Monthly Archives: May 2009

DOSA on Fillmore

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http://www.dosasf.com/df_index.html

After a really long week of work for both of us, Vicki and I decided to meet up to vent and enjoy a good meal. I made a reservation on Opentable at DOSA on Fillmore. The only reservation times they had were for 5:45pm and 9:30pm for a party of 2. Not sure if this is the regular thing but possibly all the reservations were already taken up. So I chose the 5:45pm reservation.

Vicki kindly came to pick me up from work and we headed to the restaurant. We were lucky to find street parking right around the corner.

As we walked into the restaurant, I noticed the super high ceilings and the restaurant had really cool lampshades and very calming color. It was early so the restaurant wasn’t bustling yet but by the time we left around 8pm, it was starting to get crowded with people waiting and also a bit noisy, difficult to talk even at a table for two. We were seated upstairs immediately upon our arrival and it was nice to be seated near the windows to enjoy the seldom sunshine of San Francisco.

The menu looked delicious and we could have ordered everything but settled on three dishes.

Prelude to the meal were these fried thin cracker-like things which had caraway seeds. Very appetizing although maybe a bit oily if you eat too much.

We shared a bottle of wine as recommended by our server that would go well with our duck dish. This is an Italian wine and I must say, it was surprisingly smooth and easy to drink (I’m not very good at drinking red wine…).

We actually ordered the Bhel Puri which was supposed to be a diced green mango salad but I think the waitress didn’t hear me correctly so we got this organic green salad with mangoes and goat cheese instead. I didn’t realize it until we got the bill that it was the wrong salad. We were probably too hungry to notice. The goat cheese surprisingly was very yummy, smooth and creamy.

A token picture of myself. Vicki asked me why I’m never in my pictures? Usually because no one offers to take one for me… so thanks V!

This is the Paper Masala Dosa served with Indian potatoes, sambar (a spicy lentil soup) and tomato chutney & fresh coconut chutney. This is almost a meal in itself! It was so good though, we kept on munching on it even though we knew we needed to save room for our second course. (This is on the list of 100 Things to try before you die.)

Last entree, duck spinach masala & paneer with lemon rice. We each had a bit of rice, a duck leg, and some cheese and that was it. I really liked their paneer, it had some texture (not too hard and not too soft) but the duck for me was only okay. The rice was really good. We asked them to pack the rest but when we left, they didn’t bring it to our table so dunno where it went 🙁

After all that rich food, we wanted to have something sweet. Today my extra stomach for dessert was in full force… so we ordered the Sweet Pongal, rice pudding with raw sugar cane juice and cardamom cream plus some nuts and fruits mixed in. Oh so good! I love cardamom cream. I made cardamom whipped cream once for a dessert and it was oh so good.

Needless to say, we were stuffed and happy (the wine helped with that). I’m sorry to the waitstaff if I under-tipped, I tried to do the 10%+5% of the bill but was in a rush so might not have added correctly, I like it when restaurants have the suggested tip amounts on the bottom of the check so dorks like me don’t have that problem. Or Ron suggests I should just get an iPhone and get the application to go along with it.

I’d definitely go back again, I think Ron would enjoy it too. I’d highly recommend making a reservation on Opentable so you don’t have to wait!

DOSA on Fillmore
1700 Fillmore (at Post St)

Girls Day Out

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Had a lovely day downtown with the girls today. We first started with breakfast at Amoura which is mostly a salad/sandwich place but they serve breakfast until noon on weekends. There were three of us so we ordered two breakfasts.

On the left is the Amoura special (two eggs, potatoes, sausage, and toast) and on the right is their pancake meal (two pancakes, two eggs, potatoes, and bacon).

After breakfast we headed to the Burke Williams Spa as we wanted to try their new Harmony spa treatment since they are having a special price. It was an interesting treatment. They use a Chinese herb scrub then use a hot stone and a cold stone to massage with. They also use a tuning fork on pressure points on your feet and lower back. It was a weird sensation with the hot stone then a cold stone right after… not unpleasant but just a bit strange at first. Though, it felt really good at my shoulder and neck. My only real complaint about the massage was that there was too much going on in the room when the masseuse had to go to the towel warmer, to put the cold stone in the ice water, to put the hot stone in the crock pot, the pour more ice water into the cold stone bowl, etc… there was just too much movement in the room while I was trying to relax.

We had a nice comforting tea that was so cute.

and it ended with a chocolate truffle when we left. I really like Burke Williams Spa, I wish I could go more often. They have really nice facilities and it is just so relaxing. Sigh.

Since we were inside the spa from 12-3pm, we didn’t have lunch so went for a snack at CeFiore. We ordered the FroYo Waffle which is a freshly made (literally, took 7 minutes to cook) waffle with your choice of frozen yogurt and three toppings. A bit expensive at $6.25 but tasty because we were starving. We chose the raspberry pomegranate frozen yogurt topped with mango, kiwi, and granola.

A day like this is just what the doctor ordered after the week we had last week… I can only be optimistic that this week will be better.

Westfield San Francisco Centre
865 Market Street
Amoura (Level Concourse – Basement)
Burke Williams Spa (Level 5)
CeFiore (Level 2)

My Tofu House

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http://www.mytofuhouse.com/index.html

Today I went out to Fairfield to celebrate two one-year-old birthdays. My friends from pharmacy school threw this big shindig for their daughters, complete with pinata and three cakes! (One main cake and two mini cakes, one for each girl). It was good to catch up with friends and see how much their girls have grown. Unfortunately, the weather was icky so the drive wasn’t so pleasant but it was worth it to join the celebration.

I definitely wasn’t in the mood for cooking so we went out to dinner with our friends. We decided to try out My Tofu House on Geary Blvd. Our friend was in the mood for something warm and soupy so this sounded like the perfect place.

When we arrived, we had to sign up on the clipboard and wait about 15-20 minutes (this was around 7:45pm on a Saturday night), not too bad.

The menu is only two pages so it was easy to make a decision. Also, they do NOT serve beer or wine, just tea and soda. They serve four different appetizers with my favorite being the bean sprouts with tons of garlic.

The rice is cooked in a large stone pot and peas and garbanzo beans are steamed with it.

We ordered the medium spicy combination tofu soup. Really thick with lots of tofu but not that spicy. The tofu was nice and silky. Next time I think we’ll try the “very” spicy.

Each person got a grilled fish, not super crispy so not oily.

The seafood pancake was more on the bready side. It was nicely toasted on the bottom but the top was a bit mushy.

The kalbi was so good! Sweet and carmelized and lots of yummy onions.

The spicy pork portion was huge! The meat was very tender and nicely marinated.

For four people, this was the perfect amount of food. Our only complaint of the night was that it took them too long to refill our tea… otherwise, we were completely stuffed and our tummies were warm and happy.

This restaurant is #9 on the 7×7 The Big Eat SF: 100 Things to Try Before You Die list. I’ll have to go through the list to see how many of these we have already tried… but I do highly recommend My Tofu House.

My Tofu House
4627 Geary Blvd (between 10th & 11th Ave)