Category Archives: Sweets/Bakeries/Desserts

Banana Island and Spot Lounge

So Ron planned a semi-surprise birthday dinner for my big 3-0. I knew we were going out for dinner but I didn’t know where or who would be there.

We arrived at Westlake Shopping Center in Daly City and Ron didn’t seem to know exactly where he was going since we ended up driving around the shopping center and going past the parking lot entrance. Last weekend we went to Lime Tree and Ron mentioned something in passing like “oh, this is one of the Singaporean restaurants that I found online”… so I was thinking “one of”? I guessed right that we were going to Banana Island but Ron wouldn’t admit it to me. But I told him the restaurant was behind the new parking lot so we should enter that way.

The guestlist was a bit given away because as we were driving, we saw Henry’s car parked on the street and then we saw Patsy and her hubby in the parking lot! It didn’t matter to me that it was a surprise but I was just happy that everyone had time to come out to celebrate my birthday.

When Ron and I arrived, Grace unfortunately had to leave but gave me a lovely bottle of J sparkling wine before departing to take care of her sons. I’ll let you know how it is when we crack it open.

Already there waiting were Ron’s brothers Henry and William and Patsy and her hubby. Later on, Nancy and Ryan came. Also Cathy and Tiffany.

Ron did the ordering to give everyone a taste of what we had in Singapore.

Tiger beer.

Satay chicken and beef.

Roti with curry sauce.

Hainanese chicken (missing the chicken rice though).

Stir fried Ka Kong.

Beef rendang.

Char Kuay Teow (stir fried noodles).

Pineapple fried rice.

Po piah.

Fried fish with sweet & sour sauce.

The food reminded us of being back in Singapore although more expensive…

To end the meal, Ron ordered me a very special cake…

A Hello Kitty head.

It’s a cake for kids from Citizen Cake.

I forgot to mention I got a cute Hello Kitty balloon too.

Unfortunately I had to cut the cake and there wasn’t really any other way to do it except through the middle…

The cake was really dense and hard to cut.

I felt so terrible but it would’ve been a waste not to eat it..

My friends tried to stitch her up…

Then they were just cruel…

The cake needed an accompanying cup of coffee or milk since it was really dense. I didn’t eat most of my piece so I’ll be having it for breakfast for the next few days 🙂

These aren’t all the photos so I should be posting up some more later. I took a break from taking photos today so will have to get photos from everyone else.

Afterwards, a few of us went to hang out at a soju bar called The Spot Lounge on Taraval. They serve soju cocktails ($12.95/bottle) in many different flavors: mango, lychee, pear, yogurt, etc.

Reminiscent of our younger days…

The place has food too so looking forward to going back to try their rice cake (duk bok kee).

I guess getting older isn’t so bad afterall… thanks to everyone for coming out for my birthday and all the happy birthday messages!!

Banana Island
416 Westlake Center
Daly City, CA

The Spot Lounge
2325 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA

Broadway Prime in Burlingame

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http://www.broadwayprime.com/

My Dad’s Uncle Kin arrived from Canada this evening so my parents figured it’d be a good opportunity to have dinner and celebrate my birthday, kill a few birds with one stone.

I ended up choosing to have dinner at Broadway Prime in Burlingame. I called around 2:30pm to make a reservation for 7 people at 8pm, pretty easy.

My impression is that the restaurant is pretty much the same as House of Prime Rib in San Francisco except quite a bit smaller and a bit of a different atmosphere, maybe not quite as traditional? Not sure how to explain it. The restaurant has an upstairs dining area where it could be pretty nice for a small party for up to 20 people but you lose the flair upstairs as they don’t make the salad in front of you nor do they bring the prime ribs to your table to let you see them slice it.

The salad was still good though, the thousand island-like dressing with red beets (I really like red beets).

We had a nice cabernet to go with our meal.

My parents and uncle Kin.

My brother and his girlfriend Cali.

The prime rib is served with your choice of baked potato, mashed potatoes, or garlic mashed potatoes. This is the latter.

The meat is served with your choice of creamed corn or creamed spinach. This is the former and the Select Cut (the middle choice, there is also the Peninsula Cut – small and Broadway Cut – large).

There is also a popover (good for soaking up the juices).

My parents got me a cake from Sogo Bakery which makes really good fruit mousse cakes. We ordered our wedding cake from them.

I got all the candles out.. thank goodness it was only 3 and 1 for good luck!

The cake was delicious as expected and the perfect size for the 7 of us.

Oy, stuffed!

Broadway Prime
1316 Broadway Ave
Burlingame, CA

Lime Tree and Crepevine

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Today was a kind of a busy day… I got up early to take care of bills (yuck!) then went to get gas, drove to Concord for my friend Grace’s son’s 3rd birthday party, went to County Square Market (an Asian supermarket), Target, the post office, Pet Food Express, Michael’s, Lucky, and then drove all the way back to San Francisco and we went to dinner with Ron’s friend Andrew at Lime Tree and Crepevine.

The highlights of the afternoon:
1. Picked up great fruits from the Asian market… some prickly pear and white peaches the size of a softball. Will take some pictures as we dig into them.
2. When you buy postage at the post office, the machine prints the stamps on self-adhesive paper instead of spitting out those booklets… pretty cool stuff… but can’t believe that first class mail is 42 cents!
3. At Pet Food Express they were having cat adoptions, I got to see all the babies before they packed them to go for the day. One of the cats looked almost exactly like Mochi!

So Lime Tree is a Southeast Asian restaurant. We got to have some familiar flavors of Malaysia and Singapore.

Murtabak served with curry sauce, a crispy roti prata stuffed with minced meat, green onions and eggs. Smaller than those in Singapore but tasted pretty similar.

Chicken satay with peanut sauce. The chicken was pretty moist. Though it was missing the lontong (a kind of rice cake).

Mie Tek-tek, an egg noodle with chicken and vegetables in spicy broth. Sounded interesting so thought we’d try it. I think it’d be better as a lunch item rather as something to share for dinner. I liked the spice though, glad we got the spicy instead of the mild.

Beef rendang with rice. I only had a bit, had a strong coconut taste. The guys seemed to enjoy it though.

Chili crab! The sauce was good, sweet and spicy and thick! But there was no fried bread rolls to go with it 🙁 Although I have to give the place credit, they are smart and they give you a crab leg crackers, crab meat forks, tons of napkins and wet naps.

Afterwards, we went for dessert at Crepevine. We ordered the “Georgia” sweet crepe which is filled with apples, cheddar cheese (yes, that’s correct!), cinnamon, and sugar. It’s served with whipped cream and vanilla ice cream.

It was lovely. The cheese was a bit salty so balanced the sweetness of everything else and the touch of cinnamon made it even better. YUM!

Lime Tree
450A Irving Street
San Francisco, CA

Crepevine
624 Irving Street
San Francisco, CA

Ron’s Birthday at Citizen Cake

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http://www.citizencake.com

We went out to dinner for Ron’s birthday, just the two of us tonight since it’s a weekday but we hope to celebrate both our birthdays with friends in a few weeks.

I wanted us to try something new so I went to Open Table to see what reservations they had available. I decided on Citizen Cake since it’s not too far from where we live and also because an 8pm reservation gives you 1000 dining points!

When we got to the restaurant, there were maybe 4 other groups of diners so there were still a few empty tables. I think we had pretty good service because there were less diners, only getting our check and paying took a while.

We ordered and they kindly brought us a complimentary sample of their soup of the day, a tomato soup with lemon oil. The lemon oil added on top gave the soup a little “kick” and it was served in a cute shot glass, just enough for a good taste of their soup.

For an appetizer we ordered the pork belly with dates and water chestnut. The pork belly was delicious, like bacon but not quite as fatty and it went well with the soft jam-like dates. The water chestnut added a bit of crunchiness. We enjoyed a glass of wine with our meals.

For our entrees we ordered the steak served with white beans, broccoli, and arugula salad. The steak was a bit tough and I found the salad a bit salty but Ron liked the salt, he thought it went will with the peppery arugula.

I had the pork schnitzel served on a bed of sauteed potatoes (including purple ones!). It was more of like the Japanese tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet) than an Austrian schnitzel like we had in Austria. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it, but was expecting something a bit different.

After our meal, the server came to collect our plates and gave me a little *wink*. When making my reservation online, I had put a note to prepare their cookie platter for Ron and a birthday wish… so they wrote “Happy Birthday” with dark chocolate and served it with a sparkler!