Hong C.'s Profile

Okay, some might get tired of this, but I NEED to mourn the loss and deal with it here first.

I will be missing a different ramen style that was pretty good, a clear regional pride in the food and the decor, and the very excellent "itame", stir-fry over rice dishes.

The ramen-ya that replaced it is this "Kahoo" ramen.  I recognized the chef.  He has been "helping" out the Do-Henkotsu owner for several months.  I just thought he was a friend or a new "franchiser", but I guess I was wrong.

This is a more "standard" Kanto-style ramen-ya.  Flavor-wise, I'd say it's somewhere between "Santa" (not as fatty) and "Halu" (not as salty).

Their ramen has three standard soup flavors: shio (salt), shoyu (soy sauce) and miso (miso :p, fermented bean paste).  These basic ones are around $6~$7.  Additionally they have "spicy vegetables" options on top of those which adds $2~$3 more.  There are no size choices and very surprisingly there are no topping options!

These ramen dishes do not come with rice.  Instead they have $2 "mini-don"s.  I've seen 5~6 of them, but the only ones I remember are "sliced pork", "BBQ pork", "spicy chicken" and "curry".  These are side dishes and not enough for a meal by itself.

They also have some fried chickens ("kara-age") and stuff, but I don't remember them all.

So, for the actual items we tried.

My wife had spicy vegetable miso ramen.  I chose to try the most basic, shoyu ramen.  I also got a curry mini don, just to try.

The spicy vegetable miso ramen came with thick noodles where as the basic shoyu came with thin noodles.  From what I can remember they might be the same two types of noodles used at Ramen Halu.

My guess is that they use the thick noodles for the spice vegetable ramen to better absorb the flavor and they use the thin noodles for the basic ones.

Anyway, the spice vegetable miso ramen wasn't bad, but it wasn't really for me.  I think it may appeal more to people with Chinese palate.  Also the thick noodles seem to be too firm.  They weren't undercooked, but it felt like the noodles were very dry to begin with.

I thought the shoyu ramen was pretty good.  Not as fatty as the Santa's (although with floating pork fats) and not as salty as the Halu's.  The noodles were quite thin, maybe too thin (I never liked the thin noodles at Halu).  The toppings included spinach, bamboo shoot.

Besides the noodles, the pork was different between the two.  The spice vegetable ramen had thinly sliced pork often seen with stir-fry.  The shoyu ramen had more traditional chashu.

The curry mini don was okay.  The curry is not liquid-y one.  It's more of a thick paste.  The flavor was good.  But I thought it was a bit too small for $2.

As always, I am being conservative about the rating.  We think that we will visit here again since we don't like the salty-ness of Halu and Santa is a bit too far away and a bit too heavy/fatty.  As I get used to the place, I will be adjusting the rating.

Looking at the take-out menu, it seems there are three locations of this restaurants (Cupertino, Pleasanton, and Sunnyvale).

You place an order at the counter.  You get a number flag to put on the table (like in Carl's Junior).  They bring you the food.  The dining area is surprisingly large (deep).  Maybe about 20 tables or so.  All the items are under $10.  They seem to be doing catering as well.

The place is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. 7 days a week.

First visit here at the lunch time.  I had a lamb shish kebab plate ($8.99+tax), which came with two sticks of lamb shish kebab, hummus, salad, rice and pita breads.  Not bad, I thought.  They also have "wraps" (no sides) that are under $6.

One of my coworker had a vegitarian combo plate.  It came with baba ghannouj.  I don't know if it was supposed to taste that sour or they overdid it with lenons, but it was quite sour.  Otherwise, everything looked reasonably good.

I don't know where the food's exact origin is (sure, it is Mediterranean), but I am guessing Turkish?

I'd definitely come here again.

I was there a couple of times.

- Dumplings

Steamed ones are not that good, IMO.  They use this puffy and sour (?) Chinese dough.  Not what I was expecting as far as Korean steamed big buns are concerned.

Boiled ones seem okay.  Smaller, but we thought it was okay.

Fried ones, we have not tried.  It looked like any other fried dumplings (gun-man-du).

- Noodles

I thought their kal-guk-su ("knife-cut noodles") was pretty good.  My wife said their su-je-bi ("hand-cut noodles") was okay, but I am not a su-je-bi kind of guy...

- Others

They also have other items such as chicken teriyaki and its lunch box.  We have not tried them.  Looks pretty plain, though.

- Side dishes

Just kimchi and dan-mu-ji (or "dakuwan" in Japanese).  Kimchi is very good.  I think they sell it separately as well.

- Overall

It's okay as far as bun-sik-jip ("flour snack place").  The noodles seem to be their strongest items along with their kimchi.

I've been coming here since 2002, I think.  I think I have a thing for diners and their food.  I come here whenever I have a yearning for omlets day or night (Chef's Favorite isn't bad).  I am just too lazy to cook it myself.

We were here recently and my wife had Taco Salad.  This one wasn't bad at all.  No rice, no beans.  Just carne asada, lettuce, scallions, olives and cheese.  Not bad at all.

Sure, the decor is tacky, but I think it's a part of its charm.  The servers seems to rotate, so I don't always get someone I like (I like most of the old ladies there).   Personally, I'd come here than going to any other nationally franchised diner chains.

It seems they opened this place recently.  It is located in the Cupertino Village (the Chinese strip mall) at Wolfe and Homestead.

Their menu is mostly based on "sun-du-bu" (soft tofu hot pot).  They had some rice dishes ("bi-bim-bap", e.g.) and some other stuff.  The menu seems similar to SGD Tofu House (a couple of items more).

I had the tofu dish (mushroom, hot) and my wife bi-bim-bap.  She liked hers.  I thought the tofu hot pot wasn't as flavorful (or strong or whatever) as SGD's.  One interesting thing that I noticed was that there were quite a bit of coarse black pepper flakes.  This is uncommon to see in most Korean cuisines.

One of the side dish was fried yellow corvina  ("jo-gi gu-i").  This was one of the reasons my wife wanted to come here.  It was okay.

Another conservative starter rating...

EDIT [2007-01-22] That "N2" sounds like "kong guk su" but "mushrooms & zucchini on top" makes me doubt myself.  Maybe if I ever get back to that place, I would try it.

We've been there recently for the first time.

We went there for "gan-jang ge-jang" (crabs marinated with soy sauce, Korean style) which seems to be one of their specialties.  But they were out of it.

So we got "a-gu-jjim" ("steamed" anglerfish) and something else that I forgot (sorry)...  A-gu-jjim was pretty good with big portions.  The rest of the menu seems not bad.

Another conservative starter rating...

A great lunch place (actually they are only open during lunch hours on week days).  They also have a location in Campbell, which operates a better hours.

Someone from work took me here several years ago.  We've been coming here since regularly.  I didn't quite know what to expect from a Cambodian place.  It turns out it is somewhat close to Thai.  It makes sense considering the geographical location.

I like their curries and tom yum soups.  But my favorite is fish "Amok".  It is fish chunks and other ingredients steamed wrapped in some leaves (banana?).

Yes, the location looks very shady.  But it seems like there are new developments going on, so it may get better.

We had our anniversary dinner here recently.  This was Hyun's first time.  I've been here before several years ago.  The decor seems a lot better (the tables are packed still but it seems much better than what I remembered the first time).

We opted for the 7-course tasting menu.  They were not bad, but they were, hmm, shall I say, uninspiring (or uncreative, plain, etc.).  The presentation and the ingredients used were all very nice, but the food itself, I don't know, wasn't anything special.

I think it's probably better to get the 3-course menu (they only offer two basic pricing: 3-course or tasting menu).  They might be more interesting with a better choice of dessert as well.

They also offer a valet parking ($10).

We had our dinner here with a few friends.  This was my first time here.

Pretty good decor.  Friendly servers.

I was a bit disappointed by their bread bowl considering they began as and still advertise as (?) a "bakery".  They were not bad, but nothing to talk about.

All together, we had a fried calamari appetizer (not salty which we found better), a chicken dish (not rotisserie, not dry), a fettucini mare (?, not bad), another pasta dish (forgot the name, it didn't have enough sauce), and a vegitarian pizza (this was very good).  We also had a couple of desserts: tiramisu (no rum flavor, not as soft) and apple crepes with a vanilla ice cream (this was quite good).

As someone mentioned before, the flavor is on the bland side, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.  I will give my conservative rating, which means not bad but nothing memorable.

Avila Beach is right next to Pismo Beach, but it is much smaller.  We had to drive a couple of miles through the forest (?) off 101, and we were surprised to find a well developed small town on the water.

We stayed at a next door and since this place seems to be the only (decent?) restaurant in the area (and was recommended in the user revies at Expedia and you get 10% off for staying at Avila Beach Lighthouse), we decided to try this place out after our walk at the beach and the pier.

The place has a very casual setting (the servers seem to be college kids, very casual and friendly).  It also has outdoor seatings with heat lamps (it got chilly in the evening).  What surprised me was that the kitchen itself was very modern when I took a peek.  Pretty large and seemed well equipped.

We ordered steamed mussels for a starter.  I had the today's special salmon and Hyun had the special risotto (this without drinks came to ~$58 without tips but including tax).

They were excellent!  We thought it would be okay, but it easily exceeded our expectation.  Maybe it's the fresher ingredients, but they were all bringing the natural flavors out pretty well.  We thought it was better than most upscale restaurants in the San Francisco / San Jose area.

The restaurant seems to be very proud to have their own salmon fisherman.  I am sure this helps in getting their quality.

It's too far to go there often, but if you are in the area, I think it's worth the visit.