Yogurtsoda

Posted on March 18, 2009March 18, 2009

I don’t know what it is about strip malls, but they seem to attract more than their fair share of good-quality Asian restaurants. I wasn’t exactly expecting to run into a Malaysian restaurant at one of San Mateo’s many unremarkable strip malls, but when I came across Langkawi, I was more than happy to give it a try.

Langkawi has since turned into one of my go-to Southeast Asian restaurants outside of San Francisco. It’s a little out of the way and the food is standard Malaysian fare, but it’s solid and well-prepared. My favorite dish at Langkawi is the char kway teow – the noodles are chewy but not overcooked, the seasonings have just the right amount of sweet and spicy balance and I love the extra chili sauce that they provide.

During my last visit, I also tried the cendol, a dessert-drink concoction made of shaved ice, coconut milk, green pandan leaf noodles, red beans and palm sugar.

It’s like a smoothie, slurpee, and bubble tea all mixed up together, but far less gross tasting than that description sounds. In fact, cendol is delicious and the variety of textures make it fun to eat. I’ve only seen cendol on the menu of a few Malaysian and Indonesian restaurants, but I cannot wait until it catches on and becomes as ubiquitous as bubble tea. Until then, I have Langkawi.

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.