT informs me she is hungry and must have chili fries. The butternut squash soup I made her for dinner just won’t suffice. Since she is 39-weeks pregnant, how can I refuse? I call in the order, drive down through the fog and past the trick-or-treaters, collect the fries and catch the end of the game on the radio just as I pull into the driveway with some fresh-hot fried-potato chili-cheesy goodness.

Ozumo

29 October 2009
With the imminent arrival of BTC1, we wanted to enjoy one last fancy dinner out with just the two of us, so we headed down to Ozumo. Since it is next door to the Embarcadero YMCA where GGK moved last summer, I had been wanting to try it as a possible restaurant to take Sensei to when he visits us. And lastly, JT and I were celebrating our two-year wedding anniversary!

We decided to forgo the big plate yaki niku options and stick to the Japanese tapas/izakaya side of menu. We started with hiya yakko (chilled soft tofu topped with bonito flakes) and the futago (thin slices of roast beef on top of a lump of spinach, eggplant and a slice of cucumber). Both were excellent. These were followed by kamo kunse (smoked duck), and the MOST tender kurobuta (roast pork) I have ever tasted: Melt-in-your-mouth delicious! Since I was scouting for Sensei, a ordered some of his favorite sushi items: o-toro, sake, unagi and botanebi. JT abstained from the raw stuff, but at least she could enjoy the deep-fried shrimp heads that Sensei usually makes ME eat. We rounded out the selections with a tasty spicy scallop roll and the nasu dengaku (roasted eggplant) that they almost forgot. For dessert, JT ordered the Meyer lemon pannacotta and our server was pushing the chocolate-azuki beignets, so we had to try those too. Chocolate-azuki sounded a bit strange, but they were hot out of the deep fryer when they arrived at our table, so how could they not have been delicious? They were accompanied by kurogoma (black sesame) ice cream and housemade chocolate truffles. It didn’t say so on the menu, but our server informed us the ice cream was Humphry Slocumbe’s version of “Cookies and Cream.” I think this was supposed to make it sound more enticing, but after our previous experience at HS, we were a bit apprehensive. The ice cream turned out to be quite tasty, the pannacotta was excellent, and the truffles capped off a memorable meal.

Gorilla BBQ, Pacifica

JT didn’t get enough grilled flesh after a disappointing visit to Espetus last night, and as we rolled past Gorilla BBQ on Hwy 1 in Pacifica on the way home from Half Moon Bay, she said, “Let’s try that place tonight!”

And I’m glad we did!

They only offer take-out, no sit-down, so I headed down with one of the LTs (they were visiting to celebrate their recent nuptuals) and we picked up four combo meals. They were out of hotlinks and beef brisket, but we loaded up on pork ribs, pulled pork, whole half chickens, grilled eggplant and zucchini, corn-on-the-cob, beans & rice and cornbread. It was all falling-off-the-bone delicious! The meat boasted the vaunted “pink ring” that is the hallmark of great smoked meat (_not_ being undercooked). There was even not too much butter on the c-o-t-c for LT. Did I mention some pudding-like pecan pie for dessert? And only 5 minutes from our house! We’ll be heading back there again so that JT can enjoy their extensive plushy gorilla collection while we wait for them to box up our order.

Humphry Slocombe

One of the great pleasures in life is having ice cream for dessert on a warm summer day. Since today was as warm as it ever was in Daly City (you could actually open the windows), after dinner JT and I made the trek into the City to Humphry Slocombe. JT had been talking about wanting sorbet for over a week, and they had at least a dozen sorbet flavors listed on their website. However, when we got there, she was a bit dismayed to find the only available sorbet was hibiscus beet…what could be more frou-frou foodie than that? She ended up just getting vanilla (well, Tahitian Vanilla at least). I was happy with my choices of Vietnamese Coffee (since after spending the last two days painting the office light brown, I had really been wanting coffee ice cream) and Secret Breakfast (bourbon and cornflakes). I decided to pass on Peanut Butter Curry, Salt and Pepper, and Fetal Kitten. OK, the last one wasn’t really a flavor (at least not on offer today), but they had paintings of Andy Warhol-like Tomato Soup cans with several of the real flavors and then another with Fetal Kitten. I thought that was a bit much.

Nation’s Giant Hamburgers, Daly City

February 27, 2009

JT: After a Friday night movie date to watch Slumdog Millionaire (great movie!) we stopped for dessert on the way home. I was still really full from dinner and popcorn, so I thought we’d just share a slice of pie. But my heart was set on cherry pie and RC wanted chocolate. Luckily (?), they offer “small slices” so we ended up with two pieces of pie!

RC promised to bring me back here for burgers (instead of the frou-frou BurgerMeister). I didn’t forget. 🙂

p.s. I really shouldn’t have dessert so late at night.

Majikku Ramen, Daly City

February 22, 2009

JT: I was craving fried chicken, as usual, so we went to the local ramen shop for tasty karaage and ramen. We also ordered their roasted eggplant. (Next time I’ll see if I can convince RC to get two orders of karaage. mmMMmm… karaage…)

One dish that is my favorite here is their okonomiyaki: always good but best shared. It’s so yummy it’s hard to remember that it’s a bit more than a JT-sized portion.

Dinner with the Potters, Berkeley

10 January 2009
We went to visit the Potters in Berkeley for dinner and to our surprise and delight Tracy cooked a delicious feast for us:

• Vegetable soup
• Fresh bread with three dipping sauces
• Lasagna
• Thai salad with super secret dressing
• Spicy pizza bread

All followed by cookies with ice cream and berries for dessert! We played a super long game of Super Munchkins while we digested… Let’s do that again! Next time, it’ll have to be dinner by the Tan Choys! Look out!

Korea House, SF J-town

Korean Barbecue Feast

January 17, 2009

Mike and Angela were visiting from Utah, and Angela said she had never had Korean BBQ before. Under optimal circumstances, we would hit Brother’s BBQ on Geary, but it was a Saturday night and when we rolled by there was a MOB of people waiting. So we kept going all the way to J-town and ate at Korea House instead. I love all the little dishes of condiments that comes with Korean BBQ! JT ordered the oyster pancake as an app, it was WAY bigger than I expected and didn’t quite match up to the memories she had of the ones her Dad would make, but I thought it was pretty tasty and I’m not a big oyster fan. Then we gorged ourselves on BBQ’d chicken, spicy pork and beef, all grilled to tasty goodness. Even though you always leave smelling like a campfire, I still love Korean BBQ.