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.

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.

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.

Bottega, Napa Valley

January 2, 2009

Erino gave us a tip on Bottega, Michael Chiarello’s new Napa Valley spot (her friend is a pastry chef there). Since we were heading up to Calistoga for the weekend, we stopped by for lunch.

I started with the most tender grilled octopus I ever had (and I tried a lot of them when we were in Greece), then went to some delicious grilled scallops. JT started with a hearty minestrone topped with wood-oven toasted bread: you could just taste the fiery, crunchy goodness! For an entree, JT had roast chicken with PANETTONE STUFFING!! As you can tell from the ALL CAPS, the stuffing was the revelation of the meal. A week earlier, we took some panettone from Mazzetti’s over to my folks’ house as a dessert. It was good, but panettone by itself was a bit too dry and didn’t do much for me. But as a stuffing, it was amazing! The bread just soaked up so much chickeny-goodness, yet retaining its sweetness thanks to the dried fruits.

Erino also tipped us on the molten chocolate cake, WELL worth the 25 minute wait while they make it fresh for you. If you’re heading up to Napa, don’t miss Bottega!!

-RC

Pomelo, San Francisco

October 28, 2008

For our one-year anniversary, we went to Pomelo, our favorite neighborhood restaurant (Robert’s old neighborhood, that is, the inner sunset).

Every dish is always good. Jenny usually gets the lanzhou (top right) because the fresh noodles are her favorite and the ahi is seared to perfection. Robert opted for a seasonal special that he still claims was “hella good.”

Pomelo -inner sunset
92 judah street (at 6th ave.)
san francisco, ca 94122
415.731.6175