South Beauty is a very beautiful restaurant located in the Super Brand Mall in Shanghai’s Pudong district. The view of the Bund was awesome from this location making us worry about the quality of the food. You have to spend at least ¥200 per person to sit by the window. Dining on the outdoor deck is unparalleled. South Beauty, founded in 2000 by Zhang Lan, has over 40 high end restaurants throughout China including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Chengdu, Suzhou, QingDao, Shenyang. They also run Steam, LAN Club, and SUBU. We had eaten at this location about two years ago and had mixed results. South Beauty Was picked this time because the other restaurants in the Super Brand Mall had already closed. They serve a combination of Sichuan and Cantonese Chinese food in stylish environments.

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Din Tai Fung is a popular Shanghai dumpling restaurant with locations in Los Angeles, Taipei, Japan, China, Singapore, and several other countries. We dined at the location in Shanghai’s touristy Xintiandi. The Los Angeles location is in Arcadia with Yelp reviews unfortunately indicating it is a step down from the ones abroad.

This restaurant started in Taipei City and has expanded over the years based on the popularity of their Shanghai steamed dumplings. We decided not to visit the USA or Hong Kong branch and eat at one in the heart of Xiao Long Bao dumpling territory, Shanghai, China. Read the rest of this entry »

Cafe des Amis (Amis means Friends in French) is a 3 week old classic French Brasserie on Union Street in middle of the Marina – Cow Hollow area, located were Restaurant Prego used to be. It is run by the Bacchus Management Group who also runs Spruce, Mayfield Bakery, and Village Pub. Former Florio chef Ed Carew is executive chef. Read the rest of this entry »

Zero Zero is a new restaurant in San Francisco’s SOMA district by Bruce Hill. (Pizzeria Picco, Picco, Bix) The restaurant is named after “00″ or doppio zero ultrafine milling flour, used in many pizzas. They feature ‘Calipolitan’ pizzas, pastas, Italian small plates, ‘two big time bars’, and organic soft serve. The focus is on farm driven ingredients and a party like atmosphere. Reservations for parties 5 or larger only, so by 6:45pm there was a wait. Read the rest of this entry »

South Sea Seafood Village took the place of Fook Yuen Seafood Restaurant in Millbrae in February 2010. Fook Yuen was a long standing Chinese restaurant in Millbrae that acquired a good reputation over the years. South Sea Seafood has a location in San Francisco’s Sunset district. Millbrae is home to many fine Cantonese Chinese restaurant including Asian Pearl Peninsula and Zen Peninsula. With such high powered competition we wondered how they would position themselves. We came for dinner about 2 weeks after they opened, and returned for dim sum Lunch in late April.

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Gourmet Village is a Chinese restaurant that opened in April 2010 on Millbrae’s Broadway Street. The chef used to work at the well-respected The Kitchen restaurant.  We came once for lunch and once for dinner.
Decor, Vibe – Gourmet Village has bare-bones Chinese restaurant decor with just a couple artifacts on the walls and some seafood tanks in the back. Mostly locals were having lunch when we were dining. Dinner was another story, with the place jam packed. Asians seem to like trying new places.

Menu

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5A5 Steak Lounge is a contemporary take on a Steakhouse, and is located in San Francisco’s Jackson Square area. They serve , 100% natural beef with no antibiotics or hormones. Executive Chef Allen Chen formerly cooked at Cupertino’s top rated Alexanders Steakhouse, so you see a lot of similarities here.

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Sun Sui Wah Seafood Restaurant is a popular Chinese restaurant in Vancouver. This restaurant is mentioned and most tour books and best of articles. It is located about 2 miles south of Vancouver’s Chinatown and it opened in the 1980s. Read the rest of this entry »

Restaurant.com sells discounted Certificates for this restaurant.

Note: any restaurant that does not receive at least a very good rating will have an abbreviated review. Foodnut.com concentrates on helping readers find very good restaurants and does not want to spend a lot of time reviewing average or good places.

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In-N-Out Burger opened way back in 1948 in Baldwin Park, California focusing as a drive through hamburger stand. Their motto is “Give customers the freshest, highest quality foods you can buy and provide them with friendly service in a sparkling clean environment.” They have locations in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah.
We went to the Mountain View location to refresh our memory of how this popular burger tastes. We’ve eaten a ton of high quality burgers and it was time to test our taste buds. In-N-Out does not freeze their beef, has no preservatives in their buns, hand-leaf their lettuce daily, peel and dice fries daily from whole potatoes, and use 100% cholesterol free oil.
Decor, Vibe – Standard fast food joint decor with this location pretty clean.

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ABC Seafood is a Chinese Cantonese restaurant with locations in Foster City and Milpitas. This review concentrates on dim sum at Foster City, which is served only during lunch. Our ABC Seafood dinner review is a separate review.

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Rave Burger is a new burger joint that opened October 2008 in downtown San Mateo. We were walking by and decided to give it a try to see how it rated. The provide sit down service in addition to to go food. They tout their Niman Ranch gourmet natural meats with no antibiotics and hormones. Niman ranch was sold so their quality may have changed. They serve hamburgers, vegan burgers, hot dogs, and salads.  We have been to Rave Burger several times over the last year. Read the rest of this entry »