Restaurant Reviews – Page 15

Vik’s Chaat Corner

March 23, 2011March 23, 2011

I have an embarrassing confession to make. For an ethnic food-loving, Bay Area native, it wasn’t until late last year that I made my inaugural visit to Vik’s Chaat Corner. To be fair, I’d been hearing about it for years (decades, even), but I just didn’t understand what all the fuss was about so I never got around to it.

I’m kicking myself now because since that first visit last Fall, I can’t get enough. Located on 4th Street in Berkeley, Vik’s is always busy, despite its early closing hours (6:00 pm on weeknights and 8:00 pm Friday through Sunday). The process is simple: get in line, place your order, give your name, find a seat in the cafeteria-style dining area, and listen attentively for your name as the cooks behind the counters call out your order.

My favorite thing about Vik’s is that they specialize in chaat, or savory snacks that are popular in roadside stands in South Asia. Fried dough is a prominent ingredient, as are potatoes, chickpeas, yogurt, and chutney. During my first visit, I shared an order of dahi papdi chaat and chicken biryani, paired with mango and salt lassis.

The papdi chaat were comprised of fried dough wafers and served with potatoes, chickpeas, chilies, and tamarind chutney. The dish is spicy, but the tamarind provides a cooling contrast to the otherwise fiery bowl. This has since become one of my favorite dishes at Vik’s.

The chicken biryani was even spicier. I shared this with my dining companion who had been endlessly searching for good-quality, authentic biryani since a trip he made to Hyderabad three years ago. As it turns out, Vik’s is the closest to the real Hyderabadi thing.

If you find yourself to recreate these dishes at home, there’s a South Asian grocery store at Vik’s as well, stocking everything from rice to legumes to produce to spices. Many of the dishes may not be familiar to you if you’ve never had chaat, but that’s part of the fun at Vik’s: with so many dishes to choose from, I keep coming up with reasons to go back for more.

Onigilly

March 8, 2011

It’s almost as if the food truck gods heard my food truck prayers and answered my wish. For months, I’d been telling people that what San Francisco needs is an onigiri stand. And lo and behold, Onigilly opened up shop in the Embarcadero.

Onigiri are Japanese rice balls wrapped in nori seaweed and stuffed with an array of delicious fillings like pickled plum or salted salmon. Portable and easily customizable, they make the perfect snack or lunch on the go. When Onigilly began serving lunch a few months ago, I stopped by with a colleague to try out their healthy riff on one of my favorite foods.

Onigilly uses brown rice instead of the traditional white, and their fillings are a modern take as well. I had two masago roe and one hijiki seaweed onigiri, garnished with edamame and pickled radish. The masago was rich, as the salty roe had been folded into a spicy aioli, and the hijiki served as a delicious palate cleanser. These are not the onigiri that I became used to snacking on in Japan, but a California-style take that’s just as tasty.

The Onigilly food cart can get busy, so plan accordingly. Each onigiri is made with care and by hand, and service can be slow at times. The owner is charming and happy to talk to patrons about his creations, so the wait goes by quickly. Make sure to check their Twitter account ahead of time to make sure they’ll be open.

Jupiter

March 6, 2011

I don’t go out for pizza often. I’m not sure why that is – I mean, I love pizza. But in any case, when I do find myself at a pizzeria, my expectations are high, probably from pizza deprivation.

Downtown Berkeley’s Jupiter isn’t strictly a pizza joint; it’s a brewery too, and a lively one at that. When I visited on a Saturday evening, my dining group and I were seated at their beautiful outdoor patio, right by the live band. If you can get over needing to occasionally yell to be heard over the music, sit outdoors. It’s lovely.

But on to the pizza. (I had a great Caesar salad too, but let’s be real. It’s all about the pizza.) Jupiter’s pizzas are named after Greek gods, and I had the Triton. The Triton includes Sicilian sausage, sweet onions, basil, mozzarella, and marinara sauce, served on a honey wheat crust baked in a brick oven. The crust may have been on the thicker side, but it was deliciously chewy and helped mop up all the savory marinara. I only wish my pizza had less onion, but I was too distracted by all my other favorite toppings to really complain.

Jupiter gets packed so go early or be prepared to wait for a table. It’s popular with the college crowd, the family crowd, and the pizza-loving crowd, which is basically all of Berkeley, so be prepared. Maybe you can use your waiting time to think about why you don’t eat pizza more often. I know I did.

Golden Flower Vietnamese Restaurant

February 28, 2011

The first time I visited Golden Flower, it was on the recommendation of a colleague who told me it’s the best Vietnamese food in San Francisco’s Chinatown. I dropped by the busy restaurant for a quick lunch of pho, and in the short time I was there, the owners’ cheerful attitude made such an impression on me that I soon returned again. And again.

Golden Flower is a welcome change of pace if you’re the neighborhood and craving something other than Chinese food. It’s is a casual hole-in-the-wall restaurant with solid Vietnamese fare, and their steady crowd of patrons is testament to the quality of their dishes.

During one of my last visits, I ordered the grilled beef and rice noodles. The dish comes with piping hot fried spring rolls, which I gleefully dipped into my nuoc nam dipping sauce. My favorite thing about this dish is that like pho, it’s easy to customize it to one’s own taste. Another splash of nuoc nam here, a drop of sriracha there, and I was happily sated.

Golden Flower has become one of my go-to lunchtime restaurants, not only for the food, but because I look forward to the cheerful employees too. Oh, and word to the wise: you can get pho to go as well. They’ll pack your broth and fillings separately so that nothing gets soggy.

Kung Fu Tacos

February 20, 2011

I’ve mostly stayed away from the food truck trend, not because I haven’t wanted to sample what’s out there, but because I’m usually not in the right place at the right time. Or so I thought. A little bit of research and word of mouth revealed that there are actually a few food trucks making the rounds in San Francisco’s Financial District, like the now-popular Kung Fu Tacos truck.

Posted at the corner of Sacramento and Montgomery, the Kung Fu Tacos truck serves fusion fare for lunch Tuesday through Friday. I tend to approach fusion fare apprehensively, but I was pleasantly surprised here, even if the portions are smaller than average. I tried the roast duck and Asian asada tacos on my visit: Asian asada is marinated steak topped with onions, cilantro, and spicy Asian-style salsa, while the roast duck tacos are garnished with mango salsa, hoisin sauce, and green onions.

Both were tasty, but the duck was my favorite. Faintly reminiscent of roast duck with Mandarin pancakes, the rich meat contrasted well with the piquant mangoes. The steak was good too, even if it included almost as much onions as it did steak.

If you’re going for lunch, I recommend ordering more than the two tacos that I did, as I was still hungry afterward. These aren’t as filling as your standard taqueira tacos, but they’re a welcome change from the countless sandwich shops that line the Financial District. Plus, at $2 to $3 each, the price can’t be beat and for a busy workday lunch, neither can the location.