recent eatings

I've been to quite a few new restaurants in the last few weeks, and most of them have been good. Here's a quick rundown:

Two weeks ago, I had brunch with some friends at Crepevine in Burlingame. Technically this wasn't a new restaurant for me, since I'd been there once before, but that time all I had was a Riviera crepe (lemon, sugar, butter, & orange liqueur). This time I tried a savory Tuscan crepe (chicken, mushrooms, tomatoes, almonds, cheese, & pesto) which was pretty good. It came with a salad and a generous portion of home fries. I still prefer Alana's Swedish oatmeal pancakes, though.

That same day, I had dinner at PPQ Dungeness, in the city. We had three kinds of crab: roasted, curry, & peppercorn. My favorite (by far) was the peppercorn, but all three were good. We also had a pretty decent green papaya salad, some (fried?) chicken, and several other dishes, as part of a set menu. The crab was definitely the highlight, though.

Last week, some friends came to visit from New Jersey. They were staying near Chinatown, so we ended up at R & G Lounge, a nice Chinese restaurant. I've been there before, but never without my parents, so it was a bit of an adventure to be in charge of ordering. We had the famous salt & pepper crab (yes, more crab), geoduck sashimi (in Chinese it's called "elephant trunk clam"), a fish dish with ham, mushrooms, & veggies, a fairly standard beef and egg drop soup, and the ox-tail stew in a clay pot. I actually liked the geoduck sashimi much more than I'd remembered, but then again, it'd been many years since I'd had it. The fish and ham dish was also very good (or so I heard, as I only ate the ham and the mushrooms).

This last weekend, some more out-of-town friends came to visit, this time from Seattle. We ended up at Zazie, which I've been wanting to check out forever, and only had to wait around 25 minutes, since it was late (~1:30pm). The gingerbread pancakes were pretty good, but the French Toast Tahiti was amazing. The toast itself seemed to be an egg bread, which had great texture, and it was stuffed with caramelized bananas and walnuts.

That evening, we met up with some more friends from the East Bay, and we all went to Tangerine for dinner. I tend to be skeptical of Asian fusion restaurants, but this one was actually fusion as opposed to Californian food with a few Asian ingredients. My favorites were the Roasted Duck Spring Rolls and the Coriander Beef Short Ribs. We got the short ribs as an appetizer, but I think next time I'll be ordering it as an entree, since I liked it so much.

For dinner tonight, I went to Fiesta del Mar with a bunch of my coworkers. I'd heard that the restaurant is known for its drinks, and indeed, I was initially overwhelmed by the huge selection of margaritas. After a minute, I spotted the very girly "Acapulco Breeze" (made with midori and cranberry juice) and ordered a pitcher of that, to go with the pitchers of more hard-core margaritas that others had ordered. For dinner I had a pork enchilada done "Rancheras" style and also some chicken enchilada "De Mole", both of which I liked. I was told the "De Enjococado" enchiladas were amazing; I'll probably try some next time. Actually, I think everyone liked their food, and we'd ordered a pretty wide variety; tacos, fajitas, burritos, enchiladas, chile relleno, and more. Plus, the chips came with three kinds of salsa. Yum.