Category Archives: Chinese

City View Restaurant

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http://www.yelp.com/biz/c…t-san-francisco

Finally a Saturday where we could enjoy the morning together (no work!) so we went for dim sum at City View Restaurant.

A selection of what we ate: ha gow, siu mai, and cha siu bao. We also had chive dumplings, fried rice, zha liang, and a few other things. Dim sum for two people usually isn’t much variety and can be expensive (a little over $30 for both of us) but it’s a good treat once in a while.

After dim sum, we walked to Grant Ave to Golden Gate Bakery for the best egg tarts around! Their sponge cake roll isn’t half bad either, I had their chocolate = yummy!


City View Restaurant
662 Commercial Street

Golden Gate Bakery
1029 Grant Ave

Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot

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http://www.littlesheephotpot.com/

We met up with my parents for dinner since they happened to be on our side of the bay this evening. We had dinner at Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot in San Mateo. (Hints: they take reservations only for parties of 6 or more and parking lots are free after 6pm in San Mateo, some lots are multilevel but you have to find the separate entrance for the upper levels).

Ron and I arrived around 7:30pm on this Saturday evening and I put my name down for a party of 4. They told me the wait would be about 40 to 45 minutes. Surprisingly, it was more like 30 to 35 minutes only.

We were seated in a booth in the corner so it was likely quieter there than in the middle of the restaurant since the booths have high backs to block out some of the noise.

You order by checking stuff off a list and the waiter recommended that 4 people usually order about 10 dishes, since we felt a bit hungry, we ordered 14 + dessert. Also, we went with the half regular broth (left) and half spicy broth (right) although the spicy wasn’t spicy enough so Ron asked for additional spicy sauce and poured the entire bowl in.

Here’s a selection of the other things we ordered which include: a-choy, napa cabbage, goose intestines, chicken feet, assorted meatballs, assorted tofu platter, and thick noodles. Not pictured but we also had lamb, fatty beef (really good), premium beef, fried fish cake…

Getting ready to start cooking!

Everything was really good except maybe the lamb meatballs a bit gamey. The noodles seemed fresh made and were nice and chewy. We all really enjoyed the fried fish cake as it was a bit like fried tofu but kind of chewy… hard to describe but let’s just say it was good. We basically finished everything but still had a bit of dessert with the sweet yam with red bean cake.

No sauces were included with the meal, they are 50 cents each and I think we ended up ordering two, one was kind of like minced garlic and the other was a fermented bean sauce of some sort. We also ordered two beers and our meal came out to be about $25 per person (what you would expect from and all-you-can-eat place but with better quality).

A good meal for a cold evening.

Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot
215 S. Ellsworth Ave
San Mateo, CA

Hong Kong Clay Pot Restaurant

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http://www.yelp.com/biz/h…t-san-francisco

We met up with friends for dinner in Chinatown. There were 8 of us so we decided to try one of their set menus plus add a dish. This set menu was only $88 and included lobster and crab plus we added the tofu clay pot. Ron and I had eaten here before and enjoyed it so I think that was one of the reasons why he chose it for our dinner tonight.

The soup was a mostly tofu with shrimp and the free appetizer was fried chicken wings.

This is the tofu clay pot with plenty of mustard greens and mushrooms. Very yummy.

The lobster, garlic, was a bit small but tasted really fresh.

Sauteed catfish with black bean sauce. I bit hard to eat with all the bones.

The crab, ginger, also a bit small but prepared well.

A whole chicken served with a ginger sauce. Parts of it were tough the breast meat was good and although the sauce a bit oily, it was very ginger-y.

Free dessert of black sesame soup, so fresh that we had to wait for it because they were making a whole new batch.

Our meal also included a dish of mustard greens, salt & pepper pork, and honey walnut prawns. For 8 people, the entire meal $130 (that includes tax & tip).

After dinner, we gathered at our apartment to share some moon cakes brought back from our friends on their recent trip to Taiwan. These were literally bite size but still so dense that it’s hard to eat a whole one. Delicious with freshly brewed oolong and jasmine teas.

Hong Kong Clay Pot Restaurant
960 Grant Ave

Ying Kee Noodle House

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http://www.yelp.com/biz/y…e-house-oakland

I had lunch with my parents at Ying Kee Noodle House in Oakland. My mom said their dumpling noodles soup was really good so thought I’d try it.

The shrimp dumplings were huge, at least 3 to 4 whole shrimps in each dumpling and the bowl of noodles was huge, way too much for me to finish. The broth is light, not too salty. It was really inexpensive too, less than $6 a bowl. Cheap eats.

Ying Kee Noodle House
387 9th Street
Oakland, CA

Hai Ky Mi Gia and Ghetto Moving

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For breakfast I was craving noodles, so we tried to go to Turtle Tower but the wait was out the door so we went to Hai Ky Mi Gia since they also have great noodle soup. I tried “9A” in soup for the first time. It’s clear glass noodles with chicken, kidney, and vegetables. I love their broth and I really enjoyed this bowl of noodles. The glass noodles are a bit harder to pick up with chopsticks but it’s worth the effort.

Afterwards we went in search of a cat tree for the kitties. We finally found one that was a good price and what we wanted at Pet Source… the only problem was how would we bring it home? Remember we only have one car and it’s a Honda Civic. This cat tree is about 6 feet tall and 2 feet x 2 feet square. Luckily, the guys working at Pet Source that day were willing to help us load it on top of our car and using the packing plastic like plastic wrap, to anchor it on the roof. I was laughing while watching them…

Good thing our apartment wasn’t too far away but if Ron drove too fast and hit a bump or pothole on the road, the cat tree would bounce on the roof and you could hear it bouncing on the roof. But after removing it, there weren’t any dents on the roof, just it was wiped clean.

When we first brought it in the apartment, the cats ignored it. Once we moved it near the window so that they could sit on it and learned they could sit on it to look out the window. But they’re not that intrigued by it yet, I think we’ll need to buy some catnip to entice them a bit more.

Oh, the price? $120, 50% off original price of $240. These things are more expensive than I thought. The other store we went to had smaller ones (only 3 ft) which were $180, so this was a much better deal… plus worth a good laugh.