Restaurant: New Gold Medal Restaurant 
Address: 389 8th St.
City: Oakland, California
My dad brought home some goodies from Oakland Chinatown! He picked up a bag of ox tongue pastry (牛脷酥), which is a deep fried pastry similar to youtiao (油條, commonly known as Chinese donut or Chinese crueller). Ox tongue pastry got its name from its resemblance to the ox tongue. It’s also chewier, sweeter, and denser than youtiao. Continue reading
Happy Lunar New Year! 新年快樂!
My mom made jai (齋) for dinner. Jai is more commonly known as Buddha’s delight (羅漢齋), which translates to ‘vegetarian dish/diet’. It is a dish traditionally eaten on the first day of Chinese New Year. Continue reading
Restaurant: Huong Que
Address: 3005 Silver Creek Rd., Ste 130
City: San Jose, California
Two friends and I had a spam musubi making night (50 spam musubis!), and we went out for dinner while the rice was cooking. Huong Que had a grilled catfish dish for two, three, or four ($29, $33, or $38 USD, respectively). We got the catfish for two, which was just the right amount for the three of us. If all three of us were big eaters, then we would probably have ordered the catfish for three.
The Vietnamese name of this dish, cá nướng cuộn bánh tráng, translates to “grilled fish rice paper roll”. The grilled whole catfish was covered in chopped peanuts and onion, and served with rice paper, vermicelli, leaves, bean sprouts, cucumber, pickled carrot, and pickled daikon. The fish sauce had a subtle hint of shrimp flavor in it. Continue reading
Restaurant: Saigon Seafood Harbor
Address: 3150 Pierce St
City: Richmond, California
I had dim sum with a party of 10 to celebrate a birthday! We ordered two small plates of sesame seed balls, which had a sweet lotus paste filling. (Yay for another variation of sesame seed balls!) Continue reading
Café: Devout Coffee 
Address: 37323 Niles Blvd
City: Fremont, California
Happy Presidents’ Day! The third Monday of February was originally set in 1879 as a US federal holiday to celebrate George Washington’s birthday. However, it was later used to celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday also, so a bill was written and passed into law in 1968 to rename the holiday from “Washington’s Birthday” to “Presidents’ Day”.
My employer has all federal days off. Not all employers will observe Presidents’ Day. So, what’d I do on my day off? I parked my car at Safeway in Union City and walked ~6.5k steps to Niles, to get a cup ’o coffee! (And ~6.5k steps back!) Continue reading
Restaurant: Chi
Address: 42 Dixon Road
City: Milpitas, California
I had dinner at a Taiwanese restaurant that recently opened in Milpitas (in the bigger plaza off Dixon Landing Road). My three friends and I were craving stinky tofu so we ordered two different kinds, deep fried stinky tofu (the most popular version) and mala stinky tofu. I will focus on the latter kind in this post.
The name of the dish in Chinese is 麻辣臭豆腐 (málà chòu dòufu), which translates to “spicy stinky tofu” or “mala stinky tofu”. Continue reading
Restaurant: Big Mug Coffee Roaster
Address: 3014 El Camino Real
City: Santa Clara, California
The sister finally got a job offer, so the two of us went to celebrate! We got coffee at Big Mug, which opened last March. Big Mug is a Korean-owned coffee shop / café, and that is evident from its bookcase which contained a mix of Korean and English books. Big Mug serves Verve Coffee and also carries dessert (affogato, ice cream, waffles, toast). Continue reading
Restaurant: Zareen’s
Address: 1477 Plymouth St #C
City: Mountain View, California
A few coworkers and I went to a Pakistani/Indian restaurant near work for lunch!
Orders are placed at the cashier, for either take-out or dine-in. There’s a small service charge to dine-in. Chai is self-serve from a drink dispenser!
I ordered gola kabab meal (meals are combos which have rice, daal, naan, salad, and chutney/raita). Zareen’s description of gola kabab was “sinfully delicious, melt in your mouth mince beef ‘gola’ kabab”. Continue reading
Restaurant: Roll House
Address: 3486 El Camino Real
City: Santa Clara, California
Happy New Year!! Is there any particular type of dish that you eat on New Years?
A friend and I went foodie hunting for Korea’s new years food, tteokguk (떡국): Continue reading
Restaurant: Ringer Hut
Address: 1072 Saratoga Avenue
City: San Jose, California
I had dinner with a college friend I hadn’t met in a while. The weather was cold and windy, which was appropriate for noodle soup! We were thinking of getting ramen but since I hadn’t been to Ringer Hut yet, we decided to go there for champon and catch up! Champon is a Japanese noodle soup, that is similar to but different from ramen.
Ringer Hut is a Japanese fast-food restaurant chain specializing in champon and other Japanese Chinese dishes. Ringer Hut can be best described to Americans as the Denny’s of Japan. There are only two locations in the United States, in Honolulu, Hawaii and San Jose, California. Continue reading
Food Touring 