Yesterday my friend Lola and I went to California’s Gold Country, for our yearly girls’ weekend out. We drove east until we heat 49, and then north. We stopped in Sonora for lunch. We picked Alfredo’s as it was the first restaurant we walked by after we parked.
Alfredo’s occupies a very nice room in historical downtown Sonora. The main wall is brick with recessed shelves here and there displaying Maya and Aztec ceramics. Other walls have orange hues and there are couple of large stereotypical Mexican wall paintings. It’s both stylish and informal at the same time.
Service was very good, the waiter was very attentive – and chips and drinks, and then food, came quickly to the table.
The major problem we had with Alfredo’s was the food. It was just bland. Nothing had been adequately salted or spiced – it’s as if they were cooking for middle-American seniors with high blood pressure (which may be their target audience, for all I know). The menu was your typical Tex-Mex, with entrees at $9 to $12.50. There is also a children’s menu.
I ordered the Botana Combo ($8.75), which included four different appetizers: a good portion of guacamole, 4 beef taquitos, 1 plain quesadilla and 3 bacon wrapped shrimp. None of it was good. I love guacamole, but this one needed some lemon to perk it up. You could taste the corn tortillas on the taquitos, but the meat filling was to bland to come through. The quesadilla was just a cheese stuffed tortilla, with nothing to make it special. And while I didn’t try the shrimp, as I don’t like shrimp at all, Lola thought they were quite mediocre.
Lola had the same complaints of blandness vis a vis her entree, a combo plate of a beef tamale and a chicken enchilada ($10.55). She described the enchilada as “just an American enchilada” and while she praised the fluffy and light masa of the tamale, she thought the filling was bland and unsurprising.
As you’d expect, we wouldn’t stop at Alfredo’s again – but if you prefer bland food, this may be the place for you.
Alfredo’s Mexican Restaurant
123 S. Washington St.
Sonora, CA
(209) 532-8332
Author: marga (Page 69 of 120)
As I reported before, San Leandro has a new Farmers’ Market, this time downtown. The downtown market is located on Parrot street, in front of The Englander and will operate throughout the summer on Wednesday evenings from 4 pm – 8 pm. The market was inaugurated yesterday, with a ribbon cutting ceremony involving the local politicos.
I think I like this farmer’s market more than the one at Bayfair – which seems to be getting smaller. For one, it has more activities for children – including a stand where you can get elaborate balloon animals/characters made for only $3, another where you can get a caricature made for $10 (this was not a cheap trip to the FM) and one with face painting and so forth (which we fortunately avoided). They also have activities for adults, yesterday was cooking demonstrations (which I didn’t stay for). They’ll also have family entertainment, live music and wine tastings in subsequent Wednesdays.
As you would expect, there were several fruit and veggie stands – lots of ripe strawberries, cherries and even raspberries. There were a couple of bakeries, one stand selling honey, one selling Indian breads & spreads and another one a variety of dips. There was a flower stand, a fish stand and an egg stand – which means that if we miss the quail eggs on Saturday, we’ll be able to get them on Wednesdays.
As far as food went, there is a tamales stand, a stand selling foot-long hot-dogs and teriyaki sticks ($6-9, I think) and The Englander has a burger stand. Unwisely, we decided to eat at The Englander instead, so we didn’t get to actually taste the food from there. Next week.
I’ve heard rumors that Zocalo may open a stand at the farmers’ market to sell its beans.
Here are some pictures of the market:
My sister Kathy is in town and she likes me making her rum-based mixed drinks in the evenings. I seldom do it, and I’m not always successful, but last night she was insistent so I searched through the net for something I could do with the ingredients we had at home. What I came up with was this recipe for Pink Paradise, which I modified to suit the ingredients available at home. She liked it and I made her quite a bit of it 🙂
- 2 oz Pineapple Juice
- 3 oz Cranberry Cocktail
- 2 oz Coconut Rum
- 1/2 oz Orgeat
Mix everything together. Serve over ice.
I’ve driven by Coffee Time countless times, but I had never had a reason to stop here. I usually do my coffee-drinking at Zocalo, and I rarely hang out in the Marina area. However, today I went to lunch with my friend Aamani to Zen’s Filipino Cuisine and we wanted to get a coffee, in lieu of dessert, afterwards. So Coffee Time it was.
Coffee Time is a very small coffee shop. Inside there is barely space for a counter, a tiny kitchen and a few knick knacks. The place has character, however, like something you’d find in a beach town. There are three or four tables in a small covered patio outside, right next to the parking lot. It’s a very relaxing place to seat in a sunny afternoon – even when you get to witness a police arrest (they did it very quietly).
I didn’t ask Aamani how her iced coffee was. My peanut butter chocolate drink was mostly air, but it was refreshing enough. Not sure if I’d order it again. But if I lived in the neighborhood, I’d definitely frequent the place.
They serve a variety of sandwiches for lunch, perhaps one day I’ll give them a try.
Coffee Time
2105 Doolittle Dr
San Leandro, CA
(510) 895-5997
San Leandro Restaurant Reviews
Zen’s Filipino Cuisine and Ihaw-Ihaw (BBQ) House – San Leandro – REVIEW
UPDATE: THIS RESTAURANT HAS CLOSED
image borrowed’ from Zen’s
Jan 2012
I’ve returned to Zen’s many times since my original review. I think it’s by far the best deal for lunch in town, the food is delicious and the lunch buffet very nicely priced. It’s well worth the trip to the Marina.
May 2008 Review
Zen’s has been open for two years and I only read about it today, which tells you I’m not as in tune with the San Leandro restaurant “scene” as one might think. And a great pity it is, because if its buffet lunch is any indication, Zen may very well serve the best food in San Leandro.
I found the restaurant on TripAdvisor.com while looking for restaurants in San Leandro I might have missed. I suggested it to my friend Aamani, who I was meeting for lunch, and she was all for trying it – so we headed towards Doolittle in the hopes of finding it, which we did easily. It’s located in a strip mall, just off Fairway.
The little restaurant is pretty cute with a tiki-bar kind of feel. It has, however, two annoying flat screen TVs showing Filipino shows. They are very loud, making conversation difficult.
The buffet consisted of about 10 dishes, including a chicken soup, chicken and pork adobo, BBQ chicken, Filipino steak, chicken in a coconut sauce, and a few other dishes I don’t remember now. There was one noodle dish I didn’t try, and one green-bean dish. There was nothing else for vegetarians, so they may want to keep away.
Everything I tried was excellent, the meats were tender, flavorful and not exceedingly fatty. The sauces were full of flavor, the bbq chicken was delicious. My experience with Filipino food had been limited to adobos and lumpias, what I tasted seemed like a fusion of western and Asian foods – as you would expect.
According to its website, Zen’s is also open to dinner until very late. They have music and karaoke some nights, so you may want to call them if you are just going for the food. I know I’ll go back.
Zen’s Filipino Cuisine and Ihaw-Ihaw (BBQ) House
13876 Doolittle Drive
San Leandro, CA
510-351-3312
http://www.zensfilipinocuisine.com
For the last few years, I have been celebrating my birthday with a Free Form Games murder mystery role-playing game. This year I chose their newest addition, Lei’d to Rest, which takes place during a luau in a Hawaiian beach. There was no question that I’d have to make Hawaiian food for dinner, and fortunately there is no lack of online resources as to what to cook for a home-made luau. The menu consisted of the following – recipes and comments are below:
As I reported here a couple of weeks ago, Blossom is the last restaurant to occupy the space on East 14th previously taken by Good Food and Szechuan Restaurant. I will bet that it won’t be the last.
We ordered food from there Saturday, when I was too involved in the preparations for my birthday party that evening (which I’ll soon blog about), to attend to lunch. Kathy suggested it because they delivered, and I always want to try new places in town. Oh well.
Blossom offers your typical Chinese restaurant menu also at typical prices – generally $6-9 for entrees. The portions are large, though not as large as those of other restaurants, which is not necessarily a bad thing. My problem was with the food itself.
We found the fried wontons ($3.25) to be a bit limp – though that may be because they don’t travel well. In any case, I like them crispier.
The sweet & sour pork ($6) had a lot of breading, little pork and a syrupy sauce that just didn’t taste good. Nobody liked it. Mike and Kathy did like the Szechuan beef ($6.55), but I thought it was very one-dimensional, it was too spicy for the kids to try. None of us liked the orange flavored chicken ($6), full, scrawny chicken wings with a thick, spicy sauce. They were difficult to eat and just not very tasty. The chicken chow mein ($5) was pretty good, Mika liked it.
In all, I was unhappy with Blossom and I see no reason to order from there again. New Hong Kong also delivers and is much better.
Blossom Chinese Restaurant
14807 E. 14th St.
San Leandro, CA
510-614-8112
San Leandro Restaurant Reviews
Since Chili’s opened years ago, we go back once or twice a year. We like the baby back ribs and the loaded mashed potatoes. The burgers are OK, though not that memorable. They usually have a coupon for a free appetizer or dessert with entree, if you subscribe to their mailing list.
In all, it’s a dependable restaurant, but nothing to be excited about. The fact that is so crowded speaks about the poverty of restaurants in San Leandro.
May 2008 Review
Last night, Kathy, my sister who is visiting from LA, wanted to go to Chevy’s for dinner. Alas, we’d been there only last week and the experience hadn’t been that great, so I wasn’t eager to repeat it. I suggested Chili’s, as I figured one generic, mediocre, chain should be easy to substitute for another.
My first experience at Chili’s in San Leandro had actually been positive. Granted, Mike and I were in a date so that might have rose-colored our glasses, but we thought the BBQ ribs were pretty good as was the rest of the food. We visited again a few months ago, this time with the kids, and I wasn’t as happy with the experience. I found the food to be tired, with boring rather than vibrant flavors. It wasn’t bad, just not exciting.
Still, our choices, here in San Leandro, are dismal, so I figured we might as well go there. Once again it wasn’t exciting, but it wasn’t bad.
None of us were particularly hungry, so we decided to split an order of baby back ribs ($17 for a full rack) and get an additional half-rack for Kathy ($7, if ordered with another entree). Mike got the habanero ribs, and he liked them quite a bit. He thought they weren’t very spicy, but I disagreed. Kathy had the honey chipotle ones. She thought they were OK, but that they lacked flavor. I liked my honey BBQ ribs, they were fall-off-the-bone tender and had a pleasant, sweet, flavor. So far these have been my favorite.
I had ordered the loaded mashed potatoes as a side, but either the waitress didn’t hear me (it’s a rather loud restaurant), or she made a mistake, as she brought us french fries and veggies instead. The former were very disappointing, they were limp and not very flavorful. The veggies were OK.
We also ordered onion strings served with jalapeño ranch sauce ($6, I think). Mike and Kathy thought they were pretty good, I thought they lacked flavor, and wasn’t too happy with the sauce.
Both kids got mac-n-cheese. It is Kraft, but Mika said it was just OK. Both she and Camila ate quite a bit, though. Neither touched their corn on the cob, however 🙁
In all, it wasn’t a bad meal and I’d go back once in a while for the ribs.
Original Review
San Leandro Restaurant Reviews
Update: Prince has changed owners and it’s now King Kong Dim Sum. It’s a shame because we had returned to Prince for Mother’s Day this year, and I had decided to make it my annual Mother’s Day brunch place. The food had been amazing, so good that we returned the following week when my brother visited us. The new place gets mixed reviews on Yelp.
–
Prince Dim Sum House opened a few months ago, I think, at the space where East Village used to be. The restaurant underwent renovations before it opened as Prince, so I’m not sure if the owner, as well as the look and the name, have changed. The menu is pretty similar, as are the prices. I’d been to East Village several times, and this was my second visit to Prince as such.
Esthetically, they spiffed up the room a little bit, putting new furniture and a wine wall and removing the unattractive handwritten “specials” posters from the walls. Still, the room is square and has a flat ceiling, and there isn’t that much you can do with it to make it attractive. The place is nice enough, but it’s not and does not pretend to be, a “date” or “special occasion” sort of restaurant.
Service leaves something to be desired. We were seated quickly, but it took quite a long time for someone to come to take our orders. As we were waiting we saw the host chatting with people at one table, and one of the waitresses clean up another table, so I don’t think the problem was that they were just busy. Once we ordered the food came to the table quite quickly, which we liked as we were starving. It took a little bit, though not as long, to get our bill. Prince, just East Village before it, has a printed dim sum menu and you chose what you want to eat and then give the completed form to the waitress. They have several dozen items, costing $2-$5.25 depending on the ingredients. In all, lunch here is comparable in price to lunch at most non-sandwich restaurants.
I’m not the best person to review a dim sum place – which is why I’m writing about it on my blog, rather than in one of my more formal (and edited!) restaurant reviews – as I don’t really like most of what appears in dim sum menus. I do love pork buns, however, and that’s what kept bringing me to East Village, and now to Prince.
Prince’s baked BBQ pork buns are very good ($2 for 3). They are small and have a sweet glaze, they also have a nice amount of pork. I fear that they may be too sweet for some people, but they are my favorites in San Leandro. If you go, you should give them a try.
This time we also tried the Baked BBQ Pork Tart ($2.75 for 3). These are longish, thin pastries, also glazed and filled with BBQ pork. The dough is very flaky and Kathy liked it very much. I found them somewhat dry (though not nearly as dry as other versions of this dish) but also very yummy. We ordered a second serving.
I’d never had the Hong Kong Fried Bread Sticks ($2 for 3) before, but I was curious about them. They ended up being very light pieces of fried dough. They were a bit salty, but I thought they’d be delicious dipped in sugar – alas, there was none on the table. They were a bit oily, and kind of boring by themselves, and I wouldn’t order them again.
The fried chicken wings ($5.25 for 4) were plump, juicy and very hot. They were lightly spiced and salted, so you could really appreciate the taste of the chicken, and I liked them quite a bit – but I thought they were too expensive for what they were.
Finally, we had the Layered Egg Custard Cake ($2.75 for 3 small slices). Neither Kathy nor Mika were crazy about it, but I thought it was OK if you like Chinese cakes. I do think Mika would have been happier with a custard bun.
In all it was a good lunch, and I’ll go back to Prince again for those pork buns.
Prince Dim Sum House
14736 E. 14th St.
San Leandro, CA
510-667-9888
San Leandro Restaurant Reviews
Bay Area Restaurant Reviews
I love short ribs. I usually order them when they are available in restaurants, and I’ve tried cooking them at home a few times, with various measures of success. I’m still looking for the perfect short rib recipe, however. All I know is that it will have red wine in it 🙂
This one, from the Food Network, looks pretty good. I just put it in the oven, so you’ll have to wait until it’s ready to find out how good it is ;-).
Well, here I am, with a report on the short ribs. They were good. Good, but not great, and what I’m looking at this point is for something great. So I don’t think I’d bother making them again.
For the time being, here is the recipe, as I made it. Note that I no longer use chicken or beef broth. Instead I add water and the corresponding amount of “Better than Bouillon” chicken or beef base. Also, I couldn’t find good white onions at Safeway. They only had 6, and they were all bruised in some unappealing way. I got organic yellow onions instead, which looked better. As usual, I used “two-buck chuck” (cabernet sauvignon in this case).
Short Ribs Bouriguignonne
- 1 cup flour
- 2 tsp. paprika
- 2/3 tsp. cayenne pepper
- 1/3 tsp. salt
- freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 4 lbs short ribs, trimmed
- 3 tbsp. unsalted butter
- 4 slices of bacon, chopped
- 2 onions, sliced
- 1 small carrot, chopped
- 5 celery ribs, chopped
- 1 lb mushrooms, sliced
- 2 cups red wine
- 4 cups beef stock
Preheat oven to 375F.
Mix the flour with the spices in a large bowl. Lightly coat the short ribs with the flour mixture.
Melt the butter in a large dutch oven and brown the short ribs on all sides. Remove and add the chopped bacon. Cook for 2 or 3 minutes or until brown and add the vegetables. Cook until soft, stirring occasionally. Return the meat to the pot and add the wine and the beef stock. Bring to a boil, then cover and put the pot in the oven. Cook for 2 to 3 hours.
Adapted from a recipe at the Food Network.
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