Mai’s Restaurant – 35 years and counting

banh-hoi-on-rice-paper

My junior year of high school was my first year ever in America, and I was still learning the rope of living here, high school dance among other things. A friend invited me to Homecoming. For the pre-dance dinner, he talked about going to a Vietnamese restaurant named Mai in Houston. I didn’t know exactly where it was or what it was (this was 2002, Google Maps and Yelp didn’t exist), but I thought that was considerate of him. In the end, we went to a steakhouse instead, I thought it was because Mai was a bit too far away, and I was left wondering what Mai was like. A few years later, my host parents mentioned Mai again in passing conversation, and suggested we went together sometime. The place, dated back to 1978, is known as the very first Vietnamese restaurant in Houston, and pretty much every Houstonian knows at least its name. My parents and I were interested, but again, days passed and we forgot. One day in early 2010, news came that the restaurant had been destroyed by a fire. We sighed, somewhat regretful. Luckily, it reopened. I forget how and when we […]

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Revisit Gather

gather-desserts

Let me first get this off my chest: I hate restaurants with low lighting (e.g., Burma Superstar and Bistro Liaison), red lights (e.g., Thanh Long and Mission Chinese), and yellow lights (Gather). Why can’t we have nice white neon lights? I don’t go there to film romantic dinner scenes or deal drugs under the table. I go there to eat food, I want to be able to see the true colors of what I’m eating, and I want to take good pictures of them. Is that really too much to ask? Okay. On to the next business. A lot of people ask me what my favorite restaurant in Berkeley is. I can’t answer that. It’s like asking me who’s my favorite friend. But if you ask me where I would take someone out to dinner, I have a few cards to deal depending on what that person likes. If they like grilled meat and interesting food, I recommend Ippuku. If they’re vegetarian, I take them to Gather. That said, unlike the consistently good Ippuku, Gather gives me ups and […]

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Bookmark: Koto in Sonora

koto-sonora

The best food always rains on me when I least expect it. Who would have thought that Koto, the only Japanese restaurant in the landlocked Sonora west of Yosemite, could have such fresh sushi and perfectly crisp and seasoned saba shio? I didn’t bring my camera that day, and the next time we went the restaurant was closed. My blogging conscience doesn’t allow me to post without pictures, but Koto made such a pleasant impression that I had to write about it somewhere. So here it is: a guide to Yosemite in the Travel Issue of the Daily Cal. If I ever run past this town again with enough time for lunch, I’ll run in and order two days worth of food, take pictures, and post them here. (UPDATE on July 15, 2014: I came back yesterday and guess what, it was closed AGAIN!!!!! Because they close all day on Mondays. >__>) It’s hard enough to find a Japanese-own Japanese restaurant in San Francisco, yet there’s one in this little bitty button of a town next to a mountain range. Address: Koto 70 West Stockton St Sonora, CA 95370 (209) 532-7900 Continue reading Bookmark: Koto in Sonora

Kaneyama and mixed feelings

Curry rice with tonkatsu - $10.95 - a bit more peppery than the curry rice at Musashi in Berkeley, but still mild enough to my taste, pretty good.

Curry rice with tonkatsu – $10.95 – a bit more peppery than the curry rice at Musashi in Berkeley, but still mild enough to my taste, pretty good. On the western edge of Yosemite National Park is a little town called Sonora. In Sonora there is Koto, the only Japanese restaurant in a 38-mile radius. In Koto, I had saba shio for the first time. It’s a grilled mackerel seasoned with salt, squeeze on some lemon juice if you like. I love homey things like that, especially when it’s so good I wanted it again the next day, but Koto was closed on Sundays. We left on Monday, with a hole in my heart. Now before I go to any Japanese restaurant, I check if it has saba shio. Continue reading Kaneyama and mixed feelings

Little Cafe Du Bois in Kingwood

Little Mom likes Houston because it’s big, I’ve grown to like Berkeley because it’s so tiny I can get around without a car. Little Mom likes our big garden where she can grow 20 trees and who knows how many rose bushes, I’m content with my little dried-plum-container-turned-flower-pot in which I grow my onion. Point is, Little Mom likes big things, and I, well, sometimes like and most of the time don’t mind small things. But as often as she likes big restaurants, Little Mom likes little Cafe Du Bois in Kingwood. It makes me feel better than if I had liked Cafe Du Bois myself. The joy when you pick out a place and your company likes it, the more important the company to you the bigger the joy, and to top that with a company of people with sensitive, rarely pleased tastebuds, it feels like winning the lottery. And here my mom suggested that we should go to Cafe Du Bois again. She likes it for the roasted red snapper on rice with a light cream and tomato basil sauce, for being a mere 10 minutes from our […]

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I can’t think of a title for Tofu Village

Lately I think I’ve reached a wall in terms of Korean food. To be precise, the Korean food that I can get my hands on, i.e., in the Bay and in Houston. Every Korean restaurant here, in strikingly similar manner to Vietnamese restaurants, has the same menu as every other Korean restaurant. The menu may contain a hundred things, but it boils down to maybe ten, with tiny variations. To be blunt, I’m bragging that I can name practically every dish on a Korean menu in the States. The novelty is gone. Little knowledge is left to obtain. But just as I don’t stop going to Vietnamese eateries altogether, I still like to share a big Korean meal with Mom and Dad. A bubbling jeongol, rice and banchan always give the familiarity that a Western meal cannot. That said, there are a few things that I’m still not used to, such as the scissors. The lady was cutting up the crabs and octopus with big black scissors. I admit their convenience, but I get the weird feeling that she is cutting flowers. Why? I don’t know. Anyway, I didn’t eat […]

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The charm of crunchy-skin grilled fish

Thiên Phú has been in my draft list for over 18 months. I wanted to write a post worthy of their dishes, but a proper post requires proper pictures, and either I was too hungry at the time or I just sucked at taking pictures at the time (I still suck now, but less than before) that every single picture was blurry like a blizzard. I was more concerned about food than food blogging so I didn’t snap many shots and didn’t check the clarity of the shots I took before digging in. I also didn’t know any photo editing. Basically, I was plain dumb. At many points I thought about abandoning the post altogether, but we had a good meal that time and I even fed the birds in the parking lot while waiting for my friends to come join us. The birds were full, we were full. The restaurant was, as usual, empty except for us (because their menu is catered to large groups and wedding parties), so we got extra attention from the staff. Such memories kept me from deleting the draft that had nothing but terrible pictures. Then my parents came to […]

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‘Cross country Day 1 – Down the West Coast

For the past few days we’ve been behind the wheels from dawn to dust, making our way across three time zones. In the first, we happen to stumble upon the best seafood restaurant in Salinas, or so they claim. Sitting on a corner lot on Main Street in a peaceful little hometown of John Steinbeck and fewer than 150000 people, Salinas Valley Fish House looks homely attractive with an old-fashioned bistro touch. Little Mom instantly gives an approval nod as she walks into the spacious dining room, seeing fresh flowers on white cloth tables, and Santa hats on the fishes. It opens for lunch only during the week, good thing we drive by on a Friday. Despite being in a seafood restaurant in a seaside town, Little Mom fixates on an order of pork chop ($13.95), oak grilled, medium, no condiments. First time I see her liking a pork chop other than her (awesome) own. 🙂 Continue reading ‘Cross country Day 1 – Down the West Coast

Can any fish make good clay pot fish?

No. The red snapper at Anh Hong Berkeley is thoroughly coated with caramelized sugar and fish sauce, but its flaky flesh stays dry like terracotta tiles. The seawater has rooted too deeply in each fiber to blend with the sweetness. Salmon would be even worse. Experience says bitter lá lốt can be tamed, but only fresh water fish, like catfish, can make a clay pot sing.

Salmon day

There are two types of fish that you are guaranteed to find in American diners: catfish and salmon. Catfish is almost always filleted, battered and fried. Salmon is either grilled or smoked. Because the choices are so unlimited, I never order them. And this is the prime example of what you would miss out if you stick to your prejudice: had it not been because of Vân, I wouldn’t have had a tasty salmon burger and a tasty salmon-on-baguette today. Nation’s Giant Hamburger (NGH) is a small local chain spanning the Greater Bay Area, serving burgers, breakfast, hot dogs, and also pies. Of the 24 locations, Berkeley’s NGH on University is a little oasis of the ’80s rural: small dusty parking lot with old cars, highly-walled-up booths in dark colors, the smell of fries and oil and the grill twirled with the smell of old people and homeless people and unkempt teenage boys, the pies fluffed with whipped cream in glass cabinets, the chili, the wallpaper, the red and white theme. It doesn’t speak clean. It isn’t cheap either, a third-pounder costs anywhere between $3.70 to $5.70, depending on the type […]

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