Fillmore Street, San Francisco Part II (Picture heavy!)

Combining some posts again, and adding in new ones. Here are more food porn on Fillmore Street, in poor lighting that adds to their mysteriousness. Just kidding.

- La Mediterranee - Fillmore: my friend A. recommended this place to me and I owe her a big favor for it. This place singlehandedly made me a fan of Middle Eastern/Mediterranean food. I always thought my tastebuds are prejudice against the cuisine. Sure hubby and I loved the Turkish Kebab Truck in Yokohama, but since that was fast food it's not a fair comparison. In Japan we've also had authentic Arabian food, complete with a live belly dance performance (Al Ain, near Kannai Station, the chef used to be the executive chef at the Kuwaiti Embassy, this was not some pretend-exotic restaurant), and Greek (Sparta Restaurant, again near Kannai). Then there was also poshy Greek food in Manhattan, fancy Turkish elsewhere, blah blah blah. Nope, none of that did anything for me. They were good, but nothing to write home about. But La Mediterranee? I ate lunch there once with A. and immediately made a reservation for dinner with hubby the Friday after. Since then, I've ordered catering from there, had lunches and dinners. Thank goodness my tastebuds weren't prejudice - I just haven't had Middle Eastern/Mediterranean food that really impressed me. Until now. Whether you're new to this cuisine or a seasoned fan, you must try this place!

R & G Lounge (Chinese Cuisine), San Francisco

Hubby and I tend to avoid restaurants with lots of publicity, as in it has been repeatedly featured, in big name newspapers, magazines, TV shows, etc. To this day, I think our single worst dining experience was Joe's Shanghai of Manhattan's Chinatown. The 2-hours wait in the northeast bitter cold, the rude young hostess who treated people like dirt because dare they want to eat at her restaurant, the scalding hot soup dumplings that burned all of us who took the first bite, the greasy "soup" that spilled out from those dumplings, still pink with curdles of bloody run-offs. Yeah, suffice to say I was traumatized. 

So when hubby's colleague A-san visited us from Tokyo last fall and he wanted to go to R & G Lounge, my first reaction was, not that again! R & G Lounge has been featured extensively, you see. Anthony Bourdain nibbled on bites of their salt & pepper crab specialty back in 2010. And then there's A-san's Japanese sightseeing guidebook listing all the famous dishes one should definitely try.

Hubby snapped this calligraphy of this Bo Zhuyi poem to read while waiting for our food ^.^

Japantown, San Francisco Part III

Been cleaning up my blog some recently. I'm combining a few posts into this one with the addition of a couple new ones (Kappa and Kissako Tea) ^.^

- Kappa: let's get this out of the way - this is NOT a sushi restaurant. Kappa is located at the corner of Webster and Buchanan and well hidden on the second floor, sharing an entrance with Milo Lounge. This tiny little restaurant serves up Kyoto style kaiseki in a very intimate setting - the place's run solely by the chef and his wife. And all that will cost you - the omakase 7-course set meal is $86/person. With drinks, you can easily run up a tab of $200+ for 2. Reservations are made by phone or email only. And the omakase must be reserved at least 1 day in advance. You'll see why below.

Afternoon Tea at Craftsman and Wolves, San Francisco

Went to Craftsman and Wolves with A. for afternoon tea one day. Interesting name for a bakery, right? Someone recommended it to us after having seen me lurking around Crown & Crumpet one too many times. Being a fan of afternoon tea, I was totally game to try something new. 

Ruth's Chris Steak House, San Francisco

Happy Valentine's! Sorry I've been away for work, but I'm back and will start catching up with the list of drafts I've got built up :X

Let's start with Ruth's Chris Steak House. It's a high-end steak house and yes, it's a chain. I've been here a few times with hubby, the first time was to take his Japanese colleague A-san for an "American" treat. A-san actually already tried a Ruth's Chris branch in Seattle but didn't like it, and as I was doing my research for a nice steak house in SF, all I found was poshy places that served up Japanese-fusion plates. Not that there's anything wrong with Japanese-fusion, only that A-san was looking for a more "traditional" steak. It seemed like Ruth's Chris offered a pretty straight up fare, and so off we went. And it was a huge hit. 

Sorry the pictures are kind of crappy because the lighting was so dim!