Perci N.'s Profile
DateKahului, HI 96732
(808) 877-2400
Ba-Le Sandwiches & Bakery
Categories:
Bakeries,
Sandwiches
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 550-6971
Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream
Category:
Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt
Neighborhood: Mission
One taste of the carrot sorbet and I nearly vomited. I love carrots. I can eat pounds of the stuff raw, love carrot cakes, etc. They managed to take all the worst flavors of carrots and distill them into a truly snot-like texture. It tastes worst than it sounds.
I had to fight to hold it down till I found my way to mouthwash and toothpaste.
All this was five minutes ago.
What the hell is wrong with you people?
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 252-4424
UPS
Category:
Shipping Centers
Neighborhood: Potrero Hill
I receive 6-10 packages a month on average. I have problems only with UPS. They only knock sometimes, and never use the doorbell. They're in a rush to just leave a notice. Why? They have to come back again anyway! I never have a problem with FedEx or USPS -- and USPS is cheaper! Why do people even use UPS?
1 Previous Review:
-
5/26/2010
Cheap. Fast. Good.
UPS is none of these.
UPS is always the last to deliver each day. They're the only ones with shipping problems. They're the only ones with damaged boxes. They don't ring the doorbell. They don't close the gate when they leave. They don't remember you, even when you see the same driver every week.
Assholes, basically.
A dozen or so flavors were available, and I tried about eight different ones. The only misses were taro -- way too taro tasting, cloying -- and green tea -- a bit too bitter matcha tasting, could be smoother. Cappuccino was nice: burnt, strong coffee flavor, not too sweet. Mango Tart and Mango Sorbet were decent, if a bit too close in taste.
Why five stars? The Original Tart is still stellar. Zero iciness, tart but not artificially tasting, and a strong yogurt, not butter or watery or organic "grassy", flavor. So good, I actually paused at the end of the cup and tried to remember a better original tart from somewhere else. Couldn't think of any.
1 Previous Review:
-
4/30/2008 First to Review
Yet Another Frogurt Shop!
This time, a block away from the downtown San Mateo movie theater, across the street from Draeger's. Look for the OMG-bright-orange color scheme. Can't miss it.
Stopped by Everday Beijing for lunch with Koyubi (didja check out my ROTD for the place? ;) and on the way back to work, we noticed the new shop. Yes, they're open, even though it doesn't look it -- they just opened today. =)
Self-serve frozen yogurt from five soft serve machines, with 10 flavors, at $0.35 cents per ounce.
The flavors:
-vanilla
-chocolate
-guava
-lemon creme
-banana
-original tart
-lychee
-orange
Sorry kids, I can only remember those -- yeah, I need to practice more on those Lametendo DS Brain Games... Surprisingly, no tart green tea on the menu, like Pinkberry -- also unlike PB, they post the nutritional info on the wall (70 calories for 4 ounces of their original nonfat yogurt). They say they intend to rotate the flavors. Tamarind? Er...
Surprisingly, I liked it. Great consistency, best "original tart" I've tasted from a Korean zombie frogurt shack -- not too tart. The lychee is actually tarter (and tastier). Their vanilla frogurt gives soft serve ice cream a run for the money.
Toppings-wise, you've got two clean carts full of assorted junk food. I prefer the fresh cut fruit over the kiddie cereals and candies, but you can find both here. And yes, PB junkies, they have fresh mochi -- though the fresh longans, lychee jelly, and mango jelly are *so* much better.
My only ding is the price. 35 cents an ounce? You would think that's cheap, ya? Well, they only have one size container, and if you top it off, you're easily looking at $8 for frogurt. And you're going to wanna top it off, cos it's human nature. Smart on their side, but coming from a big guy, I'd say fill it up only half way and you'd still be full. (Relatively speaking, my absolute fav ice cream is still only like $3 per half gallon, and I only need a small bowl of the stuff...)
I'll add this place to my short list of places I'd drag the Yelpettes to, after dinner. They're open till 11pm.
Truth be told, I've yet to have worse taiyaki. They're soggy and not in the least toasty or crispy. Their grill is definitely too cold. Their pastry dough could be lighter.
I give two stars only for their inexpensive soft serve ice cream and taiyaki combo. In ice cream, you can't tell that the fish are dense and soggy.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 395-9222
Joe's Pizza
Category:
Pizza
Neighborhood: Santa Monica
The food is not bad. Nothing said wow -- the flavors were conservative and traditional. No stand-out winners, but nothing that I wouldn't eat again, except the Shanghai Dumplings (Xiao Long Bao) -- a dish 9.5 out of 10 Cantonese dim sum places murder. They were bland, dry, and the skin fell apart -- you get the idea. The sticky rice balls steamed in banana leaves could also be passed on -- dry filling, no stickiness to the rice. Considering the neighborhood and probably the 50 percent Caucasian/50 percent Chinese clientele, the dishes were a good compromise. I wanted to order the braised chicken feet -- not sure if they even served it -- but I didn't want to set myself up for disappointment.
Service was brisk and inattentive, but the place was clean, and we were there early. The waitstaff stood around in the main dining room, chatting. I imagine by late lunch or the thick of dinner, service is much worse.
Is it worth coming here for dim sum? There is no other game around, but it's not bad. I've definitely had far worse in many of San Francisco's and L.A.'s Chinese-for-Chinese dim sum establishments.
1 Previous Review:
-
6/18/2007
"The best Chinese in Podunk!"
Er, yeah... According to Yelpers at least, Fu Lam is supposedly the best Cantonese around, but that's apparently not saying very much...
I came in with ten this weekend for an early after grad dinner. We were quickly seated in their cramped ~80-seat restaurant that was zoned for 66.
We ordered around a dozen dishes, varying from Whitey lemon chicken and honey walnut prawns to steamed whole fish and bamboo membrane stir fry. The service was very slow -- they're understaffed, out front and in the kitchen. Serving size was noticeably small. They apparently specialize in seafood -- the few dishes actually worth eating happened to be seafood (salted pepper squid, jellyfish appetizer), but other seafood dishes like the ginger scallion crab were bad (the worst dish of them all), and most of the dishes were just disappointing. (If you're looking for Whitey Chinese, this place delivers on par with Panda Express, that's for sure.)
It goes without saying that places like San Francisco or Los Angeles have better Cantonese. If you must have Cantonese, I'd recommend driving another twenty minutes north to Daly City for Koi Palace. Otherwise, try out the other types of Chinese ( or better yet, Japanese or Korean) in the area. I think all the four and five star reviews of this place are from people who just really don't get around much. At best, it's just comparable to a cheap two star dive in San Francisco, less than an hour drive away.
Red Bowl is TK Noodles, but without the franchise name. Same employees, same food. That being said, the place is cleaner, the service better, and the food actually tastes better. Maybe it's pride in ownership or a huge new loan that makes them work harder, but there are more customers here than ever before.
Red Bowl's hu tieu comes in two classic combinations: a chicken broth with assorted meats (primarily pork) and a chicken broth with assorted seafood. The broth had more flavor than TK's, though the shrimp were definitely not fresh, and the pork combo's broth had an unpleasantly strong pork flavor -- the pork would have benefited from an initial blanching and rinse to get rid of some of the pork odor and taste. The rice noodles were nothing special, but the thin egg noodles -- the Chinese (and original) version of ramen noodles -- had a good chewy texture and weren't too eggy. Exceedingly often, noodle shops blanch egg noodles, then quickly dump the egg noodles into a bowl without properly straining the boiling water, tainting the final broth with a strong egg flavor -- fortunately this wasn't the case at Red Bowl.
Note that though Red Bowl is a Vietnamese-run shop serving Vietnamese-Chinese noodle soup, there is no Chinese or Vietnamese on the menu. You cannot order pho. They don't have sweet and sour pork. They do have fried rice and some fried noodle dishes, though I don't believe they serve dried hu tieu -- another classic preparation of the rice noodles, stir fried plus toppings, sans broth.
If you're in the area and want quick service and a hot bowl of noodle soup, I'd give this place a go. I wouldn't touch any other Vietnamese, Chinese, or Japanese in the area. I've tried them all -- sadly and painfully. You've been warned.
(And if you've made it this far... this isn't good hu tieu. It's decent hu tieu. Zero Vietnamese live in the area. The clientele don't know any better. I'd make my own, but six hours to make a good broth at home vs. $6 for a quick bowl of decent...)
Kukje's the dirtiest, with the worst selection of food. Even if you're specifically looking to make Korean food, you can find what you need elsewhere.
End of story.
1 Previous Review:
-
9/30/2009
Kukje is like the anti-Asian market. Unlike most Asian markets, which have a myriad of food from different nations, Kukje only has Korean food, which has a heavy overlap with Japanese food. Chinese bok choy is so ubiquitous, one could find it at Trader Joe's or Safeway -- but not here. One will find, however, lots and lots of garlic. Considering how much garlic Koreans consume, one would imagine they sell some decent garlic. Surprisingly, the garlic here isn't fresh at all. On close inspection, you'll easily find that a lot of the garlic has already started to grow mold -- especially the peeled ones in tubs. The produce section is extremely limited -- one will surprisingly find a wider selection of portable grills here than leafy greens. Hell, they don't even offer basic staples like fresh chicken. The only chicken they sell is frozen drumsticks, frozen wings, and some very scary unrefrigerated chicken thighs that have been marinating in the open air forever.
Do not touch the seafood, especially the thawed "fresh" shrimp. Virtually all shrimp in the US is frozen at the farm. If it's thawed, it's already starting to go bad. Kukje's shrimp sit out all day, and by the afternoon, they've started to turn colors and smell foul. Basic rule: if fish smells fishy, it's rotting. Don't believe me? Go walk up to the shrimp here and take a whiff.
I might go here for the dried Japanese goods and basic Asian pantry stuff like soy sauce or rice, when I can't be bothered to look for parking in the Ranch 99 center nearby. I'm never touching the meat and seafood here ever again. Last time I did, I was sick for two days.
P.S. Someone needs to tell the management here to hire a nanny, instead of letting their kids run around the store all day, and dear gods, at least a single person who knows proper English. Kukje's signs would make them an all-star on http://Engrish.com.
South San Francisco, CA 94080
(650) 952-2243
Ben Tre Vietnamese Homestyle Cuisine
Category:
Vietnamese
I must commend Ben Tre for serving up more than just pho -- though I'm sure the majority of the non-Vietnamese clientele order just that. Want your Slanted Door equivalents at a fraction of the price? I'm sure you can find it on their menu.
If you're not Vietnamese, you'll love this place. The food is very Western friendly. You can't taste the fish sauce. Nothing will shock your palate. You can be assured to get your dry, tasteless white meat chicken breast just the way you like it.
Spring rolls -- the only notable thing about the rolls is the high price. Their overly sweet peanut butter dipping sauce isn't much more than peanut butter, a squeeze of hoisin sauce, and tons of sugar.
Wonton noodle soup - instead of MSG, they use a massive amount of sugar to sweeten their chicken broth. The sweetness would almost be overwhelming, except that the strongest flavor is the massive amounts of raw garlic in the soup. Oh, and I almost forgot the undercooked, nearly raw bok choy.
Beef stew rice noodle soup - instead of actually slowly cooking down the carrots to make the stew naturally sweet, again, they use a massive amount of sugar to sweeten the broth. They prestew the beef, then throw in the carrots at the end - the carrots are still hard when served. The stew really has no depth or complexity of flavor other than sweetness.
Barbecued pork egg roll shrimp vermicelli noodles - decent. It's almost an impossible dish to make wrong, because it's more preparation than actual cooking. The cooking parts? Well, we ordered two servings, and both had burnt pork. And again, the dressing had only one repeating note: sweet sweet sweet.
Catfish clay pot - very small serving of catfish. Very salty and very sweet at the same time. And nearly breaded with diced garlic -- something that just does not belong in the dish at all.
For the area, this place deserves four, maybe even five stars. Vietnamese restaurants in the area, SF included, are almost without exception terrible. It's so bad around here that I might even eat here again.
(No. I lie. I can cook better Vietnamese food than this place, in less time than it would take me to drive there and back.)
P.S. Ben Tre is on the south end of Vietnam. They like everything sweeter down there. Kind of like here in the States. If you're a Southerner and/or you're a borderline Type 2 diabetic, you'd give it another star, of course.
8 Lists
|
"All Yelpers are equal, but some Yelpers are more equal than others."
- 339 Friends
- 261 Reviews
- 10 Review Updates
- 25 Firsts
- 33 Quick Tips
- 56 Fans
- 40 Local Photos
- 6 Events Submitted
- 8 Lists
-
Rating Distribution
Loading...
- View more graphs »
Review votes:
1834 Useful, 1701 Funny, and 1722 Cool
San Francisco, CA
Yelping SinceJanuary 2007
Things I LoveOrion, cooking, feeding loved ones, metaphysics, family, singing, semiotics, anthropology, games, writing, wandering, adventure, dancing, good shoes, great hair, bargain hunting, shopping
Find Me In-sightful
My HometownLike, the Valley
My Blog Or Website When I'm Not Yelping...I'm cooking.
Why You Should Read My ReviewsI don't pull punches and don't give a dime about popularity.
My Second Favorite Websitehttp://www.slickdeals.net -- my favorite's http://www.amazon.com
The Last Great Book I ReadThe City of Ember
My First ConcertMy piano recital at age 10.
My Favorite MovieIn the Mood for Love
My Last Meal On EarthThe blood of my enemies.
Don't Tell Anyone Else But...There's no such thing as Santa, really.
Most Recent DiscoveryCanon ELPH 300 HS for $20 -- thanks Best Buy!
Current CrushOrange
I'm ridiculously judgmental when it comes to Vietnamese restaurant food. This Ba Le not only makes the best Vietnamese baguettes I've found on the islands, but it's better than any baguette shop I've found in San Francisco. And yes, even better than the other Ba Le's I tried on Maui. Why? Better quality ingredients, better ratio, overall better taste -- not the price. Yeah, continental price for equivalent sammich: $3.00. BUT, still (sadly) the best food I found while in Maui for a week. I have no idea about their mixed plates. This is just for their baguettes. The 5 stars is relative compared to everything is I had in Maui. I'd give it a real 5 stars if they served real baguettes and not fat hoagie rolls, but beggars can't be choosers...