Category: Restaurants (Page 44 of 52)

Even though I’ve been eating out quite a bit lately, I’ve been very remiss about writing about the restaurants I’ve visited. Of course, you could argue that there is absolutely no reason why I should be writing about the restaurants in the first place, but as long as I do it, I figure I should be comprehensive. I’m particularly interested on being comprehensive about San Leandro restaurants, as there aren’t really good resources out there on the San Leandro restaurant scene (and given how poor it is, no wonder). The problem comes when I go to a restaurant I don’t particularly like and then I forget to write the review. After a while, i feel compell to go back and write it, and yet I don’t want to go back and waste money in subpar food. But if I don’t, my guide will never be comprehensive. This has happened with Buffet Fortuna – a horrible Chinese buffet located near the downtown Safeway, with Bancheros, an institution serving Chef-Boyardee tasting Italian food in Hayward and with a couple of burger joints. It also happened with Wikiwiki Hawaiian BBQ on East 14th, near Bayfair mall, which I visited last June.
Wikiwiki is one of the many Hawaiian BBQ joints that have sprouted in San Leandro in the last year. As I’ve written before, I’ve found most of them to be underwhelming, and while Wikiwiki wasn’t the worst, it certainly does not merit another visit. As in the other restaurants, I found the chicken to have a strange consistency, very dense, almost canned-like. I can only speculate as to what gives chicken that horrible consistency at Hawaiian BBQ places. One theory is that the high salt & sugar content of the marinade dries out the meat making it denser. Anothe perhaps more likely one, is that the places use “chicken filets”, scraps of chicken that are manually pressed and glued together into the desired shape. The taste was OK, nothing special but certainly edible.
I also ordered the lau lau pork, pork wrapped in taro leaves and steamed. The pork was covered with a shredded green substance that might have been the taro leaves, but more likely was seaweed. It certainly imparted a very fishy taste to the pork, which I found quite unpleasant, but others might like.
I can’t imagine going there again.
Wikiwiki Hawaiian BBQ
15696 E 14th St
San Leandro, CA
(510) 276-0777

2/11 Update: Harley’s is now known as JD’s Burgers & Mexican Food (though they’re keeping the old Harley’s sign). We went there today for lunch and it was horrible. Read Updated Review.
2005 Review
One of the many things I enjoy about living in San Leandro is visiting its prehistorian dining establishments – places that are so clearly from another era (one before I was born) but somehow manage to survive and even thrive in the modern day. Among these is the Fifth Wheel, a former truck-stop that has lost none of its charm, a bunch of coffeeshops that seem frozen on time (among them The Cherry Pit, Pelton Cafe and Nick’s), a couple of places that once upon a time served what then passed as “fine dining” and that now just seem anachronistic (Elio’s and Bancheros, and a bunch of drive-up hamburger joints. Harley’s Burgers fits squarely into the last category.
Harley’s no longer offers car-side service, you do have to get out of your car and go into the window to place your order. And as so many of the other restaurants and business in town, it’s now owned by Chinese people who’ve added Chinese entrees to its menu. Its main appeal seems to be to blue-collar workers and others who are in their cars around lunch time – the ample parking makes getting food quite easy. But it’s only a block or two from our house so from time to time we get a bite to eat there. Not very often, as the food is not that good. Its burgers are square shape but served in rectangular French buns, they are OK but they taste mostly of mustard. Its fries are also OK, but its crinkle shape reminds me of school cafeteria fries. Its Chinese offerings aren’t bad, but we prefer those from other nearby Chinese restaurants. The food is reasonably cheap, with sandwiches around $4 and Chinese entrees under $5.
The restaurant is usually opened between 10:30 AM and 7 pm (closed on Sundays), and it has a couple of tables outside where you can eat, or a modest dining room next to the kitchen.
Harley’s Burgers
(510) 351-6420
2170 Washington Ave
San Leandro, CA

Salang Pass, located in Fremont is probably the best Afghan restaurant in the Bay Area
Ephesus, a self-proclaimed kebab lounge, makes, indeed,pretty good kebabs. But beware of the one appetizer in particular!
Cock-a-Doodle Cafe offers good, eclectic breakfast food in comfortable surroundings, though not interesting enough to make us go back.
Fatapple’s, a perennial favorite, Fatapple’s continues serving great breakfast and pastries.
Lovejoy’s Tea Room has wonderful food in an atmosphere reminiscent of grandma’s living room

We spent a few days in Seattle earlier this week. Our first night we went to dinner at Cafe Campagne, a casual French bistro near the Pike Street Market (I’ll post a review later). It was quite nice and we had a good dinner, but our experience there with two overtired and cranky children convinced us that we should get take out the rest of the time. Meanwhile, the girls and I (alone during the days) had lunch at ultra-casual places.
Monday we had lunch at The Rainforest Food Pavillon at the Seattle Zoo. Unfortunately the Zoo has not join the bandwagon of providing gourmet organic food to its patrons, so we had a very overpriced micro-baked pizza. It could have been worse.
For dinner we got take out from Bahn Thai, a moderately-priced Thai restaurant near our hotel. We had actually eaten here during our previous visit to Seattle and had liked the food then. This time we were a little less excited. The masamun curry ($9.25) was tasty albeit a bit on the spicy side (too spicy for our 3yo), but otherwise unremarkable. The gai yang (BBQ chicken – $9.25) managed to be both dry and undercooked at the same time. It was also a bit on the fatty side, but Mika, for whom we’d ordered it, liked it well enough. Finally, the “What a Feeling” combo of “chicken, pork, and beef sauteed with bamboo strips, basil, bell pepers, mushrooms, carrots, and onions in a hot spicy wine sauce” ($9.25) tasted like just another generic stir fry. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t particularly noteworthy either. All that said, as the place is only half a block away from the hotel, I’d probably get take out from there again.
Tuesday the girls and I had lunch at the food court at the Seattle Center House. Mika had a slice of cheese pizza from Pizza Haven which was pretty good and somewhat reminded me of Blondie’s Pizza (perhaps the thick crust). I had an Old Fashioned Cheeseburger from Quincy’s Charbroiled Burgers ($5.50). It was pretty bad, the patty was thin, dry and tasteless and the burger tasted almost exclusively of the condiments. I’d definitely not eat there again.
I had a huge craving for pasta for dinner, but I could not find any Italian-American restaurant near our hotel. The Italian restaurants in Queen Anne all seemed to be semi-upscale and what I wanted was very downscale food. Finally we decided to order from Paggliaci Pizzeria, which delivered to our hotel. I got the Nonna’s Pasta, penne in a tomato/five-cheese sauce ($7). It was just OK and not a particularly large portion. I wouldn’t order it again. We also ordered a small cheese pizza for Mika, this had a medium to thin crust and it was actually quite good, we all enjoyed it. Mike had a calzone which he thought was good, but too liquid. In all, not a bad place to get dinner.
Finally, Wednesday I went to Pike Street Market and the Waterfront with the girls. There were many tempting places for lunch, but few that could accomodate a stroller and potentially loud kids. Finally I settled on The Fishermans Restaurant at Pier 57. The large, somewhat informal restaurant has two large dining sections on the pier, they both have waterviews though most tables are not at the water. The dining section was quite full, but the “cocktail & snacks section” was empty and we decided to sit there. Here pretty much all you can order are appetizers and drinks, I got the fish & chips (about $8.50 for 3 pieces) and a beer ($4). The fried fish was pretty good – though I’m convinced that fried fish is only remarkable when it’s bad. The fries were also unremarkable. Still, the location is hard to beat and I’d certainly come back here with my kids.

A couple of weekends ago (August 2005) I joined my friend Lola for lunch in downtown San Jose and she suggested House of Siam. This Thai restaurant has two locations, the one on South Second St. where we went had been recently remodeled and had some nice Thai art, but it wasn

A couple of weekends ago I joined my friend Lola for a girl’s day out. Lola and I met in Egypt during our college year abroad eons ago, and we spent much of our time together there hanging out at the cafe of the Semiramis hotel. It was across the street from the building where the American Research Center in Cairo was located (our other hangout) and quite close to school – almost any afternoon you could find us there sipping cappucinos. So when Lola and I decided to get together for a girl’s afternoon out a couple of weeks ago, it was natural that we decide to spend most of it hanging out in yet another hotel coffee area.
The Fairmont Hotel is coveniently located in downtown San Jose. It has an old-fasioned, somewhat imperial lobby which is however populated by tourists in brightly colored t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops. The Lobby Lounge is in a recessed area in the center of the lobby. It’s furnished with sofas and comfy chairs and it’s quite attractive and relaxing. It offers a vast menu of alcoholic drinks, a few sandwiches, desserts and sushi. They also do a tea service between 2 and 4 pm, but by reservation only. We basically hang out while drinking very expensive cokes ($3, no refills). It was very nice and relaxing.
After a couple of hours of doing this, my husband Mike and our two daughters came to pick me up. Mike was hungry, and the foie gras burger in the menu sounded quite enticing – though at $20 it was quite pricy. Still, he gave it a try. It was quite good, the meat was juicy, the foie gras delicious and yet the whole thing didn’t work for me – at least not to the tune of $20. I thought that the burger would have been better if it was seasoned – just some salt would have helped, but that might have hidden altogether the subtle taste of the foie gras. Still, it was a pretty good burger and worth trying once.
One minus point for the Lobby Lounge is that the underside of their sofas is completely filthy – as I discovered while trying to recover a toy that had been dropped.
The Lobby Lounge
The Fairmont San Jose
170 South Market St.
San Jose, CA
408-998-1900
http://www.fairmont.com/

My review of Fleur de Lys, the French restaurant in San Francisco where we went for my birthday, is finally up. It’s available at:
http://www.marga.org/food/rest/fleur.html.
We are going to go to Manresa for Mike’s birthday – I hope the review will take less time on coming.

A week or so ago I stopped by for a late lunch at Viva Pancho Villa, the new Mexican restaurant/taquer

Casa Mar