pho vi hoa

los altos, ca

website

this is a real pho restaurant, as opposed to madame tam, which is a vietnamese-ish restaurant that happens to serve pho. so of course there are going to be some things that the real pho restaurant does better: (1) better fattier beef, (2) selection of pho - i can choose a bowl that has tripe, tendon, and all these weird chewy bits, and (3) price.

the real pho restaurant also serves an excellent fresh lemonade - a little sweet for derek's tastes, but perfect for mine. but what was missing from the real pho restaurant, however, was the flavor of the broth. it was good at pho vi hoa, but i think madame tam, surprisingly, has a richer and more flavorful broth. so, pho vi hoa for the meat and madame tam for the broth. hmmm.

armadillo willy's

los altos, ca

website

we used to live in the flatiron district which had several excellent bbq restaurants located nearby, like hill country and blue smoke. we've also visited austin, where a+m served us amazing bbq from the salt lick. i used to make frequent trips to north carolina for work and had excellent bbq there (even at the airport...) so, we're quite picky when it comes to bbq.

armadillo willy's is located between derek's office and our apartment, which means its perfect for him to pick up on his way home from work. the food is pretty good. it's not as good as anything i listed earlier, but its sufficient to satisfy our bbq cravings. derek likes the ribs, i like the brisket sandwich (chopped, not sliced) and their "texas tots." if you're stuck in los altos and are craving bbq, i highly recommend.

akane

los altos, ca

link to yelp

derek and i have been desperate to find a quality japanese restaurant in the south bay. akane is not it. derek chose this restaurant because it had a favorable rating on yelp. i'm not sure why. maybe it was an off day but when derek and i went, the food was very disappointing.

i ordered the nabeyaki udon. the only thing right was the poached egg, which was perfect with the udon noodles. but the broth was bland and the fish and the chicken were overcooked (and bland). we ordered a sushi roll and some nigiri. the uni tasted funky and not in a good way. the mackerel was not fresh. the sushi roll consisted mostly of green onion and what little raw fish was included was tasteless. sigh.

los altos grill

los altos, ca

website

we were at the at&t store in mountain view, buying derek a new iphone (hey, he's in the valley now - no more blackberry for him). while i waited for his iphone to get set-up, i decided to find a nearby spot for dinner with non-asian food. using one of the sample ipad's yelp app, i searched for "american" food near mountain view, california. nothing. the closest spot was in los altos, so we decided to drive out there and check it out.

turns out it's a hillstone restaurant! derek and i frequently visited houston's, another hillstone restaurant, in manhattan, so it was a little piece of home here in the south bay. very similar menu. with one big difference. their "famous cornbread in a skillet." sounds simple, but it's amazing. moist, crunchy, buttery, and spicy goodness. derek, not normally a cornbread eater, devoured half of the massive skillet of cornbread. delicious. everything else was standard houston's fare - great ribs, burgers, french fries. if only it wasn't all the way in los altos ...