Foggy food for thought

Jambalaya!

2011-10-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

When I think southern food it's all about fried chicken and pulled pork, mashed potatoes and gravy - meat and heart attacks! For a vegetarian that usually means making a meal out of sides of collared greens and beans and potatoes, maybe a dinner roll thrown in. So, imagine my joy on being introduced to Farmerbrown - a southern restaurant in the Tenderloin that has the meat and potatoes part covered, but also has a little something for vegetarians.

The little something I'm talking about is the vegetarian jambalaya - with fresh vegetables like corn, carrots, beans and peppers cooked with flavorful spices in rice, it is a real treat for your taste buds. Add some Tabasco for an extra kick and you are all set! If rice is not your thing (and butter is) there is a second vegetarian entree of grits with squash and pesto. Be forewarned though, there is enough butter in this to put a Paula Deen recipe to shame! And in case none of the entrees tickles your palate, there is always the option of the dinner made out of sides (mentioned above).

Farmerbrown is usually crowded, and waits for a table without a reservation can take up to an hour. The bar is open seating and has a Happy Hour menu in addition to the full dinner menu. The atmosphere is that of a moderately upscale restaurant - interesting artwork lines the walls and the music is peppy. Definitely recommended for a date or an evening out with a few friends.

www.farmerbrownsf.com

The best veggie burrito in Potrero Hill...

2011-07-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

... and maybe even better than a burrito from the Mission!

I'm talking about Papito, just off Potrero Hill's happening 18th Street is this little Mexican restaurant that's run by the same people as Chez Maman. No... they don't serve Mexican food with a French twist (or attitude :)). They just happen to serve, what I think is a kick-ass veggie burrito.

So, what makes this burrito so awesome, take sauteed mushrooms, onions, beans, rice, lettuce and some fresh salsa. Slap on some guacamole and voila, you have a veggie burrito that is seriously fulfilling. If you are not a burrito person though, tough luck! I would suggest going to a different Mexican restaurant. I've tried a few other things on the menu, but nothing else stands up to the awesomeness of the veggie burrito here.

So, the next time you are grappling with restaurant choices in Potrero Hill, try the burrito at Papito!

Viva Las Vegas!

2011-07-21T16:13:00.000-07:00

I was in Vegas recently for Cisco Live! It always amazes me how decadent Vegas can be - you work hard all day, but then you go out and have a great meal, and then party all night at the most glitzy clubs. I was there for four days - and whew, was that too much to handle!

Las Vegas is known for it's fancy restaurants and celebrity chefs. It's no wonder then, that one of the highlights of this trip was the amount of good food that was consumed. This review though, belongs to the restaurant that has to be the best restaurant I have eaten at in Vegas. That might not mean much - I'm hardly an expert on food or the best restaurants in Vegas. But let's just say that I could not stop eating, and when I did I was left with a feeling of such immense gratification!

Anyway, getting to the point, the restaurant I'm gushing about is China Grill in Mandalay Bay. It is a fusion Asian restaurant, serving sushi and sake for Happy Hour and dinner after. We went for a group dinner from work, and our server kept trying to convince us to get the Tasting menu for $69!!! "No, thank you" we said, and ordered off the regular menu. Tofu tots with miso cilantro dipping sauce, Udon noodles with vegetables in a spicy hoisin sauce, crispy spinach and three kinds of creme brulee later I could barely move, but I was in food heaven! I think the sentiment was shared with the rest of the folks at the table. Vrishab in fact insisted that this meal deserved a blog entry even though it was not in the foggy city :)

Back from the long hiatus (hopefully?)

2011-03-04T10:05:00.000-08:00

It's been over a year since I last posted. Not because I've been sitting idle and not sampling the most awesome food in San Francisco. But because I got lazy writing about it... it's alright, it happens to us all.

I've been to so may great San Francisco restaurants in the past year - Schmidt's, Contigo, Gracia Madres, Another Monkey... the list is pretty long. I don't even remember what I had that was so good at these places, guess I'll just have to go back :)

So, this post is about Yield Wine Bar - while it's still fresh in my mind... three lovely ladies and a dog went to Yield one Wednesday evening. If you have a dog this is the place for you - they actually have dog treats and strict dog petting policy. So cute!! The people here are super-friendly and the vibe is very chilled out and comfortable. It's is kind of small though, but considering it's in the middle of nowhere in the Dogpatch of all places, it's probably not going to get super-crowded on a weekday.

For a wine bar the food is exceptionally good. You get small plates at Yield, and my only complain is that they are just that - small. The food is so delicious, but the portions kind of tease you saying "you can have two bites of this but not more". We had the sweet potato gnochhi, aparagus and pickled leek salad, cauliflower pakoras, spinach and artichoke dip and the Bermuda Triangle which is a soft goat cheese. If that sounds like a lot of food for 3 people, it's not! I think we could have easily eaten a few more samples. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a sucker for gnocchi, so it's no surprise that it was my favorite item in the menu.

The only dessert they had was apple pie... not the most enticing, so we skipped dessert. I would definitely recommend this place for a nice, quiet evening - it's good for a casual date and to just hang out with friends. And of course, if you have a dog it's the place to go!

http://www.yieldsf.com/YieldWineBar/Welcome.html

The Egg Factory

2010-01-28T01:54:00.000-08:00

There's one thing I love about India - you always manage to find unique and quirky restaurants, stores, coffee places etc. The Egg Factory struck me as one of those.. the menu has dishes predominantly made with (you guessed it) eggs, the decor is industrial and bare, interesting anecdotes line the walls and the menu is this nice and compact piece of paper folded in 4.

Lilian and me ended up here for lunch after a very lackluster shopping day - one sip of the Pink Lady though and I was refreshed! It's a smoothie with cherries, almonds, yogurt and banana ( yes, I got mine without b-fruit .. yuck :)) and I could have had 2 of 3 of them and be done with lunch. But I had to try the famous egg dishes, so I restricted myself to just one. I will go back and OD on it some other day though.

Egg Factory has every conceivable egg dish on it's menu. Everything looked great, but I opted for a Manipal bread scramble - it's like bhurji tossed with chunks of bread so that all the flavor just soaks into everything... yumm! I could just imagine coming here for a late night snack after a night of crazy partying - although in Bangalore that would be like 11pm :)

Definitely recommended!

Not quite foggy-food-for-thought

2010-01-21T22:37:00.001-08:00

Hello Bengaluru - home for the next four months!! I'm going to *try* and blog about my culinary adventures in this city that is touted as India's Silicon Valley.

So far I think I've made a good start - I had Rajathani thali at Rajdhani, Chinese food at the very overpriced and over rated Ping, and some good Italian food at 100 Ft. Not bad, in my first 2 weekends here :)

So lets start with Rajdhani - one of the things that you miss the most about India is the food. I was looking forward to eating an authentic Indian thali after several years, and a little scared about whether I would have the room in my little tummy to try all the delicacies they would put on my place. Turns out my fears were well placed - I lost track at some point of the number of dishes on my plate. At last count there were 4 kinds of sweets, 4 kinds of rotis, about 6-7 sabji/dal combinations, dahi wada, farsan, 3 kinds of rice... you get the picture... enough food to send anyone into a food coma. To add to the amazing variety of food, Rajdhani is located in UB City - an over-the-top designer brand name mall in Bangalore! Defintely worth a visit - but definitely not for the calorie-conscious or the faint-stomached.

Ping - the less said about the place the better. To me, this restaurant embodied everything that could go wrong when one person's awesome vision for a high-class Asian eatery in India is reduced to dust because of the lack of vision and quality in the wait staff. There was nothing really wrong with the food at Ping - it may have been way to spicy and garlicy (if that is a word) for me, but hey, my stomach is no longer an Indian stomach so who am I to complain about that. There was a time when I used to find this food yummy, and maybe in 4 months I will again! What was wrong was the the wait staff - who did not let us know about specials, did not answer our questions on what was good here, and made us order way more food than necessary. It makes you wonder... maybe India can boast of fancy restaurants and world food, but are they really doing justice to it?

Thankfully, 100 Ft made up for the Ping disappointment... the bruschetta was comparable to what I would have had in a US restaurant. The pasta was creamy, and had a smattering of Indian spices, but stayed true somewhat to what a penne primavera should be. We skipped dessert because we were full - but turns out dessert is not to be missed here. Definitely going back!

Q, Chloe's and Park Chow - brunch anyone?

2010-01-21T22:21:00.000-08:00

My laziness has finally caught up with me, and I decided to condense my reviews for these three places in one big brunch post!

Lets start with Q - I went here with my swim friends. It's all the way on Clement Street, parking is a pain here so be warned. The place itself is pretty small, we got seated all the way in the back. Our table was funky (in a good way), there was this tree trunk in the middle of the table, added an interesting touch to the decor of the place.

The service was a bit random... our server kept telling us that the coffee mugs were missing and brought us our three coffees one by one. The food was pretty good brunch fare. I got an omelet with corn and some spicy salsa. Lalitha got the french toast which was pretty good too. Overall I would say the place was good... was it worth the trek all the way to the Richmond though, not sure!

Ok the next place is also that side of town - Park Chow is right outside the Golden Gate Park. Again parking here is a pain, but if have a lot of money, you go into the park and park at the De Young :)Park Chow is really popular - you can tell because the place is pretty big, it has two levels but it was full. There's a really cozy feel to it, maybe because of the giant fireplace downstairs. We were a group of 8, so we got put upstairs in a large, spacious room. This place is good for kids - I always have trouble finding places to take my friends who have kids, so this is a great find! The food is a mixture of traditional brunch options with some Asian and Italian options thrown in. Pretty good food and service. Overall, this seems like a good place to start the day off with a nice relaxed lunch, and walk across to the park and hang out - definitely recommended!

Last, but not least is Chloe's - it's a block away from my apartment, and I don't go there nearly as often as I would like. Why? This place is super-popular, and tiny! Which means, you end up waiting for a table for at least 45 minutes, and they don't take reservations. But, Chloe's makes you wait for a good reason - the food is awesome, made with fresh ingredients and always flavorful. I love their rosemary thyme bread - the french toast and most of their omelets. So, if you have a couple of hours to spare one weekend, make the trip to Chloe's - it's definitely worth it!

Firefly!

2010-01-21T21:55:00.000-08:00

I've been dying to try out Firefly for over a year now.. and finally got to do it thanks to the urgency of checking out my favorite SF restaurants before I leave.

Firefly was everything it promised to be - the place is charming, with this whimsical feel to it. The food is good southern cooking, meaning that it's so heavy that you feel the need to hit the gym the next day. But the food is soo good that it's worth it!

We went for the prix fix menu one weeknight - it includes an appetizer, main course and desert and is a great deal. We were four of us, so we ended up trying most of the things on the menu between us. Appetizers were beet salad, baby lettuce salad, brussel sprouts and shrimp dumplings. The main course was really rich - if you see the pictures you'll know what I mean. They are really not stingy with their portions, and the amount of cheese and butter they put in it :) But that's what makes the food soooo good I guess. I couldn't finish my main course, besides I had to save room for dessert. Which, as expected, did not disappoint!

Firefly is one of those places that demand a special occasion - it's not cheap, and the ambience is romantic and very cozy. Definitely an awesome date place! As someone once said - " If I ever propose to someone, I'll bring them to Firefly to do it!" (you know who you are ;-))

Adieu San Francisco....

2010-01-21T21:38:00.001-08:00

Or should I say... till we meet again my dear city by the sea.

It's been about a month since I started my 4 month break from San Francisco. It's not long, but for some reason I felt like I had to get through some restaurants on my list before it's too late.

Anyway, the result of that was that I ended up trying a whole lot of new places, and revisited some good old ones in my last month in SF. Of course none of them made it to this blog, it's not my fault I'm lazzy!

So, here's my attempt to update you with little tidbits on all these amazing places I went to, and what I would recommend.

Xanh - This is a French-Vietnamese restaurant in Mountain View. The place is huge! It's very modern and chic-looking, with a nice bar/lounge area out front. The drinks menu is pretty extensive and they have some very interesting cocktails. I played safe and got the lychee martini - with extra lychees of course!

I was really impressed with the food at Xanh - they had a lot of the standard asian menu options like papaya salad, but also had some unique items. We had the grapefruit salad - tofu, pineapple, grapefruit in a nice, tangy sauce. For entrees we got the Clay Pot with some coconut rice - the Clay Pot was ok, just a large piece of tofu with some sauce, I've definitely had better. But, the other entree, an eggplant dish (no I did not eat the eggplant!) was a big hit around the table.

Dessert was another highlight... we ordered a couple of things that looked almost too pretty to eat. I'm glad we ate it though :) because both were really yummy! I forget what they are called, but have photos up, one of they looks like a pyramid and is named something like that too.

In a nutshell... Xanh is a great restaurant to go with a group, or for a date, especially if you are in the South Bay!

Flour + Water

2009-06-23T16:23:00.000-07:00

What is with all these new pizza places opening up in the Mission? First there was Beretta, and now Flour + Water which has the same concept. Gourmet Italian food and thin crust pizzas.

We went to Flour + Water as part of my extended birthday celebrations. After Radio Africa Kitchen on Friday, my girl friends took me to Flour+Water on Saturday. This is why your birthday should fall on a weekend :) Apparently this place is crazy popular, the only reservation they had available was for 10:30 pm. So, we decided to try out luck and show up there anyway, since they hold half their tables for walk-ins.

We were seated pretty promptly, and our server was this really sweet Asian girl. I think we were starving... we ordered a salad with avocado, marinated beans and some kind of lettuce, two margherita pizzas and two pastas - between 3 girls. In our defense though, the pasta was tiny, and the pizzas really thin, and Grace was hungry after her triathlon. Anyway... the food was pretty good, I think the pizzas at Beretta are better, but the pastas were good. I think the highlight of the meal for me was dessert - no surprise there :) We got a pistachio and honey kulfi kind of thing, with cherries... quite delicious.

So... I don't know what I think of Flour+Water. It didn't impress me so much that I'm dying to go back, but it didn't unimpress me so much that I wouldn't go back.

http://flourandwater.com/

The best restaurant in San Francisco!!!

2009-06-23T15:47:00.001-07:00

Or atleast one of the best.... there is only one word to describe Radio Africa Kitchen - AWESOME!!! RAK has been on my radar for atleast two years and so when my friends said they would take me out for dinner there to celebrate my birthday I jumped at the opportunity. Why did I wait this long? Well... to start with I thought that the style of dining was communal, so you had to have a large enough group to be able to go there (I was wrong, or maybe thats how Chef Eskender Aseged started it?), and then the menu changes weekly so I was waiting for a menu with some great veggie options. As if on cue... the menu for my birthday had a fantasy of vegetables with beets, carrots, lentil and basmati rice... yummy.

RAK is a nomadic kitchen, it's open only on Thursday and Friday at Coffee Bar - awesome coffee shop during the day, restaurant at night. The place has a really cool, industrial vibe to it. It's not a date place - the noise levels are so loud that they could compare to Beretta. But it is a great place to go with a large group of people, because then you can do what we did - order family style :) The menu is pretty limited, and the familiy style prix fixe menu of $35 per person had more than enough food for everyone and let us get a sample of everything on the menu. And trust me, you want to try every single thing on the menu.

Our dinner started off with tartine bread and edamame hummus, an arugula and feta salad, and a couple of fish dishes that I don't quite remember. The next course was barley and mushroom soup. At this point everyone was already blown away by the food, and the entrees only got better. We had a lamb dish, a fish dish (I should really get a meat eater to co-author my blog, I am doing no justice at all to all the meat dishes which were apparently quite spectacular), and the vegetable fantasy I mentioned before. By the end of the main course we were all so full that dessert looked iffy - but one look at the thin slice of chocolate cake and the hibiscus cream soda (I know... how exotic!) and we all knew we were going to eat dessert even if it made us explode.

So, there you have it... after four courses of some pretty amazing food, we dragged ourselves out of there completely stuffed and satiated.

http://www.radioafricakitchen.com/

Beretta

2009-04-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

Beretta has been the talk of the Mission restaurant scene for the past several months. I've walked past it so many times and thought to myself - why on earth is this restaurant so crowded? I knew I had to try it myself to figure out if it was worth all the hype. And I did just that - twice in one week. I guess I really liked it :)

So what is it about this place that has people willing to wait over an hour for a table?!? Well to start with they have amazing amazing cocktails, with some very unique names. I had the Airmail - gin, lime, cane juice topped with bitters. That was one good cocktail, so good in fact that I had it when I went back the second time.

On to the food now - nice cocktails are all good, but the most important thing about any restaurant is the food. And beretta does food well! The menu is Italian, lots of small plates, a few salads, risottos, but the thin crust pizzas are definitely the star of the show. If you think Delfina's pizza is awesome, you are absolutely going to love the pizza here. I highly recommend the pizza with the spicy marinara and pepperoncini - it's the most amazingly simple, tangy, spicy, flavor in each bite pizza. The funghi one is pretty good too. And did you know that egg on pizza tastes awesome - who would have thought? Ok so there's all this good food and all these great cocktails, but in these tough economic times (I just had to throw that in :)) the question is "Is dinner here going to burn a hole in my pocket?" The answer to that is "somewhat" - beretta is definitely not a cheap eat, but 30 buks could get you a couple of drinks and a filling meal. Thats not so bad i think. And if you share with friends even better!

So far everything sounds perfect, doesn't it? There is a but though - there always is. It's the noise - don't even think of going here if you want to have a conversation with the person you are with. So first dates are a complete no-no here. This restaurant is loud! I mean lip reading loud - theres music blaring, people talking, people shouting, you get the picture.

In summary, beretta is definitely worth a visit, my tip though is to either get there really early or really late. It'll save you from the extremely long wait and may also spare your ear drums from getting blown off!

Dinner at breakneck speed!

2008-11-06T13:17:00.001-08:00

I'm going to write an extremely rushed and succinct review of Suriya Thai in the Mission. This is only fair considering that this is probably the quickest dinner I have ever ordered and eaten.

We got there on a Saturday night after Lit Crawl, 10 minutes before closing. We knew that we would have to decide our orders quickly - but we had no idea how quickly. The server was literally around our necks forcing us to order quickly. With so much pressure, of course we ended up ordering too much, and definitely waaay to much tofu. No sonner had we ordered our food, that it started appearing at such a fast pace, I'm sure these guys set the record for the fastest service ever! In the next 5 minutes every single dish we had ordered was on the table, and the kitchen was closed! If this was a relationship, it would be one of those definitely headed towards disaster for moving too fast!

The rest of dinner was a blur - the pace had been set, and we ate dinner at breakneck speed too, in case they made us leave the restuarant in the next 5 minutes because they wanted to close up. Anyway, half an hour later, and with the feeling of being spun around too fast we left Suriya Thai - a little dizzy, and convinced that some places are just better for take-out.

Vegetarian sushi?

2008-11-05T18:35:00.000-08:00

I love sushi - it's weird coming from a vegetarian's mouth, but true. I always think how fortunate I am to live in San Francisco with so many restaurants that cater to, or atleast recognize vegetariansm. And I have not one, but two favorite sushi places that have so many vegetarian options that you feel like a kid in a candy shop.

The first one is Cha-ya, there was a point when I ate here so often, I guess because it only serves vegetarian food. Here was a place that I could eat, literally everything on the menu ( and I'm saying this because they don't have a single dish that has eggplant in it... hehe). So, I have my staples at Cha-ya that I would recommend to anyone - start with the miso soup and an order of the gyoza for appetizers. Next, order some rolls to share, I love the kappa rolls, the Shattuck and the tempura rolls. I also loooove the Cha-ya Delight, it's this wholesome hearty rice dish, with almost spice or salt, but it is still so flavorful. I don't know what it is about this dish, when it's served to you it looks like a bunch of boiled vegetables sitting on a bed of brown rice - almost too healthy looking to be tasty. But one bite of it and you know you were so wrong in judging this awesome dish - the vegetables are cooked to perfection, I think they marinate them in something because although there is no visible sign of spices, there is a certain subtle flavor to them. Moving on... the only thing I haven't had at Cha-ya is dessert, I'm usually so full and happy by the time I'm done with dinner that I never have room for dessert - and I think all their dessert options have B-fruit in them :)

So my second vegertatian-friendly sushi place is one that I recently discovered thanks to Siddharth. It's called Minako, and is in a pretty grimy part of the Mission. This place has attitude! And I mean that in a good way. As soon as you enter the small space, the individualism of the owners and the patrons is evident - the menu has caricatures and poems wirtten over the years by customers of the restaurant. That's a pretty novel concept according to me. The menu is pretty exhaustive - in addition to the regular menu, they had this little board on every table with 10 specials for the day. Pretty cool! So anyway, I was pretty impressed with how much character this place had... but what about the food?

It was a tough choice deciding between so many vegetarian and fish options (Minako is not an only-veg sushi place, but it still has more than enough vegetarian options). We ended up ordering the almond encrusted tofu, seaweed salad, gyoza, kappa rolls (of course), and my favorite - the vegetarian spicy eel roll. The soup is entirely passable - so don't order that. Instead the sushi options and the noodle options are safer bets. The fish-eaters on the table ordered some hamachi and Ashish's usual inari. Overall I think everyone was really happy with the food - we ordered too much, but surprisingly finished almost everything. I think the highlight for me though was the personalized touches - the menus with the customer drawings, the owner (?) of the place who chatted with us after dinner, and the little metal board with smart comments and the specials of the day. This is the kind of place you want to be a regular at - if only it was closer to home.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/cha-ya-vegetarian-japanese-restaurant-san-francisco
http://www.yelp.com/biz/minako-organic-japanese-restaurant-san-francisco

Chez Panisse Cafe

2008-11-05T18:33:00.000-08:00

This is completely inexcusable - that I would go to Chez Panisse Cafe for lunch more than a month ago and not blog about it. It is just the cafe we are talking about, but still - it is associated with Alice Waters, the pioneer of Californian cuisine. Better late than never I guess, so I'm going o try my best to remember the fine nuances that make this restaurant and the food as famous as it is.

Chez Panisse Cafe is on the second floor of a beautiful house in Berkeley. The lower level houses the California landmark restaurant - Chez Panisse. Maybe I'll go there for a special dinner someday.. but on that Saturday it was the girls and me, mere mortals out for brunch at the cafe upstairs. According to Grace, Alice Waters herself showed us to our seats. I both want and don't want this to be true. Can you imagine meeting someone famous and not showing a glimmer of recognition or respect towards them? So, anyway, I had really high expectations of this place. the dinner menu looked scrumptuous, and had lots of veggie options, so I was looking for something similar with the lunch menu. I have to say, the lunch menu was not half as exciting as the dinner menu - there was nothing vegetarian, just one dish with poached eggs. So I ended up asking for the chicken pasta minus the chicken, of course the choices for the non-veg entrees were stellar, the meat tender and the vegetables all looked as fresh and organic as ever. We shared a baby romaine salad with avocados as an appetizer and that was delish!!

I guess I'm committing an act of blashpemy by even implying that my food that day was not the best - I wonder if I'm even allowed to think that. But, I'm going to attribute it to the fact that I imposed this bad food on myself by asking for a dish which was clearly designed to be a meat dish to be converted to one with vegetables. Thank God the menu keeps changing so I think the next time I will definitely be more than happy with my food. What was beyond any measure of greatness though was the dessert. Oh My God!!!! I wished that I had only eaten dessert for my entire meal. btw, a little bit of trivia - did you know that there is a restaurant in Barcelona where they serve only dessert, this is not a dessert shop, it's a restaurant where the actual dinner entrees are sweet. How awesome is that! Anyway, back to the dessert at Chez Panisse - we ordered two to share between the four of us - a chocolate brownie, and honey ice-cream with toasted figs. I almost can't complete writing this entry because my mind is stuck craving a bite of that ice-cream and figs.... waaah, I want! Oh well, I guess all good things must come to an end, and we literally licked off every last morsel of what was on the plate and headed out complete satiated (with me deciding that I couldn't wait to blog about this place and the dessert). And we all know how much I couldn't wait :)

Kasa

2008-09-10T20:09:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought that some day you could get kathi rolls right here in San Francisco?!? Kasa is his new (ok, it's not new any more, I just took a long time getting there) Indian place in the Castro that I've been meaning to try out forever - and finally one Saturday night I convinced Judy and Karen that we should go there for our neighbors night out together.

Boy, was it a good call! First off the place was pretty empty, which was surprising because I had heard such good things about it. But I liked the ambience of the place - it's very clean, industrial looking with lots of metal everywhere, staple Indian B&W pictures on the walls.

A kathi roll, for the uninformed, is an "Indian burrito" (as the cute American guy behind the counter pointed out) . I was seriously impressed with him though when he asked me if I wanted an "anda" kathi roll - anda means egg, but he didn't just say egg, he said anda. Bonus points for that!

Kasa's menu is pretty simple - meaning they have about 5 different options for the filling of your roll. The veggie options are paneer and masala aloo (potato). They also have the usual meat options like chicken tikka, kebabs etc. So, pretty simple, you pick what you want in your roll, you decide if you want anda in your roll, or if you didn't want a roll at all you could just get a thali, which is an open kathi roll with rice, raita and dal.

We ended up ordering 3 kathi rolls and a thali and sharing it. It was sooooo good! Ok I am running out of things to say - so I'll stop rambling and conclude by saying that Kasa is great if you are looking for a cheap, clean, healthy (?), quick meal. Not exactly a date place.. but it's a great place to chill out with your friends (or neighbors, if they are as nice as mine :)).

http://www.kasaindian.com/

Moki's Sushi

2008-08-25T20:26:00.000-07:00

People always look at me weird when I tell them I love sushi. I know... I don't eat fish, so the whole sushi experience is probably a little (ok, more than a little) incomplete for me. But still... I love sushi, I love how fresh and crunchy the cucumber roll is, how subtle the flavors are, I love the pickled ginger, and I love the kick of wassabi mixed in in soy sauce. So.. when Lalitha suggested we go to Moki's in Bernal Heights for dinner, I was excited! The only other place I know that is great for vegetarian sushi is Cha-ya, which I really should review some day because I eat there a lot!

Bernal Heights is a cute little neighborhood. with some decent restaurants. It's really quiet, and even on a Saturday night, the streets were pretty deserted. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you want to go somewhere happening, where you can hang out at a bar or go dancing later, then Bernal is not the neighborhood for you. If you are looking to enjoy a nice, relaxing meal though, it's got a few places I would recommend - Little Nepal, Piqueo's, and Moki's to name a few.

So anyway, back to Moki's... Moki's doesn't take reservations, but when we got there around 7 pm on a Saturday night, it was a breeze to get seating. The place did get crowded as the evening progressed though, so I would suggest getting there early. Our server was really nice (meaning cute!), and took good care of us. Fran and me drank sake (I forget the name, have to check with Lalitha), it was really really good, definitely recommended. For appetizers we ordered the edamame, seaweed salad and the spicy corn cakes. The flavors in the seaweed salad were really good - just a subtle hint of spice, salt and some sesame.. yummy! The corn cakes... fried and with a tangy dipping sauce, you can't go wrong with that. Or edamame for that matter :)

On to the main course then... we ordered the Moki rolls, the tempura roll, spider rolls and of course the cucumber rolls. I was pretty happy with all the vegetarian options available... we actually had a tough time deciding what we wanted to get, which is awesome for a sushi place. They also had nigiri sushi with vegetables, something I haven't seen before. The moki rolls and the tempura rolls were really good - definitely recommended. The moki roll had mango, tofu and macadamia nuts - ummmm delicious. And the tempura roll had a spicy sauce, tempura'ed tofu, coconut and macadamia nuts. Both were pretty unique, I never would have imagined coconut could taste so good in a sushi roll. And ahhh... cucumber rolls, how can anyone not like cucumber rolls, so crunchy, so fresh... yyummy! I didn't bother to check but I think the spider rolls were good too... anyway, who cares... this is a veggie blog :)

After stuffing ourselves with all the rolls we ordered (not to mention we had already stuffed ourselves with nachos at the movies before) we very politely declined dessert. And then we undid all the good of skipping dessert by walking down the street and getting ice cream from a local ice-cream store - Maggie Mudd, which was nothing to write home about frankly, but hey, I'm all for promoting local neighborhood business, so if you are in the area, by all means try the ice-cream here. But Moki's - I think it's worth making the trek to Bernal to try their sushi. The food, service, atmosphere, and the sake was definitely worth it!

http://www.mokisushi.com/

Nirvana, Market Bar and Toast

2008-08-05T17:33:00.000-07:00

I've decided I'm going to be lazy and combine reviews for three restaurants in one giant blog posting. Not that they don't deserve their own individual moment in the spotlight - at least Nirvana definitely does. But, these are restaurants I've been to over the past two months so some of my memories of the places are hazy and I'm going to get them all mixed up anyway :)

Lets start with Nirvana, an Asian fusion restaurant in the Castro. I tried this place for the first time with Judy, when I had just moved to the city three years ago. Wow .... time flies, and here I was again, celebrating my "surprise" birthday party with my awesome, awesome friends. From what I remember (very vaguely) the drinks at this place were really good! The food was pretty good too, but since I can't remember the names of any dishes, I'm guessing at least the vegetarian options were pretty standard fare. The seafood though, was a big hit! A friend of mine who doesn't really like seafood, started ordering seafood at every restaurant he went to for the next few weeks to see if he could find the same taste closer to home. Overall, I would recommend the restaurant - it's not that great for a date, but pretty good to go out with a group. Oh.. and remember, parking in the Castro is a nightmare, so take the muni :)

http://nirvanarestaurant.net/

After two months of no brunches out with Laxmi (parents visiting, south-indian breakfast every weekend at home, who needs brunch :)), we decided to go to Toast in Noe Valley, the Sunday after my folks left. For some reason this place is super-popular. We waited an hour and a half ( I kid you not!) to get a table. I mean yeah.. they make a good omelette, but don't people have better things to do on a beautiful Sunday morning? Apparently not! Anyway, once we were seated, the service was pretty quick. The restaurant has the usual brunch fare - I do recommend getting the omelette, it's perfectly made, with really fresh veggies, light and fluffy and most importantly, not runny. If eggs are just not your thing, the tofu scramble looked pretty good, and I guess you also can't go wrong with pancakes and syrup :)

http://www.toasteatery.com/

My last review is for Market Bar - it's this huge place with outdoor seating in the Ferry Building. The only reason I'm reviewing this place has nothing to do with food - it's the location! If there's one place in San Francisco that always makes me smile and want to give a great, big hug to the city, it's the Ferry Building. I don't know if it's because of the water and the Bay Bridge in all it's magnificence towering over the Bay on one side, or all the tall financial district buildings with busy people walking around purposefully on the other side that makes this such a special place. Every time I go here though, I can almost feel the vitality and energy around me lifting me up. So, anyway, back to Market Bar - we went here to celebrate Chetna's first marathon, we were a large group, and this place was awesome - they take reservations, unlike a lot of brunch places in the city, and it's big enough to accommodate a large group. The food... was as far as I remember, pretty lackluster. Once again, it was the usual brunch fare. I mean how wrong can you go with scrambled eggs and toast? So, go here if you need a place that is centrally located and can fit large groups - but if you are looking for a brunch place with really good food, you're better off picking your favoritest (I know it's not a word.. but you get the picture) person from the group and heading to one of the many smaller, neighborhood brunch places where you'll easily find a table for two (except if it's Toast :)).

http://www.marketbar.com/

I'm back :)

2008-05-11T10:43:00.001-07:00

After a very long hiatus.. just like the fog in San Francisco. I think it's poetic that all the time that I was on a break from blogging, there was also no fog in the city... hehe.

Apologies to all you sweet, sweet people that actually take the time to read my ramblings about restaurants in San Francisco. Arun, I didn't stop eating :) I just haven't been to any places that made me go - " I have to blog about this!"

So, what made me go - "I have to blog about this!"? It's Le Colonial, a French-Vietnamese place in Nob Hill. Ashish and me were hanging out last evening wondering what to do to kill time between watching Kedar's band play in the evening, and a pub crawl at night, and we thought, why not go have a nice, fancy dinner in some neighborhood we're never hung out in... so, no Mission, no Marina, no Haight. After 'yelp'ing around for a bit, we made a reservation on opentable, and we were set!

Both Ashish and me were kicked that we actually managed to get a reservation on a Saturday night at this really popular restaurant, but we got there and I realized why - this place is huge! Like 2 floors and multiple dining rooms huge! And fancy - so if you plan to go, dress up!

The cocktail list looked pretty interesting, although we decided to skip ordering drinks (in preparation for the long night of drinking that lay ahead of us). Straight to appetizers then, we ordered the vegetarian spring rolls, the fresh, non-fried kind with a yummy peanut dipping sauce. Wiped that out in a minute and we were ready for our main course. I have to say that the menu leans heavily toward meat and fish dishes. Everything looked great though... our server was really sweet and pointed out everything that they could make vegetarian. We ended up ordering the sticky rice with coconut sauce, a mango-potato-tofu curry, and asparagus in garlic sauce. The food was in one word - awesome! It reminded me why I think the whole restaurant dining experience is so much fun, and more importantly, got me to start writing my blog again :) The flavors we re just right, the sticky rice was this interesting sweet/savory combination. The asparagus was nice and tender, and the curry had just the right level of spice.

We were so full at the end of dinner that I almost did the unthinkable - I was going to skip dessert. Thankfully, sanity prevailed and we ordered the flourless Vietnamese chocolate cake. Yummmmmmmy!!! If you go to Le Colonial, and have one thing on their menu, have this! It looked so pretty when our waitress brought it out, that I almost didn't want to cut into it, but one bite was all it took to change my mind. Ashish and me pretty much devoured the cake, it was warm, and moist and just sweet enough - oooh, just writing about it now is making me crave some more.

In case you guys are wondering, no pub crawling happened last night for me... we went to one pub, and then I crawled straight into bed, dreaming about fancy people, curry and decadent vietnamese chocolate cake.

http://www.lecolonialsf.com/index_flash.html

Millenium

2007-12-17T10:19:00.000-08:00

Millennium is a vegetarian restaurant in the middle of Union Square. It's in the Hotel California.. ok I almost made a cheesy Eagles reference here ;-)

Their menu is completely vegetarian, organic as far as possible, and according to their website they use fresh produce everyday and believe "that a gourmet dining experience can be created out of vegetarian, healthy, and environmentally friendly foods". Sounds like a perfect place to review for a vegetarian food blog.

So, after a couple of hours of holiday shopping at Union Square (which if you haven't gone and seen the tree already, you must!), I was ready to sit down and enjoy a nice drink and some good food. And Millennium, unlike A16 did live up to all my expectations. The drinks were awesome, and everything on the menu sounded so good, it was tough to decide what to get.

I've totally blanked out on what we ordered for drinks, but I do remember they were really, really good! As soon as our server described the soup of the day, both Laxmi and I were like "Ok, we have got to get that". It was a butternut squash soup with some other fancy things thrown in, which obviously I don't remember. And I don't suppose I remember the name of the salad we ordered either, or the main dish. So much for writing a review about a restaurant :) Anyway, the lack of details aside, what I'm trying to bring out here is - it doesn't matter what you order at Millennium, everything on the menu is so delightful that you can't really go wrong.

But wait.. what about dessert? Well... I have to say the one thing that didn't really hit the spot was dessert. To quote Laxmi, it tasted like one of those Sara Lee frozen thingies. I guess that just about sums up how good (or bad) it was.

Overall though, I think Millennium is definitely worth a visit. It's not cheap, but not crazy expensive, and compared with the other vegetarian-only restaurant in the city, Greens, I found it nicer in terms of ambiance, food, and service.

http://www.millenniumrestaurant.com/

A16

2007-12-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

Yay... it just hit me that I have, in the past week, done exactly what I set out to do when this blog was created. And in case you are wondering what that groundbreaking thing was - it was to go through all(seriously?) the restaurants in the 2007 Michelin guide for San Francisco. I went to four of them last week - and what makes it even more fabulous is that it happened quite inadvertently.

Let me start with A16 - it's an Italian restaurant in the Marina that's wildly popular. So much so, that on a Tuesday night, we could only get reservations for 9:30pm. Their food is supposed to be excellent, and their wine list pretty impressive. But, I have to say... I was not blown away by the place. Maybe my expectations were too high.. maybe it's not the best place for vegetarians... maybe we ordered the wrong wine... maybe.

We started out with an arugula salad with olives and mandarin oranges. So, here's the thing about me and salad - I don't want to feel like a cow chewing grass when I'm eating my salad. I mean I am eating leaves, but it shouldn't feel like I'm eating leaves... makes sense? Anyway, after a very disappointing salad, we got a not-so-disappointing funghi pizza. The pizza was good... not awesome, but decent enough. As usual what saved the day was dessert - their most popular dessert is the "Chocolate budino tart with sea salt and extra virgin olive oil". The EVOO and sea salt added an interesting twist to the flavor, and the mousse was just perfect - the next time I think I'll skip directly to dessert.

Ok.. so I really didn't mean to slam this place so much. It is an awesome place to go on a date - the dining room is gorgeous, all candles and brick walls. It's romantic, but at the same time, not oppressively so - the crowd and the atmosphere make sure of that. And I guess if you know your wine (which clearly I don't) the experience will be better.

http://www.a16sf.com/home.html

Mochica - Peruvian fusion

2007-12-12T22:16:00.000-08:00

I am on a roll here aren't I? Three posts in one day... and I still have a few more places I'm itching to write about. I soooo happy :) The last couple of weeks have been great food-wise.

Mochica is a Peruvian restaurant on Harrison St, now when I think Peruvian food, I never think vegetarian. It's never been on my list of cuisines to try out because most other Peruvian restaurants in the city only have one vegetarian dish, some kind of veggie platter, which to me doesn't sound the most appetizing.

So, I was really excited about Mochica, when Latitha said they have an awesome vegetarian paella. Mochica has this warm, lively vibe to it... what ticked me off though, was the table we got. I have a problem with restaurants trying to squeeze in as many people as possible , resulting in someone having to sit painfully close to the kitchen. It really takes away from what would otherwise have been a great dining experience.

Anyway, except for the less than satisfactory seating arrangement, I was pretty happy with the place. They first brought out this salad made of chickpeas and corn fried in some batter, with onion and tomatoes.... very zesty. The menu has quite a few vegetarian appetizers, and of course the paella which we ordered for the main course. I have to say... the paella was awesome! It was so flavorful, hot and juicy, a real treat! Coconut flan followed for dessert.. and I forgave them for the crappy table... almost, ok, maybe if I went back and they gave me a nice table and the paella was still good, I would :)

http://www.mochicasf.com/

I left my heart.. in San Francisco

2007-12-12T21:58:00.000-08:00

It felt so good to be back home after the "much-anticipated" road-trip through New Mexico, and I was so ready to try out some good old San Franciscan food in a good old San Franciscan restaurant.

And that's exactly what I did one lazy Sunday afternoon.... went down to the beach, stumbled upon this random band that was performing there (this is what I love about San Francisco, you never know what crazy thing you're going to come across next), had brunch at the Beach Chalet, and walked it off on the Lands End Trail. Ah... that was an awesome afternoon.

I wonder why I don't go down to Ocean Beach more often. There's something so romantic and beautiful about the beach, maybe it's the sound of the water, or the scent of the ocean, or just the constancy of the waves washing up on shore. Mesmerising... I like that word :)

Anyway.. this is a food blog, so I must focus... the Beach Chalet... it's this restaurant on the Great Highway which has great ocean views. I've heard that it can get really busy, so reservations are recommended. We just called in and put our names down while we walked on the beach - I thought that was pretty awesome of them to do that. A nice table for two by the window, and it makes for the perfect date spot. The food was really good... the omelette's fluffy, the bread soft and the orange juice freshly squeezed... what more could one want? I for one, always want dessert :) And I have to say... the creme brulee I had that day was one of the best I've had in a long, long time.

So... add this to your list of nice, romantic brunch places in the city, and remember... save room for dessert.

http://www.beachchalet.com/

Thai food... in New Mexico?

2007-12-12T21:09:00.000-08:00

It's been soooo long since I got back from New Mexico, I wonder if I'll even remember all the food experiences we had there. Also considering the fact that I've been avoiding thinking about the trip all together, I'm not sure I'll remember anything good about it - but that's a different post for a different blog :)

The big food experience I was looking forward to in New Mexico was in Santa Fe. I had done my research, read reviews and done due diligence... or so I thought. Our first dinner in Santa Fe was supposed to be in the restaurant at the Inn of the Anasazi. All the tripadvisor reviews raved about it being one of the best restaurants Santa Fe has to offer. What the reviews didn't tell me though was that a. this place is fancy! and b. It doesn't have a single vegetarian dish on it's menu. Fancy I can take... but when fancy means a plate of boiled vegetables thrown together to look pretty, I can't. So, we walked out of there, and went to, of all places, a Thai restaurant, Ginja! Definitely not what I had in mind for an authentic Santa Fe dining experience... but I have to say, the food was really good.

The next day, after the fiasco of the previous night, I was beginning to doubt my restaurant shortlist. Should we go to Pasqual's which in addition to being on tripadvisor was also recommended by my clay teacher, Shelley. Or should we settle for the french crepe place on the square. Decisions... decisions.. I tell you, I have a tough life. In the end, we decided to take our chances on Pasqual's, and sure enough it was an awesome place. The waitress knew a few words in hindi, the decor was funky and they had some really interesting breakfast items. Overall definitely worth a visit if you are in Santa Fe.

Hmmm... so the rest of the trip is a little hazy in my head... selective amnesia? The only thing I seem to remember is the restaurant in El Paso, Texas. It was the last evening of our trip... and there was really no better way to spend it than drinking margarita's, listening to a Spanish band and eating authentic mexican food. Los Bandidos de Carlos & Mickey's, is the name of the restaurant, and if you are ever in El Paso, it's definitely worth a visit. The restaurant is huge, and looks to be immensely popular, we were there for close to 3 hours that evening, and it was packed throughout. The band was really cute... they played these obscure spanish songs that none of us had heard of, Nilu totally embarrassed them by requesting La Bamba, but they obliged. And got a roaring round of applause from us, and one other guy at the bar :)

Ohhh wait... there are some more hazy details resurfacing. The first restaurant we went to on this trip was in Chimayo - Leona's restuarant. It's right outside the Chimayo chapel. Run by Leona, it was this really cozy restaurant, couple of tables, completely unpretentious, with some really good food.

And of course there was Bamboo Garden - Carlsbad's finest Chinese restuarant, right next to the bowling alley where Nilu scored her highest bowling score (with no help whatsoever from the side rails ;-)).

I guess that's enough rambling about New Mexico... in a nutshell though, the two places I would really recommend are Pasqual's in Santa Fe, and the mexican place in Texas.

Off to the Land of Enchantment

2007-11-13T20:47:00.000-08:00

My much anticipated road trip through New Mexico is almost here :) I am sooooo excited!!! Hopefully I'll have some interesting places to blog about when I get back.

I know, I know ... this blog is supposed to be about foggy food, and there's no fog in New Mexico... but... there is food, and some good food from what I hear. And good food, foggy or not, deserves to be blogged.