Zachary!

I just realized I have not been to a pizza place since I came, so when we passed by Zachary we thought we should give it a try. Zachary is famous for their deep dish Chicago style pizza and they have been around for 26 years and had won over 100 restaurant awards! They even made it into the Michelin and the Zagat lists!

I didn't feel like having deep dish pizza so we ordered the Vege Special thin crust pizza. Wow! It was so good. I chomped down a good portion before I remember to take photos of it! The sauce, oh yummy...it kinda reminded me of a mixture of tomato+Hollandaise+cheese ... maybe it was?  The toppings were zucchini, broccoli, corn, tomatoes and heart of artichoke ( I think) and  it was really good. The best pizza ever! 

Ukiah

It was a beautiful weekend, I was completely swamped with work the week before so it would be a good time for a short break. So up to Ukiah we went, before we embark on our short road trip, we stopped by for brunch! We went to Lynn & Lu's Cafe and ordered the egg benedict with Worchestire sauce and additional toppings of apple sausage...Yummy!! 

Look at the blue sky.

Look at the heirloom tomatoes that we picked out from the hostess' garden.

And the figs! They're so sweet....

Then she cooked us garden pasta! Almost everything picked fresh from her garden.

Doesn't the pasta look yummy? They sure do!

For breakfast, we had these sticky buns from Downtown Bakery & Creamery at Healdsburg.

I must say, they are very expensive, but they're really good to have it with your cuppa tea and behind it is a fig newton.

My oh my, I had a great weekend! :)

Thanks to my wonderful hostess...

Jong Ga!

I just can't help it, Korean food still remains as my favourite comfort food away from home. The panch'an - 16 of them! I thought being served 12 was good enough but it kept coming until the table is full of the little dishes!! Not only they served one of the best panch'an I've ever had, they also serve appetizer - cold noodle in kimchi soup. We had the lunch special - grilled pork marinated in the house specialty sauce together with tofu soup and spicy cold buckwheat noodle. 

Every time I had a really great Korean meal, I get to be introduced to another one that is better and this meal is really really good, I felt so 'touched' while eating it. Have you ever had a meal that makes you wanna cry? This one almost did and the lunch came up to only $28. Considered decent for all these food for 2 don't you think so?

www.jonggahouse.com/

Awaken by The Killers

September 12, 2009 -  A night to remember.

Thanks to C for the tickets and introduced me to the band. To say they're amazing is an understatement, because they're more than amazing. 

Truly a mind blowing concert ever! Very grateful for the awakening experience... :)

Sizzling Szechuan

The distance from SF to Milpitas is about 37 miles/ 60km.

Would you drive so far just to eat dinner? Well, apparently a lot of people would, and not just anybody, a lot of Chinese/Taiwanese/HK celebs that came to SF would make this trip. I saw it on the wall of fame photos. Alex Toh, Tong An Ge just to name a few. 

I've never had real Sze Chuan food before, so I wanted to try out this South Legend. Uh huh , even the name sounds legendary... Haha...So we had the spicy pototo shreds, chilli tofu and peanut appetizer, fried brinjal and garlic sauce pork belly. Well, though you'd see your food soaked in 1cm chili oil, I don't find them particularly spicy. At some point the tongue does become a little numb but yet, it's much nicer than having a hot burning sensation to your lips, tongue and throat! Best of all, you still get to TASTE what you're eating.

My favourite is the cubed tofu, that's the best because the chili paste that they use is so fragrant and the spiciness builds up really slowly.

Look at how thinly they cut the brinjal, you'd think that you're eating thinly shredded mushrooms! Good thing we ordered one non spicy dish, I think somehow it helps neutralizes the taste of chili peppercorn. If not we'd have sexy lips towards the end of the night! :)

Trattoria La Siciliana

When you eat with the Maestro, you go only to the Zagat rated.

Yesterday was a farewell for YC, so we decided to take her to Trattoria La Siciliana in Berkeley - one of the top Italian restaurant in US.We made reservations but we still had to wait a good half an hour before we're being seated. The place is very small and quaint, good thing there were 3 of us, if not, you'll be stuck by the window with a tiny table and be 'observed' by the passer-bys. 

It was a beautiful Friday night but my brain was completely fried after class. I couldn't focus on the menu and let the Maestro do all the ordering. 

We ordered the Fresh heirloom tomato marinated in garlic, basil, olive oil topped with mozzarella, Butternutsquash, Scampi Rissoto, and Beef Ragu Pasta.

 

One struck me as really really good was the Beef Ragu Pasta, not the beef, but the flavour of the sauce and the fresh pasta. That is something I could eat more. Also the risotto in the scampi. It was supposed to be a quite pricey place and a CASH only restaurant. Can you imagine carrying so much cash just to have dinner? Crazy - for the American credit card standard.

Next time, I'll do the ordering! :)

Yahoooooo! Kahoo....

There's 2 things I've been trying to avoid - meat & spicy food.

Ya right. Been saying that for years and I still couldn't stop.

So over the weekend, we went to visit Datuk and Datin - The Ramen Connoisseur.

They took us to their favourite ramen spot in San Jose - Kahoo.

Like any other good ramen place, this place is small, and serves only ramen, there's not much non ramen choices but they do have some mini rice bowl set.

I'm usually very finicky when I try out a new place, but this time, somehow, when I looked at the menu, that particular ramen was calling out to me. I see nothing but that line on the menu :

"Spicy ramen comes with mince pork, egg, bean sprouts, leeks and menma". (Note : menma = bamboo shoots). 

Datuk and Datin also highly recommend the "fresh wasabi, bamboo shoots, egg" mini rice bowl set. Within 5 minutes the food came. 

Tada!

This is my spicy ramen, I love the flavour of the minced meat and to my pleasant surprise - the ramen! It's thin ramen, it's the first time I've ever had thin ramen and it's so much nicer slurping this ramen instead of slurping the normal ramen. Spicy? Quite. Datuk gave me a piece tissue before the noodle came and he said I'll be needing it, he was right. But the spicy ramen tastes really really good. Best ever if you eat it during winter. *Aaaah....*


Shio Ramen : Salt based soup with chasu pork.

Kotteri Miso Ramen. Really good fatty pork with a slight spicy miso soup.

And this? This is the fresh wasabi, bamboo shoots, egg mini rice bowl set. It's not as 'spicy' as the usual wasabi and the combination  of rice, fresh wasabi sauce and sesame oil makes the flavour very refreshing and I'd probably order this instead of a bowl of ramen when I go again the next round. Frankly speaking, the bowl of ramen is way too big for me, why don't they serve kids' size?

And what's after a full full meal? Wii TIME!

I love this Rayman Raving Crazy Rabbit!!! The games are so hilarious! Kudos to the creator. Hahaha....

What a great way to spend the Saturday afternoon.... :)