Fat Kid Adventure #120: La Bodeguita del Medio (Palo Alto)

Located on California Ave in Palo Alto's secondary downtown, this Cuban joint is a popular lunch and dinner hangout for the working class and the local residents alike. I have been here on several occassions, but tonight I invited Winona for dindin. She's the Assistant Dean of Students and Director for the American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Program at Stanford. My freshman year at Muwekma, she took me in and made me [feel like] an honorary native. :)

Tonight we meet up for a little reunion. The entrance to the restaurant portion bypasses the bar, where happy hour is apparently still going on. The ambience inside was very relaxing - dim with Latin music flowing lightly about in the room.

The complimentary bread was pretty good with the accompanied balsamic vinegarette. But soon, I pounced on my Arroz con Pollo - Cuban style braised chicken with spiced yellow rice and plantanos maduros. My pollo was actually huge - I believe it was a half chicken. Very tender and juicy, the chicken almost slid off the bones. I would have preferred a tiny bit of a kick somewhere in there. Winona ordered the Romaine Caesar salad with queso duro viejo, yuca croutons, aged manchego and chili ginger caesar. It was apparently delightfully refreshing!

Pricing is a little steep - $8 for the salad and $18 for the chicken. Service is pretty decent - our waiter was pretty attentive and not at all pushy. Definitely worth a try! For lunch, try the Carne Asada Sandwich - delish :)

http://www.yelp.com/biz/la-bodeguita-del-medio-palo-alto
http://www.labodeguita.com

Fat Kid Adventure #119: Falafel Drive-In (San Jose)

Yesterday, we decided to once again start off the day on a delicious note. And by start, I mean like 3pm. Anyway we headed down to Stevens Creek and Bascom corner for this little San Jose drive-in featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives on the Food Network - the Falafel Drive-In.

The joint looked so beat down but it was crowded - good sign. It looked like it used to be a drive-thru - got a canopy for cars to drive under and thru, the old food pass-thru window got patched up and turned into a AC installation wall.

Anyway we ordered falafel sandwiches, a banana shake, and some pita chips. All in all, this was probably one of the healthiest dives out there, since most dives feature some really unhealthy but irresistably delectable specialties.

The falafel was very simple and pretty yummy, and you can kind taste the healthiness. The pita bread was stuffed with 4 or 5 falafel balls, then loose lettuce and tomato cubes, finally seasoned up with some yogurt sauce and sweet chili paste. The entire thing is vegetarian as the falafel balls are essentially breaded hummus balls, and really good ones at that!

The banana shake was delicious - don't know where they got the banana ice cream or maybe it's just vanilla ice cream + bananas.

The pita chips were a bit of a disappointment because they looked like they've been seasoned with a lot of stuff - oregano, rosemary, pepper, salt, maybe even a wee bit of paprika. However, the flavor of it wasn't strong at all, maybe it wasn't meant to be, but the large amounts of seasoning that appeared to be on the chips did not attribute to much flavor compared to regular pita chips from Safeway. I mean it wasn't bad, but it wasn't spectacular neither.

Falafel sandwich is definitely worth a try at this little Middle Eastern drive-in, and don't forget the banana shake - a combo is just $7.50!

http://www.yelp.com/biz/falafels-drive-in-san-jose
http://www.falafelsdrivein.com/

Fat Kid Adventure #118: Manresa (Los Gatos)

So I've been putting yall onto the dive game for a minute, but a while back when life wasn't so broke we were chillin' at some pretty fancy-with-a-side-of-schmancy joints. Back in December, for our 17th monthliversary, we dined at Manresa in Los Gatos. It holds a 2-star Michelin rating (it's out of 3) for its American and Spanish basque-inspired fusion style, and its executive chef, David Kinch, recently beat Bobby Flay on Iron Chef. That right there should say something about this joint.

Located in the heart of Los Gatos, but off the main strip, Manresa is tucked away on a tiny, quiet street. We went at night, so I didn't take note of the outermost architecture, but the inside is very elegant and prim-n-proper. Our host brought us to our table, and sitting there was a welcome card - how nice!

If you do visit Manresa, keep in mind that you are going for an experience and not for a meal, because if you are looking to get stuffed you may be disappointed. What's this experience? Well, it involves the sight, smell, and taste - the art of the plating and the story that it tells, the smell of the dish and the ingredients being used, and the taste of the small, exquisite concoctions. Since the servings are very small and unique, one should really take time to taste slowly so as to really appreciate the taste and possibly the painstaking creation of each course. And of course, you're paying big bucks for this experience - half a grand for dinner can make anyone sad.

One special feature about Manresa is its seasonal menu, which means what I'm about to describe may not apply to your experience. Each seasonal menu has a theme, and every dish is created with that theme in mind.

Onto the food! So we decided on the tasting menu, which is a ginormous 16 courses. They are as follows:

Appetizers
1. petit fours "red pepper - black olive"
2. garden beignets, vinegar powder
3. horchata and lightly toasted parsnips
4. oyster with sea urchin, nori croustillant
5. arpege farm egg

Entrees
1. Japanese sea bream sashimi with olive oil and chives
2. butternut squash veloute, naturtium ice cream
3. "into the vegetable garden"
4. autumn tidal pool
5. roasted black rod, clam vinaigrette and a brown butter emulsion
6. roast squab with chestnuts, artichoke
7. beef bavette in its own fat, parsley roots and yellow foot mushrooms

Desserts
1. red beet cloud cake with mandarin sorbet, coconut granite
2. meyer lemon vacherin with almond biscuit, dried apricot
3. moscavado sugar custard, salted butter ice cream, banana
4. petit fours "strawberry - chocolate"

Look at that crazy ass menu - there are so many vocabs... The meal lasted over 3 hours, and it opened and ended with the petit fours. They are gummy candy-esque tasties which whet the appetite and also refreshens the pallette.

This note is long enough, so I will just mention one of each category that is most memorable.

For the appetizers, the oyster with sea urchin was a very unexpected dish. The sea urchin sat as a orange paste atop the raw oyster which sat on a bed of sea salt. It reminded us of roe on sushi, but it tasted more moist and compact. The oyster was a very cold and jelly sensation, in perfect contrast with the texture of the sea urchin but at the same time in seafoody harmony.

For the entree, the "into the vegetable garden" was the most unique. As a matter of fact, this is almost like the star dish at the restaurant at the time. I do not remember the ingredients that well, but the plating essentially brought out the essence of the Manresa garden (also in Los Gatos), which is where the restaurant grows and harvests its own fresh ingredients for every meal. The plate included leaves, flowers, fruits, vegetables, and dirt. Of course the dirt is not literal; it is based on roasted chicory root and dried potatoes. It presents a very interesting semi-dry and particular texture, that makes you think wow this is some good tasting... dirt. Sounds weird to say, but the recreation of dirt is unexpected and difficult. However, the point is driven home - every component of the dish was from the garden and portrays an aspect of the garden.

Now to be fair to the rest of entrees, every single one was very special in both presentation as well as serving style. For example, the butternut squash veloute with nasturtium ice cream involved the ice cream being brought out first and then the butternut squash soup was pour gently on and then around the ice cream to semi-melt it to create a very nice soup with great temporal and textural contrast. The rest were just great on the taste buds and pleasing to the eyes. Moving on!

Finally for the dessert, we enjoyed the vacherin (a type of cow's milk cheese). Its presentation was quite special as it was kind of busy. The color contrast between the dried apricots, the cheese, the lemon slices, and the almond biscuit was pretty wild and interesting, not to mention the shapes that these things came in. Anyway - definitely worth looking forward to!

The service was fantastic overall - very attentive staff that really knows how to take care of you. For example, we had a questiona bout how the top of the egg shell for the arpege farm egg dish was so nicely take off, our host actually went back to the kitchen and brought out the tool and explained it in detail. It was apparently a custom-made tool inspired from some random trip the chef went on. Anyway, I thought that was pretty cool.

At the end of the night, we asked for a copy of the menu for keepsake, the host returned with two envelopes containing the tasting menu, personally signed by the chef, the great David Kinch, himself. Awesome! :D

In summary, go with an open heart and lots of money, and don't treat this place like a restaurant but rather an adventure. You will have a wonderful time!

If you want some visuals, visit this blog entry (http://tangbro1.blogspot.com/2008/11/manresa-11222008.html) - this guy had a similar experience there!

http://www.yelp.com/biz/manresa-restaurant-los-gatos
http://www.manresarestaurant.com/

Fat Kid Adventure #117: Cafe San Jose (San Jose)

Rar and I went out to this little dive (sorta) at Meridian and Hamilton at the edge of San Jose. Result = awesome start to a Saturday morning. This is a very unassuming place with low-profile decor and an open kitchen. The setup is a diner, and the waitresses definitely sport the 50s diner friendliness. We went for a late brunch at 2pm (they close @3p), so the tiny joint was a bit opened up.

We ordered 1 strawberry milkshake to share, a California Omelette for me, and a Cinnamon Roll French Toast for her. All three were fantastic - both in terms of portions and the quality.

Strawberry milkshake - genuinely blended with ice cream not some crazy crap with food coloring. It was nice and thick, you can really taste the ice cream in there with the strawberry shreds. Very simple and very delish. Also, we were sharing one order and it came in two full glasses topped off with whipped cream. That is a LOT of milkshake for one order.

California Omelette with hash brown and buttered raisin toast - hash brown took up half the plate and the other half was the omelette, and the toast came separately. The hash browns I'll skip - nothing special, tasted well with pepper and ketchup. The omelette was stacked 4 inches high, fluffy with 4 eggs and perhaps a lotta milk, and filled with turkey, tomato, avocado and jack cheese. Solid yet soft, every forkful was accompanied by some Tabasco and ketchup for a nice kick. The buttered raisin toast was just a single slice cut into fours, and I jammed every one of them. Since this dish was so big, I ate in "rounds" - every round was a bite of toast with jam, a little bit of hash brown, a sip of the shake, and a forkful of omelette. Simply tasty goodness.

Rar had the Cinnamon Roll French Toast, which turned out to be 4 cinnamon buns served french toast style and lightly sprinkled with powdered sugar. Damn that dish was sweet - the syrup was NOT necessary. Since it was a cinnamon roll was french toasted, it was more dense than fluffy, brown sugar glaze at the bottom. The apple compote that came with the dish had a very creamy taste and homemade feel to it. Feels like the inside of a very well made apple pie. The dish was certainly meant to be shared - HUGE, and a bit too sweet.

Overall the experience was fantastic - great service, great food. No view or anything but the focus is completely on the food. I would take anyone here who is a fan of American breakfast. Come to think about breakfasts, I believe I'd prefer American style out of all ethnic styles. 100% worth checking out!

http://www.yelp.com/biz/cafe-san-jose-san-jose
http://www.cafesanjose.com/

Fat Kid Adventure #116: Thai Pepper (Campbell)

We went out for lunch to celebrate Phong's birthday at this Thai joint in Campbell near the Pruneyard recommended by Neha. Modestly decorated with a nice waiting area proudly displaying a reclining Buddha, Thai Pepper welcomed us to a full lunch crowd - ahhh yes good sign, good sign. After asking the waitress to fridge the cake we got for Phong, we sat down to chitchat and order. They have wide selections on the menu and pretty nice selection on the lunch specials!

Ordered the Pineapple Fried Rice with Chicken and shared with Michel's See Aw Noodle with Prawns. Some sour curry-ish soup on the house to whet the appetite, and the entrees came about 15-20 later. Service is good - the Thai waitresses are very polite and nice.

The salad that came with the meal did not have dressing, but apparently the Tabasco-looking bottles on the table contained the sweet and sour dressing for the salad. The Pineapple Fried Rice was great - nice moisture on the rice contributed by the sauteed pineapple cubes, and their tangy goodness is always a plus. Rice is that nice fluffy and loose. The prawn noodles were pretty good - noodles (pad thai) not too dry and grease not too strong. Number of prawns wasn't impressive, but flavor taken.

Overall good quantity and decent quantity. Good for lunch!

Happy Birthday, Phong!

http://www.yelp.com/biz/thai-pepper-cuisine-campbell
http://www.thaipeppercuisine.net/Home.html

Fat Kid Adventure #115: Southland Flavor Café (Cupertino)

Tucked away in the Cupertino Village (which means awesome for pre- or post-Ranch 99 meals), this authentic Taiwanese cuisine "xiao chi," or snacky appetizer, house is small and definitely flavorful. We definitely got the hole-in-wall feel, and the service is actually surprisingly friendly for a Chinese/Taiwanese joint like this. I'm Chinese, and I should know.

Cultural note: Southland refers to Tainan (as you will see in the resto's URL), which is a big city on the southern tip of the Formosa Island, aka Taiwan. So this little joint should be a pretty authentic cuisine of a pretty specific neighborhood.

Small as it is, the menu is friggin' huge. Interestingly, there is an appetizer section, and then a "snack" section. The "snack" section is actually kind of like appetizers, but I think the difference here is that the appetizer section is actually pre-made since most of them are pickled dishes. The "snack" section is probably the cooked appetizer-size sections. Speaking of size, most dishes are generous in portions. At least for two people.

We ordered green onion jelly fish for the appetizer, and it came in a clear plastic bowl that looked like a take-out box - looks very pre-made. Delicious nevertheless! The jelly fish is crispy and tangy - great for whetting the appetite.

For entrees we had a nice plate of sauteed pea sprouts - a very simple, healthy and traditional dish, and a plate of mixed seafood and egg fried rice - mussels, clams, scallops, shrimps. The meal was very balanced and tasted great. The pea sprouts were fresh and crisp - every bite was juicy! The fried rice was excellent - y'all know how good fried rice taste like so I'm not gonna go adjective happy with this.

There are some very special dishes at this joint that I will definitely try once Lent is over - a lot of delicacies involving interesting parts of beef and pork = oOoOoOoOoOoOoooo :D

http://www.tainancafe.com/aboutus.html
http://www.yelp.com/biz/southland-flavor-cafe-cupertino

Fat Kid Adventure #114: Ramen Halu (San Jose/Cupertino)

Another hole in the wall on the edge of San Jose, Ramen Halu is nested in a strip that also features an empty Taiwanese wonton joint, a barbershop that serves up Playboy mags, an Indian grocer, and a place that has its sign completely backwards. On Saratoga, immediately north of Kiely.

ANYWAY, this is our second time here. Not a bad place, but unfortunately it is cash only. Small joint, got private parties on the left side, and open ones on the right. Regular wooden tables. 2 young Japanese guys serving. Good enough for me.

Halu features 4 types of ramen - thick: Halu and Tsuke, and thin: Shio and Syo-yu. What's cool is that on the menu they really try to capture the essence of each of the four dishes. On the website, there's even more detail on the 2-part soup which is unique to Halu. I didn't know this but the heart of ramen is the soup, but I had always thought it was the noodles (since ramen in Chinese loosely translates to long noodles). The soup is apparently one part pork - extracting from pork backbones and thighbones and boiled with dried veggies for about 10 hours; and one part chicken - boiling 2 whole chickens, chicken stock, chicken feet (momiji), thighbones, dried and fresh veggie for about 8 hours. Both portions are supposed to retard aging of the skin, maintain skin tone and luster, as well as to flush cholesterol out of the body. So really this is quite a healthy choice!

Now the food.

First, agedashi eggplant to whet the appetite. Agedashi is magic. So far, it has made everything taste great for me. Last time at Ringer Hut the tofu, and this time at Halu the eggplant. So The appetizer came out like this: agedashi sauce/soup on the bottom, 4 chunks of petalled, chilled eggplant sits within, and on top fish flakes. Fish flakes are thin, thin flakes of fish (but you won't recognize that it's fish until you dip and soften a chunk of it in the agedashi - THEN you taste the fish). Anyway the taste was great - it was a juicy, semi-greasy, hint of a hit (from eggplant), tempera soy sauce-ish, and overall very soft and refreshing.

We both tried the Halu last time, but this time I tried the Shio. The Halu is a bit on the salty end, but decent size with decent contents and both the garlicky soup and the noodles are thick. The shio ramen was new to me - both noodles and soup are a bit thinner. So each bowl has these basic ingredients: seaweed paper, scallions, menma, kikurage (Chinese black fungus - if you don't know what it is, it looks nothing like the fungus you're thinking of), spinach, and chashu pork.

Pretty good ramen in general, though we'd both prefer a chill on the saltiness. The portion is not as big as other places, but costs only $5.50, so not that bad. Definitely great for lunch as it is super quick and pretty healthy it appears. I wrote a lot up there, but this really only took about 30 minutes TOPS.

http://ramenhalu.com/halu_main_english.html
http://www.yelp.com/biz/ramen-halu-san-jose