Frank C.'s Profile

OK, this 4-star rating is a blend of a 3 from me and a 5 from the kids.

This is a great kitschy place serving delicious, unashamedly unhealthy food. We didn't help things by ordering the full rack of ribs, the fried chicken platter, and the pulled pork dinner platter.

First off: what worked --
- Attentive, friendly, personal service. No server-droids here!
- Generously meaty rack of ribs with a tasty BBQ sauce -- no "where's the meat?" experience with this rack!
- Tender fried chicken
- Great comfort-food sides: mashed potatoes, mac-and-cheese, baked beans with big chunks of rib meat, a great chicken vegetable soup, and their eponymous biscuits smothered in a sausage-rich gravy.
- Cute decorations: read all the amusing signs and took a look at the the photos.

And then what work, garnering the 3-star review from me --
- Texture on the pork dishes, especially the pulled pork, which was a little tough and stringy. Having tasted what can happen when you just throw the pork in a slow cooker and let it go all day, the pulled pork was quiet stringy.
- Not enough flavor on the chicken. It seems like they brined it given the relatively tender chicken breast portion -- but maybe without enough salt or sugar in the brine? Anyway, the chicken was bland and flavorless (though great texture as I mentioned above).

Despite my criticism, the kids couldn't get enough of everything. They couldn't even pick a favorite dish because they declared everything yummy (though the boy did complain of the BBQ sauce numbing his tongue -- but he yells "spicy" at the most mild of sauces, so that's just the way his taste buds are wired).

We'll try it again, as the food really was a few flavor kicks away from being really good. As it was, it was ok with potential.

For my wife's birthday, I had been thinking about driving all the way down to Aki's in San Jose for a special occasion cake. But I wanted to see if I could find a tasty cake closer to home.

Fellow Yelpers guided me to Cocola in Redwood City, and I'm sure glad they did. Thanks, gang!

After seeing the beautiful cakes on their Website, I ended up ordering two cakes (I was a mouse-click away from ordering three but my better judgment prevailed, sadly). We ended up with the banana crunchy mousse and the rouge (a multi-fruit-but-mostly-strawberry cake).

The entire party of 6 adults and 5 children declared both cakes delicious. The cakes were light, flavorful, and not too heavy -- more like traditional Asian cakes than their European cousins. The decorations were beautifully intricate as well -- even better than their eye-popping photos on their Website (http://securestore.sit...).

They aren't cheap, but if you want cheap and generic, go to Costco. If you want tasty, lovingly crafted special occasion cakes, come to Cocolas.

The Web ordering worked flawlessly as well. I ordered them up, put them in shopping card, indicated which location I wanted to pick up from, got an email confirmation right away, and found both cakes waiting for me at the appointed time.

I'm guessing they don't get that many orders over the Internet, as the person who brought out the cakes said, "oh, the Internet order" when I showed her my email confirmation. But don't let that stop you: for your special occasions, find your way to the odd Redwood City industrial strip and enjoy.

This used to be the home for a much better Japanese restaurant called Otake. The name and menu change has resulted in a 2-star downgrade in my book.

We went for dinner on a chilly December evening -- and everyone in the restaurant except the wait staff were still in their jackets. Not sure if their heater was broken or if they are just too frugal to run it, but definitely call beforehand if you don't like the "mommy, I'm so cold" complaints from the kids.

We got a sushi and sashimi platter, beef udon, a combo sashimi-katsu dinner, and a few of their specialty rolls.
- The sushi quality is maybe a tiny step above what you'd get at an AYCE place (which is to say, it was pretty poor). The texture of some of the pieces was definitely not right, and a few pieces were still way too frozen.
- Our normally enthusiastic 6-year old girl complained that the beef in the udon was too chewy. I agreed with her, though the broth was fine.
- The special rolls had that "everything tastes the same given how much mayo/sauce is in here" problem.
- The combo dinner was festively presented (though not as attractively as the similar items from Otake), but only so-so in terms of tastiness.

The decor is still basically the same from Otake (which set a very high bar), but the new team has made it look more dumpy by not lighting up the cool wooden fish case along the back wall, adding weird plastic wrap to the LCD TV on the wall, and sitting two tacky space heaters in the back corner (which don't work to heat the place).

Even after a hefty Restaurant-dot-com discount, this place was overpriced.

The high spot of the evening was the friendly and efficient wait staff, but that wasn't enough to redeem the quality of the food. Head over to Tokie's or even Tokai instead if you want Japanese in Foster City.

On the strength of the 4-star average rating on Yelp, I had the lunch buffet here with my former coworkers. Verdict: yum!

We were on the fence between the standard bearer of Indian buffets, Amber Indian on El Camino, and trying out this new-to-us restaurant. We're glad we took the plunge: tasty food, though with flavors not quite as refined and bright as Amber.

If the food isn't quite as good as Amber's, it's close and definitely a step up from the more typical fare (e.g., Bollywood in San Mateo or Tava in San Carlos or Tumeric in Sunnyvale). On the plus side food wise, Sakoon had great variety, including a nice fish curry which I had not seen before.

Sakoon also get points for a delicious chai (which costs extra) and the fabulous decor. There's a segment of the floor with inlaid lights and brightly colored tiles: very groovy.  Service was unobtrusive and prompt: every time we got up to try something else, our old plates were whisked away without us noticing.

I think the lunch buffet was $12 or something like that: definitely fair value given the variety of dishes and too-cool ambience. Also on the plus side: the place is bigger overall, so you don't have to worry about the massive lunchtime crush as you do as Amber.

Great neighborhood sandwich place. Thanks to fellow Yelpers, I knew to order the fish cake sandwich and extra eggrolls. Both were fabulous. In addition to the fish cake sandwich ($2.75) we also got the BBQ pork, a pork cake of some sort, and chicken (all insanely value-priced $2 each).

All were made on the spot and used a softer bread than you'll find at Lee's Sandwiches (our oldest son appreciated that, as he's lost a bunch of teeth and had a few unfortunate cavities). In addition to the usual carrots, radish, jalapeno peppers and cilantro, they also had a dollop of yummy special mayonaise-based sauce.

Definitely try the eggroll, even if you don't typically like them: crisp, tasty, and not greasy at all. My little 4-year old was originally skeptical but that turned into a big "yummy!' as soon as soon as he took a bite.

The rest of the store (teeny tiny) has a sliding glass door fridge in the corner and a rack or two of assorted random processed foods. It was pretty crowded when I went at around 5:30 pm on Sunday, but they took my order quickly and (as I mentioned) made the sandwiches on the spot.

The sandwiches are worth the somewhat claustrophobic and definitely messy in store experience.  For $10, we got 4 sandwiches and 2 eggrolls -- more food than my family of 5 could finish. You can't say that too often these days.

Sadly, your fearless Yelp reviewer must report that this place has experienced a precipitous decline in the last few years.

Food: 2 (though their special trout deserves a special shout out)
Ambiance: 1
Service: 2

In our most recent visit, we had the pumpkin curry with chicken, the chicken satay (our kids' favorite), a fried trout in sweet chili sauce, and the BBQ pork (usually a crowd pleaser).  All the land base meats suffered from the same problem: it was dry, virtually tasteless and required the sauce (whether it was the curry, the peanut sauce, or the honey sauce) to give it any flavor at all.

I'd give the fried trout a 4 star rating on its own: it was perfectly crispy and carefully deboned, and the sweet chili sauce smothered over one side complemented the fish perfectly. For 5 stars, I would have taken some of the sugar out of the sauce and maybe increased its sour (the traditional Thai sweet & sour balance was too tilted towards sweet). But kudos for getting the texture right on: deliciously crisp on the outside and tender trout on the inside.

I'd describe the decor as "messy house": there are phonebooks and newspapers strewn throughout the place and various dying houseplants shoved over into a corner. The wall decorations (carved animals) were cute but needed a dusting.

Even though the place was virtually deserted at high noon on Saturday afternoon, we had trouble getting more rice (for which they charge $2 a pop) or water. When we walked in, the waitress took maybe 30 seconds to even acknowledge us because she was fussing with something (separating plastic bags?) behind the register.

In general, I think the owners and staff have just given up on this place. Their heart is no longer in it, and it's evident in the overall sloppiness of the place and the tasteless, stringy meats. How can you make chicken in a Thai curry tough?

Anyway, head down to Karakade in Redwood City or Thai Basil in Sunnyvale for great Thai food.

OK, we took a slight gamble on this one since it's gotten pretty uneven reviews on Yelp, and we've been on a solid 4-star tour of neighborhood restaurants. But armed with our Restaurant dot com gift certificate, we gave the ol' Restaurant-O-Rama wheel a spin -- and emerged mostly pleased.

Food: 3.5 stars, pointing towards 4
Decor: 5 stars
Service: 4 stars

First, the decor of this place is top rate. Everything from the cool water fountains burbling on every table to the high-concept bathrooms to the very cool display of wood fish down the side wall was tastefully and beautifully done. Ditto for the place settings and presentation of all the dishes. On the strength of the ambience along, our kids declared this the coolest restaurant they had ever been to.

The menu is not as inventive as the decor, but it's decent. The omakase (chef's choice) sashimi sampler featured fresh fish but little imagination: we got slices of salmon, tuna, hamachi, red snapper, and a few other standards. There was a delicious sampling of a white fish which we could not identify (ono?), though.

We all loved the garlic infused edamame, though they were a little messy to eat since the tasty garlic sauce coated the outside of each pod. Our daughter Katye did not enjoy her katsu don as much as she usually enjoys it, as the donburi version had some egg and onion to interfere with the pure delight of fried pork.  :-)

The servers were in general very attentive though failed to notice that our soy sauce bottle was empty (we even flipped the lid over, Chinese tea pot-style, to give them a hint).

We capped off the satisfying dinner with a stroll to the nearby Foster City levee to watch the beautiful sunset.

Price-wise, it was just right with the gift certificate, maybe a touch on the expensive side without the certificate. It's definitely worth a visit to enjoy the overall ambience, though. Great to see dressed-to-the-nines restaurants in surprising places!

Our tour of nearby Yelp 4-star restaurants continues with a weekend jaunt to Christie's. I agree with my fellow Yelp reviewers on this one: fresh, friendly, and tasty. Definitely a 4-star experience, and I don't give out 4- and 5-star reviewers lightly.  Bottom line: Christie's is the cozy, no-frills alternative to nearby Stack's (which we love, too). Bonus for us: even at just before noon on Saturday, no long wait, either.

We ordered an assortment of generously portioned breakfast and lunch foods for our Saturday mid-day meal: pancakes with bacon + eggs, chicken fried steak (one of my wife's fave comfort foods), and -- for the kids -- a cheeseburger, and two servings of chicken fingers with fries. All the food arrived promptly, tasted great, and was served by very friendly waitstaff.

People are right about these pancakes: there is something very satisfying about their flavor and texture profile. I wouldn't go so far as to say donut-like, but definitely in the direction of a moist crumb cake versus the dry discs you'd get at an IHOP.

The kids loved it, especially their potato products (hash browns and french fries). My over-easy egg was cooked just right as well. The wife gave two thumbs up to the chicken fried steak. All in all, a great Saturday brunch.

We've started our 4-Yelp star or better tour of nearby restaurants, and I really wanted to give this a 4-star rating like most of the Yelp reviewers on this site. But call it a 3.5 leaning towards 4 stars if you order the right things. But for our visit, I'd call it a 3 leaning towards 3.5 stars, as the food was uneven.

We arrived well after the typical lunch hour (around 2 pm) and were seated promptly. We ordered what other Yelpers order: fish dumplings, beef noodle soup, sesame cold noodles, and the pork pancake. Everything was good to great except for the sesame cold noodles, which were strangely flavorless.

Definitely get the fish dumplings: great flavor with a nice thick skin. My kids LOVED the beef noodle soup, which had perfectly done noodles (I'm guessing house made), generous amounts of beef and baby bokchoy (hurrah!), and a light, not too greasy broth. We all enjoyed the pork pancake, which was beautifully browned on both side, also not too greasy, and filled with a nice filling.

The main reason for our 3 rating was the sesame cold noodles, which lacked any flavor depth. The noodles were a good texture, but the other ingredients were  bland ingredients (bean sprouts, chicken, shredded napa cabbage), and the sesame sauce did NOT come riding to the rescue as it often does with this dish.

Prices are fair, and service was mostly prompt, though they forgot to offer a to-go container at the end. The bathroom is cleaner than many neighborhood Chinese restaurants.

We'll be back, and hopefully next time we won't have such a standout flavorless dish holding back the extra Yelp star.

For the impatient reader, here's the Reader's Digest version: good to great food but held back by the tired decor and indifferent service.

The food ranges from fine to fantastic (some dishes were a 3, some were 4 verging on 5); the on-the-water location is great, but the decor is old and cluttered (2 stars: classic neighborhood Chinese place); and the service is meh. I really wanted the decor and service to rise to the level of the food -- but this place just can't put together the complete package.

But before you write this place off altogether, let me put it this way: with some interior and staff upgrades, this place could easily be a 4 or even high 4, as some of the food coming out of the kitchen is best-in-class. So give it a try for the food and try to ignore the drab interior and indifferent service.

Strangely for a Chinese-American family, we don't go out for Chinese food often. So armed with our restaurant dot com gift certificate, we headed out to Diamond Harbor with fairly low expectations given the Yelp reviews.  

At 5:45 pm on a Friday night, we were one of only 3 or 4 families already in the room. So we were seated promptly but then only given half the menu (their laminated house specialities menu, but not their regular fare). This omission set the tone for service.

We ordered four dishes: the small BBQ mixed platter (pork and chicken), mixed vegetables, tofu with seafood sauce, rock cod with vegetables. The BBQ was the average. Skip it and get better BBQ cheaper at Hing Lung in SF.

But the other dishes were above average. The fried tofu covered in a seafood sauce in particular was a standout: fresh, tender tofu carefully fried, generous seafood (crab) in the sauce, and a just-right flavor profile with hints of dried scallop. It is easily the best tofu dish I've had in years.

The rock cod with vegetables was also quite good: the fish was marinated in a rice wine concoction, and all the elements were stir fried together to just the right texture.

The mixed vegetables were also skillfully prepared -- though at nearly $10, a touch overpriced.

All in all, we would have been glad to have paid these prices had we been in a hotel setting with great service. But as it was--with poor service and a run down ambiance--we just didn't enjoy the overall experience.