bund Shanghai Restaurant is a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown that serves Shanghainese cuisine and opened in 2009. It is named after one of the touristy but must visit areas of Shanghai next to the Huangpu river. Most of the restaurants in Chinatown serve Cantonese cuisine in contrast to this place. We stopped by for a quick snack in 2009, then returned for lunch in August 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

Alice’s Restaurant is located in the San Francisco coastal mountain range at the intersection on Highway 35 Skyline Blvd, and Highway 84. They are “Home to the best specialty burgers in the world”, as they put it. Lots of motorcyclists stop here on the weekend as well as hikers, bikers, and those touring the area. We have eaten here several times, the last time in June 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

Shanghai Club is a new restaurant in Burlingame that opened in the spot that once had Archipeligo and Granville. We visited about a week after the restaurant opened. Their website indicates that the owners run several restaurants around the Bay Area. Read the rest of this entry »

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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Alhana Foods is a combination grocery store – Mediterranean deli in San Mateo. They focus on falafel’s, schawerma, kabobs and the like.

Decor, Vibe – Standard grocery store with the food counter and a couple tables.

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Super Duper is a new hamburger restaurant in the Castro. It was opened by the folks behind Delarosa, Beretta and Starbelly. They use Niman Ranch meats. This restaurant opened in mid-April 2010.
Decor, Vibe – Brand-new Burger restaurant with some retro decor and stainless steel seats. The place had a couple younger folks stop by for a quick bite.

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Darla’s Restaurant is an informal diner in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset district. Their motto is “Possibly the Best Burger Around”. We had to give it a try. Read the rest of this entry »

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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Baby Blues BBQ is a new BBQ restaurant in the Bernal Heights area of San Francisco that opened in late 2008. They have locations in Venice, California and West Hollywood. They have hybrid BBQ Memphis style rib and sauces that hail from North Carolina. Their racks are slowly smoked and rubbed with pepper and spices. Read the rest of this entry »

Shabu House is a Japanese Beef Fondue restaurant with locations in San Francisco and Burlingame. Shabu Shabu is a Japanese culinary dish which inspired from the Mongolian tradition of nabemono, or “one pot” cooking. In traditional shabu shabu, thin slices of beef are placed in a communal pot of boiling water and swished back and forth until cooked. We went to the new Burlingame location, open since late November 2009. The San Francisco one opened in late 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

ABC Seafood is a Chinese Cantonese restaurant with locations in Foster City and Milpitas. The Foster City location is in the shopping center that houses Safeway. This place is a fairly busy during dim sum lunch but was only 1/3 full for dinner. You can easily pick out Chinese Cantonese restaurants, as most have tanks of fresh fish, crustaceans. ABC Seafood has an extensive menu with lots of expensive items. We stuck to more normal moderately priced dishes. Read the rest of this entry »

California Pizza Kitchen started back in 1985 in Beverly Hills by two attorneys. It is now International and publically traded. Their BBQ Chicken pizza is their signature dish. We were passing by the San Mateo location and decided to refresh our memories. Read the rest of this entry »