Pacific Cafe

• Restaurant: Pacific Cafe
• Location: San Francisco: Outer Richmond
• Atmosphere: Clean, noisy, casual and relaxed.
• Bathroom: Clean, but not great
• Date of visit: 2006
• Website: None

After watching a review of Pacific Cafe on the Food Network and Check Please! Bay Area, I had Pacific Cafe in my head. Fresh fish is all I could think of for weeks. What a bust. I should have known better when I heard they give you free wine while you wait. No restaurant worth its salt would do this. It’s a gimmick; I was blinded by the fools on Check Please Bay Area. I wish I didn’t go, I wish I had my $30 back… I got hoodwinked.

Fresh Fish? Not when I ate here. I had the seared tuna cooked rare. I had that itchy feeling all over my body that indicates something is afoul. The tuna completely lacked flavor. I could have done a better job buying suspect tuna at the UN Plaza farmer’s market and cooking it myself. The wasabi dipping sauce tasted like green butter with wasabi you get from a tube. This place is a real joke; the food taste funny.

The wait is unbearable. It really kills me that a place like this has a line out the door starting at 5pm. Hey, I’m not unaccustomed to long lines, but the food better be worth the wait. It’s not here. I can only think of so many other places I could have spent $30 on a great meal. Please don’t go.

Chow and Park Chow

• Restaurant: Chow and Park Chow
• Location: San Francisco: Castro (next to the Safeway), and Inner Sunset (9^th and Irving.)
• Atmosphere: Clean, noisy, casual and relaxed.
• Bathroom: Clean, but not great
• Date of visit: 2007
• Website: None

Chow is a real neighborhood restaurant that delivers solid comfort food at a decent price. I have been to both Chow and Park Chow. Both places are the same in terms of food and atmosphere. Chow is the place you go when you want to go out to eat but can't figure out where to eat. Think Applebee's, but actually with good food and a non-institutional feel.

The atmosphere is casual. You'll feel comfortable at chow with t-shirts and jeans or dressed in business casual. It can get crowded and noisy. Wait during peak times might be 30 minutes. At the Chow location, I especially like the back quasi outdoor area. It's much quieter and quaint.

The food is great. It's not fine dinning but regular comfort food at a solid price. Prices for entrees are in the $10-14 range. I'm not big on the pizza or pasta or salads at Chow, but my friends seem to like the pasta there.

Here are my favorites at chows.

Ginger cake: Amazing! Kind of like a spice cake with powder sugar, Carmel, and pumpkin ice cream. This, flat out, is the best thing at chow. Gotta get the ginger cake. No doubt.

Flank Steak: This is your steak at chow. I like it. Comes w/ fries. The steak is cooked well and the meal is satisfying. Remember Chow, isn't fine dinning, nor is it a steak house. But the flank steak feels like something mom would make. Lots of soul.

Pot Roast: A bit heavy and fatty, but it has great flavor. The short ribs fall off the bone and it's a tasty dish.

Pork Chops: Love the pork chops here. I always find that pork chops are too dry at restaurants. Chow does them great here w/ great smoke flavor.

Muscle appetizer: Great. Excellent flavor. I always ask for more bread to slop up the sauce.

Lasagna: Don't like it! stay away.

If you are looking for a place to slam down $16 and get a decent meal with friends, Chow is great.

Star Wok

• Restaurant: Star Wok
• Location: 2062 N Mills Ave, Claremont, CA 91711. Next to the Vons. (909) 625-8818
• Atmosphere: Typical Chinese fast food. Clean.
• Bathroom: Unknown.
• Date of visit: 2007
• Website: None
• MSG Level: Unknown

Star Wok is Chinese fast food at it’s best. Star wok is in the style of panda express. One typically chooses from a one, two, or three item combo that includes rice and/or chow mein.

The portions at Star Wok are surprisingly generous; you won’t feel ripped off in terms of quantity.

In terms of quality, Star Wok, similarly, does not fail. In my opinion it is a step-above Panda Express in terms of authenticity and taste.

Nothing noteworthy about the items they have. It’s your typical Chinese fast food fare, e.g. bbq pork and kung pao chicken. But if you are in the mood for Chinese Fast food and you are in the area, Star Wok is one of the better ones in the area.

Congrats! Hung!

I know this is a food blog, but congratulations to the Vietnamese fire cracker Hung for winning Top Chef Season 3. From episode 1 and his Geoduck, Hung has been killing every quickfire and every elimination challenge. Hung’s flavor profiles were spot-on as he demonstrated a tremendous amount of soul in the finale. Sauce from lemongrass? It really was a window into his soul and a demonstration of the eloquence and technicality of his craft. What better way to impress the judges than with a coconut foam on his prawn dish, a real memorable and high point of the night. Hung made no salads, no duo’s, and was not sabotaged by his sous-chef; he was destined to win. Hung prepared delicious, well-executed dishes that impressed me, and I didn’t even taste the dishes! The only thing missing was saffron foam. Go Hung!

Newport Seafood

• Restaurant: Newport Seafood
• Location: 18441 Colima Rd, Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (626) 839-1239
• Atmosphere: Typical $10 Chinese in Rowland Heights. Loud, crowded, and rude.
• Bathroom: Ok, i guess
• Date of visit: 2007 Website: None
• MSG Level: Unknown, but likely.

Ah, yes, the classic Chinese lunch specials. If you’re unfamiliar with “lunch specials” you’re really missing out: soup, Rice, and an entrée at a rock bottom price. If you are spending more than $7 per entrée, you’re really getting ripped off.

Newport seafood is the quintessential lunch special spot; solid and authentic food for about $5 a head. We don’t question the quality of the meat or whether the vegetables are laced with pesticides. This is Chinese food, we go here to be merry and eat tasty food.

The prices range from 3.95, 4.95 and if you really want to splurge, 5.95 for seafood dishes for your usual Chinese food. Menu is littered w/ your kung pao beef and clams in black bean sauce type dishes. Pictured are beef with Chinese broccoli and basil fish. Both dishes are authentic tasting, tasty, and well-executed.

I would come back. Dinner is pricier, about $10 for the same dish. I recommend the lunch specials. Their fried pork chops is especially good. Not really a seafood place, despite their name. Just a regular Chinese place you will be happy giving them $7 for a meal.

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.