Help before I get dragged to the Buffet

Please help.

Our staple anniversary dinner place, Rosemary, closed late last year. It was well within our price range and I truly enjoyed the tasting menu.

Now that it is gone, I have no idea where to go and my husband is threatening to take me to a buffet, albeit a nice one such as Wynn, if I cannot find a Rosemary's replacement.

We have gone to Sage and enjoyed the food there but husband doesn't want to go there again. I would love to go to Le Cirque but that is stretching our budget a bit.

Please help!

snow78 in Las Vegas

South Bay: BBQ Ribs or Authentic Chinese Dinner

Any Chinese food will do, Szechuan, Hunan, Shanghai, Cantonese, Beijing, Shandong. As long as it is authentic and taste good. Looking for not too much of a hole in the wall though since it is a birthday dinner but not looking to pay more than say, $300 for all of us (if this is a realistic number)? We are not looking into expensive stuffs like "buddha jumps over the wall". But just good, authentic Chinese that is not American at all!

Thanks for the replies so far!

snow78 in San Francisco Bay Area

South Bay: BBQ Ribs or Authentic Chinese Dinner

Sorry about the double post, but I accidentally post twice! How do I delete this?

It is my mom's birthday this weekend and I want to take her for a great dinner since it is rare that I get to celebrate her birthday with her (she is in Malaysia most of the time).

Her choices are either bbq ribs or a good chinese dinner. Being from Malaysia, I would prefer to take her to an authentic Chinese place in the South Bay that's not a hole in the wall, if we end up going for Chinese.

We will be at my sister's place in Sunnyvale. She is not much of a foodie, I am in So Cal so I am not sure of food places in the South Bay.

Does anyone have any good recommendation? We are looking for a place within 15-20 miles for Sunnyvale and there will be 8 adults and 2 kids (4 & 8).

Thanks in advance for your help.

snow78 in San Francisco Bay Area

Ethnic Asian Food in Thousand Oaks

Was there twice when they first opened (sometime last year). Undercooked vegetables both times for my curry.

Co-worker's Pad Thai was a definite miss. Another co-worker requested for no peppers and onions, guess what happened?

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

Yee Sang, a.k.a. Raw Fish Salad

For those who are interested in Yee Sang, a.k.a. Raw Fish Salad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yee_Sang), I found it in Belacan Grill today. However, they only have it till this Thursday (Feb 21, 2008).

I had their roti canai, chilli crab, char kuey teow and string beans with belacan today. Pretty decent but pricey.

Their soy milk with grass jelly was a sad miss. I have yet to find good soy milk with grass jelly in US!

The bill with yee sang for 2, roti canai, chilli crab (had more than enough to take some home), char kuey teow, string beans and soy milk drink came up to $80 after tips.

Belacan Grill
2701 190th St # 100
Redondo Beach, CA 90278

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

Ethnic Asian Food in Thousand Oaks

Bought 1/2 roast duck yesterday from Sam Woo and devoured half of it in one sitting.

I find Valley Produce cheap when it comes to produce and will venture to either 99 Ranch in Van Nuys or San Gabriel.

Thanks for your reply! =)

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

Good food recs near T.O/Ventura

I have relatives visiting me next weekend from South Bay/Silicon Valley, Northern California.

They are Chinese, not into meat, and I would like to take them to good food places that they may not find in Silicon Valley, North California and could anyone recommend any good food places?

Willing to travel to the Valley, perhaps San Gabriel too. Appreciate your help! Thanks in advance.

P/S: Does anyone know of a good Chinese restaurant supply shop? Looking for a wok and all. Thanks!

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

Ethnic Asian Food in Thousand Oaks

Thanks for the Haweli recommendation! We went there tonight and the food was great!

The best thing was that they have a grocery store section that stocks British food!

Thanks again

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

TO/Newbury Park: Gaya Korean BBQ Restaurant

I am not sure if anyone had posted about this before but if they did, I sure wished I saw the post earlier!

We stumbled across this non-descript Korean restaurant when we were grocery shopping in Vons in Newbury Park, CA. I was delighted to find a Korean restaurant as I have been craving for some Korean BBQ lately. I immediately made plans to visit the very next day after work. However, as I had to work late today, we arrived only at 8.30pm and the place closes at 9pm!

We placed our orders for Dwe Ji Bulgoki (bbq marinated slices of pork) and Chicken Bulgoki at the counter and found our seats. There were only another table occuppied at such a late hour.

They took some time to cook our food and we were served the normal lettuce and carrot salad with sesame salad dressing. Pretty normal salad that you usually have in a not-fancy Japanese joint.

After a while, they provided the usual small plates of Korean "appetizers". The kimchi tasted pretty authentic and since both of us hate kimchi, we barely touched it. The other salads were appetizing though.

Then the tasty sizzling plates of chicken and pork arrived. It was delicious and we finished it off although the portions were enough for 4 of us!

A very satisfying meal for $24. We definitely plan to return again to try the Bibimpap and Galbi Tang.

Gaya Korean BBQ Restaurant
2110-B Newbury Road
Newbury Park, CA 91320

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

Dim Sum in Van Nuys

I just moved to TO recently and would be venturing to Van Nuys to shop at Ranch tomorrow (Sunday, April 8).

Are there any decent and affordable dim sum in that area? I am not picky (in terms of taste), anything edible will do, looking for a place that is cheap/affordable and within 15 mins range of Ranch in Van Nuys.

Thanks for your help!

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

Review: Cho Cho San (Thousand Oaks)

I recently moved to Thousand Oaks for my job. To celebrate the first day of me working after 11 months of "vacation", we decided to go for Japanese food but did not want to drive too far away for it.

We stumbled across Cho Cho San (http://www.chochosan.com/loc.html#to) earlier this week when we were exploring our neighbourhood. I was hesitant to go to this place as yelp.com yielded only one so-so review and I couldn't find anything on chowhound.com (I was in a bit of hurry though, found some comments after the dinner!).

The specialties of this place are sushi and teppanyaki. However, I wasn't in the mood for raw fish or sitting in front of the teppan. We had a booth. The waitress was really attentive and hoovered discretely some distance away from our booth.

The food for tonight consisted of:
- Gyoza: Steaming hot and oily. Wee bit too salty and the gyoza sauce tasted only of sesame oil and not much else. However, it went well with the ponzu sauce that they placed on the table with the Kikkoman soy sauce (both the regular and lite version).
- Crispy Roll: Basically a roll with krab salad and tempura shrimp coated with tempura crisps. 8 decent pieces for $8.95. Pretty tasty. I am not one for wasabi and soy sauce and I had this with the nice ponzu sauce.
- Beef teriyaki & mixed tempura bento: Served with miso soup,steamed rice, house salad with a weird dressing, edamame, krab silvers & cucumber strips in rice vinegar and the typical orange slice. I thought it was a bit pricey at $16.95 for such a bento since I was used to bento boxes priced at $12. However, the beef teriyaki was a decent piece of Angus beef that tasted really good, not too fatty as one would usually expect of cheap beef teriyaki. Miso soup was ok. Was disappointed with the rice as I felt it wasn't sticky enough. The krab silvers & cucumber strips were refreshing in the rice vinegar dressing though. (I didn't had much of this as this was my husband's order).
- Udon with mixed tempura ($7.95). You can't really go wrong with udon and they didn't. Nice soup that's not too salty with chewy udon that you can slurp right up. There were 2 slices of beancurd (not bad) and 2 krab sticks (which I thought was out of place) together with the typical soup seaweed in the soup. Tempura was tasty without being oily and the dipping sauce was just nice.

Nothing to die for. However, I felt that $46 (incl of tax and tips) for a decent Japanese dinner for 2 was not too bad (especially since it's minutes away from home and work!).

Will visit this place again in the future.

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

Something sushi-ish going into the Cisco space on Westlake Blvd. in the Conejo?

Thanks for your help! I'll contribute to this board once I settle down there.

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

Ethnic Asian Food in Thousand Oaks

Thanks for your detailed notes!

Just curious though, but is traffic that bad in Southern California that getting from one place to another takes twice the amount of time that google map says?

Over here in Sunnyvale, the travel time indicated on Google Map is pretty accurate if it isn't during the peak periods.

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

Something sushi-ish going into the Cisco space on Westlake Blvd. in the Conejo?

I guess I would really have to travel to Van Nuys to the Ranch 99. However, where is the Korean Supermarket?

Thanks!

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

Ethnic Asian Food in Thousand Oaks

I am sorry but I am not familiar with the geography of the area (being a new immigrant!). However, everyone talks about the "Valley". May I know what place is this? Thanks!

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

Something sushi-ish going into the Cisco space on Westlake Blvd. in the Conejo?

I am moving to T.O. for work... So it's true that I won't be able to find any asian grocery or produce stores in the area? =(

I am currently living in Sunnyvale, CA and there's a plethora of such stores in the area!

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

Ethnic Asian Food in Thousand Oaks

I am moving to Thousand Oaks this weekend and I am wondering if there's any good Chinese (includes Taiwanese, Cantonese, Shanghai & Szechuan cuisines), Thai, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese food available in the area.

What about grocery stores or produce stores catering to such ethnicities?

Thanks for your help!

snow78 in Los Angeles Area

Yee Sang (a.k.a. Raw Fish Salad)

Thanks!

snow78 in San Francisco Bay Area

Yee Sang (a.k.a. Raw Fish Salad)

Thanks! I guess I didn't use the correct search term!

snow78 in San Francisco Bay Area