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Coque, Madrid, Spain

Coque, Madrid, Spain

Coque (coal in Spanish) is a very expensive (340€) 2 Michelin star restaurant in Madrid Spain. There are five total Two star spots in this great city. (Available 160€ optional wine pairing)

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Encanto, Lisbon

Encanto, Lisbon

Vegetarian heaven! Encanto is a vegetarian restaurant in Lisbon with one Michelin star from star chef José Avillez. We have no vegetarian restaurant with this rank back in San Francisco, so we had to give it a try. You can book online, they have a single 12 course tasting menu that is also available in English. Our server spoke English too.

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Octavia, San Francisco

Octavia, San Francisco

Why did we dine here? – Octavia is the latest restaurant from Melissa Perello, chef-owner of 1 Michelin Starred and well loved Frances. A small 54 seat neighborhood restaurant that is already drawing crowds from throughout the City. We are in this area a lot, so we were waiting for it to finally open.

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Yan Peninsula Dim Sum Review

Yan Peninsula Dim Sum Review

January 2023 Yan Peninsula replaces Old school dim sum Zen Peninsula is a Cantonese Chinese restaurant in Millbrae. This name almost sounds like a half baked effort to change the name. Long time stalwart Hong Kong Flower Lounge recently closed, making this a great time to sweep up business. Zen had previously been one of the goto places for banquets, weddings and the like. Millbrae is ground zero for some of the most popular Chinese food in the SF Bay area with spots like:

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Mercado de San Miguel, Madrid

The must go to food market in Madrid!

Everyone goes to popular Mercado de San Miguel. Our last visit was about 5 years ago and it has definitely improved since. Each stall specializes in one category, so there is no overlap or competition with other stalls. Paella, Jamon, Olives, Fruits, Tapas, Pastries, Wine, Empanadas and more are all represented. Prices are higher than outside eateries, but do come hungry when you visit.

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Liholiho Yacht Club, San Francisco

Liholiho Yacht Club, San Francisco

Why did we dine here? – Liholiho Yacht Club is a Hawaiian influenced restaurant from Ravi Kapur, formerly of Prospect and Boulevard. He returned to Hawaii and found inspiration in the cuisine he grew up with. It is a very popular restaurant with hard to get online reservations. You need to wait 30 minutes or more before it opens to grab one of the open butcher-block tables if you walk in.

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Routier, San Francisco

Routier, San Francisco

Why did we dine here? – Routier is a Hot Frenchish restaurant from the folks at nearby B patisserie. A friend recommended this restaurant, and we’ve been back twice. Highly rated at 4.5 stars on yelp. Belinda Leong and Michel Suas joined forces with JP Carmona, formerly chef de cuisine at Manresa, to lead the kitchen of this elevated neighborhood joint in the former jazz club location.

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Moody’s Bistro & Bar Restaurant, Truckee

Moody’s Bistro & Bar Restaurant, Truckee

Moody’s Bistro & Bar is a high end Mountain comfort food restaurant in downtown Truckee. Local, organic, seasonal focus or as they tell it – Moody’s food philosophy is “fresh, local, seasonal and simple”. Chef de Cuisine is Guy Frenette. The Restaurant opened in 2006. Moody’s has live music on some nights, call ahead. Our last visit was during a trip to the mountains in 2022.

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Cheug Hing (Formerly China Village), Belmont

China Village, Belmont

Cheung Hing replaces China Village Seafood Restaurant in Belmont, California just off the Highway 101 Ralston Exit. The former have been around since 1996, serving dim sum during both lunch and dinner, as well as standard Cantonese Chinese cuisine but changed hands in 2022. It appears that they may have a similar menu and chef from before. The interior and exterior are still the same too, so is the phone number.

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Greens Restaurant, San Francisco

Greens Restaurant Review, San Francisco

Greens Restaurant has been serving vegetarian fare since 1979. Their Marin based Green Gulch Farm provides much of the produce. Greens was a pioneer in the early days, nowadays we have many more plant centric restaurants like Wildseed, Baia, Shizen, etc. Today almost every fancy restaurant accommodates vegetarians to some degree. The menu changes all the time.

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Sorella, San Francisco

Sorella, San Francisco

Sorella is an anxiously awaited casual sister restaurant to Michelin starred Acquerello. In fact it means sister in Italian! It is located where 1760 once was. Having this pedigree, we quickly added it to our must visit list. We’ve dined here twice, the last time at the end of 2022.

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Dumpling Home, San Francisco

Dumpling Home, San Francisco

Why did we dine here? – Dumpling Home was featured in the SF Chronicle for Xiao Long Bao or Soup Dumplings making us really want to try it. We are big fans of these delicate little steamed dumplings and have eaten them all over the world including Shanghai. The two best spots have been Din Tai Fung in Santa Clara and Yank Sing, SF. We have dined here several times. Our last visit was during the start of 2023.

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A Mano, San Francisco

A Mano, San Francisco

Why Here? A Mano or by hand in Italian, is a California Italian restaurant from Adriano Paganini’s group that runs many local restaurants including Super Duper, Delarosa, and Belga. A nice neighborhood joint in the trendy Hayes Valley area. We are big fans of pasta and pizza, so we had to give it a try.

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Kauai Restaurant Reviews

Kauai Restaurant Reviews from our visit to the Garden isle in May 2022

Lots of local food trucks and Hawaiian favorites. We did not dine in once! None of these requires reservations.

Checkout reviews of the other Hawaiian Islands

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San Ho Won, San Francisco

San Ho Won, San Francisco

Why did we dine here? – San Ho Won is a super popular Korean Restaurant which opened in the fall of 2021 and is a collaboration between Corey Lee and Jeong-In Hwang. They use tock for their reservation system, in which you have a pre-pay
a $25/person deposit. It was very hard getting a reservation here.

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Din Tai Fung, Santa Clara

Din Tai Fung, Santa Clara

Why did we dine here? – Din Tai Fung is a popular Xiao Long Bao (It means small bamboo steamer bun in Chinese) – Shanghai Steamed Soup dumpling restaurant with locations in Bellevue, Seattle, Southern California, Taiwan, Japan, China, Indonesia, Macau, Singapore, and several other countries. Few Chinese dishes generate so much obsession. Think of it like a quest to find the best burger or pizza. We have been to this location several times.

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Lily, San Francisco

Lily, San Francisco

Why did we dine here? – Lily is a Modern Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco is inner Richmond District. Sort of a neighborhood joint kicked up a notch. The Chef Rob Lam used to run restaurant Butterfly on the waterfront. There are a ton of VERY good restaurant options nearby including Burma superstar, Chapeau!, Wako, and Mamahuhu. Traditional Vietnamese restaurants are a block away. We have been here twice for lunch during the Pandemic.

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Sultana, Menlo Park

Sultana, Menlo Park

Why did we dine here? – Sultana is a long established Mediterranean restaurant in downtown Menlo Park. This is a nicer place with a outdoor patio in the back, perfect during the Pandemic. This spot is definitely a step above all the casual Mediterranean restaurants you find around. (We like Hummus Mediterranean in San Mateo) A friend recommended it, so we decided to give it a go.

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I-Shanghai Delight, San Ramon

I-Shanghai Delight, San Ramon

Why did we dine here? – We love dumplings and this one WOW’d us! I-Shanghai Delight is a Shanghainese Chinese restaurant in San Ramon. They also have locations in Fremont and Sacramento. We were dining here with friends who highly recommended this Chinese restaurant. Note: Only 3.5 stars on Yelp probably due to bad service.

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Che Fico, San Francisco

Chez Fico, San Francisco

Hot Spot in the City. Why did we dine here? – Che Fico (Kay-Feeco) means what a fig – is a new Jewish Italian restaurant in San Francisco that has garnered a lot of hype. There is a long line queuing up for unreserved tables everyday. It has fallen to 3.5 Yelp stars, but we still wanted to try it out. Prices have appreciated significantly during the pandemic.

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Flour + water Restaurant Review, San Francisco

flour + water Restaurant Review, San Francisco

Flour + Water is a wildly popular Italian restaurant in the Mission district of San Francisco. They focus on hand rolled pastas, house cured meats, and an Italian pizza oven. The chef, Thomas McNaughton is a veteran of La Folie, Gary Danko, Quince. They take reservations on rezy and reserve space for walk ins (Communal table), causing a line to form 20 min. before the place even opens.  Yelp rating has faded to 3.5 stars.

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Village Pub Review, Woodside

Village Pub Review, Woodside

Village Pub is a fine dining establishment in the small town of Woodside. We have passed by many times, on our way back from hiking or biking, and felt it was time to try it. They have received One Michelin star starting from 2009. They use lots of seasonal, local, and organic ingredients. They have a sister restaurant Spruce, in San Francisco.

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Estiatorio Ornos, San Francisco

Why did we dine here? – Estiatorio Ornos is Michael Minas Flagship restaurant’s latest reboot, this time to Greek cuisine. The decor is more warm and modern, with contrasting whites and oranges, and a lot less fine dining edge. There was definitely a buzz in the year, after two months of opening, the audience was well dressed and ready for some revenge dining.

How does this new eatery stack up to long time long time stall worth Kokkari?

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Ernest, San Francisco

Ernest, San Francisco

Why did we dine here? – Ernest is a hot restaurant in the Potrero Hill area not far from KQED. We had to set multiple alerts on Resy to get a reservation. They have outdoor seating in their courtyard, complete with heat lamps. We dine here twice, once inside and once outside.

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Ettan, Palo Alto

Cutting Edge Cal-Indian in Palo Alto.

Ettan, Palo Alto

Why did we dine here? – Ettan, Palo Alto open one month before the Pandemic. Talk about bad timing. Open/close – Open close syndrome. Things were opening up again, so we decided to give them a try. This was one of our first high end sit down meals in quite a while. They are tucked away in a small alley in Downtown Palo Alto. Beautiful restaurant, inside and out. Great spot to eat outside in their large patio. East Asians have discovered the spot, helping to validate the cuisine in our book.

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BAIA, San Francisco

BAIA, San Francisco

BAIA is a vegan restaurant in the old Jardinière space of San Francisco’s Hayes Valley Neighborhood. Any SF Foodie remembers this classic location. This restaurant opened in the middle of the Pandemic, talk about great timing!
We ate during the Pandemic, when outdoor dining was allowed. We returned in early 2023 and found the place was a hard to book reservation and slightly less fantastic.

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Shizen, San Francisco

Must goto for vegetarians. Plant based cuisine satisfying even Carnivores.

Shizen, San Francisco

Why did we dine here? – Shizen Vegan Sushi Bar & Izakaya has remarkable 4.5 stars on Yelp. With the plant based revolution booming, we just had to try this spot. We’ve returned a couple times..  They started offering takeout during the pandemic.  If you like this spot, be sure to try BAIA

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Koi Palace Dim Sum Daly City Review

Koi Palace Dim Sum Daly City Review

Koi Palace has been the #1 Chinese Dim Sum restaurant in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Peninsula is ground zero for some of the best Chinese food in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Around 2018, new upcomers with opulent interiors and modern menu have challenged them.

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Square Pie Guys, San Francisco

Square Pie Guys, San Francisco

Greasy, Cheesy and satisfying! Square Pie Guys serves great Detroit Style Pizza. “A crispy, crackly caramelized cheese crust that comes from baking in rectangular blue steel pans originally used to ferry auto parts around Detroit automotive factories.” We’ve seen a lot written about them, so we finally gave it a try. Definitely have been back too. Great stuff. No dine in or outdoor dining, all take out.

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HL Peninsula, South San Francisco

Modern Hi-End Dim sum
HL Peninsula, South San Francisco
Our goto Chinese Restaurant in San Francisco Area..

Why did we dine here? – HL Peninsula opened near Costco Business center of South San Francisco. This is a large and opulent restaurant that is typical of ones in China. High ceilings, huge TV screens, and many private rooms. (Reminds us of J Zhou in Tustin) There is no other place like this nearby. They are part of a restaurant group that has several locations in Vancouver and China. Yes, China money is flowing in and we are benefiting from better restaurants.

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Star Noodle, Lahaina, Maui

Star Noodle, Lahaina, MauiWhy did we dine here? – Star Noodle is a popular Asian restaurant on Maui focusing on a variety of noodle dishes that originate from Japan through other Asian countries.  We have been here on all our recent Maui visits.

They moved to downtown Lahaina in November 2020, and are known as Star Noodle v2.  Star Noodle also does takeout but you need to call it in early. Parking lot is part of the new location!

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