Monthly Archives: December 2008

Hanoi Bistro

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https://webpos.wlinformation.com/hanoibistro/

I forgot to blog about this restaurant we went to on Tuesday night. I had an optometrist appt on Tues afternoon at Taraval Eyecare just to get a check-up and see how my vision is doing. My slight astigmatism is stable and now my left eye has caught up with my right eye… so now when I buy contacts, I don’t need to buy two different ones! hooray!

Since we were in the area, we decided to meet up with Tiff for dinner and she suggested Hanoi Bistro which is on the corner of Taraval and 19th Ave. While we were waiting for her to come back from shopping, we went to the public library down the street to get a library card! I haven’t had a public library card since high school. The SF system seems pretty convenient though, you can request books online to be held at a certain branch and you can return your books to any branch, not just the one you checked it out of.

At the restaurant, while waiting for Tiff, we ordered some appetizers to start, I got one of my favorite drinks, the three color drink. I was a little disappointed since it felt like there weren’t that many beans or jelly threads and later during dinner I saw them serve one to another guy that had way more stuff in it…

We ordered the fresh spring rolls and were able to have them make us half shrimp and half shredded pork. These were yummy. I always feel refreshed after eating them.

This is the pan fried onion cake. A bit oily but the outside was nice and crispy. The curry sauce could have been a little thicker as it kept on sliding off the onion cake.

After Tiff came, we ordered the rest of the main courses. This is the garlic noodles with five spice chicken. The garlic noodles were so good, lots of garlic flavor for sure! The chicken wasn’t too special, still moist so that was good.

Not a very good picture but here is the tamarind crab. The restaurant has a sign out front touting “Holiday Crab Special $19.95” so Tiff says she’s been wanting to try it since she drives by the sign at least twice a day. The sauce was tangy but the crab was so hard to eat, it was so saucy and the meat was hard to get out of the shell. We were exhausted after eating only a few legs.

We also had a bowl of pho which I didn’t photograph. It isn’t served with the plate of bean sprouts, mint, jalepenos, etc. Just the noodle soup. The noodles they have are the slightly wider flat noodles which is a nice twist.

Ron and I look forward to going back to try their tamarind chicken. The tamarind sauce was really good on the crab so it should be really good on fried chicken… mmm-mm…

Oh, interesting site I found while looking for the restaurants website, it seems like a health code inspection site of restaurants in SF, good thing that Hanoi Bistro passed without any violations…

Hanoi Bistro
890 Taraval St (corner of 19th Ave)

Christmas Eve

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This week there wasn’t room to breathe… since it’s a short week, our infusion center was packed to the rim with patients, it was so busy, we were all working out butts off all week. I’m exhausted and glad that I have a few days off. We are going to my parents house for Christmas tomorrow but our friend Susan invited us over for dinner and to play Rock Band 2 tonight. I had a bit of a nap because I was feeling cranky and wiped out but eventually we made our way to their condo in SOMA.

We had a yummy meal, prepared some delicious lemon bars, and played Rock Band into Christmas.

Cute smoked salmon appetizers with cream cheese on top of little pancakes. I love the pancake idea, much better than crackers.

Enjoying some pre-meal wine.

Aged and regular rib-eye with three kinds of mushrooms. The meat was really good except we couldn’t really tell the difference between the aged and regular meat.

After our long hours of singing, strumming, and drumming with Rock Band 2.

Just what I needed to relax after a hectic week. I’m going to enjoy the time off while I have it, next week looks like it’s going to be even worse…

Joy Sushi – Winter Solstice

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http://www.joysushi.net

Ron’s family invited us over for dinner and to recognize winter solstice. We went to his parents’ house to pay respects to their departed grandparents and offer then rice dumplings. We’d come back after dinner to eat the rice dumplings.

We went to dinner at Joy Sushi, a Japanese restaurant that we frequent. We ordered a ton of food and I hardly remember what is what… Henry had gotten a $50 GC for only $3 but we had to spend a minimum of $100 in order to use the GC. He bought it from Restaurant.com when they were having a sale. A very good deal… now I have a new place to check out for cheap(er) eats.

We shared some sake.

Rainbow roll and blossom roll.

Agedashi tofu.

I forget what roll it was with the eel.. but the one with the salmon on top is lava roll, spicy salmon. Plus some sweet shrimp sushi.

The best part of the meal. Hamachi kama, the yellow tail fish cheek served with a vinegar sweet sauce. We ordered two! So good.

Baked scallop roll.

Ron’s mom always likes to eat udon. This is their beef udon. The beef was a bit tough but the noodles were fun, a bit chewy.

The family.

Green tea cheesecake… not good.

Tempura green tea ice cream.

Overall after the $50 GC, the dinner still cost about $100 after tax and tip. We ate plenty and rolled out of there. We always have a good dinner there. Oh, they take reservations, so call ahead if you’re planning on going on Friday or Saturday night.

Joy Sushi
30 South B Street
San Mateo, CA 94401

Chutney Restaurant

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http://www.chutneysf.com/

Today I had a nice relaxing day at the spa. The girls got together and went to Burke Williams to celebrate the end of our friend Susan’s finals. I had a wonderful 80 minute deep tissue massage… and I still wished it was longer… I can’t believe how time flies when you’re getting a massage.

The thing I love about Burke Williams is that you can enjoy the facilities afterward… the jacuzzi, cold and hot steam rooms, sauna, shower, parlor, tea, lemonade, fruits… so nice. It’s worth the expense once in a while.

After enjoying our spa day, we went for dinner at Chutney… Pakistani and Indian food. It’s not in the best neighborhood of SF but that’s generally where you can find good eats for cheap.

We ordered too many things to name… my favorites were the biryani and okra. I think we have eight plates of food along with 6 pieces of naan and it only cost $13 per person and we were stuffed!

Best to go with a group or for takeout I think.

Chutney
511 Jones Street