Brrrr.....

The weather is getting very cold. Thus, my staple diet - vegetable hot pepper soup noodle with home made kimchi.

Santa Cruz

The weather was really beautiful so we had to take a stroll along the beach after breakfast.

The tide was coming in but we were looking for the anemones in the pool tides.

Finally we found some! :)

Breakfast at Santa Cruz

We drove almost 1.5 hours to Santa Cruz for breakfast. Was it worth it? It was pretty good. Cafe Brasil is a very small restaurant famous for its breakfast. Everything here is really fresh and superb. As usual, we ordered the Cafe Brasil pancake, Egg Benedict and Omelette. Somebody asked if there was a worm in my tummy, I think so, and it's name is Bo.Pit - Bottomless Pit.

The breakfast was really good, but it's crazy to drive so far just to have breakfast but if you're around the neighborhood, you should definitely try it.

Ta.Ra Thai

I love the city. I love it even more during the holiday season when the whole place is deserted. I assumed that this place would be packed if it had been a normal evening, but considering it's Thanksgiving night, there were only 3 tables of patrons when we reached. I must say the interior of the restaurant is beautiful. Even though the food is good, but you probably pay a premium for the ambience.

We ordered the fried calamari, samosa, tea leaves salad, satay chicken, Singapore meehoon, and fried sambal ribs. They are as good as they looked. The most satisfying are the ribs. I have been craving for ribs for a very long time so I was very excited when I saw this on the menu. It's so good the meat just slip off the bone. All in all, it was a good meal and I am thankful for the good food.

Ta.Ra

123 2nd street. @ Minna San Francisco, CA 94105 415.34.8.9977

Phnom Penh House

I've heard so much about this place. A lot of the people that I work with seemed to really like this Cambodian restaurant. So finally, I was lucky enough to be invited to dinner at this restaurant!

The Cambodian ice-tea and eggplant with sauteed pork and shrimp were highly recommended. As it was a cold night, we needed some soup, so we ordered the basil lemon grass chicken soup. T wanted to try the fried noodle, on the menu it says, "Char Khytiw", but it turned out to be just like Pattai, but hey, it was really good so a name is just a name! The egg plant was awesome, before it was cooked with the pork and shrimp, they had charbroiled the eggplant so you could really taste that BBQ burnt taste in the eggplant. Another dish that we ordered was the chicken curry, it was not bad, it was a really light curry so that was good.

As usual, the portion is more than enough for 3 person but I just couldn't stop eating while my friends happily busily chatting away....towards the end, I was really ready to go to bed at 8pm *burp* :)

Aaaah..... life's good. Love the people that I'm with so much!

Phnom Penh House

3912 MacArthur Blvd
(between Patterson Ave & 38th Ave)
Oakland, CA 94619
Neighborhoods: Laurel District, Lower Hills

(510) 482-8989

Barracuda!

All work and no play makes Sunshine a plain Jane. Thanks to Groupon, we got a $30 voucher for half the price. So on a beautiful Saturday evening I went to have dinner with C at Barracuda Sushi. I have been craving for sushi for a while, but seriously, with only the 2 of us we cannot really order a lot. So we only ordered our usual favourites, agedashi tofu and spinach salad. But since it was a new opening, we decided to try out the Fried Suzuki drizzled with garlic oil and Baraccuda sushi.

Now, what is Suzuki? It is a type of Japanese Seabass. Woah, this was really good. The thinly sliced Suzuki was lightly pan fried and drizzled in garlic oil garnished with coriander leaves. The fish was slightly raw but because of the richness and the freshness of the meat, it was very satisfying. It has been a while since I have had such a satisfying sushi. As for the Baraccuda (soft shell crab, avocado, mangoes and salmon) was also very good. It has everything that I love in one dish, what can you not love about it? Good thing is we bought 2 $30 vouchers, which means we would be coming back soon for second round! *grin*

As the song goes...BARACCUDA! *burp*

The Slanted Charm

Grumpyurbanslacker said that he wanted to try Vietnamese when he comes to visit. After much planning and research, he decided that he wanted to try The Slanted Door. Right after he decided I called up to make reservations. It was a month ahead but all the preferred time were booked so we settled on a Sunday night at 7:45pm. We couldn't believe how packed the place was! GUS joked that the place resembled a bus transit station. As usual, I couldn't decide what to eat so he made all the decisions.

We started with the appetizer, the slanted door springrolls.

Then seared dayboat scallops with mango, toasted lemongrass and spicy fish sauce. I really liked this one very much! The scallops were cooked just right and I really liked the fresh and pickled mango. Was so glad that we ordered this over the others!

For the main course we tried the grilled ranch brother's berkshire pork chop. I know GUS loves pork! My oh my, it was really good, I really like chewing on the ribs but I don't know what GUS thought of my dinning etiquette and I didn't care to check with him and used my hand. Haha..

And the grass fed estancia shaking beef. We have no idea why it's called the shaking beef and we forgot to ask the waitress. But the beef was good and I really enjoyed the watercress in lime sauce! Haha.... I was ready to go to bed after being so contented with the meal... Hehe..

But we couldn't leave just like that, so GUS ordered the Vietnamese drip coffee. It was a tad too sweet for me but he loved it.

I was really full and we couldn't even finish our main courses but GUS had to entice me into ordering a dessert. Good call GUS, because we orderd the almond milk tapioca. Oh my god, it was really awesome. I could just come to this place again just for this dessert and nothing else! The brown thing is puree kabocha and the white part is tapioca in almond milk and the grapes were garnished with caramelized almond I think. Bottom line is I like this dessert! Yummy!

I had such a great time and towards the end of the meal I was laughing so much, I hope the food wasn't spiked with happy substance that's why we all loved it so much! Hehe...

Thanks GUS for the wonderful time!! :)