shophouse kitchen

santa monica, ca

website

from the brilliant minds at chipotle ... a southeast asian version of "slow food, fast." one recently opened up on the 3rd street promenade and they cleverly sent coupons for free bowls to nearby residents. you can't beat free. no tortillas here (although i think tortillas would be great with these ingredients). instead, you get a huge bowl and can choose 5 main ingredients and then some toppings. my bowl: half brown rice and half lettuce, a couple of pork/chicken meatballs, charred corn, green curry sauce, pickled vegetables, and crispy garlic on top. everything was surprisingly flavorful and even a little spicy. the meatballs were a little too salty - next time i'll get more brown rice to balance that out. good food, super fast, reasonably priced - i'm definitely a fan.

pho van

portland, or

website

visited chris and amanda in portland. they took me to a yummy vietnamese restaurant. really good pho, but the highlight was the make-your-own summer rolls. you get a huge plate with shrimp wrapped around sugarcane, a bunch of herbs and veggies, and crisp sheets of white paper. it took a few minutes of staring at and folding the white paper, but eventually chris figured out that you dunk the white paper in some hot water and it turns into the translucent noodle-like wraps that you fill with herbs, veggies, sauce, and meat. yum.

ppq dungeness island

san francisco, ca

link to yelp

crabs prepared asian-style - perfect for large parties to share. but parking is a nightmare. we spent 40 mins circling and ended up half a mile away from the restaurant. seriously, if we weren't there to see j+j visiting from nyc, we might have just headed back home. otherwise, it was a great spot for j+j to meet up with their many sf friends. the $40/crab matches what we used to pay for fatty crab in nyc, but the set menus for larger groups provide better value.

our table shared 3 crabs and a few side dishes, including excellent garlic noodles. we had black pepper crab, roasted crab, and spicy crab. the roasted crab was definitely the best for me - deep fried and infused with garlic. others preferred the spicy crab. i didn't actually eat a lot of crab - i prefer the main shell over the legs (too much work). but i really enjoyed the dessert - fried bananas with mango ice cream. everyone else was too full from crab to eat the dessert - which just meant more for me.

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.

indochine

palo alto, ca

website

derek and i like to be able to walk to restaurants. now that we no longer live on university avenue, we have fewer walkable choices. indochine is one of them. it offers thai & vietnamese cuisine. i'm always wary when a restaurant offers more than one cuisine - it usually means that they don't do either well. but we've ordered takeout from here a few times and they make a pretty good pad see ew with tofu.

one night, i was craving pho and we decided to walk over and try indochine in person. the pho was not good. the meat had clearly been cooked (and over-cooked) before it was added to the soup (real pho should have sliced raw beef placed in the soup just as you're about to dig in - the beef cooks in the hot soup). the broth was bland. very disappointing. we'll still get pad see ew here, but we'll trek over to madame tam on university when we want pho.

madame tam

palo alto, ca

website

decent southeast asian food on university ave. solid bowl of pho, which is perfect for those cold california evenings. hey, sometimes the temperature can dip below 50 degrees here. the pho is served with slices of beef and a few meatballs. i'd prefer more tendon and tripe, but it still soothes the soul.

there are several other bright spots on the menu. i like the buddha's spring rolls - good fresh veggies wrapped in rice paper, served with hoisin. we also like the provincial beef stew, the thai drunken fish, and garlic noodles. pretty good asian food if you're stuck on the ave.

tamarine

palo alto, ca

whenever we ask a local about good restaurants, they invariably include tamarine in the list. it is located just down the street from our apartment but it is always packed. last minute reservations are nearly impossible to get. we finally planned ahead enough to make reservations for dinner. we arrived on time, but they still made us wait at the bar for twenty minutes before seating us. fortunately they make excellent cocktails.

asian fusion here means that they use high quality and expensive ingredients and then throw asian sauces on them. turns out to be pretty decent fare. the shaking beef (pictured) was delicious. was it worth the price? not sure. might be good for a special occasion with a focus on cocktails. otherwise i say go to a real asian restaurant for something more reasonably priced.

luu noodle

mountain view, ca

link to yelp

life's been busy, involving a lot of travel lately, but i'm going to try to catch up with some entries this morning. derek and i discovered this awesome noodle spot close to target in mountain view. it's perfect -- start with a big bowl of cheap noodles to carbo-load before a major target shopping trip.

i get the combo noodles with wontons and meatballs. vietnamese/chinese style noodles. good, clear broth. perfectly dense and chewy noodles. when derek and first went here, they included fried pork skin as a garnish - yum. last time we went, no more fried pork. not sure if it's a permanent change or if we were just unlucky. service is non-existent, you pay at the counter by telling them your table number, booths are kind of uncomfortable, and i would avoid the shrimp. but for $5 a bowl, i'm not going to complain.

monsoon

seattle, wa

website

for seattleites, the only thing they have to know about this capitol hill restaurant is that it has its own parking lot in the back. (capitol hill is a popular area in seattle for good food and fun hangouts and it is notoriously difficult to find parking). monsoon has great food too. the prices on the menu look like new york prices, but the portions are larger. the menu also resembles new york menus in that it lists the source of all of the meats like "painted hills filet mignon" and "fulton valley farm crispy drunken chicken" (which were both very good).

the fancy vietnamese-inspired dishes are meant to be shared. in addition to the luc lac and chicken, we ordered the papaya and prawn salad, squid stuffed with duck (pictured), crispy tofu, and asian long beans. there's also an excellent wine list and the waiter was able to explain the differences between the whites available by the glass. derek's mom chose a vouvray and i had a sauvignon blanc. my favorite part of the meal, however, was dessert - we had banana cake, cassava cake topped with a roasted pear, and the coconut creme caramel. amazing.

obao

new york, ny

link to yelp

finally felt well enough to go back to work, which meant that i could finally try the recently opened obao. it's one of michael huynh's many restaurants - he also runs baoguette. i was happy to hear that a branch of the empire sits just a block away from my office. obao took over the old bunchberries space so there's some casual seating in front near the window but more standard seating in the back.

the food tends to be a twist on standard asian dishes. for example, the appetizer pork belly is served with traditional char siu sauce (although it ended up being more pork than belly.) eric joined me for lunch and as usual, i liked the dish that he chose better - the spicy radish noodles with shrimp, oyster, egg, chives, and bean sprouts. it was obao's version of the popular cantonese dish - stir-fried luo buo gao - very good. my pad see ew was pretty good. the twist was supposed to be the use of bulgogi, but it tasted like normal thai-style beef to me. still, very good and reasonably priced for midtown east. i will definitely be back.

baoguette

new york, ny

link to baoguette on yelp

ordered the baoguette from baoguette. derek and i are on a quest to find an authentic banh mi sandwich in manhattan (or if not authentic, yummy enough to overcome the inauthenticity.) baoguette had excellent barbecued pork (see dark red meat in the middle) and a good spicy sauce. but there was just too much pork and it overwhelmed the vegetables (i know, you're shocked that i thought there was too much pork, me too). plus the bread was underwhelming. that said, would probably eat there again to try their other sandwiches but the search for a good banh mi continues ...

also - note that my labels are inaccurate and will probably reflect a skewed understanding of geography, food, and prices. whatever.