Tag Cloud

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

39 - Aunt Charlie's Lounge - San Francisco

133 Turk St., San Francisco, Ca. 94102, (415) 441 - 2922
Last visit - January 2006


Yes, these are a couple old reviews that I am porting here from a couple years ago. I guess this is a trip through memory lane. It will also start a 5 part series of bars.


(image from unknown source)

The moment you step into the bar, you see it all: the narrow walls, the fluffy cloud-like ceiling, the bar on your left, and old TV hanging on the ceiling. In other words, this bar is small! I think the maximum capacity is twenty.

I went on their dragqueen show night. It was dark and a small crowd of people were drinking by the back of the bar, staring at the curtain to a stage. From there on, drag queens came out in their full made-up appearances and started singing to their heart's delight. It was a loud and rather festive event. I was kind of awestruck because it was my first time at this kind of thing.

The bartender is a old bearded man with a long pony-tail. He serves super stiff drinks. I saw him do my cranberry-turkey, and he let the bottle run up to about three-fourth's full then splashed the top with a little cranberry: the result, a very strong drink. For $4.50, it's a steal.

I think the bar is made up of mostly regulars, but welcomes strangers. It is a bit away from downtown, so it might be difficult to find.

38 - Ajisen Ramen - Fremont

47890 Warm Springs Blvd., Fremont, CA., (510) 353 - 1133
Last visited - September of 2009


(Image from http://www.ajisensf.com/)
We went here by accident. I wanted to find Kuro-Ramen and instead we saw this on Yelp and got excited. We've had Ajisen at two other places before, Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia. What a weird coincidence, we thought.

To disclose, this was supposed to be a light meal before a night of gaming and cocktails at Dave and Busters at the Great Mall. It turned out to be a lot more food than we thought. We found the place after a drive through the quiet city parts of Fremont. It was a starry night and we opened the moon roof to get a better sight of the sparkling sky. Boy was that a stupid idea, the smell of Fremont's garbage dumps could be smelled from afar.

We arrived at the restaurant and were seated by a young Chinese girl. I wasn't expecting a Japanese person, but she did have the usual "irashaimase" greeting from the Ajisen Ramen franchises. The Japanese beer posters and the giant banner that said "Kumamoto tonkotsu" style reminded me of Japan's ramen shops. We ordered our ramen, two beers, and a plate of their kara-age fried chicken. She took our order and we saw the cooks in the back making our order. They had an air of pride in their work. At least they dressed the part, like izakaya chefs in Japan.

The food came and it was pretty tasty. The noodles was not soggy and the broth was rich with flavor. I went for the miso and my girlfriend went for the volcano. She usually goes for the spicy stuff. Our ramen was good and the fried chicken was good too. It came in six giant pieces: each of them equal to the size of three chicken McNuggets stacked together. It became a hearty meal. We slowly enjoyed our meal, and listened to Jpop music coming from overhead speakers. It was a nostalgic treat!


Monday, October 19, 2009

37 - Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot - Fremont

215 S. Ellsworth Ave, San Mateo, CA. 94401, (650)343-2566
Last visit: October of 2009

(image from Yelp.com)
Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot is where I first tried bamboo for dinner. The insides of bamboo is white, film-like, and tastes like tofu. We dipped it into the hot pot for a couple of minutes and pick it back up with our chop-sticks and it is drenched in the flavor of the chili filled broth. It's not bad, not bad at all. Bamboo, and a host of other Chinese-Mongolian foods can be ordered for hot pot at Little Sheep.

I went there with my girlfriend's family and we ordered two pots for two tables. The hot pot came with a divider because we wanted a spicy soup as well as a mild flavored one. They do refill the broth, but it doesn't hurt to request it. We ordered the lamb shoulders and some beef for our meats.

The dishes of uncooked food came and we had a nice time dipping things in and waiting for it to heat up. All the dishes are heated by hotplates on the tables and we just left it on the highest temperature. Cooking meats and noodles are fun, but waiting for shrimp and seafood to boil isn't. I recommend trying the bamboo (insides of bamboo) because it sucks up the flavor of the soup. We liked the beef and lamb, but everything else was so-so. The spicier (red) flavored soup is better than the mild (white) soup.

It's a fun place for kids as they get to see things get cooked. If I had a kid, I'd threaten to cook them in it whenever they get out of line.

Monday, October 12, 2009

36 - Mimosa Cafe - Oakland

462 Santa Clara Ave, Oakland, Ca. 94610, 510-465-2948
Last visit - October of 2009


Why do I find it odd to have Cantonese speakers in the American breakfast kitchen? I mean, they're people that have cooking skills too right? It's the fact that I'm Cantonese and I can hear what they are saying in the back that makes it weird. No bad talk about the customers, just your usual, "the egg sandwich customer wants some more coffee" kind of deal.

We went to Mimosa cafe Sunday for their breakfast because of the good feedback that its been getting on Yelp. A young Chinese guy greeted us and let us seat ourselves. I browsed the menu and saw some appetizing pictures of breakfast quiches and omelets. I asked the waiter what that was on the menu, and he actually said, "oh those are just pictures..." To that I had to take a bit of a chuckle. Rule #10 in the top 10 rules of opening a restaurant: Use the foods in your menu on your menu. From there I knew the day would be light-hearted and somewhat comical. I ordered the French Toast meal with a coffee. It came with a side of Veggie Sausages and an egg, which I took scrambled. My girlfriend ordered the scramble mix with a blue berry muffin along with a Mocha coffee.

The food came and everything was placed on Chinese dishes. The kind of plastic dishes with Chinese designs that I'm used to at dim-sum places. It was quite a site! I enjoyed it. The French Toast looked pretty dry, but it tasted a lot better than it looked. That's always a plus. They gave me way too much syrup, but it's good to know it's there. The winner of the meal was the blue-berry muffin that my girlfriend ordered, very soft and just enough flavor so that you're not dominated to blueberry. We ate to our heart's delight.

The place is a great place for vegetarians and baby lovers, as we saw three couples with their babies there that day.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

35 - Hello Desserts - San Jose

1698 Hostetter Road, San Jose, CA. 95131, (408) 453-5566
Last Visit: September of 2009

When one thinks of desserts in the United States we conjure up thoughts of cakes and ice-creams. But in most of Asia, the idea of desserts is a lot of puddings, jellies, and custards. My girlfriend likes the 3-colored drink with the red beans, coconuts, and green grass jelly. Fruits that come into mind are coconuts, mangoes, and lichees. It's a totally different world of sweets, but Hello Desserts has it all.

Hello Desserts was first discovered on our trip to the Boiling Crab a couple of months ago. It opens late and has a good egg custard dish that isn't easily done well. We went back here after our trip to Ramen Halu and tried the Japanese ice-cream parfait. It was a monster thing with six layers of sweets, ice-creams, and jellies. I thought it was OK. We also had both variations, cold and hot, of the egg custard, which was awesome still. Hello Desserts is a simple place for late night sweets and if I'm in the San Jose area, I'll definitely go in for something.

I noticed that the menu expanded to a lot of American desserts. So now you can get your chocolate cakes and tiramisu cakes there as well. A late night coffee would be good if you're going to be up for awhile. It seems to be a hot-spot in San Jose as a nice crowd was gathering in the seats outside.