Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Pyung Chang Tofu House - 4701 Telegraph Ave - 4.14.08

This place is really popular with the folks on Yelp. We didn't know this before we went - in fact, my Partner in Chow had already decided that there was to be no more Korean food on this journey, period.

However, I had a cold. And the Korean places in Koryo Plaza were an obvious skip, and this wasn't obviously Korean. Tofu could be anything, right?
I didn't realize it was Korean - the last place with Korean writing turned out to be Vietnamese.

And it smelled good from the outside, and there was rock star parking. And my PIC was on the phone and not paying close attention, so I was in and seated with barley tea before either of us realized that it was Korean.

Since the tea was out, we were stuck. And looking around I began to think that this place might actually be good. It was a Monday night, and there was a decent crowd. The sizzling stonewear serving bowls were impressive and so were the rustic, rough-hewn tree-trunk tables. And there was a nice mix of actual Korean people and neighborhood hipsters, leading me to believe that most people had been here before and were returning on purpose. All good signs.

One thing that we have discovered about Korean food: it is awfully difficult to be a vegetarian in a Korean restaurant. Seriously. Most the tofu dishes contained beef or seafood, and the one that didn't contained seaweed. Which isn't meat, but is on the "I hate it" list for PIC. Fortunately, she was able to order that without the seaweed.

I was also happy to find a chicken soup on the menu, since the reason I sat down was the sight of bowls of soupy-looking stuff and I had a nasty cold. It was a whole chicken for the whopping price of $13.99, and it was stuffed with ginseng. This sounded like a good coldbuster.

What we ordered: vegetarian tofu in sizzling pot thing, whole stewed chicken soup, large OB beer (to kill the cold germs)
Service: friendly and relaxed
Atmo: bad lighting, cool tables
Crowd: the neighborhood + local Koreans
Spent: around $30.00 (with tip)
Overall rating: 3.5 sporks

This place has the honor of reversing PIC's "I can't eat Korean food" stance. She really liked her tofu pot, which was brought out in molten bubbling form and didn't contain the hated seaweed. The tofu had great texture, the flavors were good, and nothing tasted fishy.

The little plates of stuff were interesting. We still don't know whether these are meant to be appetizers or condiments, but we tried them all. There was a bizarre parsley and tofu mixture that I for some reason liked, and we both like mung bean sprouts. These ones were a bit too marinated for my taste, but the dogs were thrilled when we brought the leftovers home.

I've recently discovered that these little plates are called banchans. The Kim Chee actually went down as the best Kim Chee we've had, but overall the banchans are better at Sam Won.

My chicken soup was exactly what I needed. Yes, I did have to do a lot of dissection - I loathe chicken skin and obviously one has to remove the bones and weird dark pieces and connective tissue and such. But I had a groovy little discard plate to put all this nonsense and we weren't in a hurry. The chicken was stuffed with rice, and I put extra rice into my soup.

The rice came sizzling in a clay pot and the waitress scooped it out for us. This left a film of charring rice on the sides, and when I made a move to eat it she hurried over and extracted it for me with a knife. (Thank you, nice lady.) In Ecuador, they call this residue "cocolon" and I've always loved it - it kind of tastes like popcorn. Mmm.

So I was perfectly content with three different consistencies of rice, lots of groovy banchans and a bubbling pot of chicken soup that I hoped would make me well. The ginseng tasted like ginseng - kind of mushy and bitter, but not so overwhelming that it ruined the soup. I ate it because I assume it's good for me, since it tastes medicinal. I wouldn't use it as a flavor element, but then again I'm not Korean.

Overall, we enjoyed this place a lot more than we thought we were going to, i.e. as my PIC was making defeated "maybe I'll just get rice" statements.

Oh - unlike every other Korean place we've tried, this place actually has windows. Go figure.

Still not entirely understanding Korean food, it seems that they're pften divided between BBQ places and "food served in a bowl" places. This is one of the "food served in a bowl" places, but unlike Seoul Gum Tang there's a variety of stuff on plates too.

So if you like Korean food, eat here and tell us what you think. It's kind of hard to rate Korean restaurants being that this project is our intro to Korean food, but hey. At least we're not biased.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

KangNam Pho House - 4419 Telegraph Ave - 4.2.08

Since the Partner in Chow had at this point already decided that she didn't like Korean food, the Korean writing on the front of this brightly-lit Pho house scared her. One look at the menu and she was relieved to find that this seemed to be Vietnamese food.

I was feeling under the weather this day, so chicken Pho was the go-to dish. Admittedly, I'm not hugely familiar with Pho, and we didn't do the beef. So we'll review this as 2 white girls not enormously familiar with Pho or Vietnamese food (we've both eaten it previously, but not often).

What we ordered: tofu appetizer, Chicken Pho (Pho Ga), sauteed tofu & vegetable entree (we can't remember the name), shredded veggie salad with fried onions on top.
Service: very friendly - the Mom of the Mom 'n Pop
Atmo: nothing fancy, but not depressing and awful - the neighborhood joint
Crowd: Various Asian-speakers, the neighborood
Spent: around $30.00
Overall rating: 4.5 sporks

This place gets 4.5 sporks for having really fresh food in huge portions at incredibly really cheap prices and a nice Mom 'n Pop vibe.

The tofu appetizer was good - sort of the Korean-cooked-Vietnamese version of agedashi tofu. It had dipping sauces that we dug, but I liked dipping it in the dressing from the salad.

The shredded vegetable salad was delicious - sweet citrus dressing and fresh Durkee-style onions on top. It was fresh-tasting and we finished the whole thing.

I don't know if the Pho was the best Pho in the world, not having had chicken Pho previously. I can say that it was a GINORMOUS bowl of soup with a fresh-tasting broth and good rice noodles. It wasn't hugely flavorful - more light, but we got shit-tons of fresh bean sprouts and all the other fun groovy side items that one typically puts in this soup. The sauteed tofu & veggies were, again, fresh and light and the PIC was impressed. Not heavy at all, despite being in some sort of brown sauce.

We rate this as the best find on Telegraph thus far along with Cafe Eritrea d'Afrique. We'll be back.

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KanSai sushi bar - 4345 Telegraph Avenue - 3.25.08


I will preface this by stating it's extremely difficult to impress us with sushi due to Sausalito's Sushi-Ran - though I was recently surprised on a business trip to find another spectacular find in Sake Club, so that gives me hope that phenomenal sushi isn't just a Marin occurrence.

Yoshi's is also great sushi, but I'd give it a 4.5 to a 5 for Sushi Ran and Sake Club. Do note, though, that all the places mentioned in this intro are considerably more expensive than KanSai.

Living around the corner from Drunken Fish, we generally get lazy about cruising elsewhere for sushi. Koryo Sushi is the sister restaurant, and it's across the street from KanSai.

KanSai gets extra bonus points for a parking lot. Word.

The exterior didn't indicate the actual attention to detail and relaxed atmosphere inside this joint. We were pleasantly susprised, particularly considering that Koryo has a godawful back room with fluorescent lighting, an annoying humming refrigerator and carpet that looks like something in your weird Aunt Irma's house that has more germs than a kitchen sponge.

Anyhoo...

Service was prompt and friendly, and the menu has a lot of interesting specialty rolls that differ from our usual Drunken Fish orders as well as your usual Bay Area mix of things like 49er rolls and such. There's also a full bar.

The tables have what I thought were decorations and, once we played with it sufficiently to push it, turned out to be a call button. I didn't feel like my server was a stewardess at that point, but I do wonder if *she feels like one when people start pushing those. Hmm...

This place seems to have more non-usual non-sushi items on the menu than DF/Koryo do; not just your usual "teriyaki chicken," there were bento boxes and you're able to order combination plates. They also bring you complimentary miso soup, salad and edamame, both of which taste just like DF's.

What we ordered: Agedashi tofu, mixed bento box with grilled salmon, maguro sashimi and veggie tempura, veggie gyoza, Katie Roll 2
Service: friendly and relaxed
Atmo: relaxed, good lighting, nice details - not a hipster feel, more of a higher-end japanese place without being stuffy
Crowd: the neighborhood
Spent: around $50.00 (with tip)
Overall rating: 4 sporks

The vegetable gyoza here seems to be the exact same gyoza as Drunken Fish. It's good, and the PIC orders this every time we go to DF.

The agedashi tofu was very good - light exterior, creamy inside, and the sauce wasn't sweet (DF's is), but more soy-sauce liked. We liked the tofu itself better than DF's but prefer the sweeter sauce. It had some weird roe-like stuff on top that wasn't roe. We think we liked it...

The tempura here was a major standout. Not greasy at all, the choice of veggies was great (mmm kambocha squash), the vegetables were perfectly cooked. Not being much of a fried food fan, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the tempura.

The salmon was nicely grilled and had a good smoky flavor.

Katie Roll 2 was an interesting mix of spicy hamachi (I think - was it maguro? I don't remember) and vegetables with softshell crab on top. This roll was very good and it has some sauces on it. Unfortunately one of the sauces was a bit creamy and overwhelming for me - I hate mayonnaise, and I fear that there was some involved. However, my bad for not reading the menu more closely. The PIC ate 2 pieces, and she generally hates rolls due to hating seaweed. So I guess the sauce has the upside of covering a seaweed taste...

In any case, we were pleasantly surprised to find another pretty-darn-good and affordable sushi place in our 'hood. We'll be back at some point, on a night when we're motivated to do more than walk around the corner.

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