48 - Chef Lau's - Oakland

301 8th St, Oakland, CA 94607, (510) 835-3288

Last visit - March 2010

Chef Lau's was very accommodating. While the parking is scarce in the primary areas of Oakland's Chinatown, Chef Lau's is worth the wait. They have a very small restaurant and not more than twenty tables exist inside. Plastered along the wall are seasonal specials that don't have subtitles. If you want frog or other delicacies, you better bring your Chinese friend with you.

We had the lamb claypot, the lobster noodles, the Chengdu spare ribs, steamed oysters, an egg souffle-like dish, honey walnut prawns, and beef and Chinese broccoli. They also gave us complementary soup and dessert; which were both good that night. That was enough food for 8 I think, but there were only 6 of us, so we were really stuffed towards the end of the meal. The beef was good and so was the lobster. Lobster noodles is a new find for me, and I will definitely order that again the next time I go. The Chengdu ribs were tasty too, enough sweet and sour sauce but they didn't overdo it to make you feel like you're biting on candied pork.

They did a good job and I definitely will go back again. Spacing is really limited, but that is a testament to their popularity. Maybe we'll try the frog next time. There's also a dish that comes in a conch shell and with a mini burner. There's a lot of goodies in the shell, and the burner keeps it heated. I'll have to go back for that one too.

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.

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.

10 - Shooting Star Cafe - Oakland

Shooting Star Cafe - 1068 Webster St., Oakland, CA. 94607 (510) 251-9882

Last Visit: June 2008


Shooting Star Cafe is a Hong Kong style cafe in the outskirts of Chinatown. It opened two years ago and is going strong. Hard to believe this, but if it's 11pm at night and you want somewhere to drink and chat with a friend, this is the place. People complain about the noisy people, but I guess it's not that bad if you're part of the group that's making the noise.

Shooting Star Cafe is an excellent example of a "third place". I'm fascinated by this notion and have written about it before. The idea behind a "third place" is that a person's first place is Home and his or her second place is Work (or school). Then there is the third place, a place away from the intimacy of home and the demands of work. People go here to hang out. The food is not as bad as people say, and the service is as good as any restaurant in Chinatown; you'll be attended to eventually.

What you can expect is a loud atmosphere and a cup of hot tea no matter how late it is at night. I must have went there three times one week; there were not many options that week. Actually after a certain time in Chinatown, you will be forced to go to either Shooting Star Cafe, Gold Medal HK restaurant, or Ying-Kee Restaurant. ABC bakery is shaky, sometimes it opens late, sometimes it closes early.

I do have one thing that I recommend at Shooting Star, try the Borscht Soup. It's actually done really well. The sauce is pretty thick and there's a kick of spice in it. Great for crackers, but don't even think about it - it's Chinatown, there's no crackers with soup. If you're adventurous, try the cornucopia of Hong Kong style desserts, I tend to avoid the sweets.

Yelp's two cents