Amanda "C.P." K.'s Profile

SAKANA SAKAN SAKANA.

If you happen to swing by Maneki, please order a Sakana dinner.  It consists of tempura, sashimi, miso soup, rice, your choice salt broiled or teriyaki mackerel or salmon and fresh melon.  The tempura is fried to perfection.  My favorite is the tempura sweet potato.  The sashimi is unfortunately cut pretty poorly, but tastes delightful.  There is a good variety of types of fish and when paired with some freshly grated radish, wasabi, and soy sauce, it can't be beat.  The miso soup is how it should be, no surprises here.  I've only tried salt broiled mackerel here, and it is excellent!  It comes with freshly grated radish and lemon wedges, make sure to eat it with both.  

The fried oysters here are a good choice to share, and comes with a savory teriyaki like sauce.  It's extremely crunchy on the outside and served with raw cabbage.  Squeeze some lemon on your oyster too!

Maneki is definitely a place to make a reservation at, especially during the weekends.  Ahhh this place is super cute!  I love the decorative table they have in the front of the restaurant.  I also love the midnight blue quilt with a night scene and little girls in kimonos sewn in.  Be sure to come for a taste!

I can't say anything about the atmosphere or service about this place because I only ate the leftovers from my relative's lunch.

The appearance of the grub is no different than other dim sum joints.  I mean, how could you go about making it stand out, right?

My relatives brought back a butt load of food, and there was plenty of variety.  Available for me to taste included: cha sau bao, tofu skin roll ups, sesame coated shrimp and chive rice dumplings, radish cakes, pork ribs, pan fried noodles and sau mai.  

The cha sau bao was lovely!  The filling was savory, saucy, and the outer bun was fluffy, soft, and warm after I heated it up via microwave.  Definitely one of the better ones that I have eaten in my experience with dim sum.  It was bleach white, but who cares, really. (=

Sesame coated shrimp and chive rice dumplings are one of my favorites when it comes to dim sum.  Jade Garden's absolutely did not disappoint.  The filling was dense, generous with shrimp and chives, and the outer skin was QQ and delicious.  

Pork ribs were juicy, tender, soft, and full of spice.  I loved this!  I don't usually like ribs because of their fattiness, but this was heavenly!  Perfectly cooked, and delicious!

The tofu skin roll ups were creamy, soft, and succulent.  Just how they should be!  Full of pork flavor, and a thin outer skin, I thoroughly enjoyed every bite of it.  I liked the garlic and ginger incorporated into the pork filling.  It was on the oily side, but did not distract flavor.

Radish cake was creamy, full of radish flavor, and some pieces of meat.  Yum!  It was one of the best I've ever had.  I love how the sizing is perfect too!  Overall, very delicious, and I was craving for more at the end.

Sau mai is one of the most common dim sum items, it consists the most typical proteins in dim sum, pork and shrimp.  I liked the texture of the pork and shrimp, as it wasn't just gray and pink mush in my mouth.  The outer green wrapper was soft, and tender, just how I like it.  

I can't say how I felt about the other items because I didn't touch them, but they looked appetizing as well.

Mother told me that her experience at Jade Garden was great, and it was crowded.  This means it has to be good, right?

By the way, it was just as wonderfully tasty the 2nd day.  I ate another sesame coated shrimp and chive rice dumpling, tofu skin roll up, and sau mai, and pork rib.  So, so amazing!

I want t come here for myself in the future, to satisfy my dim sum cravings, for sure!

My mother and father brought home a couple almond, cheese, chocolate almond, and chocolate croissants from this bakery.

Another time, I tried their pear tart at a dinner party.

The almond croissants here are a little less buttery than most.  I guess that's a good thing right?  Though, I'd rather splurge on calories.  Otherwise, the flavor is decent.  I like the almond paste inside, creamy and full of almond flavor.  

The chocolate almond croissants here are pretty decent.  I like the combination of chocolate and almonds, it's kind of like nutella in a sense.  Though a little deeper, and richer.  

I didn't try the cheese croissant, but it looked fair.

The pear tart from The French Bakery is to die for.  The pears are sweet and tart.  The crust is perfection.  The custard, heavenly.

I'd come back! (=

4.75 stars.

I came here for a last dinner out with my grandparents before they were going back to Taiwan after their visit.  I love my grandp's!  They are some of the coolest and sweetest people I have ever encountered.  Definitely!

Anyway, back to the review.  So, we wanted to steer a little bit away from the raw fish, still ordering some, but having some variety as well.  I referred to Yelp for some recommendations on the cooked dishes.  After scanning through, I figured everything out, even the raw stuff!

The place was PACKED, rest assured, I made the smart decision of making a reservation beforehand.  On the negative side, we had to wait a while before getting seated.  BOO.  Oh well, I had nothing to complain about because we had a guaranteed seat.

We were seated after about 10-15 minutes.  A little long for my liking, but it was forgivable.  Later, we were actually moved to a different, bigger table.  It was a lot more comfortable, and a circle booth esque table.  Much more comfortable!  I got over the wait before getting seated.  

Looking over the menu, just to see if there were anymore yummy dishes to order, I found the food that I had seen on Yelp.  After browsing through the menu, my family and i had made decisions on what to order.

I did the ordering, as well as had the reservation made under my name.  I was pretty much the hostess for the night.  :D

For the meal tonight we had chose the following:

-Broiled taro with miso sauce

-Tempura

-The special: fried oysters and teriyaki halibut

-Spicy tuna roll

-Scallop roll

-Sweet shrimp nigiri (comes with fried shrimp heads)

-Albacore nigri

The tempura dinner and special comes with miso soup, salad, rice, and fruit at the end.  The food came rather quickly, considering how many people were in the restaurant.  The miso soup and salad came first.  It was the best miso soup I've ever had!  Not too salty at all, with soft pieces of tofu and seaweed.  The salad consisted of cucumber and shrimp tossed in vinegar and sugar.  Refreshing, but pretty regular...something I could easily whip up at home.

Following the miso soup and salad was the two rolls: spicy tuna and scallop.  Starting with the spicy tuna, it was just the right amount of heat for me.  The tuna was generous, and rice was cooked perfectly, as always!  Crunchy veggies too, win!  Moving onto the scallop, one of the best things on the item, were a great texture, with not too much mayo.  Throughout, there was fish eggs mixed in, awesome!

The broiled taro with miso sauce came afterwards  OH MY GOSH.  SO GOOD!  The taro was super soft and creamy.  I absolutely loved the miso soup, subtly sweet, and there unidentified crunchy tidbits on the top.  Crystallized sugar?  I'm ordering this every time I come here from now on!  It might be my new favorite dish from here.

Next, was the special: fried oysters and teriyaki halbiut.  Shortly after was the tempura.  The fried oysters were ehhh...too small, and kinda sandy!  Even the salad on the side was more legit!  The teriyaki halibut was good though, with a nice savory and slightly sugary sauce.  Yum!  The halibut was nicely cooked too, very flaky and tender.  Tempura was some of the best I've ever had.  It's a hard item to mess up though.  I don't think I've eaten tempura that was not up to par.  I ate sweet potato tempura, and it was amazing!  The sweet potato was fluffy and super yummy!  The soy sauce and radish complimented it very, very well.  Eggplant, white fish, lotus root, pumpkin, and shrimp came with the tempura dish as well.  Everything looked appetizing!

Once we finished up the special and tempura, we went onto the two nigiris: albacore tuna and sweet shrimp.  I love how they give you fried shrimp heads with the sweet shrimp.  It's a very nice addition to the dish!  The sweet shrimp is succulent, and a jumbo size!  Another must try at the restaurant.  The heads are seasoned well, who knows  what's in that seasoning!  Albacore tuna is almost always a winner for me.  The tuna here is especially tasty because of its pure freshness, and texture is very satisfying indeed.  

Before the meal ended, we were given fresh fruit and chocolate kisses.  What a wonderful ending to the meal!  

I'm definitely coming back, I want to try their black cod and sushi PIZZA!  Taro will be on the ordering list too.

KEY LIME PIE FRO YO.

Where have you been all my life?

Red Mango recently created a new flavor of fro yo.

They took the amazing flavors of key lime pie, and made it into a yogurt!  How cool is that?

I've had Yoplait key lime pie yogurt, and I really like it.  One of my favorite snacks!  

The key lime pie fro yo is down right amazing.  Go get some!  Now!  You're missing out. (;  

I came here after watching Step Up 3D with my friend, Kathryn H.  We were in the mood for some fro yo, and stopped by here.  She had been telling me about the key lime pie fro yo before the movie, and I was excited to try the new flavor.  Additionally, I ran into my best girl friend, Mindy W., who I hadn't seen ALL summer.  Anyway, back to the fro yo.  I topped my fro yo with graham cracker crumbs and mochi (my favorite topping ever).  I had never gotten graham cracker crumbs as a topping before, and didn't know what to expect.  After receiving our fro yo, we walked to the metro bus stop, so we could head back to M.I.  Busily eating our fro yo, and enjoying every bite of it, we were in heaven!  The key lime pie fro yo tastes exactly like frozen Yoplait yogurt!  The same delicious key lime pie flavors, and a creamy texture, mMmmMMMm!  

The graham cracker crumbs were a great topping choice.  Especially because graham cracker crumbs kind of resemble the crust in key lime pie.  The mochi was amazing as always, and for some reason, they gave me A LOT of it today!  WIN!  Life has never been so good.

I'm eager to come back and try their MADAGASCAR VANILLA.