Tangyuan (汤圆): An Old Chinese Tradition

This is definitely one of those dishes that reminds me of home.  This traditional Chinese dish is made during special occasions such as Chinese New Year, weddings, family homecoming, etc.  The dish is believed to bring good fortune and luck to those who eat it, hence it’s great association as a main dish at Chinese New Year.  I remember eating this a lot when I was a kid and playing with my Ninja Turtle figurines lol, not so much nowadays.  However, when my mom does make it, I make sure I get plenty.  Enjoy!

2 cups of Glutinous Rice flour
1 – 1/2 cups of water
Red food coloring
2 tablespoons of ginger root (I normally do not dice the, I leave them whole)
1/2 cup to 1 cup of sugar (depending how sweet you want it)
4 cups of water
1/4 cup of sesame seeds

Mix the flour and water together, adding water in small 1/4 cup increments until the flour becomes malleable and not sticky.  Roll them into small little balls.  Dush more rice flour if it becomes sticky.  Put on a pot of water and bring it to a boil.  Proceed to put the rice balls with the two tablespoons of ginger in and cook them until they float.  After they are cooked, add in the sugar.  You can add more than a cup of sugar if you want it really sweet…it’s really up to you, but I normally put about 1/2 cup to 3/4 of a cup depending on how much water I use.  It’s only suppose to be mildly sweet, not candy sweet.

After the previous steps have been completed.  Take the sesame seeds and lightly toast them over the pan.  After they are lightly toasted, add them to the mixture and let it cool down before you serve.

Kohryu: Never Thought I’d Miss Shin-sen-gumi So Much

891 Baket St. B-21
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 556-9212

Like the title states, I’d never thought I’d missing eating at Shin-sen-gumi so much.  This place pales in comparison to what you can get at Shin-sen-gumi, but at least they had very nice and courteous customer service!

My buddy was in town and we decided to eat since we were both hungry.  Due to the cold weather, I decided eating some warm Japanese food would be a good idea.  However, picking this place was not.  When we went into the restaurant, it was pretty empty.  I think at most two more tables had customers.  When we sat down, I ordered the Cha siu ramen (I always order this at all ramen places so I can give an accurate comparison).  My friend ordered deep fried cha siu fried rice with vegetables and gravy.  Our food then came out, but in actuality mine came out first…I had to wait for my friend’s food to come, so my ramen did get a little cold, but no biggy.  My friend’s meal came 5 minutes later.  I still think it would be a better idea to bring both our meals at the same time to avoid food going cold.

When my ramen came, it looked like ramen that was served at Daikokuya…at least the vibe of it.  One really big positive about this place is that they give you A LOT of cha siu pork meat in your noodles…I can confidently say about 3 times more than any other ramen place I’ve been to…a BIG PLUS in my book.  It’s five big thick slices that are so tender and juicy, it was great…

…the drawback? The broth and noodles were forgettable.  The biggest downer was actually the noodles.  It looked old and was clumped together in a huge ball.  Fresh ramen noodles are suppose to naturally break apart in the broth without much effort, yet still remaining firm.  These noodles were VERY hard and they were clumped together like they had been in the refrigerator for a significant amount of time.  The broth on the other hand wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t memorable in any fashion.  I think I still prefer this broth style of Orochon Ramen any day though.  However, itt still falls way short of Shin-sen-gumi’s deep, flavorful, and rich broth.  There’s a reason why Shin-sen-gumi always has a wait of 30 minutes or more, but then again Shin-sen-gumi has a ridiculously small restaurant to serve their customer base.

I didn’t try my friend’s dish, but he said the flavor was okay.  He also mentioned that he thought the rice was too mushy from all the gravy…eh…enough said haha.

I can’t really recommend this place, but if you want to try it, go ahead.  It’s not horrible by any means and maybe I came on a night where they weren’t busy so they had to use old noodles…whatever the reason, I probably most likely will not be coming back.  Sorry Kohryu, but Shin-sen-gumi still has me firmly grasped in their palms.

The NEW RANKINGS!!

1. Shin-sen-gumi

2. Santouka Ramen

3. Orochon

4. Kohryu

5. Daikokuya

I think Kohryu deserves to be above Daikokuya only because when Julie and I ate at Daikokuya, they gave us a boiled egg that was cold in the middle, which meant they boiled it earlier in the day and just served it to us in the hot broth…we both could have gotten sick!

Henry’s World Famous Hi-Life: Must Be The High Life Indeed If Adam Richman Was Here

301 W. St. John St
San Jose, CA 95110
(408) 295-5414
www.henryshilife.com

My friend of mine was in town and wanted to grab a bite to eat at this place, so I said sure. What makes this place more interesting is that it was on Man vs Food and is really close to the HP Pavillion. As with any bar-type place, this joint is sure to be filled on any big game day. The day I went there seemed to be an event at the arena but my friend and I were lucky enough to sort of beat the rush. I say sort of because we still had to wait at least 30 minutes to be seated, but there were more people after us than in front of us.

When you first enter the restaurant, it’s kind of confusing because it’s a bar area and there is no host/hostess that comes to you to ask you how many people are in your party. Are you supposed to wait? Do you seat yourself? Yea, weird but we figured it out eventually. Unique to this place, you go take a number, decide what you want to order before being seated. When your number is finally called, the busboy comes to take your order and then asks how many are in your group. Then it’s more waiting until your food is ready and you are seated.

After eating the complimentary garlic bread, which was full of buttery goodness, our orders arrived. We had ordered the baby back ribs (1/2 rack) and the BBQ Salmon, splitting everything in half so we can both have something to sample and blog about . Each dish also comes a baked potato with their special seasoned butter. YUM! No offense, but I think I’d come back just for the baked potato; the butter was just that good.

As for the main courses, the ribs are worth getting. Tender and well-seasoned, definitely one of the items to order if I am ever here again. In comparison to one of our earlier BBQ joints, I’d say that the flavor is about the same for the baby back ribs (can’t really go wrong there unless you overcook it) except that the meat at Beach Pit BBQ was even more tender and slid right off the bone while at Hi-Life I still had to get my hands dirty and chomp the meat off with my teeth.

Moving onto our other main dish, the BBQ Salmon. I wouldn’t suggest ordering this dish because there really wasn’t anything special about it and the meat was kind of dry. I usually prefer my salmon to be more moist and soft. We only ordered this dish because we figured there’s not really any point in ordering BBQ chicken at a barbeque restaurant. Overall, if you like BBQ, Hi-Life is worth giving a try. Obviously, you can’t come here expecting to have a cheap meal but it’s probably worth the food when you want to celebrate after a Sharks game .

Empanada’s Place: A Place To Be

3011 Harbor Blvd.
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 825-0100

Hi everyone!  Julie and I both apologize for the lack of updates as of recent, but we both have been very busy with school related business as well as the holidays…but fear not thankgoditsfood fans!!!! We are back with a new review…and it’s a good one!

Say “hi!” to meat filled pastries from Argentina!!  Empanada’s are simply savory fillings within a soft chewy dough.  You can fill them from potato and cheese to spinach with cheese.  You can take a look at the menu posted below to see what type of empanada’s they serve.

When Julie and I came here, we ordered 4 different empanadas.  I believe they were potato and cheese, spinach and cheese, beef and peas with carrots, and chicken marinated in spices.

Our favorite of the bunch would have to be potato and cheese.  The dough was crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.  The filling was warm and decadent, not to mention fatty!  This isn’t food for the weak hearted…it’s definitely Latin soul food.  The size of the empanada is about a little bigger than your palm and eating two will definitely fill you up.  My personal favorite was also spinach and cheese, but to be honest, it got gross after a few bites.  The spinach flavor was fine…it was the cheese that started to over power my taste buds.  The beef with peas and carrots was forgettable as it tasted like regular taco fillings…I’d have to say the same with the chicken.

It’s hard to describe exactly how empanadas taste unless you try it.  Its definitely something you can’t just get from a fast food joint and this warrants enough of a trip to try this place out.  Our advice though…just get the potato and cheese and avoid all the other flavors.  Although they are good, they can get redundant over several bites and you’ll lose interest.  Potato and cheese is the only one that will keep you eating…oh and yes, this place isn’t cheap either at $2.99 for an empanada.  For $2.99 you can definitely get better food elsewhere.

Izze carbonated fruit juice: Beat This, SODA!

Amazingly enough, we both first discovered Izze via Costco.  A carbonated fruit juice…what so special right?  A LOT.  The one thing I like about Izze is that the juice is 100% fruit juice, no added sugar.  On the back of the ingredient lists, it states pure fruit juice from etc etc depending on what you are drinking.  The other good thing about Izze is that it’s carbonated like soda, so this is definitely a wonderful alternative to jazzing up your life with something different besides plain flat fruit juice.

However, sugar is still sugar…so I wouldn’t go crazy with this either.  It’s definitely an option away from soda and regular fruit juice.  It’s cheap at costco, so go there to get this appetizing drink.  The only other problem I can think of when it comes to Izze is that this isn’t readily available everywhere.  I’ve only seen it at costco and whole foods stores, nowhere else…to make it worst…different stores carry different flavors.  Izze has over 10-15 flavors and not all the stores carry each kind. Costco sell it in bulk and the three flavors are pomegranate, blackberry, and clementine.

You guys can look at this as an adventure to try out all their flavors.  Purchase a different each time and see which one is your favorite!

Souplantation BOGO and Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a happy Thanksgiving with family and lots of yummy food…cuz I know I am! If you’re not already too full from your Thanksgiving feast, there’s a Buy One Get One deal at Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes (Bay Area) with this coupon that can be used 11/27-11/30:

http://newman.reddoor.biz/hostedemail/email.htm?h=7f48b0e5adbb132ae9576200a056fee3&CID=2720173171&ch=0ECBC578D7D43A4EA904BCA12501D8EE

Enjoy! Gobble, gobble!

Coupa Café: A Little Overhyped Is What I Say

538 Ramona St
Palo Alto, CA 94301
(650) 322-6872
www.coupacafe.com

I think this is one of the first places where I really felt like I ordered the wrong item(s) on the menu. A couple of friends and I wanted to have a lunch date so we looked up a few places on Yelp! and settled on this little cafe based on the positive feedback and the enticing photos. It was a little confusing at first because its door wasn’t a typical glass door. The door looked like it belonged to somebody’s house so we actually walked passed it a few times before finally deciding that it must be the right place.

I had read sooo many good reviews about the Spicy Maya Hot Chocolate so of course I wanted to try it out. While I wasn’t as impressed as I thought I would be about the taste, I do have to give them an ‘A’ for presentation. I guess I shouldn’t be complaining since how elaborate can you be with spicy hot chocolate? It was good, but it tasted exactly like the spicy hot chocolate that my roommate in college used to make…and she would just buy the mix at a regular grocery store in the Hispanic foods section. If you’re craving spicy hot chocolate, just buy the mix from the store. It’s much cheaper.

As for the food, none of us were too hungry so we wanted to sample California Mozzzrella arepa and Mediterranean panini. The panini was okay… nothing special but it wasn’t bad either. However, the only taste that was prominent were the sun-dried tomatos. I couldn’t make out the mozzarella or the pesto that was supposed to be in it. Next time I would probably order a different flavored panini…or just go to Panera Bread.

As for the arepas that we ordered, I found that dish to be rather bland. It might be because the one we ordered only has sun-dried tomatos, mozzarella, and basil. I personally didn’t like the white cornmeal griddle for the taste or the texture. That is just my opinion though. I definitely was expecting more but since arepas are pretty much a snack food, I guess it makes sense that there wasn’t as much substance as I expected.

Even though I wasn’t impressed with what I ate here, I would still be willing to give this place a second chance. A lot of their other items on the menu look good and I’m surprised I didn’t order empanadas! Honestly, I think it’s what I ordered that dampened my experience here. If I ever come back again, I’ll definitely be ordering something that has more flavor.

The Bread Crumb Ohana Cafe: Never Thought Hawaii Could Be Uninspiring and Bland

19079 Beach Blvd.
Huntington Beach, CA 92648
(714) 960-5051

Let’s just get it out of the way…this place wasn’t good .  I wouldn’t recommend this place to any of my friends or family.  It wasn’t horribly bad,  just……bad haha and the food was bland.

Julie was craving breakfast when she was visiting me, so when we both woke up, we decided to hit up The Bread Crumb based on the numerous good reviews we saw on Yelp.  The place was hard to find (in retrospect it might have been a blessing not to find it at all).  It was hidden on the left corner of the plaza with no clear signs of where it was…I had a feeling it was stuck in that particular corner so we decided to walk up to investigate.  We were seated very quickly and the place seemed really busy for 2pm in the afternoon for a breakfast joint…we took it as a good sign.

When we looked at the menu, Julie was craving french toast with strawberries, so she ordered that once she saw it on the menu.  I, on the other hand, wasn’t too hungry, so I decided to order their biscuits w/gravy, since it was marked as a favorite/popular item on the menu for the locals.

The food came really quick, which was very pleasant and the service was very friendly.  When I took my first bite of the biscuits w/gravy, I noticed one really big thing, and that was the biscuits themselves were really bad.  It was drenched in gravy (the way it’s suppose to be), but I could already tell that if I had the biscuit by itself, it would have been really dry.  It seemed really stale even under all that gravy.  Not to mention flat.  Biscuits are suppose to be light, flaky, soft, buttery, and doughy.  This biscuit was sorta tough (not intolerable), but definitely a big thumbs down.  Let’s just say, it didn’t look nor tasted like a biscuit.  The gravy wasn’t bad.  Overall, even though it’s one of their more popular dishes, I don’t want to know how their other dishes taste like if this was their local favorite.  This would probably rank as the worst biscuits and gravy I’ve had thus far just because of how the biscuits were.

Julie’s french toast didn’t fair any better.  The main complaint that Julie had was that the bread was TOO stale and the batter didn’t even penetrate the bread thoroughly.  If you break the slice of french toast in half, the egg batter only coated the surface of the french toaste, hence when I took a bite, I noticed it just tasted like bread with a slight after taste of the egg batter.  The center was dry and resembled just regular bread.  French toast is suppose to have a smooth, custard filled center.  We were both surprised at how poorly executed the dish was.  I mean…it’s a main breakfast entree and it wasn’t even done properly -_-.

Honestly, we left unimpressed and won’t be coming back.  The quality is severely lacking and we honestly think the only reason why this place gets any business is because of the name drawing people in and locals that are too bias to realize the food they are eating is bad.

Let’s say if you were to compare this to The Cottage in San Diego…The Cottage would be the equivalent of Kobe Beef and The Bread Crumb would be ground chuck…totally on different levels and the Bread Crumb didn’t even come close in any category.  They might come close in terms of service, but too bad The Cottage is just as nice or nicer (we sat at a table with direct sunlight at The Cottage and the server said to us “you guys want to switch to this table, it’ll be less sunny “).  The Cottage’s version of french toast was amazing.  Moist, a custardy center consistency, buttery, and big servings…the way it’s suppose to be.  Just avoid this place, you’ll feel ripped off after you eat here.  Thank god the place didn’t cost too much though -_-.

St. John’s Bar and Grill: Finally! Another Place Favorited

510 Lawrence Expressway
Suite 110
Sunnyvale, CA 94085
(408) 738-8515
www.stjohnsgrill.com

Yay, new yummy place! I know our blog has been getting dry with new posts. Not to mention that recently there just hasn’t been many places that have a “wow” factor. I was a little skeptical at first when my friends said they wanted to go to a burger place for dinner. This place isn’t THAT close to my house and I was thinking How good can a non-$10 burger really get? Also, another thought came to mind when I saw ‘Bar & Grill’ was Oh great, BRO-y. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. As a female, it’s just difficult to fully enjoy a meal when it’s a complete sausagefest full of frat boys. But alas, that is not the case with this joint. It definitely has got a sports bar vibe to it, but at least it doesn’t have the Bro-factor.

If you’re planning to come here, be warned that seats are hard to come by during meal times. At primetime the lines seem long, but service is fast and you get your orders pronto status. Anyways, yea $7 is kind of steep for a burger with a thin patty if you want to compare against The Counter. But we’re not talking about The Counter are we. Please don’t come here expecting a ginormous burger with all sorts a plethora of random toppings; St.John’s just serves a different style burger. This dive is perfect for good deals (I’ll talk about this later), good burgers, and a good time with friends to just hang out. The best thing about this place is that Wednesdays (4-10pm) and Saturdays (all day) are their Burger Bash days, which means half-off all burgers! At about $3-4 a burger, it makes this place totally worth it. Not a burger fan? Don’t worry they have different deals everyday of the week so you can pick and choose which day you want to pop in.

Okay, now I can actually talk about the food! If you ever get the chance to, most of the burgers on their menu look very good. There has also been many Yelpers saying good things about different burgers. I decided to try their ‘Beg for Mercy’ cheeseburger because that seemed to be one of those gotta-try items on the menu. This burger consists of 1/3 lb fresh ground chuck laden with roasted serrano peppers, pepper jack cheese, and chipotle mayo. The buns used weren’t really anything special, but nevertheless the burger was very flavorful . Those of you who can handle your spicy and like your food not the least mild, this is the burger for you. I’m glad they put this type of pepper rather than jalapenos because my mouth was not overwhelmed with numbness. Even though the peppers have a good kick, my taste buds were still able to calm down to enjoy the combination of ingredients on the burger as a whole. Note: there is a jalapeno burger on the menu, but one of my friends who has tried that one can attest that the ‘Beg for Mercy’ burger is much better seasoned.

I know spicy isn’t the thing for everyone. Luckily, it seems that most of the burgers here are good. Some of my friends tried the guac and bacon burger and the pineapple teriyaki burger. Both enjoyed their meal very much. Another item on the menu that I was able to sample were their garlic fries. The burgers? Awesome! The garlic fries? Eh..not so much. To me, they tasted like garlic fries you order from the food court in a theme park. I know the menu says there’s fresh garlic on it, but all I could make out was the garlic powder they sprinkled on. A lot of the fries were stuck together too; that was kind of annoying.

Overall, a very good local dive for a quick and cheap bite to eat when the time is right. I’ll definitely be back again. I think next time I want to give their beer-battered onion rings a try and possibly another wonderful burger. Hoorah for a ‘definitely will come again’ place!

Mad Greek Cafe: Another Place For Fried Zucchini Guilt

12120 Beach Blvd.
Stanton, CA 90680
(714) 898-5181

Hi all you “thankgoditsfood” dedicated followers!!!  Julie and I would like to take the time to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts for making this blog so popular.  We had modest intentions with this blog, but the consistent traffic we get on this blog nowadays is still surprising to us and we just appreciate the fact that you guys still keep this site going, so THANKS!!!!

We also like to apologize for the lack of updates recently as Julie and I are busy handling the academic portions of our lives, but rest assured, we will update and provide you guys with greats places to eat when we can.  Unfortunately from now on, the reviews won’t be as often as they were before, but when they do come they will still be great reads, great reviews, and honest opinions.

Julie recently made a trip down to Southern California to visit me and we had a few chances to try a couple places to eat during the weekend.  This was one of the first restaurants that we had the chance to try out.  My sister recommended me this place because she said they had wonderful zucchini fries with a great sauce.  NOW…the only place that had great zucchini fries that no one can compare to was Duke’s Restaurant in Santa Ana.  We decided that since my sister thought this was place amazing, we should definitely give their variation a try since she is credible in her suggestions…SOMETIMES haha.

Now, we knew that the fries were going to be similar since my sister said so, but the reason my sister suggested the place to begin with was because of the greek yogurt sauce that they make to go along with the fries.  When we got there, the place was small and seem to be a local eatery for the people of Stanton.  It wasn’t terribly busy, but you can tell this place does get modest business.  When we got the order of our zucchini fries, we first noticed that they look exactly like the fries that Duke’s Restaurant makes.  When we tasted the zucchini fries, we realized its the SAME zucchini fries we had at Duke’s…exactly the same…same batter…same everything.  I had always knew that Duke’s never made their zucchini fries in-house…because I saw the bag that they ordered from was from a mass producer…I didn’t mind because it still tasted great.  I was just a little surprised that this place also happens to order these fries from the same producers…I was expecting something else.  Regardless, we were there for the Greek yogurt sauce that they DO make in house.

All we can say about the sauce is it’s close to tasting like ranch sauce, but not as salty and with some diced cucumbers in it.  Was it good?  Sure…but I wouldn’t come back to Mad Greek just for the sauce.  I think the ranch sauce that Duke’s does make in-house is much more rich and creamy and definitely goes a lot better with the zucchini fries than this yogurt sauce.

You can give this place a try for their other stuff like their gyros etc, but we didn’t bother as we weren’t that hungry.  We might go back to try their gyros, but that’s for another discussion.  Just go to Duke’s Restaurant in Santa Ana if you want zucchini fries with the real deal ranch sauce they make…it’s a lot better.