Cary's Profile
Mokutanya yakitori in Burlingame
www.themokutanya.com
I do wish more "different" restaurants would open up in Burlingame, and strategically, this restaurant works on paper. Yakitori joints, following on the footsteps of the ramen craze have become popular in the South Bay. The Peninsula could use a yakitoriya up here. The devil however, is in the details.
This place is owned and operated by Chinese folks. This is not a bad thing but don't expect some semi-retired yakitoriya owner with 20 years experience from Japan manning the grill.
I really wanted to like to this place, I really did, but the experience was lacking on a couple fronts.
Location: Relatively easy parking at a strip mall at the corner of California and Broadway. Near the 101 exit. This restaurant took around a year to come into existence. Quite a long time...I am in the area and all residents and business owners nearby got a city letter around a year ago saying so-and-so was applying for a liquor license.
Decor: Top notch. They clearly put a lot of money and thought into this. Bathroom is clever and unisex.
Food: This is where things go downhill. Prices are on par with Sumiya and peers.
Tonkotsu ramen: $8. Broth is upper-middle of the pack, which is actually good praise within the Bay Area. Ramen maniacs who desire the super fatty, super-gelatinous texture broths of Halu, Kahoo's kotteri, Santouka, and other top contenders may be disappointed here. Noodles were of good firmness. Looks factory bought, but of good quality. I can see some eaters requesting the noodles being made more firm, however. Toppings. Thumbs down. The default bowl comes with a few sprinkles of corn (barely noticeable), a handful of bean sprouts, some sliced chashu, bamboo shoots, a few strands of mushroom, green onions, and several squares of seaweed. A previous review mentioned an inclusion of half an egg, but we didn't get any. Presentation was poor. Go to any top ramenya, and the bowl of ramen is presented with the toppings arranged consistently and some what aesthetically. Here, the toppings are drowned and hidden by extra broth and barely visible; looks thrown in with little care. Does it affect the taste, no, but it affects the experience. The restaurant decor suggests a great experience, and it should carry into the food. Details, details...
Shoyu ramen: My friend ordered this. The broth was utterly disappointing. The taste of shoyu is there, but the tare used seemed devoid of any umami goodness, and there was no "weight" to the broth.
Skewers: Average. Some items seem dryer than what I have experienced here and in Japan, but it's within acceptable limits.
Portion size is average, although with the size of the skewers used, the meat can sometimes look small and comical.
Liquor: They are running grand opening specials on beer and alcohol. Sake selection is quite average. It appears like they scanned the sheet of paper a distributor handed to them, and said "okay, whatever...what's next?". The wines look assembled from BevMo that had ratings of 90 points+. As an oenophile, I would have liked a bigger wine list, but I concede that the restaurant doesn't need to focus on Western wines. At the very least maybe throw some Champagne in there? Maybe a gewurtraminer or dry riesling? Those can go well with the menu.
Service: Enthusiastic, cheery, and helpful. The hostess tripled as server and bus boy. She really wants you to have a good experience, but the kitchen is not helping her out.
We went early, and were the only ones there at the time.
One ramen bowl came out three minutes after the first one. If I had waited for my friend's bowl to come before digging in, noodles can go from firm to noticeably less firm in that amount of time.
Skewers were timed oddly, but we didn't order a lot so there wasn't a large sample size to work with. The killer was when the kitchen forgot to send out one pair of skewers. The hostess checked and the kitchen claimed everything was sent out. Wrong.
Overall, there are a lot of details and flat out errors that need to be resolved. Decor and service can only take you so far...
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Sumiya
2634 Homestead Rd, Santa Clara, CA 95051
Santouka
675 Saratoga Ave, San Jose, CA 95129
More ramen coming (South Bay, Peninsula) - are we overflooded yet?
Overflooded? No. I believe cream rises to the top, and the bad ramen places stay almost empty or fold.
Most of the "new" ramen joints from five years ago were poorly run Chinese/Taiwanese copies (sorry my fellow people), that made an average ramen bowl at best and threw in everything Japanese they could think of on the menu as well (sushi, shabushabu, donburis, etc...). Most of those have closed up shop and now most new ramenyas are more focused on ramen and produce acceptable product. Competition wins in the ramen market.
Mokutanya yakitori in Burlingame
Anyone on Chowhond been here yet? It's within a block of where I live. It is Chinese owned/run (not necessarily a negative).
www.themokutanya.com
China Hot in RWC
A bit late to the game, but I think this place and Da Sichuan in Palo Alto are probably top two in the Bay Area for Sichuanese.
For China Hot, this was probably the only place that does the Gan Bian Si Ji Dou (Dry fried green beans), in the classical manner, ie not deep fried. Sauce flavor was pretty authentic, with the yacai (preserved vegetable). Their Water Boiled fish/lamb/protein is also a good rendition. Hua Jiao (sichuan peppercorns) is liberally used to good effect.
Any one gone recently? I hope their business picked up...
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Da Sichuan
3781 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA 94306
China Hot
2525 El Camino Real, Redwood City, CA 94063
Duck Eggs Anyone?
Mountain View farmers market. I forget the name of the farm/woman, but she also sells fresh, pasture raised chicken eggs.
Good Chinese Eats near Palo Alto
For non-Cantonese fare, Da Sichuan in Palo Alto is pretty good. Owned by a Chongqing guy.
http://dasichuanrestaurant.com/
Order the classics like water cooked fish, double cooked pork, or ask the waitress for "authentic" suggestions.
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Da Sichuan
3781 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA 94306
Best butter substitiute (Best tasting, closest tasting to butter ) Earth Balance , I can't believe its not butter etal..
Earth Balance if I must...
What does "classically trained" mean?
I think in the modern sense, I would accept the descriptor "classically trained" if the cook either 1)spent 5+ years under apprenticeship (or working his way up from dishwasher to line cook) or 2)went to culinary school, then spent several years as a line cook in good kitchens
Iconic Dishes of the Decade?
-Preparations of pork belly
-versions of macaroni and cheese
-"authentic" Japanese ramen...trend kind of started in 2004, then grew really fast (at least in the San Francisco Bay Area)
What does "classically trained" mean?
I would disagree with KK's opinion that one can be categorized as "classically trained" through self-learning (no apprenticeships, stages, or degrees).
What does "classically trained" mean?
In China/Asia, classically trained would mean years of tough apprenticeship under the chef of a restaurant. That also used to mean the same in France.
These days, people claim to be classically trained if they went through a two-year program at XYZ culinary school and spent a few years in some kitchens.
unspoken rules/etiquette at high end sushi restaurants
Some places will have an "omakase" but it will be a pre-set price. That might work for you, just make sure you specify that you want the price-limited version. The quality of preparation and experience should be the same. You just might not get all the stuff that flew in from Tsukiji that day.
I find if I want to control my spending at a sushi place, I'll request to sit at a table, and order the special/deluxe/whiteboard-filled chirashi.
Mandarin Translation needed
I think you mean Oyster sauce there...
Hoisin sauce on Chinese Broccoli *blech* =P
which brand of butter do you buy?
I'm not too picky with butter, but to support local'ish farmers and good animal welfare dairy farming, I tend to pick Strauss or Organic Valley (of course Organic Valley sources differ from region to region)
Mandarin Translation needed
One random dish that popped in my mind is zha jiang mian.
but yes..."sauce on the side" may be difficult to get unless the dish normally comes with the sauce on the side.
Zen Peninsula dim sum - purty darn good
I agree. Zen is pretty good overall...although I find some of their things just a bit greasy.
Their dinner is decent as well. That two mile stretch of El Camino is loaded with Cantonese restaurants, it has to be pretty good to stay alive.
Ze Kitchen Galerie lunch report
Nope. I didn't want to post yet another "where to eat in paris" type thread.
The other restaurants where I ate were more casual except dinner once at Le 122 on rue Grenelle, but it wasn't that great. Understaffed, forgetful service. The croustillant pieds de cochon were pretty good though. For dimsum fans, it reminded me of "wu tau gok" (deep fried taro root dumplings). In fact a vegetarian version probably could be made with small cubed taro versus pigs feet/chunks.
Patisseries
Personally my favorite patisserie in Paris is Sadaharu Aoki right now. They are kind of pricey though. 10.5E for one tablette of chocolate for example. I like him because his items aren't super sweet and show a lot of subtlety in flavors. A lot of Japanese influence in the flavors. Macarons are a well made as well. Try the jams too. He has several locations in Paris now.
Laduree is good, but some of the macarons I find to be too sweet. I like their pistachio flavor the most.
I don't like Le Notre that much, but it's worth trying if one has never been there.
Josephine Chez Dumonet Report
Just to be sure, did you or any of your group speak French, at least at the restaurant level (the most important proficiency level =) )
Even so, disappointing for sure. Not a great value place.
Ze Kitchen Galerie lunch report
Thanks to John Talbott's blog, I decided to reserve a lunch at ZKG for today. Also, they were pretty good about responding to my reservation through emails; some places don't take them at all or just ignore email requests (understandably).
Upon entry, the employees were polite and offered to check coats and then promptly shown to our table. I don't know if they just wanted to keep les touristes out of the way or if it was one of the better tables, but they put us at the corner table right next to the kitchen window. Great for me. I like watching the kitchen. Everything is clean; surfaces always wiped. Lots of young cooks in the kitchen, manning the garde manger station and apprentices/commis. Fish and saute station were manned by Japanese guys. Couple of young women also in the kitchen.
Les formules dejeuner are quite reasonably priced, although there are quite a few dishes which require supplements. 34/39 euro for 2/3 courses. Bottled water and coffee/tea included (!!!). For those with more time, the menu decouverte is 68E.
Service is polite, although if one wants to be more joking/casual, they seem willing to chat. My French is not that good, so it stayed at the polite level for us. Not stuffy.
Food has some Asian touches. Most noticeably, they seem to fall in love with the Cantonese-Chinese flavor combination of green onions and ginger as part of their sauce/garnish. My Cantonese mom recognized it immediately (as did I) and made the "foreign" French food easier for her to like.
My mom's entree was some long tube pasta (sorry forget the French for it) with artichoke heart, and a pesto-like and parmesan cheese cream sauce. Sounds heavy and salty, but it maintained a lightness to it. My mom is super critical of heavy and salty foods, but she ate it up. Their source for baguettes is quite good, and was a good tool to sop up extra sauce. My entree was "marinated" octopus with a beet-vinaigrette sauce with ginger and assorted greens and asparagus. Since I had a view of the kitchen, it looks like they poach the octopus (not sure if in a court bouillon or just water with fennel stalks). In any case, it came out quite good: not chewy from over cooking. Sauce had a good touch of acidity and touch of ginger.
For les plats principaux, my mom had the grilled sole. Cooked just perfectly: juicy, firm. My mom is quite picky with overcooked fish. Accompanied with some white asparagus, broccoli, and green onion and grated ginger. I had the pigeon confit, beets, beet sauce, green onion-ginger, and foie. Another good dish. I cleaned up all the sauce, and the foie was a generous portion and actually worked with the ginger-onion flavors.
Desserts, were a bit less memorable, but they were executed well. Not too sweet, which is always good.
Total with 2 glasses of wine, two supplements (10E) was 106E. All things considered a pretty good price. At other restaurants, water plus coffee would add at least 5-7E each. Dinner prices jump to 80E for their menu decouverte, and 21-23E for entrees, 33-36E for plats. It deserves its one star and the accolades in blogs and guidebooks.
For those interested, photos are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/18123858@N03/sets/72157626435432162/
specific wineries for upcoming napa and sonoma trip
Make an appointment with Littorai.
Joseph Swan is always a good stop.
For lower priced wines of uncommon varietals, Frick is great.
I prefer the Sonoma-area, so can't help with Napa.
dan dan mian
Dan Dan Mian has a billion versions. Tawainese have their versions. Sichuan has their versions. Generic Cantonese-Chinese has a version.
I prefer the Sichuanese ones. The best Sichuanese restaurants in the Bay Area will have a decent version. You can always ask for extra ground hua-jiao on top if that floats your boat.
Au's Kitchen -- New Cantonese in San Bruno
Looks like homey, Southern Chinese food. Yum. We need more places like this in the Burlingame/Millbrae area. Just the fact that they have A-choi awards them some bonus points.
Macarons - Any new places?
255 Mendell St, SF, for those inclined to look buy from them in person.
Macarons - Any new places?
you can buy from their shop. they share space with knights catering. give trouan a call before you head over.
Macarons - Any new places?
Not sure when they opened, but my favorite macaron place in SF is:
http://www.lartisanmacaron.com/
The chef is classically trained, and uses only natural ingredients and no food coloring. Not too sweet either...I'd say 85% of the macarons being produced these days around here are too sweet for my tastes.
French Laundry – Special Extended 18-Course Tasting Menu
I don't know what the service "rules" are at French Laundry which were put into place by Laura Cunningham, but there could be a benign reason. Was this the captain or a food runner? Either way, he might have been needed back in the kitchen to pick up food to run to another table. All the runners need to pick up and serve the dishes for one course for a table at the same time. Just a reasonable possibility.
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The French Laundry
6640 Washington Street, Yountville, CA 94599
Grocery Outlet March 2011
"Tropicana orange juice, sell by date of 5/7/11, $1.49"
I went to the one in San Jose today on Williams. I saw lots of March 7 and March 10 dates.
I also picked up a box of the beef patties. Looking forward to trying them tonight.
