Category Archives: Asian

Silver Bells Arts & Crafts and Tanpopo

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http://www.yelp.com/biz/tanpopo-san-francisco

This morning I went to the Silver Bells Arts & Crafts Faire near Japantown. They had a lot of Asian inspired crafts including jewelry, purses, candles, kitchenware, artwork, cards, etc. It was very crowded but everyone was very friendly and I got a few nice gifts for friends and family. I can’t wait to see what they have next year!

Afterwards, I met up with Ron and we had lunch in Japantown at Tanpopo. They had Kyushu Ramen with Chashu. It’s a delicious pork bone broth with roasted pork. It’s one of the closest to the ramen we had in Japan and it was pretty affordable. This bowl of ramen had extra chashu and is a large bowl for $10. Quite filling and good after a walk in the cold.

After coming home though, Ron and I both had a bit of food coma. Maybe too much starch…

Ariake Restaurant

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http://www.sfariake.com/

Tonight we decided to go out for dinner since it’s been about two weeks since we went out somewhere nice to eat. We decided to have Japanese and went to Ariake Restaurant. We went in around 6pm and there were only 2 other parties there but it filled up pretty quickly as we were having dinner. They were nice enough to turn on the heater right above our table as it was a chilly evening. They also served a hot wonderful smelling and delicious tasting tea.

Our little table in the corner was nicely decorated with a fresh red rose. A pretty nice touch. The service was excellent and very efficient. An empty dish never stayed on our table for more than a few minutes before being whisked away.

We ordered the “Love” chirashi, monk fish liver, and chicken teriyaki. We had miso soup and salad as well.

In the chirashi, they were nice enough to substitute the salmon roe for extra hamachi, my fav fish, in the chirashi. The sashimi in the chirashi was excellent, very fresh, and I enjoyed the other ingredients of the dish, the marinated bamboo (I think), the soy sauce mushrooms, the sprouts, shredded turnip, and tamago. For $20, I was very satisfied.

The monk fish liver was nicely sauced, a bit soy and spicy sauce. Yum! If you like liver pate, you’d like this dish.

The chicken teriyaki wasn’t terribly special but a good portion and tasted like chicken teriyaki should taste, not over-sweetened like some places.

Our dinner came to $52 total after adding in tip which isn’t bad considering how much sashimi we had to eat. Yum!

We got home and the kitties were all sitting around bundled up. Even with all that fur, they get cold too.

Ariake Restaurant
5041 Geary Blvd

Macy’s SPCA window and ZaZang Noodles

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This morning we went to the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market to pick up some delicious fruits and have a light lunch and afterwards while Ron went to do some work, I walked over to Union Square to check out Macy’s annual SF SPCA display. There were only six windows with the kittens and puppies, I wish there were more.

My favorite was this white kitten taking a nap on the little padded park bench.

Most of the kitties were napping, probably tired out from playing.
These two kitties blended in with the carpet, I almost didn’t see them!

These siblings got a little playful after their short nap but they looked so cute snuggling up to each other.

This orange and white kitty slept through all the gawkers, so sound asleep and relaxed. A very pretty kitty.

There was only one puppy. He or she was clawing against the door behind because he or she really wanted to get out of there. Apparently his or her sibling was already adopted earlier in the day.

I love baby animals. So sweet and innocent and very playful.

After a few hours of fawning over the babies, we met up with friends to have some drinks at 21st Amendment where we had a Pomegranate brew, yummy. We then went to our friend’s apartment and tried this fabulous sparkling wine called La Caudrina La Selvatica. It’s very sweet, good for dessert.

We ended the night with dinner at ZaZang Korean Noodle which we’ve been to before, great za zang noodles. We decided to try the deep fried beef with sweet and sour sauce.

Quite sour and almost couldn’t tell it was beef but a very good portion and not bad.

A lot of walking today though, very tired. Only one more day to the weekend then time to start a VERY busy work week…

The Spot Lounge

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http://www.myspace.com/sfspotlounge

We had dinner at Spot Lounge tonight. We’ve been wanting to go back to try their food ever since we went there for their yummy soju cocktails.

We ordered the rice cakes with ramen in spicy sauce. The sauce was sweet and spicy. Strangely, the dish tasted better once it cooled down.

This is their chicken wings with special sauce. Nice and crispy but maybe not enough sauce.

Kimchi tofu soup. A bit sour for my taste.

Their side dishes. My favorite was the pickled preserved vegetables.

The fried prawns served with thousand island dressing.

The kalbi. The meat was a bit fatty and the sauce was very sweet.

The bulgolgi also had a very sweet sauce.

There were five of us and this was a lot of food. We rolled out of there and have enough leftovers for one more meal for two.

I’d recommend this place if you want to enjoy good soju cocktails with your meal. Plus keep an eye out for their specials, like tonight we got 25% off all our appetizers. They have college night, $3 draft beer nights, and more.

The Spot Lounge
2325 Taraval St (between 33rd and 34th Ave)

Sai Jai Thai Restaurant and busy day…

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I’m tired and the weather wasn’t pretty today. At least I didn’t have to go to work so we had time to do some fun stuff today.

Our friend Susan is getting married so she invited me to go with her and friends for wedding gown shopping. She made an appointment at the Bridal Galleria in Embarcadero since they were having a Lazaro trunk show. I never did the bridal gallery type of wedding gown shopping so I was excited to go.

I took the Muni to the Ferry Building and had a very entertaining ride by our bus driver. We (Ron also decided to go downtown to work) took the 38L which passes by the Mervyn’s on Masonic and the bus driver was like “our next stop is Mervyn’s and Best Buy. Mervyn’s is going out of business so they’re having a big sale! So go check it out!” A few people chuckled on the bus. He had different comments for almost every stop. The only problem was that when I got to the back of the bus, I couldn’t hear him anymore and sort of overshot by stop by one and had to backtrack to the Ferry Building.

As we waited for Virginia, we got in the long coffee stand line. We had to fortify ourselves with Blue Bottle Coffee before heading to the bridal gallery.

The staff there was very helpful and the designer was there! I was excited to see all his beautiful gowns and it was fun to see Susan trying them all on. I was shocked because I didn’t expect Susan to actually pick a gown but she chose a very elegant gown. Seems like today, many of the brides who came in actually bought their wedding gown… there was a woman next to us who was having trouble breathing after she chose her gown.

That appointment took almost 3 hours so I was starving by then so I went with Virginia to meet up with our SO’s since they were together. We ended up going out for late lunch, early dinner at Sai Jai Thai Restaurant which is in the Tenderloin. It’s a bit of a sketchy neighborhood but the food is really good. There was some guy harassing a woman outside of the pool hall that was only a few doors down, he was cussing her out in front of the place… a bit scary to just walk by so I don’t think I’d frequent this place after it gets dark.

Dan and Virginia love this place so they did the ordering. We had the papaya salad with the salty crab. This was super spicy! But very yummy. The salty crab was a bit weird though, kind of sweet and savory. Dan says it’s been fermented.

We also had the red curry with chicken. It was spicy but also sour so it cut the edge off the papaya salad. It went well with some rice but we think next time we order red curry to choose beef instead.

Lastly, the famous pork shoulder. The crispy edges are really good and the dipping sauce makes the dish.

After our meal, we headed back home to rest then went out again to our friend Dwight’s housewarming and birthday bash. It was good to catch up with new and old co-workers but now I’m exhausted.

Sai Jai Thai
771 O’Farrell Street (b/w Larkin & Hyde)