Sushi Infinity – San Jose, CA
Yesterday (3/12/2010) my sister and I decided to try out a new A.U.C.E (all u can eat) sushi restaurant that I found. This restaurant appears to be affiliated with another sushi restaurant located in Mountain View that I have been to. Sushi Infinity has been open since September 2009, and I believe the sushi is better made than at the other restaurant. Basically they have 2 A.U.C.E menus, Lunch or Dinner, and the price varies accordingly. The dinner menu has more items and allows you to also choose items from the lunch menu. Each person can order up to 3 items from the menu at any one time, but I warn people to be careful of what they order as some items contain 6 pieces of sushi.
The quality of the sushi isn’t bad, though I’m not fond of their “spicy” items (ex. the spicy tuna) because I feel that the quality does not live up to what I expect. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the sushi and definitely had my fill. What I like about this place is that you can order items that are not so common at other sushi restaurants such as tempura shrimp hand rolls (temaki), beef tataki nigiri, and tonkatsu sushi roll.
What was funny about the experience was that we were seated next to a 6 person party of women, none of which were capable in math as it took them a good 10-15 minutes to divide up the bill. In the end they were only off by a mere 7 cents, but what was extremely annoying was that one of the girls complained to her friends about how the server requested the 7 cents from them. Since they had a decent sized party, gratuity was automatically included in their check. The girl went on to complain about this practice, ranting and raving: “What if I didn’t want to leave a tip? It’s my decision if I want to leave one, its not right for them to add it in.” In my experience, most restaurants will automatically include gratuity if the party is over X amount of people, so this is not a problem with the restaurant.
All in all, it was a pretty good experience. Our particular server was quite friendly. I would definitely visit again when a craving for sushi strikes.
Moongate Garden – Milpitas, CA
Ahh… Dim Sum. Savory delicious little bite sized noms. Consistently, Dim Sum ranks as one of my top favorite meal experiences. Not only are the delicacies extremely delicious, but the whole experience of watching the servers push around carts piled high with Chinese steaming baskets and yelling out their offerings reminds of my childhood. My parents used to take us up to San Francisco to have Dim Sum.
On Tuesday (3/9/2010), I visited Moongate Garden with my dad, uncle, and grandma for lunch. I had never been to this particular restaurant, but it turned out to be a nice experience. The food is very clean and well prepared. I did not get to take photos of all the dishes that we ordered, however, I did get pictures of my favorite items. During lunch, my uncle proceeded to tell me how to tell the quality of a restaurant’s shu mai simply by looking at the topping they place on top. According to my uncle, the “worst” shu mai will have nothing but a small tiny piece of carrot as garnish on top, a step up from that would have fish eggs, and above that would be a small piece of abalone. I’m not sure how accurate this scale is, but I guess it sounds reasonable to make such assumptions since the ingredient cost for each “level” of quality increases.
My favorite Dim Sum is definitely the shu mai, followed closely by har gow and the egg tarts. XD There are many other items that I love, and I will definitely try to get more pictures next time. As I mentioned, the food was of good quality and was delicious. The shu mai was hot when delivered to the table, and the shrimp inside the har gow was clean. Although this is not my favorite restaurant for Dim Sum, I would definitely revisit. XD
Camera Resolution Change
Alrighty, I haven’t purchased a new phone or camera to take better photos, but I did change the resolution of my current cell phone camera. I will be taking photos on the best possible setting in hopes that I’ll be able to show everyone better quality pictures.
Current Setting is at: 3M
Resolution: 2048×1536
Quality: Super Fine
Due to the fact that WordPress has a limit on the size of my file uploads, I will be resizing all posted pictures to 1600×1200.
Thanks for your interest!