Kathleen M.'s Profile

This Tony & Alba's is the original so it's got gobs more personality than the one on Stevens Creek. It's the kind of neighborhood pizza place that's been here forever.and you can see it from the faded Yankee memorabilia to the pictures of current local kids' sports teams they're sponsoring. The guys that work here are super friendly and know everyone.

Whenever I'm at this location I only get sandwiches. I've had their Pesto Chicken and Chicken Pizzaiola Sandwiches. Both consist of a good quality marinated baked chicken breast, provolone, lettuce, tomato, and onion on a sourdough roll. The pizzaiola sauce is like a pizza sauce with lots of chunks of onions and peppers. You may want to get it on the side because it quickly deteriorates the structural integrity of the bread (a.k.a. makes it into sog city). The sourdough roll is one of the best things about the sandwich.

The sandwiches come with a choice of Italian or Caesar salad. I've only had the Italian and it's a nice mix of romaine lettuce, Kalamata olives, feta, roasted red peppers, and onions. The regular-sized sandwich is $9.79. On my last visit I thought that's what I ordered but I ended up with a half sandwich which is $2 cheaper (a friend paid so I didn't realize I'd been charged $2 less.) It actually was the perfect amount of food for me since the whole sandwich is pretty substantial. It's as though the owner ("Tony"?) looked me up and down and was like "this chick only needs a half."

The basket of focaccia pretty is pretty darn good. So is the cannoli ($3.10).

You should run, not walk (or should I say click, not um... not-click) to the websites for Benihana, Chevys, Daphne's, Cold Stone, and Baskin Robbins and sign up on their mailing list so you get free complete meals (or ice cream as the case may be) on your birthday. Benihana's coupon is by far the best - a free meal worth up to $30. And they were nice enough to include extras like fried rice within my $30 allotment. They also take a picture for your birthday and present it to you in a pasteboard Benihana frame.

The last time I went to Benihana was five years ago for a promotional deal. When that promo was over, we had no interest in returning to the Burlingame Benihana for full price. This time around my husband asked to go back to Benihana for full price only a week later.

I'm not exactly sure what made our trip to the Cupertino Benihanas so great this time around. Three big improvements:

1) Not ordering the cheapest chicken entree (Hibachi Chicken) which is very bland. Getting the Benihana Chicken Picante for a little more might have been the best $1.50 I've ever spent. It wasn't groundbreaking but the spicy sauce elevated it to something the Hibachi Chicken was not.

2) Figuring out what to order next time. A meal at Benihana includes soup, salad, grilled shrimp, veggies, entree meat, and (depending on what you order) ice cream. I'm usually full by the time I'm done with the shrimp (and there's still veggies and meat to go). We noticed that the group of four at the end of our grilling station ordered two entrees and sushi. I think the way to go here for two people is to get one entree and the fried rice. It's plenty of food. As it was, ordering two entrees we had so much food left over that we each had another full meal the next night. (Also, leftovers for some reason don't taste as good from Benihana so you want to eat your food there.)

3) The fried rice is definitely a must order. Again, nothing earth shattering but it's pretty good and only $3. Plus you get to see the chef do tricks flipping an egg. (Don't miss out on the onion volcano or the shrimp in the hat tricks either.)

One thing that was a definite health concern was the chef's predilection for using his spatula to transfer food to the diner's plate. That in itself would be fine, I just question his spatula having direct contact with someone's plate and then continuing to serve five other patrons.

I had the Teriyaki Beef with Shrimp combo. I didn't realize that the shrimp was just extra shrimp from the complimentary grilled shrimp. Normally I wouldn't mind (since the shrimp is my favorite part of a Benihana meal) but the shrimp wasn't cooked as long this time and lacked grilled flavor. The Teriyaki Beef was our favorite of the proteins.

The earliest time we could get seats for two when I called the same day was for a 9:30 seating. Definitely call ahead.

It's always fun to see your food being prepared. There's a certain amount of suspense involved in seeing if what's being cooked is yours or someone else's. That beef is... Ours! Yay!

You know you're at Shirin when you see the sign that says "Karoon." You can't expect to find Shirin by doing something so obvious as looking for a "Shirin" sign. Shirin is attached to Karoon Persian market, and is a very bare bones Persian deli. Also, a trip to the bathroom here is confusing since you'll end up in the market opening a door that it full of boxes and random goods and couldn't possibly be the bathroom, but it is.

At least the food was cheap.

The people that worked there were really nice and brought us a complimentary appetizer of bread and hot baba ganooush. It was topped with yogurt and olive oil. I usually like baba g but I wasn't into this. Nice of them though.

We ordered:

Shirazi Salad ($4.99?) - I've had Shirazi Salad (diced cucumbers, tomatoes, and some onions) before, but this was way too vinegary. My husband wouldn't even eat it.

Ghaymeh ($3.99?) - I thought this was the best dish we tried. It was a pretty competent rendition with yellow lentils and chunks of beef. Unfortunately it wasn't served tah dig style over crunchy rice, but it was still good.

Koobideh ($5.99) - Fairly large portion for the money - a full ground beef skewer with saffroned basmati rice. Unfortunately it was bland.

Zeresht Polo ($7.99?) - Again, the meat was very bland, though it was moist. The rice portion was very disappointing compared to renditions at other restaurants (particularly Pomegranate). Here there was no complexity (no orange zest or pistachios for instance) just barberries and it was way too sweet. It's usually made with dark meat but we requested chicken breast and they didn't charge us extra.

People are nice. But there's better Persian food around.

My Persian Rankings

1. Khayyam's - Albany (the master - now closed - against which all Persian restaurants will forever be judged)
2. Pomegranate - Berkeley, Walnut Creek, Concord (great barg and joojeh kabob with zereshk polo; pomegranate chicken is good but sweet taste can be cloying)
3. Shalizaar - Belmont (I've only been to the old San Mateo location)
4. House of Kabobs - Sunnyvale
5. Chelokababi - Sunnyvale
6. Yas - San Jose (really impressive selection of polos - but other food is just OK)
7. Afghan Persian Kabob - Sunnyvale
8. Leila - San Francisco
9. Kabob House Halal - Santa Clara
10. Rose Market - Mountain View
11. Deezi's Cafe Persia - San Jose
12. SHIRIN - SUNNYVALE
13. City Kabob - Sunnyvale
14. Alborz - Berkeley
15. Kabob House - Pleasant Hill
16. Bijan - Fremont (food too oily, and stews either too sweet or too ketchup-y)

I'm not in "loves" with these cupcakes.

I came here with some friends last weekend, mistakenly thinking it was their grand opening with coupons from their website in tow. (The grand opening was actually the week before. Oops.). My "buy two cupcakes, get one free" coupon was still good though (check the website for coupons) so we took advantage of that.

We arrived at 8:30, before they closed at 9:00. Since it was so late there were only two flavors of the large cupcakes ($3.25) to choose from, Caramel and Red Velvet. (They also carry mini cupcakes for, I think, $1.50.) The counter girl highly recommended the Caramel so we got two of those. My friends got the Red Velvet. It's a cute little cupcake store, but the only places to sit are stools around the counter facing the windows (no tables) so we had our cupcakes wrapped to take home where it would be easier to cut into them with knife and fork (I know - blasphemy!).

My friends liked the Red Velvet, and said it was better than Sugar Butter Flour's rendition. (I'm trying to avoid artificial dyes since I'm preggers. Otherwise I would have been all over a Red Velvet cupcake.) My husband and I were very unimpressed with our shared Caramel. The frosting added nothing and we actually did a frosting-ectomy. At least there was less frosting on it than most places. The Caramel really didn't taste very caramelly, and the best part was the piece of Caramello (the candy bar) on top. That was probably the most dissatisfied we've felt with a cupcake purchased at a cupcakery.

It's not a good sign when you give away your second cupcake.

Since the Caramel is the only cupcake I tried I have to give Love's two stars. Wow, I just looked at the Yelp reviews and it's a review bloodbath.

Amok at Chez Sovan Can Lead to MURDER...

Why am I perpetually disappointed by Southeast Asian restaurants that aren't Thai? It's not just Cambodian like Chez Sovan either - I've also been burned by Burmese and maligned by Malaysian. (One exception: Battambang, the Cambodian restaurant in Downtown Oakland).

I'd heard a lot of good things about Chez Sovan, despite it's location in a rough patch on the edge of downtown. Well that location isn't open for dinner (plus, I want to live), so we checked out their location in Campbell.

We started with Sach Ang (Shish Kabob). For $2 you get a very substantial stick o' meat. The beef was chewy but was nicely flavored and much better than the chicken which was dark meat and had texture issues.

There are two portion sizes for almost all entrees, with small entrees priced at $7.95 and large at $10.95. Small is still huge. We ordered one app (everyone had one huge skewer) and three entrees for four people and we still had leftovers. (Mostly that was the Amok but I'll get to that.) We shared three entrees:

Samlaw Curry Moin. This reminded us of Thai yellow curry chicken since it included coconut milk, potatoes, and carrots.

Cha Kroeng Moin. This was a stir fried chicken dish with bell peppers, onions, and carrots. Both this and the yellow curry were fine but not special. Also, the chicken was dark meat.

Amok with Chicken. Huge mistake. HUGE MISTAKE. People on Yelp rave about this dish (the catfish version), which is also Chez Sovan's specialty. It must be an acquired taste. Basically chicken, spinach, coconut milk, and spices are steamed in a banana leaf until it's one big pyramid-shaped pile of mush. I wouldn't even know the ingredients (because who can see through a pyramid of slop?) except that I looked them up on their menu. You could taste the spices and see a couple pieces of chicken here and there among the Amok mush, but it was for the most part Amok run amok.

I just looked up Amok in the dictionary, and I shit you not, this was the definition: 1. (among members of certain Southeast Asian cultures) a psychic disturbance characterized by depression followed by a manic urge to murder.

That's right - A MANIC URGE TO MURDER. That's probably because they just ate Amok.

Seriously, apparently "running amok" is derived from the Malay/Indonesian/Filipino word amuk, meaning "mad with rage" (uncontrollable rage).

We also decided that although foods steamed in a banana leaf always sound good, they ALWAYS turn out disappointing. ALWAYS.

We were some of the last diners there and after we ordered dessert we discovered that the chefs had already left.

When we arrived, Chez Sovan was practically empty but the parking lot was full. We discovered that was because the Coach Lounge shared the lot. That must be SOME bar, because the scariest dude ever passed us on the way to our car. He had a long greyish beard and long stringy tails of hair on each side of his head. We each sketched him after the fact - doesn't everyone do that? If you combine all our drawings he apparently was sporting an anchor tattoo, Rambo style headband, and the hot look of overalls and no shirt, all the while encircled by flies and an everpresent booze smell. Also, according to one person he was a hobo and Coach Lounge was offering half price hobo night. Doesn't this make you want to check out Coach Lounge?

P.S. Kari S. just wrote to me that they thought the amok tasted like curried cat food. I thought that was the PURRRRRFECT description.

Stop #4 on Famous Fat Dave's food tour: Sahara.

Most people going to Sahara are there for its famous shawarma. Dave wanted to take us here for another reason, which was oddly enough NOT meat related. And that reason was their salad. Dave calls their Shepherd Salad the best salad ever. He may just be right.

I don't really remember the specifics of the salad that well other than there's a heap of lightly dressed diced tomatoes and cucumbers. What I DO remember is the Turkish feta that's shaved over the top. Compared to the Greek crumbly kind, the creamy Turkish feta makes all the difference because there's better cheese distribution - EVERY bite is a feta bite. PLUS, with each bite of salad the creamy feta sort of melts in your mouth.

It comes with a piece of house Turkish bread. Dave also scored for us a few shavings of beef gyro to sample which were good. But it was all about the salad.

And who can resist their slogan, lit up over the front door, "Let's MEAT at Sahara."

Stop #2 on Famous Fat Dave's food tour: Ferdinando's.

We joked before we entered this place that if it was busy it would be funny to say, "Wow, this place is mobbed."

Ferdinando's opened in 1904 and it is the real deal. The guy behind the counter has a thick Sicilian accent. And the place is mobbed. Take that as you want.

We got our food to go and enjoyed it at some park at the Redhook docks. Thankfully we didn't get murdered though the arancini were TO DIE FOR. Seriously four of us shared one giant lightly fried and covered in bread crumbs rice ball nearly the size of your head. It was filled with ground beef, mozzarella, peas, and tomato sauce and covered in some more tomato sauce and ricotta. I recently had arancini from another Italian deli and it did not compare. At all.

We also shared a half pint of octopus salad. I didn't really know if I'd like octopus but this was really, really good.

Tony's only makes 73 of their World Pizza Cup winning Pizza Margheritas a day so you know when you're there for the first time and it's in stock, you gotta get it. This winning pie uses San Felice Flour (apparently that's special) and cooks for only 90 seconds in a 900 degree oven. 90 seconds!

So while waiting 90 seconds for our pie, they served us complimentary house bread with 3 dipping sauces. The first was olive oil with chopped raw garlic, the second was plain olive oil, and the third was olive oil with some pesto. The garlic one was the big winner. The house bread was fantastic and consisted of two types - a focaccia which had a nice flavor and big slices of something like pugliese.

I have to say the pizza looked beautiful with lots of bright red tomatoes, big splotches of fresh mozz, and basil leaves. The crust texture was perfect but was a little on the bitter side. (That crust bitterness reminded me of Lombardi's in New York.) Overall the pie was actually a little bland. I prefer shredded basil to get better basil coverage and thus more basil per bite. Oddly enough even though it was a little bland, there were some bites that were overly salty. These are minor criticisms because I thought the pie was very good on the whole. I just see ways for improvement. FYI: The Marg is $18 and on the small side for feeding two people. It only comes in one size.

The server was really friendly and knowledge about their pizzas. I didn't like that the busser refilled our glasses by lifting them up by the top where we put our mouths.

They obviously put a lot of care and respect into the pizzas and ingredients and I really would like to come back. There are THREE award winning pizzas on Tony's menu (the Marg, the Sicilian, and their Cal Italia), but next time I would definitely want to try their (non-award winning) New York or New Jersey style pizzas.

My Top 6 Pizzerias in the Bay Area:
1) Little Star, San Francisco
2) Pie in the Sky, Berkeley
3) Zachary's, Berkeley/Oakland/San Ramon
4) Patxi's, Palo Alto/San Francisco
5) Speederia, San Carlos
6) TONY'S PIZZERIA NAPOLETANA, SAN FRANCISCO

6th best! Pretty good!

What a terrible name. That's Yogurt. If you're going to be so literal why not "Sorry, It's Not Ice Cream."

All I hear is Porky Pig when I see the name of this place. That's... That's... That's.. That's Yogurt folks!

So we went to this new bright yogurt place in an old bank building last Saturday night. The place was loud and hopping at 10:30 - in fact we stood with our yogurt for 5 minutes before a table opened up.

At That's Yogurt you pay for your yogurt and your toppings by weight (39 cents per ounce) and it's all self serve. I like the feel of "unlimited toppings." Granted, you're still paying for them but you can add as many different kinds as you want. The counter girl warned us that the toppings weigh more than the yogurt, so beware.

Unfortunately I had to ask for sample cups to try the four flavors (two of the six flavors were out). I'm not sure why they don't have sample cups on the table when you come in, but apparently someone is usually there to assist you. I tried all four flavors. The CLEAR LOSER was the plain. It was terrible. It didn't even taste like vanilla; I don't even know what it tasted like, but it didn't taste like any flavor you'd actually want to eat.

The best flavor was the chocolate, second was the green apple (tart - sort of like the newer yogurt places), and third was the mango. None of us were blown away by the yogurt flavors but we were already here so we had to eat something.

The yogurt here generally reminds me more of old school frozen yogurt places from the 80s, like Willow Glen Frozen Yogurt, and less like Red Mango or the current crop of tart yogurt places. I like both styles, but I just wanted to mention this in case you come here and expect a good plain yogurt like at Red Mango.

My husband and I shared a chocolate cup. He added chocolate related doo dads to his side (Kit Kat pieces, chocolate chips) and I added fresh fruit to mine. The candy bar and brownie pieces were stale. Your better bet is the fresh fruit and they have a big selection (blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, mango, kiwi), though the pineapple looked really pale and (I assume) not very good.

There are security cameras all over the place here which is a little odd. The decor element I found the weirdest was the set of frames on the wall by Umbra that still had the Umbra inserts.

Stop #1 on Famous Fat Dave's food tour: Murray's Cheese Shop.

We didn't actually get to experience Murray's for ourselves. Dave arrived a little late for out tour with a peace offering in hand - a slab of cheese from Murray's. I like cheese but unless I have crackers or a baguette I don't usually eat entire hunks of it. This Pecorino Ginepro might be the finest cheese I've ever tasted. I happily ate big chunks of the stuff. I tried to save my appetite by only eating half the slab (we did have 5 hours of a food tour to go and cheese is something that would keep the rest of the evening, better than say, a Coney Island Nathan's dog), but later I came to regret this decision. I put the other half in the refrigerator where we were staying, and the people living there ate the other half before I woke up. That's how you know it's good. But still, damn, I lost my cheese half.

Anyway, best cheese I've ever tasted.