Category: Restaurant Reviews

Posted on March 16, 2009

Emeryville is unlike most other cities in the Bay Area in that it lacks a proper downtown, most homes are condos or apartments, and everything seems so new and post-industrial. But it has a charm to it that I love, even if it lacks a rich restaurant scene. Can’t Fail Cafe is tucked away in a little corner of Emeryville, and it’d be easy to miss except that there are always huge crowds of hipsters outside waiting to be seated. Co-owned by Green Day’s bassist Mike Dirnt, the restaurant has an alternative vibe, down to the rows of Barbie dolls displayed across the walls.

While I don’t go to diners often, Can’t Fail Cafe prides itself on quality ingredients and it shows. I usually order breakfast there, but on this visit, I opted for a bacon cheeseburger with French fries.

This is actually the first bacon cheeseburger I’ve ever had. I’m not really a fan of hamburgers in general, but this was pretty good. The burger was cooked to order, the bacon was crispy but not overcooked, and the cheese binded it all together. The fries were delicious too – the right thickness, salted perfectly, and fresh tasting.

Can’t Fail Cafe is exactly the kind of diner I’d want in my neighborhood for a lazy Sunday breakfast or late-night sandwich. Unfortunately, it’s not in my neighborhood, but I make enough treks to Emervyille that I can almost pretend like it is.

Posted on March 11, 2009April 18, 2010

I’d heard a lot of hype about Esperpento before I ever got around to dining there. My friends who had visited told me it was amazing, and given my love of tapas, I couldn’t wait to visit this tiny restaurant tucked away in a corner of the Mission District in San Francisco.

I was not disappointed.

Esperpento isn’t just about the food, it’s also about the ambiance. The crowds are huge and the wait is long, but it’s a loud, fun place to hang out on a weekend night and share a pitcher of sangria with friends. I did that exactly a few months ago, and while I didn’t snap photos of everything I ate, I left happy and sated.

We started with the blood sausages with rice. These were my first blood sausages so I was excited to try them, though they had a little too much rice and not enough meat for my taste.

The photo is blurry, but I can’t review Esperpento and not mention the fried anchovies. Sprinkled with a bit of lemon juice, these little fish were a delicious accompaniment to our drinks.

We also ordered the fried cod. This was perhaps too much fried fish for one meal, but having four people agree on several tapas can be an excerise in restraint. The cod was crispy on the outside and flaky on the inside, albeit bland. The accompanying tartar-like sauce didn’t help much.

The sauteed mushrooms were one of the healthier tapas we chose. Simply prepared, their earthiness was a good change of pace to all the meat dishes.

The pollo al ajillo was messy but tasty. Richly flavored and garlicy, the meat was practically falling off the bone.

The best dishes, however, are not pictured. The patatas bravas was by far my favorite dish of the evening (it’s my favorite at Bar Cesar too) and the patatas al ajillo were a close second.

I can’t wait to go back. There were a lot of dishes on Esperpento’s menu that I wanted to try but didn’t get a chance to on this visit. Next time, I’ll be trying their stewed oxtail, the alcachofas and calamari frito.

Posted on March 9, 2009April 18, 2010

I’ve been reading Fuchsia Dunlop’s Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China and loving it. It’s one of those books that I don’t want to finish, so I’ve been reading it increasingly slowly as I approach the end. Dunlop learned to cook Chinese cuisine in Chengdu and so natrually, her favored style of cooking is Sichuanese. Reading about the Sichuan peppercorn reminds me of Little Sichuan, an unassuming Chinese restaurant in San Mateo that I visit every few months or so.

Every meal at Little Sichuan begins with complementary bowls of spicy Sichuanese pickles and boiled peanuts. I love the pickles – they’re salty, sour, spicy and laced with chile oil. They’re fun to nibble on while I peruse the (very long) menu, though after several visits, I still haven’t found a dish that really stands out.

On my last visit, I ordered the dry-fried chicken and sizzling rice beef. The beef was a dissapointment – the sauce was bland and the rice almost instantly became soggy. The chicken, on the other hand, was well-prepared and tongue-numbingly spicy. (A little too spicy for my taste, though.)

Little Sichuan remains a restaurant that I’ll probably keep on visiting every few months or so, when the craving strikes. I just wish I could find a dish or two that’s evocative of the descriptions in Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper.

Posted on March 4, 2009

I first discovered Waterfront Pizza in Foster City while searching for a place in the Peninsula that served hookahs and tea. You’d never guess it by the name, but most people come to Waterfront Pizza for the hookahs (or nargileh, or ghalyoun, depending on where you’re from) rather than for pizza.

On one visit, I decided to try their pizza and being Lebanese-owned, the restaurant has a lot of Middle Eastern items on the menu. I went for the Middle Eastern pizza, which is topped with tomatoes, sumac and feta.

Their pizza is delicious. It certainly doesn’t taste traditional, but it’s fresh and intensely flavored. (The same goes for their hummus, which is drizzled with the most wonderful olive oil ever.)

Oh, and their hookahs? They last for hours, if you can manage to get the attention of the hookah attendant who comes around every once in a while to change the coals. Which brings me to my next point: I don’t quite know how to say this politely, but good luck getting the attention of anyone here.

For all of its positives, Waterfront Pizza regularly has an excruciatingly long wait and cold service to boot. I’ve waited close to an hour to get a hookah (while they were clearly not busy and while others were getting swift service) and the last time I was there, I got up and left after waiting forty-five minutes for the waiter to even approach us. If the staff is busy working, that’s one thing, but if they’re busy socializing, it’s just rude. I was going to get all socio-political on why some people receive preferred service and some don’t, but this isn’t that type of blog, so I’ll leave it be. In any case, I haven’t been back there since, and I don’t think I’ll be visiting anytime soon.

It’s too bad, because Waterfront Pizza has really great food and hookah.

Posted on February 27, 2009February 27, 2009

Koryo is my first true love as far as Korean restaurants are concerned. While I’d been sampling Korean food all over the Bay Area for years before I finally found Koryo in Oakland, it was the first where I became a regular. Despite the somewhat sterile interior (the space was under construction the last time I visited), their bulgogi and stellar banchan won me over. After a few visits, I decided to branch out with what I order.

The last time I was there, I eschewed the grilled items in favor of hoe naengmyeon, a bowl of cold noodles with raw skate fish and chili pepper dressing.

It was refreshing and spicy, but after a few bites, I found myself wishing I’d ordered bulgogi. Maybe it was the skate – I love raw fish but wasn’t expecting to do so much chopstick maneuvering for so little meat on the bones. Maybe I had just gotten too used to having the bulgogi – the novelty of cooking your own food over a coal fire at your table while your cheeks turn red from the heat is so much fun, and the grilled beef remains my favorite dish at Koryo to date.

After several visits, Koryo is still among my top three favorite Korean restaurants. But the dishes are hit or miss, and depending on what you order, you may end up hooked or dissapointed.