Category: Restaurants (Page 28 of 53)

Note: La Bella Italia has re-opened in the same location under the name Tuscany.
—
As I announced a couple of days ago, La Bella Italia has become “My Ultimate Tandoori”. Its old Italian menu is not changed, but it’s now complimented by an Indian menu. The new menu offers a plethora of entrees from all over India ($8-13 a la carte, $12-17 with plain naan, rice, salad and lentils), including quite a few vegetarian entrees. There are several appetizers and desserts in their take-out menu, but they were not included in the dine-in menu that we were given (after asking for it, they gave us the Italian menu by default). Appetizers in the take-out menu include vegetable (but not chicken) pakoras for $5 and chicken samosas for $6. They also have a variety of naans ($1.25 – 4), but not kabuli naan. Though not in their menu, they do serve lassis. I had a sweet lassi, which was OK. For some reason it was pink – it tasted a little bit of curd, but mostly of sugar; it was extremely sweet. I think next time I’d ask them to make it less sweet.
Dinner started with their usual rolls and butter – the rolls were warm, but a bit stale this time. They also brought us papadums, which were very crispy but too spicy for my taste. They were not served with the cilantro and sweet-sour sauces that usually accompany it at other restaurants.
For dinner we had our “staples”: chicken tikka masala ($9), lamb korma ($10), a plain naan ($1.25) and an onion kulcha ($3). I also ordered rice ($2, I think).
The tikka masala and korma sauces were quite similar – the korma being more spicy (we ordered them medium). They were thick, flavorful, without much in the way of sweetness. The tikka masala lacked any pretension of smokyness, and the korma was probably bolder and less creamy than other kormas I’ve had. I wasn’t crazy about them, but that’s probably a matter of individual taste. I did eat them all (helped by naan), I just didn’t love them. The chicken, unfortunately, was quite dry and the lamb a bit too tough.
I’m not an expert on identifying rice grains, but I can tell you that the rice served here was not basmati. The grains were pretty thick, and it was stickier than it should have been (perhaps it was a tad overcooked). It also tasted very plain, without the nutiness of basmati. Interestingly, I found that the curries were horrible when eaten together with the rice – fortunately we had the naan.
The naan and the kulcha were quite nice, and I would order them again.
Dinner came up to $40 after tax and tip – a little steep, I think. Service was good, though the waiter failed to let us know about the Indian menu, and he did not tell us what we could order off-menu (such as appetizers, desserts and lassis).
In all, we had a pleasant meal but not one we would be rushing to have again. The food at Favorite India, in Hayward, is considerably more to my linking and its entrees are a dollar or two cheaper. My Ultimate Tandoori delivers with a $30 minimum order; Favorite India does as well, but only to parts of San Leandro.
Still, I’m quite happy that Ultimate Tandoori has opened and I imagine I will go back with friends when we don’t want to have an Indian dinner in the city. I’m also planning on trying their lunch buffet ($7 without a drink – 11 AM to 3 PM daily) (see update below)
My Ultimate Tandoori
15015 East 14th St.
San Leandro, CA
510-278-5899
Daily 11 AM – 3 PM and 4 PM – 10 PM
San Leandro Restaurant Reviews
Marga’s Indian recipes:
Balti
Bengali

Update
Today I went to lunch to My Ultimate TAndoori with a couple of friends. The buffet lunch had regular salad, raita, plums (I think), vegetable pakora, chicken tandoori, a seafood curry, a lamb curry and chicken tikka masala (I think). It also had rice, some spinach dish, daal, a vegetable curry (I think) and, for dessert, gulab jamun and a rice pudding. The buffet was $7, with drink and tax it came out to $10. A hot butter naan is served at the table.
All in all I thought it was an average Indian buffet. The naan and the gulab jamun were simply delicious. The chicken tandoori was a little uneven, the first piece I got was very good and flavorful, others less so. The meat curries tasted about the same as they did the other night. They were thick and tasty, but they were missing something. Perhaps they have not simmered for long enough. Once again I found the chicken somewhat tough, and I preferred to eat the curries with the delicious naan. I didn’t try the vegetable selections. One of my friends really liked them mixed with raita – the other one didn’t do so and found them too spicy.
In all, it was an OK buffet, though not one of the best I’ve had. I expect that I’ll go there from time to time and you should give it a try too.
—
Update 12/09
We went again to My Ultimate Tandoori around Xmas time with my parents and I think we had a pretty experience. Mike and I had Indian food and my parents Italian. It’s been a while so I don’t remember what we all had, but we all liked the food. However, we all felt it was overpriced, which is why My Ultimate Tandoori is not my choice for either Indian or Italian food, despite the fact that it’s relatively close to my home.

The economic situation is being tough on San Leandro restaurants – and many of them are resorting to coupons to get people in the door. Whereas a few months ago, there were only a couple of San Leandro restaurants in restaurant.com, now you can find quite a few of them.
Restaurant.com lets you buy $10 gift certificates for $3, and $25 gift certificates for $10. There is usually a minimum purchase ($35 or $50 for the $25 gc) which may exclude alcoholic drinks. The real deal, though, is that sometimes you can get these certificates for 70-80% off (keep an eye on dealdetectives.com), so our savings can be really substantial.
The San Leandro restaurants on restaurant.com now are:
–Biggies Brazilian BBQ
-El Amigo Mexican
-Los Cabos Seafood Mexican Restaurant
–Luke’s Grill
–Porky’s Pizza Palace
–San Gaspar Restaurante
–Sweet Fingers Restaurant
–Tito’s Mexican Restaurant
–Vo’s Restaurant
There are also a bunch of new restaurants in the surrounding areas, so remember to check out restaurant.com before going to dinner anywhere.

It has happened! San Leandro has finally gotten an Indian restaurant. We’ve hoped for it, begged for it, and it’s finally here. Alas, I haven’t been there yet, so I don’t know how good it is, but it’s here.
My Ultimate Tandoori has opened in the space previously occupied by La Bella Italia. The owners of La Bella Italia are themselves Indian (from the Punjab, I’d guess, as they are Sikh) – but their true love is Italian food. Alas, La Bella Italia was not very successful in its current location, I rarely saw anyone there, so they seem to finally give in and give San Leandro what it really needs: an Indian restaurant. They’ll continue serving Italian food, however. We had desert there last month, and it was quite good, so they’ll hopefully keep that.
As for the new menu, it includes your usual North Indian dishes (they have chicken tikka masala and lamb korma, my favorites), but a bunch of others as well. Indeed, I wonder if their menu is not too ambitious. They have a daily lunch buffet for $7 (11 AM – 3 PM).
I hope I’ll get to go this week – I’ll let you know what I think.
My Ultimate Tandoori
15015 East 14th St.
San Leandro, CA
510-278-5899
Daily 11 AM – 3 PM and 4 PM – 10 PM

I had my first meal in Barcelona at Restaurante Taxidermista about a week and a half ago. I was quite hungry after having roamed around the old part of the city
for a while, but I was being too picky as to where and what to eat. I
wanted to eat outside, somewhere that had a prix-fix menu that fit my
mood. My pickyness was irritating me to no end, so I finally cajoled
myself into agreeing to sit down at the next empty table I found at
the Placa Reial, where I was as I was carrying on this internal
conversation. That ended up being the Restaurante Taxidermista, not
altogether a bad choice.
The main reason why the Restaurante Taxidermista was not a good choice
was that it has a very limited menu, a few appetizers, a couple of
sandwiches, maybe some seafood stuff I glanced over, nothing much or
much varied. I could have done better elsewhere. Still, there I was,
and there I was eating so I ordered a portion of pa amb tomaquet (E
1.75), literally, “bread with tomato”, a dish consistent of (French
style) bread brushed with a generous amount of olive oil as well as,
well, fresh tomato. It sounds simple, and I had meant to make it when
I cooked Catalan food, but it is such a Catalan specialty that I wanted to try it. And indeed the dish is no more and no less than the sum of its ingredients, it tastes just like you expect it to taste
(though perhaps fresher, given that we are more used to having cooked
tomatoes on our bread), and that´s pretty good. I enjoyed it.
I also had a plate of butifarra, two Catalan sausages with sweet sauteed onions
(E 4.30). The sausages didn´t look that great, but the onions were
nicely caramelized (clearly with the help of some sugar), and the
sweet and hearty flavors went well together. I also enjoyed it.
And that was it. Really. I did have a small coke (E 2.30) and got
some Italian ice cream on the way home, but that was it for my first Barcelona lunch. Pretty sad.
Restaurante Taxidermista
Placa Reial 8
Barcelona
Spain
93 412 45 36
http://www.taxidermistarestaurant.com/
Marga’s Restaurant Reviews

La Botiga is a 3-restaurant chain of mid-priced contemporary Catalan restaurants in Barcelona. A few colleagues and I had dinner at the one located near Avenida Diagonal last Tuesday night, and we were all quite pleased with the experience. We had a very pleasant dinner in the outside patio, the food was good and the service attentive and accommodating.
La Botiga’s menu offers perhaps half a dozen appetizers, plus some salads, and perhaps a dozen entrees (mostly priced E12 and under). My colleagues were all happy with their appetizers which included croquettes and fritters, very fresh asparagus with some sort of sauce and, of course, bread with tomato. They seemed to be pretty pleased with their entrees as well – and they were surprised that the hamburger surprised plate consisted of a stuffed hamburger patty with no bun. I thought my steak kebab lacked ummf and didn’t like the undercooked potatoes it came with, but it was all in all alright. My desert of crema catalana was a little lacking BUT after having made it once and eaten it two or three times, I’ve come to the conclusion that crema catalana just can’t compare with its French cousin creme brulee.
Service was professional and quick – we never lacked for anything, and the waiter happily let me use a credit card to pay part of my bill.
La Botiga 2
Gandesa, 10
Barcelona
Spain
93 410 48 47
http://labotiga.angrup.com/
Marga’s Restaurant Reviews
Marga’s Catalan Menu

Note: Biggies has closed.
Biggies BBQ has been opened for a couple of months already, but I didn’t find out about it until the San Leandro Times did a story on it last Thursday. Of course I had to go – not just because it’s my moral imperative to review each and every restaurant in San Leandro (except for those that are obviously bad), but also because I like Brazilian food. I will note that while Brazilians love meat and their espetos corridos are legendary, their meat is unfortunately not as good as that from Argentina. Then again, nobody’s is.
Biggies BBQ is a very most restaurant located in the Marina Faire shopping center in San Leandro. It looks like a shopping mall restaurant, it has no decorations or ambiance and the tables/chairs are the cheapy kind. But that in itself is an advantage, as it suggests cheaper food. We went there for dinner the Friday night after the article about them came out, and while the place was pretty empty when we got there, it really filled up by 7 PM or so. Alas, they weren’t prepared for this – the lone waitress could barely keep up with the needs of every table, and every table in the restaurant was occupied. The kitchen seemed to have the same problem, while our appetizers came right away, we had to wait over one hour for our entree. And believe me, an hour with hungry/antsy kids is just not fun.
Biggies’ menu needs to be redone. As it is it lists appetizers, drinks, daily lunch specials, weekend specials and desserts. No, it doesn’t list entrees, which makes it quite disconcerting. Apparently this is because they have different offerings each night (though only a couple of these), though they have the Brazilian BBQ plate ($13) every day. Many of the offerings, furthermore, are listed by their Portuguese name, and the menu doesn’t explain what they are. This all means that the waitress needs to spend some time explaining the menu to each table – which, of course, makes service even slower.
We started with two pasteles, which turned out to be large, square, fried empanadas-like pastries filled with minimum seasoned ground beef ($3 each). Despite the lack of meat I really liked them, the dough was both crispy and doughy and had a nice flavor, the meat was also nicely seasoned (not in the least spicy). The kids liked them too.
We followed by what I thought was the esfirra ($3 each) but, looking online, might have been a joelho (not in the menu), a baked sweet bun filled with cheese and tomato (I think, though the waitress said it was ham). This was also very good.
After an hour or so we had the Brazilian BBQ which consisted of two chunks of beef, a tiny Brazilian sausage and a small chicken leg. The meat was a little tough and overdone (medium rather than the medium rare I’d requested), but it had a great flavor. The intense marinade brought up, rather than hid, the gamy taste of the beef and I loved it. The only problem was that the marinade was too salty. The same can be said about the sausage and the chicken. The latter had a very crispy skin and moist meat. The meats were served with a large quantity of rice and (refried?) beans (which Camila liked).
In all, I was very happy with the food, but Mike and I thought that it was a tad expensive – HOWEVER, I just realized that you can buy gift certificates for the restaurant (dinner only) at restaurant.com – a $25 gift certificate usually costs $10, so you’d save $15, but sometimes you can get them for as cheap as $2 (keep an eye on dealdetectives.com. That would be a savings of $23!!! I wish I had thought about checking restaurant.com yesterday! I don’t know how they can make any money at those prices, which worries me a little (I want them to stick around!).
I will definitely go to Biggies BBQ again – though in several weeks, when it becomes less busy 🙂
Biggies BBQ
13700 Doolittle Drive #110
San Leandro, CA
(510) 352-2371
San Leandro Restaurant Reviews
Bay Area Restaurant Reviews

The downtown San Leandro farmers’ market is back again for the summer season. It opened yesterday with some band playing that fortunately wasn’t as loud as bands last year. We found most of the same food stands from last year, in addition to a new prepared foods stand: Casbah Exotic Food. They serve a short, but eclectic, list of dishes – if I well remember Moroccan chicken, curry chicken, gyros (I think beef) and a steak sandwich. I’m pretty sure they had another item as well. I think all the plate were $5.
I had the Moroccan chicken plate, which really was a chicken gyro. It consisted of a pita bread covered with lettuce & some tomato, and some pieces of pretty bland chicken. I ate it but did not enjoy it, and I was hungry afterwards. Mike had a slightly better experience with his gyro. He liked the marinated beef, but thought that the portion was also too small. $5 is not much, but I rather pay a dollar or two more and be satisfied.
Fortunately Meyers BBQ is back with their chicken teriyaki and huge hot dogs.

Ana Rosa’s occupies the space previously occupied by El Novillo, also a Mexican restaurant. It’s only a few yards away from my house, so I was hoping it’d be great – or at least good. Alas, I’d qualify it as simply “OK”.
I went last night, with Mika and Camila, to “celebrate” Cinco de Mayo. I was too lazy to walk all the way to Los Pericos, my favorite taquería in town and too unprepared to make something at home either. So Ana Rosa’s it was.
I ordered a beef quesadilla ($7), while Mika had a regular chicken burrito ($5) and Camila had a small plain cheese quesadilla ($5). The menu did list the plain quesadilla at $5 – but when the waitress asked me if I wanted a large or small quesadilla, I assumed that the small one would be less. My bad, I paid $5 for a tiny tortilla filled with a little bit of cheese. Outrageous.
My beef quesadilla was larger – it consisted of an oversize flour tortilla, filled with cheese and diced beef, folded in half and toasted. It was served with a scoop of guacamole (the thin, runny type), sour cream, lettuce and a slice of tomato. Personally, I don’t really like toasted tortillas. I much prefer the method used at Los Pericos in which a large flour tortilla is steamed, filled with the beef, cheese, salsa, guacamole and sour cream (and lettuce, if you want), and then rolled as a burrito – but that’s why Los Pericos is my favorite taqueria. This quesadilla tasted just fine, the flavor of the meat was overwhelmed by the toastiness of the tortilla, but there wasn’t anything disagreeable – or particularly agreeable – about it. I just didn’t dig it.
Finally, Mika’s burrito was quite large, filled mostly with rice. Mika didn’t like it, or at least didn’t eat it, so Mike had it for dinner later on. He found it to be completely bland, he says that he’s liked every other burrito he’s had more – there was just nothing to this one.
As for the restaurant, Ana Rosa’s has a very small dining room – but it was full when we went on a Tuesday around 5:30 PM. They have sit-down service, and the lone waitress amazingly managed to serve the whole dining room and calculate the checks by herself. She was very pleasant and the service was good. As for the place, there is no atmosphere to it – just a place to go and have a quick bite to eat, not to linger.
All in all, I’m sad to repeat that Ana Rosa’s fails as a taqueria that I would frequent. I can imagine I’ll go again, but just because it’s so close to my house. But even then, I can’t imagine it’ll be anytime soon. I’ll get off my butt and go to Los Perico’s.
Ana Rosa’s Mexican Restaurant
2089 E 14th St # C @ Estabrook
San Leandro, CA
(510) 357-3022
San Leandro Restaurant Reviews