http://www.xanhrestaurant.com/

Tonight we went down to Mountain View for a farewell dinner. Ron’s classmate Tina from INSEAD is moving to Finland in the next few weeks to start her new job so her friends decided to throw her a small party.

We had dinner at Xanh Restaurant which is on Castro Street, the main street of downtown Mountain View. There were Halloween revelers already roaming the streets tonight, dressed in pirate and wench costumes mostly.

The restaurant has a lovely decor, very modern and the restaurant was quite large. They have two dining areas and the bar & lounge at the front entrance. We were seated at a large table in one of the rooms and promptly ordered drinks.

This is called “Little Miss Sunshine” made with Korbel champagne, PAMA liqueur, and pomegranate seeds. Quite tasty I must say.

There were four of us for dinner so we did family style. Tina’s friend had eaten here a few times already so she helped us to choose the dishes.

This is the tuna tartare small plate. You’re supposed to mix all the stuff in the bowl together before enjoying. It had avocado, cucumbers, and some spices that gave it a kick. Presentation was very “cool” and served with fried wonton skins.

Xanh Shrimp Cakes: minced shrimp with chicken, glass noodles, carrots, and garlic atop toasted bread served with lightly spiced vinaigrette. This was quite yummy as the “cake” was nice and moist. Except that we wished we had a knife to cut it up so we did it the ghetto way using a pair of chopsticks with a fork.

Beef Satay.

Side of eggplant with minced chicken. Very good.

Garlic noodles with Pineapple short ribs. The garlic noodles had fried garlic and shallots on top and parmesan cheese to add to your taste… oh so yummy but not something you should eat on a date. The short ribs were okay but I like kalbi better when you BBQ it yourself.

This is called something like “Good Good Duck” where the duck is medium rare and served on top of sticky rice (kind of like Chinese “zongzi” or “jung” in Cantonese, makes me crave eating one of those right now, good Chinese comfort food).

I think these are the tamarind prawns as they were a bit sweet, not spectacular but still good.

They also had spring rolls which I didn’t get to try. Maybe next time.

One more drink before heading to the lounge, this is the “Good Ruck” with Absolut Peach, Peach Schnapps, white wine, cranberry juice, and soda water.

We were pretty stuffed even though the plates seemed small. We spent about $50 per person though which is a bit hard to stomach considering Vietnamese food in Chinatown or something would be $7 for a bowl of Pho but you’d come here for the atmosphere and higher quality and better designed food. The bar and lounge is nice with good seating and a live DJ. Mountain View is a bit far to go and if we did go down there again, I think we’d want to try some of the other restaurants on Castro Street but with so many fabulous restaurants in San Francisco, it’s hard to justify the drive.

Best wishes to Tina as she embarks on her new adventure!

Xanh Restaurant
110 Castro Street
Mountain View, CA