Category Archives: Asian

Sophie’s Crepes & Halu

I had a craving for crepes after hearing my co-worker Patsy talk about them so after work, Ron took me to Japantown for some Sanrio shopping and crepes. Patsy told me there was a new Sanrio store open in Japantown so of course I had to go see. It’s one of the new boutique shops of Sanrio. For a picture of the storefront, check out Patsy’s blog here. I got myself a new coffee mug, a sweatshirt, and a cute green frog for my friend.

Afterwards, we stopped at Sophie’s Crepes to satisfy my crepe craving. I ordered the strawberry and nutella crepe (for $5.37 total). The crepe seemed a bit overcooked, too crispy but the strawberries were refreshing and the nutella nice and gooey.

We stopped by Sports Basement afterwards just to check it out, we’ve never been there before. I get a 10% discount from work. It would’ve been great if we found something but didn’t find anything we wanted just then. We do need new bindings and maybe new boots for our snowboards but probably won’t get them until the end of winter.

Afterwards we were craving Japanese for dinner and went to check out this local place called Halu. We’ve passed by it a few times before while looking for parking in the area and I read good reviews about it on Yelp! so thought it a good place to try. They serve mostly yakitori, ramen, and rice dishes. The place is very unique, very small… they have tons of Beatles paraphernalia and great Beatles music!

We had some sake. Light and refreshing.

The deluxe yakitori combination platter. There’s no choice but a good selection of 7 skewers. From left to right: chicken wings, shrimp, okra, mushrooms, chicken, chicken meatballs, and beef (the beef was the best).

The agedashi tofu. Was a bit soggy but the sauce very tasty.

Chasu ramen. Soup was a bit bland but with the addition of a bit of spices, much better. The soup is very “creamy” so watch out. The pork was very tender, almost melted in your mouth. The ramen was thinner than I liked but cooked well.

Overall, I probably wouldn’t return for the chasu ramen but they do have a special butter garlic ramen that might be yummy and also have okonomiyaki which we’ll have to go back and try. The beef yakitori was the best and the people sitting next to us had asparagus wrapped in bacon which looked really good too so we’d have to try other yakitori options if we go there again.

Sophie’s Crepes
1581 Webster Street (between Geary Blvd & Post St)
Near Kinokuniya Bookstore

Halu
312 8th Avenue (between Clement St & Geary Blvd)

Le Colonial

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http://www.lecolonialsf.com/home_frame.html

I went with some colleagues to a pharmaceutical company sponsored dinner at Le Colonial. The restaurant is situated on a small side street so you would never know the restaurant was there unless you walked down that alley. It seems like a lovely restaurant for a summer meal as it does have an outdoor seating area but also has quite a large indoor space.

As we were listening to the talk, we enjoyed soup, four appetizers, three entrees, two side dishes, and three dessert platters (with four types of dessert!). These pictures are courtesy of PW since my camera doesn’t work well in low lighting (at least I haven’t figured out how to make it work well yet).

The soup of a fragrant chicken broth with cabbage dumplings filled with pork, shrimp, woodear mushrooms and scallions. I was really hungry so this warmed my tummy up quite nicely. I liked the bean sprouts in the soup, gave it a bit of a crunch.

Here’s a sampling of their appetizers, starting at 12 o’clock and going clockwise:
1. Fresh spring rolls with poached prawns, bean sprouts, mint, rice vermicelli noodles served with peanut sauce (delicious peanut sauce!)
2. Shredded green papaya with poached prawns, carrots, mint, toasted peanuts and crispy shallots tossed in chili garlic and lime vinaigrette (I love papaya salad so I finished off the plate because no one else wanted to eat it :P)
3. Crispy duck rolls with taro, jicama, served with lettuce wraps and ginger dipping sauce (Couldn’t really taste the distinct flavors and were a bit soft)
4. Coconut crusted Dungeness crab cakes with cilantro-chili sauce (a small bite of yumminess!)

Again, the papaya salad was my favorite, such a big serving too, I wonder if this is how much it is when you order it…

For entrees, starting at 12 o’clock and going clockwise:
1. Grilled wild Loch Duart salmon with cabbage salad, spicy tamarind reduction, peanuts and crispy shallots (the winning entree of the night, lightly grilled so salmon still very moist inside and delicious sauce)
2. Wok seared filet mignon cubes wok tossed in a garlic soy sauce over Watercress and crispy baby Yukon potatoes (salmon was way better although I liked the veggies)
3. Lemongrass Petaluma free range chicken served two ways with wilted kale and carmelized shallots served with chicken au jus (in my opinion, a bit dry and I was too in love with the salmon)
3. Side dish of wok tossed blue lake green beans with garlic soy sauce (I love braised green beans especially in a sweet and salty sauce)

These are the thick cut rice noodles stir fried with Dungeness crab, shrimp, egg, bean sprouts, green onions, and carrots… the noodles were good, kind of chewy.

Most of the people at our table already left so there were only 4 or 5 of us sharing the dessert. We had three plates of these!

From 12 o’clock going clockwise, a fried banana, a creamy custard topped with mango, an an apple fritter, and a molten chocolate cake. The only dessert I wasn’t in love with was the apple fritter, everything else was delicious, I especially loved the fresh mango on the custard.

I used to not like going to pharmaceutical company sponsored dinners but I think as long as you take the time to learn about the drugs rather than taking everything at face value, then the information they present won’t influence you. Rather you’ll make your own informed decisions after you’ve had the time to evaluate all the information. It’s been a good way to try new restaurants and get in touch with former classmates and colleagues.

Le Colonial
20 Cosmo Place

R&G Lounge

Good Luck Dim Sum

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http://www.yelp.com/biz/g…m-san-francisco

This morning we had our first dentist appt in a long time, probably 3 years. Our dentist was very kind and thorough. Our friends who are dentists recommended him to us. He was one of their professors and I can understand why he is one of their favorite professors. If you’re looking for a new dentist, I think he is still accepting new patients, his name is Dr. Robert Ho. Unfortunately for me, I have two small cavities and I cracked a back molar and need a crown. I’ll keep you updated on how the further appts go, I have to go back in a week for the cavity fillings and preparation for the crown.

Afterwards, since his office is on 12th Ave near Clement, we had the opportunity to go to one of our favorite cheap take-out dim sum places called Good Luck Dim Sum. We were lucky to find a parking space right in front but unfortunately had to wait in a pretty long and slow line. I kept on having to go in and out to fill the parking meter because it seems like the ladies were being unusually slow this morning. I guess they had big orders to fill though for Chinese New Year because there were pick-up tickets taped on the cupboards, one stating 30 orders of one item, 34 orders of another item, with an additional 4 items on just that one ticket.

We finally go our food and went home to enjoy. We had 3 boxes full of food for $32.

My favorite “ham shui gok” (fried chewy meat dumplings, direct translation is “salty water dumpling” I think), sesame balls, “dan tat” (egg tarts) made with egg yolks and egg whites.