yucca de lac

palo alto, ca

website

the stanford shopping mall is just one of those places where palo alto people tend to congregate. the mall, the dish, university ave, california ave, that's about it for palo alto hot spots. so we really shouldn't have been surprised when we ran into m+s there, the day after eating dinner with them at madera. palo alto is a small world.

yucca de lac has a very modern exterior with an appealing patio area - bright & sunny with comfortable-looking lounge chairs. according to its website and the description on the menu, it's a popular hong kong eatery. i've never heard of it before and after eating here, i can't imagine that it's actually popular in hong kong. it's basically expensive healthy-ish chinese food. my fried rice was decent but bland, hot & sour soup was pretty good but over-priced. there's a tiny chance that derek and i will eat there again if we're stuck at the mall and want to sit on a comfy lounge chair while drinking cocktails, but this is not a destination restaurant by any stretch of the imagination.

straits

san jose, ca

website

straits is purportedly a singaporean restaurant. lennon, an actual singaporean, warned us that the food bares little resemblance to real singaporean food. so we've avoided the place for nearly a year. but we were doing some christmas shopping at santana row, got hungry, and the steakhouse was completely booked. that's how we ended up at straits for some fake asian food.

there is nothing singaporean about the fried calamari, especially the chinese takeout box they serve it in. but it was edible - slightly spicy, well-fried, and served with delicious dipping sauces. the murtabak, roti stuffed with minced beef, is just weird - nothing like singaporean/malaysian roti should taste like. the whole striped bass was fried to death and doused with a too-sweet sauce. the indian street noodles were similarly over-sauced with sticky sweetness. if you're forced to eat here, get a cocktail and the calamari and call it a night.

ma peche

58 (5/6)

website

midtown is known for its fancy white tablecloth restaurants filled with corporate types having expensive (and likely expensed) business lunches. david chang of momofuku fame is known for his downtown east village lowkey hipster restaurants. but ma peche, the newest momofuku venture, is located in a midtown hotel and purports to serve upscale american-french-asian-ish food to the midtown professionals. Y and myself being two midtown professionals (during the week, anyway) decided to check it out, wondering how the momofuku vibe translates to "expense account" dining.

the answer? pretty well. it had some casual touches (chopsticks and sriracha sauce on the tables) mixed with more elegant additions (classy service, fancy settings) - ideal for young professionals not quite ready to completely give into the corporate culture and lifestyle. and the food? amazing. the highlights were the pork belly - perfectly crispy rich fatty melt-in-your-mouth goodness -and a tripe sausage that was phenomenal. the rice noodles and spring rolls were also good, but the meat dishes are where momofuku midtown really shines. it was pricey, so next time it would be great if we had expense accounts ... but for a young professional, it's worth the occasional splurge.

boom noodle

seattle, wa

website

university village ("u-village") keeps getting bigger and better. and more asian. located within walking distance of the university of washington campus, i used to go to u-village all the time for food and shopping. but now it's all fancy and hip. there's a tiffany's, a sushi restaurant, and now boom noodle (a ramen bar) and tokyo sweets (with a menu that looks exactly like what derek and i saw in the harajuku district of tokyo).

i love ramen bars, so i was thrilled to see that one has opened up in seattle. it doesn't have the authenticity of the places in nyc like ippudo and setagaya, but it has some unique dishes. i really enjoyed ryan's recommendation (the cold noodles) and cindy's recommendation (edamame mush with purple potato chips - pictured). the cold noodles were delicious - normal ramen noodles served with a light sauce for dipping.

spot dessert bar

st. mark's (2/3)

website

to continue the jean-georges theme, pichet ong was a former pastry chef for jean-georges' indian-inspired restaurant, spice market. he recently opened spot, a dessert bar on st. mark's. after a dinner of giant sushi rolls at yama, cindy c and i decided to get some exercise by walking elsewhere for dessert. spot only serves dessert, which means it doesn't get busy until after everyone has finished their dinners. head there early (around dinnertime) if you want to avoid the crowds.

the menu is "dessert tapas" which apparently means that the fanchy desserts are served in smaller portions to be shared. cindy c and i chose the 3-dessert tapas for $20. our favorite (pictured) was the "white miso semifreddo" which is a misnomer because it's really all about the sweet and rich olive oil cake sandwiching the light saltiness of the hard ice cream semifreddo. it was a unique salty-sweet combination - delicious. next time, i'll just order the semifreddo. the goat milk soft cheesecake and chocolate cake marquis were both forgettable, but the semifreddo is definitely worth a return trip.

sushi samba

new york, ny

website

it took a while before derek and i decided to try this restaurant. between the asian fusion menu, trendy-looking exterior, club-like interior, it didn't really look like our scene. (although it was featured on an episode of satc - "and you can forget samba!" yells samantha as she storms off). turns out, however, that the food is very good. it's a mix between brazilian, peruvian, and japanese cuisines. i know, it sounds weird and it is weird, but the dishes turn out pretty tasty.

pictured is our favorite dish - the seared otoro kobe beef, served mostly raw with warm japanese mushrooms, ponzu gelée, and truffled tofu crema. it's only about 5 bites of food, for $3 a bite. but each bite is luxurious, meaty, and delicious. we usually order a couple of other things there, but we never end up full because it just costs too much and takes so long for each plate to come out. still, we keep going back for the seared beef. yum.

dragonfly

san juan, pr

website

derek and i were intrigued by this place (owned by the same company that owns aguaviva and the parrot club) because it advertised "latinasian" cuisine. obviously fans of latin and asian cuisines, we decided to try it out. this place is located in a very touristy area of san juan, near where the cruise ships dock. i'm not sure why it tries to be so fancy, but they frown on people wearing shorts so they made derek wear a sarong! i was very confused, yet amused. and no, i'm not posting a picture of derek in the sarong, this is a food blog!

the food was hit or miss. the hits - stir-fried noodles with fried chicken and deep fried lobster dumplings with truffle sauce. i can't believe that no one thought to add fried chicken to chow mein before - it was brilliant. and lobsters with truffle is such a luxurious combination that its hard to go wrong. the miss - duck nachos were drenched in hoisin sauce, but it was a clever idea. the place was trendy and expensive - if that's what you're looking for, i would recommend - but for me, the food wasn't worth the price. derek in a sarong, though, was priceless.

ten penh

washington, dc

website

work has been extremely busy so i apologize that i have not been updating regularly. i have, however, been eating regularly so i have quite a backlog to catch up on. okay, back to our recent trip to washington DC. we walked past this restaurant on pennsylvania avenue a few times while seeing the sights and derek was very intrigued. given the name "ten penh", he thought that it might serve cambodian food. unfortunately every time we walked by, it was closed. finally, on the third try, it was open and we went in.

summary of derek's thoughts: "ten penh? i think zero penh." basically, it's fake asian food in the middle of downtown. it's not cambodian at all, but has a mix of asian cultures and cuisines -- peking style duck rolls, shanghai filipino lumpia rolls, roti wrapped tilapia with wasabi -- and it doesn't mix well. wasn't cheap either. bottom line - don't bother. maybe hike a couple of blocks north and check out chinatown instead.

ruby foo's

new york, ny

website

ruby foo's is an asian-inspired restaurant in times square. the decor is rather cheesy with random fortune-cookie-like sayings painted on the walls and other asian-y touches. some of the food is good - i like their fried rice. derek and i decided to go to ruby foo's for new year's eve because we wanted to be near times square and all of our other options were completely booked. the new year's eve menu was strange - i had truffled shark fin chowder with you tiao (which they called chinese flatbread despite the fact that it is round and not flat) and filet mignon with "ho fun" lasagna. the you tiao was good, but the soup was not. my filet mignon was good, but the lasagna was terrible.

the highlight, however, was the fact that ruby foo's had a special area outside of the restaurant cordoned off for their guests. they also passed out celebratory hats and noisemakers. at 11:50 pm, derek and i headed outside into the cold to watch the famous times square ball drop and countdown. and at 12:05 am, we headed back into the warmth of the restaurant and enjoyed some champagne while listening to two new york city anthems - frank sinatra's "new york, new york" and jay-z+alicia key's "empire state of mind."