Yves' Restaurant and Wine Bar

20110730:
I wrote: "Good onion ring. I don't like Phuong's salmon crepe. In my burger, the Gorgonzola cheese dominates the flavor."

While the my entree and souffle were delicious, the highlight of the meal was the alcohol. The Kasteel Rouge was delicious. Then I got to drink a version of an AMF. And finally I got to have a sip of the Quady Deviation.

$12 Kobe. $5 Small Chocolate Raspberry Souffle. $11.50 Kasteel Rouge. $9 AMF.

Menu Description:
"Kobe Kobe" Style Huge 1/2 pound Prime Kobe style beef, grilled hot house tomatoes, romaine lettuce and aged creamy Gorgonzola cheese served on a Kaiser role with habanero roasted red bell pepper aioli. Served with our famous deep fried Maui onion rings. We call it "Kobe Kobe" because, quite bluntly, it's twice the burger in size and taste! $12

Menu Description:
Chocolate Raspberry A white souffle made with chocolate chunks and raspberries and served with vanilla ice cream and a raspberry cream sauce $9

[20110818]

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Yves' Restaurant and Wine Bar

Relevant Links:
Yves' Restaurant and Wine Bar Website
Yves' Restaurant & Wine Bar - Anaheim, CA (Yelp.com)

Seafood Paradise (Dim Sum)

20110729:
I went with two of my friends Josh and Ryan. It was actually Ryan's first time having dim sum.

One of the funniest moments was when I ordered a tray of egg tarts (there are three egg tarts per order). I ate one. I broke one in half for Ryan to try. He doesn't really like it. Talking about it's egg flavor deters Josh from having some, even though he's tried it before. I ate another full one, and broke the remaining half in half. Ryan and I try to get Josh to eat it. Eventually he does, and he liked it and took the remaining quarter.

Shumai (xíu mại)

I don't eat any shumai. I have two or three bad associations with it. I might try it again one day, but not anytime soon.

Har gow

I love har gow! When people order equal orders of shumai and har gow, I'll substitute my split of the shumai for the har gow.

Kai-lan (cải làn or cải rổ)

Honey walnut shrimp

I can't remember how great this walnut shrimp was, but in general, I love walnut shrimp. I don't know how to describe how crunchy it should be, but there's definitely an ideal crunchiness.

Char siu (xá xíu)

Rice noodle roll (similar to bánh cuốn) 

I love this stuff.

Egg tart

My go-to dessert for dim sum!

[20110807]

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Seafood Paradise

Relevant Links:
Seafood Paradise No. 2 (Yelp.com)

California Fish Grill

My dish.

20110724:
I went to the Irvine location once several years back. Back when I was an undergrad. Today, we went to the Cypress location and I ordered a "Cajun seared Ahi Tuna 9.99 (Served Rare)" and an Anchor Steam Beer 3.75.

Phuong's dish.

I liked my Ahi Tuna. I don't remember what my friends Josh and Phuong ordered, but I included the photos of their dishes below.

Josh's dish.

[@Irvine][20110817]

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20120705:
I got the swai with sweet potato fries.

Menu Description:
FROM OUR CHARBROILER | All charbroiled items topped with our garlic butter sauce or cajun style, fries or rice, coleslaw & bread. Brown rice $.50 extra.
Swai (Grilled White/Fish) $7.99 | UPGRADE TO SWEET POTATO FRIES $1.49

I wrote: "The seasoning on this fish at California Fish Grill is delicious. Pepper. A mild spiciness. Good." 7:25 PM PDT

[@Cypress][20120709]

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California Fish Grill

Relevant Links:
California Fish Grill Website
California Fish Grill - Irvine, CA (Yelp.com)
California Fish Grill - Cypress, CA (Yelp.com)

The Cafe Westminster

20110720:
This is my first time coming here. Josh recommended the Monte Cristo and so I had the Monte Cristo. I believe you get a choice of side. I chose cottage cheese.

This was delicious. It's like French toast, but with ham and cheese. So maybe like a French toast omelet. I can't remember if there was bacon.

Menu Description:
Monte Cristo Triple decker with ham, turkey, and cheese grilled with egg batter. $8.75

[20110819]

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The Cafe Westminster

Relevant Links:
Cafe Westminster (Yelp.com)
The Cafe Westminster Website

Thuan Kieu Noodle & Grill

When getting a plate of com tam, you have a variety of options at your disposal. I find there are three good options to add: bi, cha, and tau hu ky.

Com tam = Broken rice
Tau hu ky = Shrimp paste wrapped with bean curd
Bi = Shredded pork and shredded pork skin
Cha = Cha trung hap = "Vietnamese meatloaf steamed egg omelet"

Tau hu ky (right), Bi (left), and Shrimp (center) (20110716)

After deciding if you want to add those, then you want to determine what sort of meat you want. Three common options include suon nuon, thit nuon, and bo nuong.

Suon Nuong = BBQ Pork Chop
Thit Nuong = BBQ Pork
Bo Nuong = BBQ Beef

Typically the plate will come with vegetables (like cucumber) and pickled vegetables, a small bowl of broth on the side, and some sauce to pour over the plate.

[20130213]

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20110716:

My sister's plate. Bi (left), Cha (right), Egg roll (center), and Meat (bottom) (20110716)

[20130213]

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20120104:

My plate. Tau hu ky (bottom right), Bi (bottom left), Cha (top right), and Meat (right) (20120104)

[20130213]

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20130112:

My plate. Tau hu ky (top left), Bi (top), Cha (bottom), and Meat (bottom left) (20130112)

[20130213]

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Thuan Kieu Noodle & Grill

My plate. Tau hu ky (top left), Bi (top), Shrimp (center), and Meat (bottom) (20110716)

Relevant Links:
Thuan Kieu Noodle & Grill - Garden Grove, CA (Yelp.com)
Cha Trung (Vietnamese Meatloaf Steamed Egg Omelet) (Wandering Chopsticks)

Orange County Fair 20110715

20110715:
I get to go to the OC Fair this year! I believe I missed it last year. In any case, today if you came between 12 and 1 pm (or maybe it's between 11 am and 1 pm), you get in free. Taking either the Harbor or Fairview exit is insane. My sister was dropping me off, and we waited for the Fairview off-ramp awhile, until making the decision to take the Bear exit. After exiting on Bear, there are various ways to navigate through the neighborhood and end up behind Davis Elementary School. My sister and I went to Davis as kids, so we knew the neighborhood well enough to get there. I was able to get there about three or five minutes before 1.

We went through the crafts building, about a fourth of the visual arts building, the collections building near the southwest corner of the fairgrounds, the building that sells stuff, and the animals in the northeast corner of the fairgrounds.

Chris's "Ranch Fries." Apparently that means you get ranch with your fries.

I love going to Terry's Berries! This is the chocolate-covered strawberry bowl. There's also chocolate-covered marshmallows, pretzels, and licorice sticks.

What's deep-fried butter? We didn't dare try it (at least not today).

Deep-fried Oreos, we each had one.

Good old chili cheese fries.

The traffic my sister and I encountered on the 405.

See also Food Orange County Fair 20110810

[20110729][20110828]

Super Mex

20110714:
Today I was waiting in line for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011), but got hungry and went to Super Mex (which was nearby). I ordered a Tecate and a burrito.

According to the timestamps, I ate the burrito in less than 9 minutes.

[20180217 Edit]

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Super Mex

Relevant Links:
Super Mex Website
Super Mex - Long Beach, CA (Yelp.com)

Dippin' Dots

20110713:
Today Stephanie, Josh and I went to Dippin' Dots.

[20200118 Edit]

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Dippin' Dots

Relevant Links:
Dippin' Dots Website

Kaisen Kaiten

1) Various dishes comes around on a conveyor belt.
2) See something you like? If it doesn't have a table number (see 3.b.ii), go ahead and take it.
3.a) If you don't see a dish you want, you can mark it down on the sheet of paper.
3.b.i) If you are close to the chef(s), they might just hand you your order when it's ready.
3.b.ii) Otherwise, the dish will get sent down the belt with your table number.
4) When you're done, the waiter/waitress will count the number of trays in each price category (color-coded) and determine how much you owe.

[20110707][20180625 Edit]

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20110707:
I've eaten here once before.

Baked Mussel (20110707)

I wrote: "Baked mussel yum love fake crab meat and sauce"

Soft Shell Crab (20110707)

I wrote: "Soft shell crab. Ok. I'd rather have the soft-shell crab roll at Sagami-Tei."
See Sagami-Tei 20110624 or Sagami-Tei 20100602"

Snow Crab with Wasabi (20110707)

Fresh Oyster (20110707)

I wrote: "Fresh oyster $1.75 special. I ate one of the oysters with green onions. Since I didn't like the taste or the texture of the green onions together with the oyster, I ate the other oyster after taking the green onion off."

Baked Lobster (20110707)

I wrote: "I had a piece of Josh's baked lobster. It was good, but I'd rather have a lobster roll at Sagami-Tei." (see Sagami-Tei 20110624 and/or Sagami-Tei 20100602")

[20110707][20180625 Edit]

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20120105:
Today I ordered the premium sake flight.

[20180625]

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20120628:
I wrote: "$2.75 for two pieces of snow crab. Makes you appreciate all-you-can-eat joints with crab legs. Yum, I love sea urchin (uni). I like the soft texture. $3.50." 9:10 PM PDT

Snow Crab (20110707)

I wrote: "Kobe beef. $3.50. It is raw enough that you have to put the whole piece of meat in your mouth at once and chew. Tasty though. Of the four we ordered, I decided to take the two with less pepper. The sauce provided is good." 9:14 PM PDT

Sea Urchin (lower right), Snow Crab (left), Kobe Beef (top) (20120628)

I wrote: "It's nice to have the soft-shell crab hand rolls be half off on Thursdays. They're good, but better at only $1.75 (blue plate). :)." 9:15 PM PDT A soft-shell crab hand roll is pictured above.

Kobe Beef (20120628)

I wrote: "I had one of Josh's fried chicken and it was delicious. It had sesame seeds on it. There might have been a slight taste of sesame on my tongue, but not lingering." 9:24 PM PDT

[20120707][20180625 Edit]

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20120802:
While I only got one dish today (uni / sea urchin), I love sushi!

Snow Crab (top) and Sea Urchin (bottom) (20120802)

Yelp Review: (****_)

I like this place. It was the first conveyor belt (revolving) sushi joint I was introduced to. I help keep things cheap by getting the hand roll specials.

While the conveyor belt is handy in spotting items you haven't ever tried, I recommend you just fill out they piece of paper they supply to order what you want instead of waiting.

Today I only ordered the uni. It was good. Try to come early, otherwise you'll face a long waiting list. Also note you will only be seated when your full party is present.

[20120901][20180625 Edit]

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Kaisen Kaiten

Relevant Links:
Kaisen Kaiten (Yelp.com)

iPho

-- CLOSED --

20110704:
I didn't realize we were going to eat at a new restaurant. I would have probably looked the place up on Yelp prior to trying it. Oh well, it was fun trying new meats and I had a good time eating with my family. One thing we had a small laugh about was how our server pointed out the chalkboard with all the specials as we were leaving the restaurant.

I can't get over the weird restaurant name.

Frog

I wrote: Sauce is strong fish sauce flavor. Prob a mix of hoison or oyster. Not trad fried frog legs.
I wrote: medium rare. Ostrich is a little dry. Nearly like dry steak. Medium. Kangaroo is soft rich. Much smoother texture. Might have came out medium rare.

As an appetizer, we ordered ếch chiên bơ, which literally translates to "frog fried butter." However, it wasn't done traditionally. I'm all for a restaurant putting its own twist on a dish, but some sort of mention about the difference should be made on the menu. To me, it's almost as bad as ordering a hamburger, and the restaurant giving you a hot dog. You tell your waiter, "I thought I ordered a hamburger. The waiter replies, "This is how our restaurant makes hamburgers." At least if the menu read "Hamburger. Delicious ball park frank in a bun with ketchup, relish, and dijon mustard," then I could make an informed decision and consider ordering the hamburger. Note: we wanted to order the "gator bites" but they were out. This restaurant didn't call them "gator bites," but it was fried alligator meat.

Each entree came with a salad. Though they put too much vinaigrette on. I guess when reasonable, one should ask for dressings on the side. 

We also split an order of kangaroo and an order of ostrich. There were other meats to choose from, like alligator and python, but the choice was up to my sister and me. My sister immediately thought to pick kangaroo. I would have done the same, but given her decision, I chose ostrich. We made the orders as recommended, though I'm not sure it made a difference. The medium rare ostrich seemed to come out well done and the medium kangaroo seemed to come out medium rare. The kangaroo was delicious. On the other hand, the ostrich was robbed of its juicy oils.

Kangaroo

Ostrich

A friend once told me that the flavor of the meat was mostly contained in its fats, and that theoretically, if one could remove all the fat from a meat then all meats would taste the same.

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20110711:
Pho kobe. Interesting. The meat is soft and tastes good. It was interesting to try, but not something I'd crave. See Kobe beef (Wikipedia.org) and Wagyu (Wikipedia.org).

[20110724]

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iPho

Relevant Links:
iPho (Yelp)