I was excited to find out that it was Hawaiian food… nothing better than eating a slab of fried meat, macaroni salad and a scoop of rice and feeling like a fatty in a food coma all night… so what did I order?  Hawaiian fried steak of course (yes, with rice and macaroni salad) and 2 orders of spam musubi (one for me, one for my friend).  Oh, and a raspberry iced tea.

Check out the Hawaiian Fried Steak (taken with my iphone):

I never had Hawaiian Fried Steak before.  Like its name implies, it’s like chicken fried steak only with the Hawaiian style gravy.  The fried steak was just perfect. It was fried and it stayed crispy and crunchy even after all that gravy was slopped all over it… pretty impressive! I can’t really describe the gravy – it’s kind of like, teriyaki sauce meets brown gravy.  It’s salty but tangy and a little sweet… and it goes perfectly with the crispy slab of sliced up fried steak.  There were two more scoops of rice underneath the meat… I couldn’t even touch the two scoops up top next to the macaroni salad…

All and all it was amazing.  In fact it was so good (I was eating this in the car) that I splattered gravy all over my shirt… need I say more?

The spam musubi was a TANK! You can see that they are stuffed chock full of rice.  (pic was taken with my iphone) Definitely more rice than I’m used to from L&L spam musubi… What I appreciated most about the 88 Ricebowl spam musubi was that when I finally got home and ate my roll 1/2 hour later it was still hot.  Yum!  Better yet, I ate the other roll for breakfast the next day and it was even tastier than the first one!!

Here’s a shot of the leftover spam musubi (taken with my real camera):

I am glad the nearest 88 Rice bowl is all the way down in Daly city otherwise I’d probably look like a spam musubi.

4 Fries!

88 Rice Bowl
1901 Junipero Serra Blvd
Daly City, CA 94014
(650) 991-8863

The post 88 Ricebowl: Hawaiian Fried Steak and Spam Musubi appeared first on Fryhole.

I didn’t start eating these chips until I was finished with my sandwich.  They were worth the wait, and to me, this bag of greasy goodness was the perfect ending to my perfect lunch.

I can’t remember the last time I ate Miss Vickie’s chips.  In fact, I dont usually pay so much attention to the brand of chips I’m eating if they have the flavor I want… but Miss Vickie’s chips really stood out to me – so much that I wanted to write a review.

So, what makes these chips so great? Let me tell you. Not ONLY are they sea salt & vinegar, but they are KETTLE COOKED as well!!  To me, and my roots in good ol’ PA, there’s nothing better than kettle cooked potato chips.  I used to eat Grandma Utz’s kettle cooked chips by the bag, and these are just about as close as they come out here in California since they don’t sell Grandma Utz’s here, boo.  So, since these puppies are kettle cooked, they have a very subtle extra buttery and greasy crunch than their non-kettle cooked counterparts, making the sea salt and vinegar have a tangy sweetness that the other salt and vinegar chips don’t have.  I do sometimes find that other sea salt and vinegar chips are so strong that they make your face twitch a little.  These don’t, the salt/vinegar flavor is generous but not overbearing.

Here’s another pic of the chips… don’t they look amazing?  These chips have the perfect thickness too with a light crunch.  The crunch is not as intense as other chips, and they’re not as “thin” crunchy as lets say, “lays”… you know what I mean.

[box type=”note”]Click here to order a box of Miss Vickie’s Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips[/box]

The post Miss Vickie’s Sea Salt & Vinegar Chips appeared first on Fryhole.

I started off with the Chilaquiles. This is probably the best dish at this Tamarindo. The chips are homemade and the amazing thing about them is that they are thick enough so that the chili sauce softens the outside of the chip but the inside still remains crunchy, so when you eat the chip, it’s still crispy, which to me is very important. The sauce is a little more than mild in spice but it also has a hint of sweetness. The cheese also adds a mild touch – this dish is perfect.

The plantains and rice at Tamarindo are the bomb. The rice is unlike any other rice you’d have anywhere. I don’t know what it’s cooked in but it has a fresh essence and is salty. The combination of the salty rice and the sweet plantains is to die for.

Today’s aqua fresca was PINEAPPLE! I had 2, this drink was sweet, fresh, fruity and awesome!

The elote is the corn on the cob with the chili sauce and white cheese. It was good, but I dont know if I wuld get it again because I think it needed butter…

These are custom vegetarian sopacitas that were made for Havilah, since she is vegetarian. It had poblano peppers, corn and a tomatillo salsa on them. They were spicy hot but really good!

I don’t remember what this was called and it is not listed on the Tamarindo online menu. It is basically beef, cheese, guacamole, diced tomatoes inside 2 tortillas. It was very fresh tasting. I kind of wish it had more spices or the meat was marinated longer, it was good but not amazing.

Lastly we had the coconut custard (flan). It was AMAZING. I could have easily shoveled the entire thing in my little fryhole but I had to share it… there was toasted coconut on the top which gave it a little extra crunch, and the sauce was sweet and light. This was one of my favorite desserts I’ve ever had!

Tamarindo Antojeria
468 8th St
(between Broadway & Washington St)
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 444-1944
www.tamarindoantojeria.com

The post Tamarindo: Take 2 appeared first on Fryhole.

Besides awesome pastries, La Boulange also has a nice little menu of breakfast and lunch items like eggs, sandwiches and salads.  I opted for a cup of the Soup du Jour – Potato Leek, a Breakfast Pizza with Bacon and a Nonfat Latte.

This is the kind of place where you order at the counter, get a number and find a place to sit.  Then you sit down and wait for your food to be delivered.  We waited a little while and then the soup came first.  It was pretty good — not quite as sweet as I expected it to be, but nonetheless, good.  The soup came with a little slice of french bread which was really good. Once the bread was gone I really had no reason to continue eating the soup, but I did anyway… just because.

Above is the breakfast pizza with bacon.  It is very interesting… basically the crust is a sweet flakey phyllo-ish kind of dough, topped with melted cheese, diced tomatoes, chunks of bacon and finally some scrambled eggs (oh, then sprinkled with chopped parsley i think?).  I usually cut it in slices the short way and eat.  It is very good and filling.  The buttery-ness of the crust and eggs mixed with the smokey saltiness of the bacon is the perfect combo and worth every bite.  I’ve had it twice so far.

This is a “real” latte.  Drink it right from the bowl.

La Boulange
500 Hayes St
(between Laguna St & Octavia St)
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 863-3376
www.baybread.com

The post La Boulange: Breakfast Pizza, Soup du Jour, Latte appeared first on Fryhole.

I’m definitely a corn-ie and will rarely refuse anything with corn in it.  The Cream of Corn soup is pureed very finely (there are no whole pieces of corn in it).  They use alot of butter also so it is buttery and corn-y with a smooth n silky texture, yum!  (I actually went to Zebulon two days in a row to get this soup).

The sandwich on the other hand was just good.  Nothing spectacular about it.  My general complaint with most hot sandwiches is that they could be hotter (don’t just toast the bread and broil the cheese down, heat up the meat too, geez!), and this sandwich was no exception.  The sweet potato fries were excellent as usual – sweet, crispy and chock full of yam.  The sweet potato fries are magnet that keeps pulling me back to Zebulon, I could eat them everyday and every night for the rest of my life.

Overall, a good lunch.

Zebulon
83 Natoma Street
(between 2nd St & James Lick Fwy)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 975-5705
www.zebulonsf.com (this place is now closed)

The post Zebulon SF: Soup & Sandwich appeared first on Fryhole.

Anyhow, I was frigging starving because I had an early photoshoot this morning and was running around and squatting down on the ground trying to shoot these two super cute dogs… so I was ready to really go all out and have a nice meal.  Something I didn’t notice last time I was there was that there is ALOT of vegetarian food on the menu.  Actually, the brunch menu is basicall ALL vegetarian minus one dish – the blackened cod (with eggs)… the sausage is fake and so is the sausage gravy (for the biscuits).  So I was out of luck in the pig department, ugh!

I went with the Huevos Rancheros, a fish taco and an order of the mixed french fries and sweet potato fries.

Check out the Huevos Rancheros (above).  I was disappointed in this dish because the tortilla below the egg was just a regular flour tortilla, soft and uncooked.  If you look closely, you will see a very thinly cooked egg atop a tortilla… yes that is an egg that is covered in tomato sauce.  The dish was just OK.  I was honestly expecting a crunchy tortilla shell as the base of my rancheros or at least some tortillas on the side to dip with, but I got none of that.  To me, everything (minus the cabbage which I didn’t eat) was too mushy and soft.  The egg was cooked sunny side up so when you cut into it, the yolk just spilled out everywhere making a big ol mess on the plate.

Here is a shot of the fish taco and the french fries/sweet potato fries.  I’ve had the fish taco before at Weird Fish and it is good.  It was good today too.  The mango salsa on top is sweet and fresh and the fish is lightly breaded.  Taco = A+, Fries = C.  …Sorry french fries/sweet potato fries mix, you are waaay too dry and overcooked, so much that there is hardly any potato left inside!

I decided to take a shot of my friend’s meal too.  This is the Capp St. potatoes with a side of fruit and a side of fake sausage.  Doesn’t it look amazing?  It tastes amazing too, must be that sour cream!  No, it was really good, I would get this over my Huevos Rancheros in a hott second.  They mix both sweet potatoes and regular potatoes into this home fry mix, top it with red beans, sour cream, salsa and avocado.

Here’s a quick shot of the inside.  I love the color on the walls — it’s like a muted aqua/tealish color and the decor is old apothecary jars on the shelves, old vintage picture frames, and starfish-like found things.

Brunch was decent.. I wasn’t wowed to the ultimate but my hunger was tamed.

Weird Fish
2193 Mission Street
(between 18th St & Sycamore St)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-4744
www.weirdfishsf.com

The post Weird Fish SF: Huevos Rancheros, Fish Taco, Fries appeared first on Fryhole.

The turkey burger came with a chipotle mayo and the sweet potato fries are to die for. If nothing else, I would come to Zebulon just to stuff my little fryhole with those sweet potato fries… they are SO GOOD!!

The burger was AMAZING. It was juicy, HUGE and really messy. I think this was the best turkey burger I’ve ever had. And those sweet potato fries were sweet, salty and lightly crunchy on the outside and really soft on the inside.

15 minutes later….

The post Zebulon: Turkey Burger w/Cheese & Sweet Potato Fries appeared first on Fryhole.

We started with the corn cakes. The plate came with 2 corn cakes, each about 4″ in diameter. It was pretty good, sweet, a little crisp on the outside and even sweeter with the sweet cucumber sauce on top. The corn cakes at Thaihouse were nice and simple… Basically, just corn flattened into patties. I’ve had corn cakes at other places where they had veggies and meat… these corn cakes were good. Less is more!

Above is the “award winning” Pad Thai. According to the menu, the SF Guardian has rated Thaihouse Pad Thai as the best Pad Thai in San Francisco. This reason alone is why I decided to order this dish. When it came out, I thought I smelled hamster bedding, but then I realized it was probably just the nutty smell of crushed peanuts mixed with the sweet sauce.

Overall, the pad thai was pretty good. I can’t say that it was amazing or even the best that I’ve had.. but it was good. It’s downfall was that the noodles were just a tad bit overcooked… they were so soft that it made the dish a little softer and mushier than I would’ve liked, but overall, it was pretty tasty.

Thai House Express
599 Castro Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 864-5000
www.thhexpress.com/

The post Thai House Express: Corn Cakes & Pad Thai appeared first on Fryhole.

When you microwave the wheat germ cookie tho, it falls apart in your hands because I don’t think it is made with flour (if it is, you would never know). It crumbles completely when you touch it.. the pieces just fall down everywhere. I always feel like a caveman eating this thing — shoveling pinched up chunks into my mouth with super greasy fingers… and lastly I need to say that although the recipe may lack substance to hold the cookie together, it definitely does not lack butter.

Specialty’s
101 New Montgomery St
(between Minna St & Mission St)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(925) 299-2507
www.specialtysdirect.com

The post Specialty’s: Wheat Germ Bran Chocolate Chip Cookie appeared first on Fryhole.

So, the reason we went back to T-Rex is because we liked it so much last time (read previous post here) and we wanted to try out more things on their tasty menu. It was pretty busy for a Wednesday lunch.  Maybe there were alot of people in the area on their lunchbreak – the place was definitely packed.  One of the reasons I was also really excited today to go to T-Rex was to try the Chicken Fried Bacon appetizer.  YES, you heard me, CHICKEN-FRIED-BACON.

The other things we ordered included… Mac and Cheese, Mashed Potatoes, Deviled Eggs and the Fried Chicken Sandwich. I ate this food about 8 hours ago and I can honestly tell you that I am STILL FULL.

Onto the food… there are alot of photos in this post!

Started off with a Hoegaarden…

Mexican Coke – T-Rex has a nice selection of bottled sodas on the menu.

[above] Chicken Fried BACON.  I never had Chicken Fried Bacon before.  It was interesting… not really what I thought it would be.  There were two dipping sauces – a Dino-Mite Mustard and Ranch.  The Dino-Mite mustard was definitely infused with horseradish and had a nice little bite to it… I actually preferred it to the ranch for this appetizer.  Check out the bite-shot:

I’m glad I tried this, but I have to say – I dont know if I’d get it again.  Not that it wasn’t good – but the bacon became kind of lost in the breading and it was more about the breading than the bacon… You could still taste the bacon though, which btw, was cooked perfectly.  I guess I was expecting it to be a little saltier or something…hmph.

Here’s a shot of the deviled eggs.  It came with a little handful of arugula salad as well.  These were just OK.  There are alot of variations to deviled eggs and this version was definitely more yolky than other my version which has a little more mayo and mustard, making the yolk part sweeter and more tangy.  Ehh.

For lunch, Hav ordered sides of Mac & Cheese and Mashed Potatoes.  The mac and cheese was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.  You definitely get enough for a whole meal and it was rich, creamy and super cheesy (sharp cheddar and parmesan).  What I liked best is that it was made with orecchiette pasta – my favorite!  This dish alone is worth disco fries… hands down!

Here’s the mashed potatoes.  They were also just OK.  They mixed very well, almost as smooth as a puree… definitely needed MORE BUTTER!  They are called “Mashed Potatoes with Smoked Garlic and Chives”… I think if they had just a bit more butter they would be better… somehow they just tasted a little too bland.

This is the Fried Sonoma Chicken Breast with Ham, Gruyere and grilled Scallion Aioli Sandwich.  It definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. Being that T-Rex is a BBQ joint, I was expecting a piece of fred chicken – you know, with the big chunky pieces of breading, with a slice of ham and cheese on a nice kaiser roll or something of that sort… but I got chicken cordon bleu instead on a VERY soft roll.  This roll was sweet and so soft that the first thing to come to my mind were steamed Mcdonalds burger buns (no offense!).  It didn’t taste like McDonalds, but it felt as soft as McDonalds.

The chicken breast was very juicy, moist and tender.  It was really good.  The breading on the chicken breast was the little fine kind – a pretty thin layter of crispy breading.  The ham was good too but there was only 1 thin slice so the flavor of the ham kind of got lost in the sandwich since there was so little of it.

What saved this dish were the BBQ potato chips… LOOK AT THEM!

These chips are AWESOME.  They are thick cut with a great crunch, and the BBQ seasoning is sweet and salty.  I love these chips.  I usually opt to substitute fries when chips are involved with sandwiches, but at this place, the chips rule!

We were completely stuffed but we had to check out the dessert menu.  Behold the pumpkin spice cupcake, doesn’t it look cute?  Well, sorry to bust your bubble but it was pretty dry, and the icing was kind of hard and tasteless… don’t get it, go to Teacake in Emeryville instead.

Here is the Devil’s Food Cake and a latte.  The cake was also just OK.  The icing wasn’t really icing it was more of an aerated style frosting… so it crumbled when you cut into it.  The cake wasn’t very moist either… it had a very subdued chocolate flavor, which was kind of deceiving from the looks of it.  Looked good though…. guess T-Rex isn’t into baking as much as they are into BBQ-ing.  At least I know now!

Ahhh!  You’ve made it to the end!! Here is a shot of myself entering a serious food coma…

Today’s visit was good, not great:

T-Rex Barbecue
1300 10th St
(between Camelia St & Gilman St)
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 527-0099
www.t-rex-bbq.com

The post T-Rex Berkeley: Chicken Fried Bacon, Mac & Cheese, Chicken Sandwich, etc appeared first on Fryhole.