Gastro Monkey // 美食家

When I went to the Bay area recently to meet up with a friend, he said that there was a Vietnamese place that was known for their pizzle. Funnily enough, for someone who considers themself down to try just about anything, I hadn't had it before. When looking for this location, be aware that there are two bun bo hue restaurants in the same plaza. If you are facing the front of both of them, it's the one on the left. As soon as you walk in, you can smell the fragrant soup. My stomach growled, immediately. The menu is simple, the way I like it. There is no hesitation as we all order the bun bo hue with pizzle. I also ordered a soda chanh (lemon soda with seltzer), which was a little bit of a disappointment as there was just a huge amount of sugar sitting at the bottom of the cup. They gave me the can of seltzer to go with it, but that just made the drink initially too sweet, good for a moment, and at the end, just mostly seltzer.  The bun bo hue itself was fine. I would h...

On June 6th, we went to the JCCSF for the event An Evening with Eddie Huang . Driving out from Sacramento, we wanted to make sure that we found parking and that we got there without any worries from the traffic (a lot can happen on the road between Sacramento and SF). We got there earlier enough to find street parking a few blocks away and with enough time to grab some dinner. They were going to serve bao of some sort at the event, but it didn't seem appetizing to me. I busted out the trusty yelp restaurant finder to see what I felt like eating. A few of the places nearby looked good but were closed. One of the places nearby was a BBQ place that looked good, but I wasn't in the mood for anything that heavy (didn't want to have the itis while listening to Eddie speak!). Luckily, we found a sushi place about 4 blocks away. I went there with low expectations. I haven't heard of it before and advertising it as sustainable sushi among other things made me worry it was just ...

I love birthdays. Not my own so much, but I enjoy celebrating with other people. And of course, one of my favorite people is the boyfriend. It's always tough picking a place to take him for his birthday since his palate is even more refined than mine, but what can you do? We had been to La Folie before as suggested by a friend with very good taste. We weren't disappointed then, and we were not disappointed this time either. We had just enjoyed our underwhelming anniversary dinner in Napa at Auberge du Soleil in Napa, and he seemed full of trepedation. Eventually, he settled on La Folie. We love trying new places, but at the same time, if it ain't broke, why fix it? I filed away the place I had thought about taking him to for another time and made the reservation for La Folie. Service was perfect, just like the last time. I love consistency. And speaking of consistency, we somehow ended up at the same exact table as the last time! We both drooled over the menu; everythi...

For my birthday this year, I knew exactly how I wanted to celebrate. I'm not into having big parties; I'm into eating good food. Knowing that I wanted to go to Seattle for my birthday (as I have done every other year or so), there was just one place that I really felt like I needed to go to--Sushi Kashiba. If you have talked to me at all about food in the past few years, you would know that I attempted to eat at Shiro's so that I could see him in action. This didn't work out the way I originally planned, as he didn't seem to be there that night. Luckily, Nakazawa-san was there, and after a 45 minute wait, I had one of the best food experiences of my life. I have a separate blog entry dedicated to that night here  or here   (same post, but from both of my blogs) .  Fast forward a few years (almost 3 years, to be exact) to Shiro opening up a new restaurant - Sushi Kashiba. My boyfriend, brother, and I waited eagerly for the opening knowing that it was going to ha...

[Reposted from my photography blog for convenience. Originally posted Thursday, March 14, 2013. Hope you enjoy! Please note that Nakazawa-san and Shiro-san both do not work at this location anymore. Nakazawa has opened up his own very snazzy restaurant in NYC ( http://www.sushinakazawa.com ) and Shiro has his newer restaurant Sushi Kashiba.] For those of you who know me, I am all about food. Good food. Food that takes me home. Sometimes it's expensive and sometimes it's not. Recently I went back to Seattle to visit my family. While there, I decided to go to Shiro's. I can't say I'm a huge fan of Belltown because I dislike driving around for blocks searching for parking, but this time, I made an exception.  You can check out more information about his background here:  http://www.shiros.com/html/about.htm . Shiro's is a pretty small intimate place. There are no reservations for the sushi bar (we didn't even think about reservations, we just decided to pop...