Archive for February, 2008

pho-get-a-bout-it!

February 19, 2008 at 12:22 am · Filed under vietnamese

Pho 84
354 17th St., Oakland

PHOto: yelp.com

The first time I went to this place, I had a lot of firsts. First time I had pho, or probably even Vietnamese food. Also one of the first times I went out to dinner with bbg and his folks. (Bonus info: bbg likes to call it “pho eighty pho” – haha, what a clever guy.) First time I ventured out to uptown Oakland after dark. Needless to say, this place has a bit of special meaning for me.

Make your way through the area’s maze of one way streets and you’ll stumble upon this little, but popular mom and pop pho place. It’s right next to the wig place, so you can’t miss it. I’m told (by the ever knowledgeable bbg) that pho places are often named pho with a number to signify the year they opened. Looks like this place opened about 24 years ago.

The place is small and usually packed. They just remodeled the joint, and I don’t really remember what it used to look like, but I hear it’s quite nicer. There are paintings of landscapes of Vietnam on the walls – a river scene, people in fields picking something, women in brightly colored outfits in fields of flowers. The pictures are nice and welcoming, colorful and warm. The interior is very Asian Ikea – with wooden tables and natural, deep green tones throughout. It’s nice.

On the menu tonight: hot and sweet soup, tofu rolls, beans and prawns, grilled chicken and grilled beef. Let’s start with the rolls! They’re served at room temperature and come wrapped in rice paper. The tofu is fried, and rolled up with bean sprouts, shredded cucumber, and cooked vermicelli noodles. The rolls are nice and fat and come with a very rich and somewhat spicy peanut sauce for dipping. The rolls are fresh and crunchy, very tasty and refreshing. The sauce is a nice flavoring and contrasts the rolls well since it’s very thick and heavy.

The soup! The soup is delicious. It’s sweet and extremely spicy with large chunks of veggies: tomatoes, celery, mushroom, and shreds of cabbage. The sweetness comes from the chunks of fresh pineapple (and perhaps coconut milk?). There’s also a little tangy-ness to the soup, probably from the citrus. The soup comes with a good serving of whole shrimp, cooked to perfection. While it’s very very good, it’s equally spicy! I loved the taste, but my lips were burning off my face after finishing one bowl. Also, a regular serving feeds just four people – get a large and have seconds.

The entrees came with special rice, a bed of vermicelli, and side salads. The salads were just iceberg lettuce with pickled shredded carrots with a light dressing. The veggies were all fresh, but it was pretty plain. Pho 84’s special rice is yellow because it’s been cooked in broth, but generally doesn’t taste too much more special than regular rice. Good, but not as amazing as others would make it. The vermicelli comes in pancake form – millions of little noodles squished together to line the bottom of the plate it comes on. Underneath the grilled chicken, the vermicelli soaks up the juices and becomes very very tasty. YUM.

The chicken and beef were about the same – run of the mill Asian bbq. Both dishes come with a sweet and little spicy sauce you can drizzle on your meat. The meat is pretty plain, but add the sauce and you’ve got something a little bit special. Add that to the special rice or the vermicelli and you’ve got choice chow. Everything by itself is just fine, but mix it all up and you’ve got an amazing dish.

Lastly, we had a dish of prawns with green beans. The beans were cooked, but still had some crisp, which was nice. The prawns were large and well cooked. The beans and prawns are drenched in a much heavier sauce, something closer to a bbq sauce thinned with soy sauce, with a rich and smoky flavor. Very good, but a little rich for me when we ran out of rice.

The service was very fast and friendly, once you get in to the door. The place is usually packed, so don’t expect to get in quickly without a little luck. A lot of people take out, another smart move, and more proof that the place is as good as everyone says it is.

Overall: Some really good food.  Really. ‘Nuff said.

Rating: 10/10!

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livin the dream

February 10, 2008 at 10:38 pm · Filed under chinese

Hai Sunhai-sun.jpg
3137 Laguna St. (x Lombard St.)

So, I’ve never been to this place in person. When bbg and I first moved in to our apartment, we didn’t know much about the city and we were open to experimenting (with food, that is). As such, when takeout menus appeared rubberbanded to our front door, we tried a couple out. Hai Sun caught our eye because, supposedly, they cook with very little oil. We figured that if we were gonna eat Chinese food, we could at least try to be healthy about it, so we made the call. Take out Chinese food in a tiny urban apartment? I must be an adult now.

Like I said, I’ve never physically been to the place, so I can’t say much about the interior or table service or anything like that. I have ordered from there about a dozen or so times since we’ve been in SF. Ordering on the phone seems to be the most painful part since the person taking your order doesn’t always have a firm grasp on the English language. It’s also pretty confusing when you only order two dishes instead of the normal 5 or 6. Ordering the food is semi ok, but giving directions on where you live can be tricky. Delivery is pretty speedy, even on a Saturday night. They’ll also call you if they can’t find your apartment or if your buzzer isn’t working.

The food is satisfying, but I wouldn’t say it’s the best ever. We usually get some kind of chow mein and a spicy beef dish. The menu boasts lots of different kinds of Chinese cuisine (Mongolian, Szechuan, Hunan, HK). I’m pretty ignorant and thus don’t know the difference between them. We’ve tried them all and the best seems to be Mongolian beef – very spicy. The dish comes with tones sliced onions and lots of long cut scallions. The onions add a nice, sweet crunch to the dish, which I enjoy. They also manage to soak up some of the flavor and are cooked enough to to be onion-y. I don’t really appreciate the scallions, so I pick them out. The meat itself is tender and comes in nice, thin slices. The sauce isn’t very oily, true to the Hai Sun promise, but rather it’s light, almost watery and used in an appropriate amount (read: not smothering the dish). And it’s hot! Your mouth and lips will be tingly for quite a while after you finish dinner.

Chow mein comes in different flavors: special, different meats, veggies, etc. After some hits and misses, we’ve settled on the BBQ pork. The noodles are a bit oily, but not as much as noodles you’d normally get at other restaurants. The pieces of meat are your typical Chinese BBQ pork, only in small bits. Besides the meat, the noodles come with shreds of cabbage that have a mustard-y flavor. Yuck. I usually pick these out since their flavor can be pretty strong. Otherwise, a good dish, always my favorite.

Overall: If you’re feeling lazy and you want some fast, and possibly healthy, Chinese food, this is a good option. Like most takeout places, I’ve ordered plenty of times, but I never order anything different once I’ve found the magic combo. Delivery is free, so I take advantage and only order two dishes, hah. Like I said, I’m livin’ the big city dream. I’ll probably never go there in person, and that’s fine.

Rating: 7/10

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korean food by japanese?

February 5, 2008 at 10:00 pm · Filed under asian, bbq, japanese, korean

Hahn’s Hibachi
535 Irving St. (x 6th Ave.)

Hahn’s is located in one of my favorite areas – Irving Street. Very Inner Sunset, this area is littered with restaurants and bars that are all pretty tasty and varied. A nice little walk from my apartment, bbg and I venture out there on weekend nights for grub. It’s a pretty good change in scenery, plus you feel better about gorging on (insert your favorite food here) and then walking the mile and a half home.

Anyway, we’ve passed by Hahn’s every time we’ve been to Irving. It’s one of those “oh we should go there some time” but you never ever go there type places. It’s small, couldn’t fit more than 20 people in the place that was probably once a cafe. The decor is simple if not lacking. There’s a counter immediately ahead of you when you enter the door. Many people stopped by to pick up orders, so it seems popular enough and convenient. When we first walked in, we were unsure of what we were supposed to do – order and sit or sit and wait to be served? No one was behind the counter, so we were bold and sat. The cashier/waitress came from out back and saw us and immediately brought us menus. It wasn’t hard to get her attention since we were the only customers there besides another couple. Perhaps it’d be slower if there were more take out orders or generally people in the place. It was quiet, but only because it was dead. A few times people came in to order and were talking with a friend or chatting on their cell phone and that was loud. I couldn’t imagine the ruckus if the place were packed. On to the food!

I ordered the soft tofu seafood soup for about $11 before tax and tip. The soup comes out boiling hot in one of those iron type bowls, which is set on a wooden plate. I was saddened that our waitress didn’t crack an egg in it, but oh well. The soup comes with rice and a lettuce salad. Waiting for the soup to cool down, I munched on the salad, which was pretty good eats. Typical iceberg lettuce, shredded, with some shredded carrots and topped with a miso-style dressing. Very good, maybe a bit too creamy.

The soups come at varying degrees of spiciness: mild, medium, and hot. I chose medium, which turned out to be a good idea since it was pretty spicy. Spicy, but not really more tasty. I think you just get to pick the level of burning your mouth experiences. The soup itself is very very very mildly fishy tasting, which is actually a good thing since I don’t like fishy-ness all that much. Sadly, that doesn’t mean that there were other flavors to compensate for the lack of fishy-ness. The soup is red, though I’m not sure why. It’s good, but pretty watery and doesn’t taste like much. Compared to other Korean tofu soups I’ve had, this was pretty mediocre.

As promised, the soup came with soft tofu, which was plentiful. I liked the big chunks throughout. They added substance to the plain soup. The soup had a couple pieces of shrimp and then pieces of an unidentified seafood. I want to say it was squid, but I really don’t know. It was white and came in skinny sort of tube shaped pieces and tasted mildly fishy. It was pretty chewy, but not impossibly so. Overall, it only slightly bothered me that I didn’t know what it was.

BBG got the BBQ spicy pork. The dish came with bean sprouts, salad, and rice. I ate his salad and he gobbled up the pork. It was spicy enough, but the portion was tiny (especially when compared to what you can get at Steve’s Korean BBQ in Berkeley). He was satisfied, but I’m sure he could’ve eaten a lot more.

Most people ordered the Bi Bim Bop and looking at other reviews on the place, it seems like that’s where it’s at. Maybe next time, if there is a next time for me. BBG said he’d go back, perhaps I’ll tag along. Lastly, aren’t hibachis Japanese? The place serves udon and tempura, so there’s more to the mystery.

Overall: Ok food for this small joint. Seems like it’s really made for takeout, generally nothing special. Considering the fact that there are about a billion other restaurants in the immediate area – ones I like a lot and others that I’d like to try, I probably won’t be back any time soon. Mediocre.

Rating: 3/10

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