Visa C.'s Profile

Ordering take-out can cut your wait time to a third. The downside is over cooked shrimp at the bottom of the bag by the time you get home.

One of my favorite meat places. The combination kabab is a great way to get to know the place. The Kabab-E-Chopandaz is my favorite dish, one that I always recommend to friends.

Its an experience alright. One that you'd rather forget. Slow service. Couldn't finish my bad food.

You can find good and bad restaurants in any city or country. At times its not so much about how to avoid them, but rather about how you manage expectations. For Bay Area residents thinking of going to the Philippines, and who want to prepare themselves for how bad some of our restaurants can get, then you're in luck. You can experience authentic Pinoy bad service without getting on a plane. Introducing Ling Nam Noodle House in South San Francisco.

I've only been to this place twice. Both have been disasters.

Visit 1 (late 2009): Horrendous service; unauthorized order substitution (can you believe that they unilaterally decided to switch orders because the fish dish we wanted was not available -- and choose to call us liars instead of admitting their mistake?); cooking oil so rancid my Lechon Kawali (deep fried pork) actually tasted like fish

Visit 2 (mid-year 2010): Avoided what I ordered before, turn out better. Yelling and commotion in the kitchen. One staff had apparently challenged another to a fist fight. Interesting idea for "live entertainment".

Arguably, the main thing going for this place is its hours of operation. If you have a craving for Filipino food at odd hours, and you are either disinclined, or don't have enough time, to cook yourself, then Ling Nam is indeed the place for you. But take the time-element out of the equation, and there are plenty of other BETTER places within 10 minutes of this place.

Perhaps with better management, this particular branch (I've never been to other branches), this place could have been decent. I'm not in any particular hurry to follow up on their progress.

This LBC branch wasn't as close to our old, now closed, LBC branch in Santa Clara, but this location is still great, especially compared to their  Tully Branch (no offense to the staff there). We went there on a Saturday afternoon, and there was no traffic, no congestion. Parking was abundant, both on the office's own lot, as well as on the adjacent mini-strip malls.

I checked this place's Yelp reviews, and a common refrain was the seeming lack of warmth on the part of the clerks and receptionists. While I do concur with this observation, I must point out that they were pretty darn efficient. Shipping forms and replacement boxes were provided as part of a well practiced routine. You'll be in and out in no time.

This is Clarita's Filipino Cuisine . . . with better ambiance.

The must haves are all there: Inihaw na (grilled) Pork, Pork Adobo, Beef steak, Lechon Kawali (pressure cooked, then deep fried pork) and Bangus. From a pure flavor standpoint the average Pinoy palette would be happy with either restaurant. Their hits and misses are complimentary. Personally I like Clarita's Adobo and Beef steak better. However, this place's Inihaw and Lechon Kawali balance things out.

But one area where this place definitely has Clarita's beat is the dining area. Its brighter, clearly given more thought, and lacks the annoying TV with cheezy noon-time shows. If you were to introduce a non-Filipino to common-Pinoy food, you'd probably make a better impression with Rene Rose. In the summer, the air-conditioning at Rene Rose definitely helps.

I'd heard of this company offering time on their wind tunnels for folks seeking to getting a feel for a skydive but in a safe environment. iFly had a tunnel somewhere in San Francisco, and I had planned to go to it . . . one of these days.

But when we passed by this place -- a mere 20 minutes from home -- I just had to go. So off i went the following day with a friend and his 10 year old son in tow.

We went on a weekend, so it was a pretty full day. The slot we eventually got was for 9:30PM, despite having arrived at noon. Die-hard iFlyers reportedly come in during the week to avoid the crowds.

This used to be one of our favorite restaurants. From a purely flavor point of view it still is.

When seeking to preserve profit margins while maintaining the same menu, there are arguably only two ways to go: sacrifice quality, or reduce portion size. This place went the latter route.

While our favorites were as good as ever, the quantity given the price was just absurd. The original servings had always been just right. We're not large eaters, so their portions were always great. Now, they are half what they were.

My wife still can't get over the bread that's typically given as an appetizer. They were the size of over-sized croutons, and served directly in the basket, without a napkin or anything.

This resto is definitely experiencing problems. It even appears to be in the midst of a name change. I hope they recover. But the rip off the other night will keep us away for a while.

Clarita's is a Filipino's Filipino restaurant. A place that Filipinos themselves frequent.

It's not much to look at. But for a first-generation Filipino immigrant, it's just what you look for because it's reminiscent of the kinds of restaurants that you frequented when you were still back home -- albeit nicer. No frills, spartan, let's it's dishes speak for themselves.

My personal artery-clogging favorites in the restaurant are: Pork Adobo, Grilled Pork, and Beef steak. A meat-lover can't go wrong with these dishes.

Pork Adobo is a slow-cooked stew that takes a few hours to prepare. Typically the pork is marinated in a mix of soy sauce and vinegar, but practically every region in the Philippines has its own way of preparing this dish. Clarita's is arguably a Central Luzon variant with additional ingredients that are characteristic of the region -- as evidenced by its appetizing color.

Grilled pork (Inihaw na Baboy) is another popular Filipino dish. But sadly, this is not available every day. If you visit on a day that doesn't have it, ask for the month's schedule so that you can time your next visit better.

Beef steak is another soy sauce heavy stew. Thin cuts of beef immersed in a chocolate-brown colored sauce. Don't forget to mix the sauce with your rice to transform it into a mouth watering congee.

The above three are my mainstays that form at least one of the two dishes that I usually get when I'm there. The second is reserved for periodic specials . . . that I will leave for you to discover on your own.

It's run as a fast-food place. Line up, take a number, sit down, and ponder the uses of Pomegranate seasoning during your short wait. But the quality of dishes would give more formal sit-down places a run for their money. Nothing like a place run by the owner himself.

I don't know how to prepare lamb (yet), so I usually order it whenever it's available. So Combo #17 is one of my mainstays. But this place's Koobideh was what really won me over. Koobideh is my get-to-know dish for Persian restaurants, the one I use as a basis for comparison. Most versions of the dish I've tried typically . . . need contrast . . . half way through. HoK's doesn't, and is good throughout the meal. It's already good all by itself, but drizilling it with Lemon -- to paraphrase Emeril Lagasse -- "kicks it up a notch".

Two other options that are ideal for the rice lover: #16 with Chicken kabob instead of Lamb, and #18 with Beef kabob.