The Counter – Santana Row – San Jose, CA

At the beckoning of good friends, I visited The Counter for the very first time yesterday.  The restaurant itself is a little snug, not a lot of room between tables, and extremely busy.  The servers are friendly and perform their duties quickly and efficiently.

Instead of ordering a “signature” predetermined sandwich, I opted to choose the ingredients myself.  The menu gives many options on what you want on your sandwich, from various organic toppings to an array of sweet and salty sauces.  No mystery sauce here!

I ordered:  1/3lb Grilled Chicken (very moist and tender) on rustic ciabatta bread w/ sliced cucumbers, hard boiled egg, grilled onions, organic greens, and topped with a lovely flavorful pesto sauce.  Yeah, kind of a weird combination…  but it was delicious!  The pesto sauce is really awesome…

The sweet potato fries are crunchy and soft at the same time.  It came with a yogurt/sour cream like sauce.

I look forward to concocting another myriad of ingredients on a bun the next time I visit!

Chiou Hwa Restaurant – Glorial Prince Hotel – Taipei, Taiwan

I always consider it a privilege when I visit the Chiou Hwa restaurant at the prestigious Gloria Prince Hotel in Taipei.  The Executive Chef, Peter Wu, is a close friend of my uncle.  The dishes here are exquisite and extremely flavorful.  Each and every dish (including side dishes) are plated artistically and are quite beautiful.  The service is impeccable, there are assigned servers for the duration of the meal.

The menu is designed and fixed, and when you arrive the menu will be in decorative envelopes (one for each person), addressed to the host of the party listing the night’s dishes.

Chef Wu is famous for his creative dishes, he ensures a strict high standard for every single element to ensure that each item is a masterpiece.  That particular night, we had a 7 course meal starting with a cold whole abalone salad, a hot and flavorful shark fin soup, a sliced duck wrap, steamed prawn, Chinese sausage rice, a red bean rice cake and apple pastry, and ending with a crisp fresh coconut milk fruit medley.

King Ludwig Beerhall – Hong Kong

During my excursion to Hong Kong, I happened to stumble upon an ad for a German restaurant named King Ludwig Beerhall.  Hong Kong is filled with tasty treats, but I decided that I wanted to try this place out (since I love the German dish “schweinshaxe”).  After a super long bus ride, I ended up by the ocean at this wonderful restaurant.

We ordered bread, a German Sausage combo plate, and of course, my beloved Schweinshaxe.  The bread was served with two different spreads, one was more like a creamy cheese spread, the other was liverwurst.  The Sausage medley was awesome, it came with a sort of “mashed” potato dish on the side.

The highlight of the dinner was definitely the schweinshaxe.  It was crusty and crunchy on the outside, and moist and tender on the inside.  It was served with the traditional sauerkraut and potatoes.  One thing I enjoyed immensely was that the schweinshaxe was very clean, there are those places that serve a similar piece of meat (pork leg) and you can still see the little hairs on the skin.  This definitely was not the case at King Ludwig’s, the skin was clean and I did not notice any hairs.  Yay!

If you are in Hong Kong, and want to have some delicious German food….  I would definitely look this place up!

Jai Yun Chinese Restaurant – San Francisco, CA

So, this isn’t really your typical Chinese restaurant.  Instead of ordering dishes from a traditional menu, the Chef at Jai Yun offers a prix-fixe menu.  The price varies, and you can choose the “price” you wish to pay, and the number of dishes will vary depending.

Jai Yun usually closes at 2pm for lunch (a little early in my opinion), however they were kind enough to stay open longer for us.  The owner and servers are extremely friendly, and they kept coming back to check on how we were doing.  Asking if there was anything else we wanted, or if we wanted more of a specific dish.

The food is flavorful and light.  None of that “greasy” Chinese food taste.  The fare is wide in variety, from the type of ingredient used to the cooking method.  All in all, it was a very positive experience!

Temporary Hiatus

Hi Everyone,

I  will be putting my posts on a hiatus.  Once I am able, I will put up some new pictures from my adventures.

Thanks for reading!

Linguini’s – Alameda, CA

I apologize for the lack of posts in the last month.  Finals at school coupled with several other situations kept a very tight constraint on my time.

Linguini’s is a 2 part restaurant, basically it is a sports bar/sit down restaurant.  The lunch fare is reasonably price, and very tasty!  I ordered a Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo, which was served with a Shrimp & Rice soup.  The entree was not salty enough, and can be described as “bland” at first, but this enables the partaker to season the dish to taste.  After adding sufficient salt to the pasta and chicken, it was delicious.

England Rose Garden – Fremont, CA

Before I begin with this post, I’d like to issue a formal apology for the lack of food related updates.  I usually take food photos with my phone, and a couple weeks ago my phone decided that it would no longer read the external microSD memory card where all the photos were saved.  I thought I had lost the photos forever (because I do not have another microSD card reader nor an adapter to use).  Today, possibly because my phone has been in an exceptionally good mood, it decided to read the microSD card again.  Yay!  Miraculously, all the photos are still there!

Since we are on the subject of apologies, I would also like to take this time to apologize for the food photos…  Definitely not as nice as the photos that I took of the places I went last month.  :(

Anyway, on to the England Rose Garden.  I will admit that I’ve been to this restaurant a number of times before, but I thought that I would go ahead and post photos anyway.  Despite the fact that the name states “England”, this restaurant offers a variety food with a slight Asian flair in a ‘tea house’ type setting.  The dishes served ranges from steaks to baked rice dishes to cold plates.  The nice thing is that you can order a set meal that is usually served with soup (usually a corn soup), salad, garlic bread, main entree, ice cream, and a tea/juice.  The lights are kept dim to preserve a sort of quiet/private ambiance, and the patrons usually keep to themselves and talk quietly.  Quite a difference from a normal Chinese restaurant for sure!

I find myself ordering the German Pork Knuckle each time I come because it is so very delicious.  The outside crusty skin is nicely seasoned, and the meat inside is tender.  The only complaint I have about the dish is that the fatty layer can feel a bit “sticky”.  Make sure to remove it before eating the meat!!  The pork knuckle is served on top of sauerkraut and has some boiled baby carrots/broccoli on the side.  Not a whole lot accompanying the meat, but the side dishes aren’t why I order this.

The other dish that was ordered that particular day was the steak special.  I can’t exactly remember what it was called, but it wasn’t really worth it.  I would say, get the pork knuckle instead!  XD  The sauce in which the steak is sitting is a black pepper sauce.  For some reason, Chinese people really like black pepper sauces.

Empire State Building – New York, NY

On the final night of trip I stood at the top of the Empire State building overlooking New York City.  It wasn’t as peaceful as I had hoped, I spent most of the time fighting with a massive crowd of tourists, pushing to get a spot at the fence to get clear view of the city.  It was a little bit drizzly at the top, but I didn’t care.  The views of the city at night are stunning.  It is difficult to catch it on camera..  especially since I was barely able to hold the camera still with all the people pushing around me.  Most of the shots I took came out blurry..  I picked the best ones to put up for everyone to see.

The Julliard School and the Lincoln Center – New York, NY

Here’s the second thing that was on my list of places to see in New York city.  I really wanted to see Julliard.  The building is quite unique in architecture.  It is situated right next to the Lincoln Center.

I WISH I was good enough to go to Julliard.  Maybe in another life time.

Carnegie Hall – New York, NY

Not too far from Central Park is the famous Carnegie Hall.  This is one of the the two places that I felt that I absolutely had to visit on my trip to New York.  Unfortunately (as I did not have the time to spare), I was unable to take part in a tour of the inside.  The tour isn’t expensive, around $10 per person.  Next time I’ll make it a priority on my list.