Walters

• Restaurant: Walters
• Location: 308 N. Yale Ave. Claremont, CA 91711
• Atmosphere: Casual. More than t-shirt and Jeans though.
• Bathroom: clean.
• Date of visit: 2007
• Website: None.

Food is ok. Too expensive for what it is. You have very few options in Claremont, let alone the village. I grew up in Claremont and have been to Walters many times. Their food is bland. The food reminds me of regular American cuisine w/ a touch of Afghani flare. But don’t be fooled. A lot of the menu is just regular American food. That being said, their breakfast is like ihop, lunch like chilis, and dinner like a classy version of TGIF without the institutional feel.

I think you are better off at Heros or the press.

Too me, Walters is one of those places where you take out-of-town guests to somewhere "nice" in Claremont. It's a nice atmosphere and it's not a chain. But the food is average at best and the prices too high.

Thirsty Bear

• Restaurant: Thirsty Bear
• Location: 661 Howard Street, San Francisco CA. SOMA, Around 2nd street. A few blocks from the Metreon.
• Atmosphere: Nice, casual, a bit cool.
• Bathroom: Pretty clean.
• Date of visit: 2007
• Website: http://www.thirstybear.com/

Tapas and beer, ah yes, living the high life. Located near the Moscone center and a few blocks from the metreon, Thirsty Bear offers “nine distinct beer styles on any given day. Seven of the beers are house standards and two are rotating seasonal specials.”

Thirsty Bear adheres to the San Francisco standard of providing natural and organic vegetables in addition to serving “only sustainable harvested seafood, all natural meats free of growth hormones, antibiotics and synthetic additives.”

The atmosphere is casual with a tint of coolness to it. Jeans and a nice t-shirt is sufficient.

The food:

• Seared ahi tuna, pimenton spiced corn, olive & arugula succotash. $9. This dish is simply sliced Ahi tuna that is overly dressed over a worthless bed of olives and arugula. The fish is nicely cooked and fresh. This dish is a decent starter. It’s your typical tuna over a bed of greens.

• Ceviche. shrimp, scallops, calamari, habanero, pineapple, cumin crisps. $10. What a bust of a dish. A big time disappointment. After watching Top Chef over and over, I had ceviche in my head. How can one make ceviche bad? Well, when it’s watered down with b.s. seafood, the ceviche becomes a bust. The pineapples also had no place being there.

• Pork tenderloin adobado, swiss chard & white corn polenta. $10. A great dish. If all 4 of my dishes where like this, this place would be a hit. Pork was cooked perfectly, tender and juicy. The dish went together with the swiss chard and polenta.
  

• Gilled hanger steak skewers, watercress & frisee salad, pasilla pepper salsa. $11. This dish is very similar to the ahi tuna in terms of imagination. Nothing is terrible about the hanger steak. But it’s simply good meat over some worthless greens.

I would return to Thirsty Bear. You don’t go to this place for the tapas, you come here to drink beer. And if you are hungry, they happen to have decent tapas such as the pork tenderloin. But I wouldn’t make a trip just to go to Thirsty Bear. A pre-movie snack before heading over to the metreon seems appropriate.

Le Colonial

• Restaurant: Le Colonial
  
• Location: 20 Cosmo Place, San Francisco, CA 94109. 415-931-360
  
• Atmosphere: Nice, a bit white shoe but not intimidating. Not overly trendy.
• Bathroom: Nice.
  
• Date of visit: 2006
  
• Website: http://www.lecolonialsf.com/

When the French occupied Vietnam, they brought their cuisine along with their suppression. So Le Colonial was born. Although they offer “street food” they build themselves as French food that is in Vietnam rather than French/Vietnamese fusion.

So what is Le Colonial? Think Slanted Doors. A Vietnamese place where one could say “they use organic vegetables, have good meat, great service, and a decent wine list.” Yes, this isn’t one of those Larkin Vietnamese places, it’s in Union Square where your bill might be more than a day's pay.

On a happy birthday I gorged on a variety of appetizers, splattering of entrees, and beverages. I’ll leave the beverages to your imagination because as Marcel Vigneron says, it’s all about the food.

The tempera was well executed, crispy and seasoned. The filet mignon with lemon grass was delicious. Meat extraordinary tender and the lemongrass flavor there. Nothing irks me more than a Vietnamese restaurant that doesn’t know how to properly extract flavor from lemongrass. Le Colonial does the job right. The crispy rolls were not very avant-garde but very well executed with quality ingredients you would expect. I could go on, but the dishes were as expected for the price. Le Colonial definitely delivers on the promise of a swanky Vietnamese restaurant.

Worth the hype? Maybe. But if one were to go for fancy Vietnamese food, Le Colonial is probably one of the better ones in the city. Dishes are much more imaginative, better presented, and better executed than that other place in the Ferry Building.

Panda Garden Buffet

• Restaurant: Panda Garden
• Location: 5136 N Montclair Plaza Ln
  Montclair, CA 91763 (909) 398-1838
• Atmosphere: Clean, busy, typical $7 Chinese buffet atmosphere.
• Bathroom: Average, a tad dirty.
• Date of visit: 2007
• Website: None

Chinese buffets are their own beast. Panda Garden Buffet like almost every other Chinese buffet does not include drinks with the meal. The price at this buffet is about $6.40, $8 bucks out the door. They offer a variety of Panda express Chinese food, “sushi,” American cuisine, and a salad bar.

Like most buffets in this category, you aren’t looking for quality, but a lot of decent Chinese food. Panda Garden delivers on this promise.

The Chinese food is your typical Chinese buffet food: Salt and pepper shrimp, chow mien, stir fried beef.

The Fried section offers sweet and sour chicken, egg rolls, “lobster roll” (i.e. a fried roll with imitation crab), and the classic crab Rangoon.

Panda Garden has the obligatory salad bar and American cuisine such as pizza, garlic bread, etc. I haven’t tried these items; why pizza at a Chinese buffet?

At Panda Garden, it gets pretty crowded which is a good thing for a buffet. This means the food comes out fresh because of the high turnover rate. Yes, the crab rangoon is crunchy!

Their “sushi” is of a solid quality and they use little rice, which means you can pound a lot of it.

As far as Chinese buffets go Panda Garden delivers on their promise of quality panda express type Chinese food and a rock bottom price. In my opinion it’s the best Chinese buffet in the area. This is the IE, there aren’t too many options when it comes to Asian food. I would return.

Fu-Shing

• Restaurant: Fu-Shing, Chinese Szechwan Restaurant
• Location: 2960 East Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA
• Atmosphere: Quiet. Not Loud!
• Bathroom: Above Average.
• Date of visit: August 2007
• Website: http://www.fu-shing.com/

Fu-Shing is a real oddball in the Chinese restaurant landscape; a quiet, yet authentic Chinese restaurant. They offer Szechwan cuisine and offer plenty of seafood options.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I was at Fu-Shing with some special guests for the Chinese version of a tasting menu.

Cold appetizer was the first course. Followed by salt and pepper crab, peking duck, lobster in garlic sauce, stir-fried black cod, stir-fried sea cumbers, stir-fried halibut, and a stir-fried mystery meat dish. The meal ended with a sticky rice dessert.

Service was top notch for a Chinese restaurant. The servers were attentive, refilled our drinks, changed out our plates, and were very accommodating. No, they were not friendly, talkative, or explained the dishes, but this is a Chinese restaurant. The atmosphere was even more surprising. Quiet, spacious, and clanks of dishes were at a minimum.

The food was above average. The dishes didn’t surprise me but they were classic dishes made from fresh products that were properly executed.

I would return to Fu-Shing.

Shanghai Restaurant

• Restaurant: Shanghai Restaurant
• Location: 140 W Valley Blvd, #211, San Gabriel, CA 91776
• Atmosphere: Clean, run of the mill Chinese place. Loud, seats too close together.
• Bathroom: Average
• Date of visit: September 2007
• Website: None

Shanghai Restaurant offers Chinese food, Shanghai style. It is located in the Ranch 99 shopping plaza. When I went, So Cal was under a HEAT wave, and the restaurant didn’t have the air conditioner on full blast. I would advise checking the temperature of the place before sitting down.

The food was average Chinese food. One thing that stuck out is that everything was over seasoned. Too much salt! Too sweet! Probably too much MSG. The portions were fairly large, considering each plate to be about $8-$13.

Dumplings: I found that the steamed dumplings not to be fresh. They tasted like they were pre-made and only reheated when we ordered.

The Pork over spinach was the hit of the meal. This dish had a layer of pork fat and braised pork meat. Over seasoned? Yes. Dry? Yes. But, overall a solid dish. Beef w/

Scallion dish: Way over seasoned and way to sweet for my liking. Otherwise, the meat was “tender” in the way that Chinese restaurants tenderize their meat.

The other thing that irked me was that the dumplings were served last. They should have been first as an appetizer.

I would not return to this place. With the plethora of options nearby, you can do better than Shanghai Restaurant.