Author: marga (Page 56 of 112)

I’ve been waiting for Pho An-Ha, the new restaurant at the corner of East 14th & Estabrook to open for several months now. All the restaurants in the immediate vicinity of my house are of questionable quality, and I don’t always want to cook. I figured, if Pho An-Ha is any good, I’ll patronize it often.
I was in such hurry to try it, that I took the girls there for dinner last Friday night – opening day. The place was very busy, almost all tables were taken, and yet the service was responsive and attentive – though do bear in mind some of the wait staff has limited English. Still, it seemed like the whole Vietnamese community in San Leandro had come over for dinner, and they handled it very well.
I was a little bit disappointed with the menu. It’s pretty heavy on pho and other noodle soup dishes ($5.75-$6.75), and I am just not one for soups. In addition they serve grilled pork, chicken and/or shrimp over rice (most $6.25-$8) or vermicelli ($6.75-$7.50). There is the possibility of getting beef stew over rice ($6.25), but that’s about it: soup and grilled meats. In other words, not much in the way of variety.
I ordered the grilled pork with vermicelli for Mika and had the Pork chop with rice. I also ordered the grilled chicken appetizer ($6) to share. My conclusion was that the meats were quite good, but the portions were on the small side. The grilled chicken, in particular, consisted of 3 tiny skewers of marinated chicken that would not compare favorably (in size) to the sate you get at Thai restaurants. Still, they were almost as expensive as an entree, but they were served plain (though along with your typical vinegary sauce). In comparison, you can get a much larger portion, served with veggies, for a couple of dollars more at Le Soleil, our favorite Vietnamese bistro.
The same can be said about the two main dishes we ordered. The meats were very flavorful and very nicely grilled, but the portions of actual meat were quite small – not a good deal in comparison to Le Soleil.
I should note, however, that each diner gets a free soda (not necessarily a good thing when you are having lunch with little kids – they don’t offer juice or even lemonade as an alternative). They do have strawberry milkshakes, however. The one we had that night – before Mika spilled it all over the table, the floor and herself – was delicious, almost as good as those at Vo’s. But when we went a couple of days later just to get a couple of shakes, someone else was making them and they weren’t that good. Camila didn’t even drink hers (which really, given how caloric these things are, wasn’t a bad thing).
The restaurant itself is devoid of ambiance. The place used to be a video store, and later a hip-hop clothing store, and it hasn’t changed much. There are a couple of large screen TVs mounted on the sides, though thankfully the sound was turned off while we were there.
Service, on the other hand, was fantastic. After Mika spilled the shake on herself, we hurried home to change her, promising to come back later (we live a hundred feet away). We did, and I guess they hadn’t believed our promise, for they had cleared our table and stopped our orders. They were so apologetic for that, however, that they hurried our orders, gave us more free soda and discounted our meals – and they didn’t even include the shake we’d wasted on the bill. So yeah, I feel a little bit bad writing that the place is not necessarily a good value.
In all, I liked the food at Pho Anh-Ha and given the proximity to my house, I imagine I’ll eat there often – but it won’t replace Le Soleil as my favorite Vietnamese restaurant.
Pho Anh-Ha
2089 E 14th St Unit A1
San Leandro, CA
510-357-6888
M-Su, 10 AM – 9 PM
San Leandro Restaurant Reviews
Bay Area Restaurant Reviews

I put a bunch of new restaurant reviews online. Many of them are from my trip to the wine country this year, so I decided to create a web page exclusively for restaurants in Napa & Sonoma. It’s available at http://www.marga.org/food/rest/napa.html. Mike (who edits my reviews) still owes me a few more, but for the time being here is what I have:
Bear Republic Brewery Co.
Good burgers at this famous Healdsburg eatery
Bistro de Copains
An upscale restaurant in Occidental managed to serve me a cold steak
Howard’s Cafe
Also in Occidental serves a pretty nice breakfast
KC’s Downtown Grill
Good coffee shop food in a dead town, Windsor.
Ravenous
Good food and a relaxing dinner at this Healdsburg gem
Sunflower Caffe
Great gourmet sandwiches in a funky patio
And coming back to the bay area, I posted a pretty old review of:
Sonoma’s
A San Leandro restaurant that unfortunately does not live up to its potential.
and a more recent review of:
Verbena
Good food in an office building in downtown Oakland

Today at noon Mika and I found ourselves at Zocalo, with an hour to wait before picking up Camila from daycare. We hadn’t had lunch, and Mika was hungry, so we studied the alternatives in the area (Bancroft & Dutton). There is Paradiso, which is good but expensive; Villa Portofino, which is not open for lunch, Al Attles’ California Cheese Steaks, where Mike and I had had lunch yesterday, and the Cornestone Cafe. Clearly, the Cornerstone Cafe was our only choice (OK, we could have walked a couple of blocks and eaten at Mae’s Soul Food or Tuttle’s Sea Garden, but I didn’t think of it, and I don’t think Mika likes fried fish/chicken anyway). So to the Cornerstone Cafe we went. All in all, we had a nice meal and I’d go back with her there again.
The Cornerstone Cafe has a pretty short menu, it includes some salads, soups, pastas and sandwiches, as well as daily specials. They also have a brief kids’ menu, heavy on angel hair pasta. Mika had the plain angel hair pasta, with butter and Parmesan ($3). She was very happy with it, and ate every single bit. The portion was a bit small, but it did come with bread and butter.
I once again tried the burger, this time with cheddar cheese and avocado. I ordered it medium rare, and it was a bit overdone. It was moderately juicy and it tasted better than I remembered. In all it was fine, better than what you get at most coffee shops, but not particularly great. I didn’t like the fact that the burger was ready at least 5 minutes before the pasta, and they let it sit in the counter so they could serve both together. They really should work better on their timing.
The burger comes with your choice of salad, fries or something else. I went for the fries and I didn’t like them. They were a bit dry and unseasoned.
Mika had a fresh-squeezed lemonade, which she liked, but found too sweet. I had a coke.
We ate at the counter and service was great. The waitress and the guy behind the counter kept checking on us, and making conversation with my little girl.
Best of all was the bill, $15.50 for the two of us. That’s definitely a bargain for that type of restaurant. As I said, yesterday we ate at the Cheesesteak place and spent over $22 – granted it was for two adults, but still.
Cornerstone Cafe
600 Dutton Avenue
San Leandro
510-562-2535
Original Review

Earlier this week I noticed that a small cheesesteak restaurant had opened on Bancroft near Dutton, and today I had the opportunity to go give it a try. It was an OK experience, it’s a place I’d go back but not rush back to.
Al Attles’ serves hoagies and rice plates, and on this occasion both Mike and I had the steak & cheese hoagy ($8). We also ordered a portion of onion rings ($3.25).
The onion rings were fine. The breading was less flavorful than what I would have liked, and they weren’t served with ranch dressing, which I would also have liked, but they tasted as if they were made with fresh oil. They weren’t greasy, which I did like.
The hoagies were also much less greasy than those served at other local establishment. The meat was mostly lean, the vegetables (grilled onions, green peppers, lettuce and tomatoes) fresh, and the sandwich quite large. It was a bit unwieldy, however, and the meat kept falling off, so I mostly ended up eating a veggie sandwich. The flavor was fine, the meat (when there) was a bit overwhelmed by the other flavors, but all in all, I liked it. It didn’t awe me, though.
Service was very good. The small restaurant doesn’t have anything resembling ambiance, but it’s a cheese steak restaurant after all.
Al Attles’ California Cheese Steaks
571 Bancroft Ave.
San Leandro, Ca
510-639-3458
M-Th 11 AM – 7 PM
F 11Am – ?
Sa 12 – ?