Food | fabliss - Part 41

“We Won in Friendship” Part II | Napa Valley, CA

our napa itinerary:

mumm napa – sparkling wine. since it was memorial day weekend, we actually couldn’t get a full tasting. instead we just enjoyed walking around with a just single flutes. mumm is beautiful.
farmstead – we couldn’t get over how cute this place is! there is a little winery on the back/side. we spent quite a bit of time here since they had 2 for 1 tastings! highly recommend.
castello di amorosa – this is a castle. enough said.
bouchon – pastries / macaroons! score.

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van, check (oh yeeah, thats how we roll). wine, check. awesome weekend, check. wine is good… but even better when with friends. a few of the pictures we took on this fabulous day: (current obsession: benches and shoes!)

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By vivilinh | May 30th, 2012 | California, Food, Friends, Life, Marriage, San Francisco / Oakland, Travel | 1 Comment

Gary Danko | San Francisco, CA

gary danko. when i was going to college at uc berkeley, we read that gary danko was voted best restaurant in the nation (yep. that was our reaction. what?! in the nation?!). as a poor college student, my roommates and i could not afford to dine here. therefore, i decided to put it on my bucket list. for our two year anniversary, we thought we would take a chance and try to get a reservation! score! we got one! on a saturday!

it could be that we were overhyped about this place… or because the restaurant was having a bad day. our experience at gary dank was somewhat of a letdown. we weren’t greeted at all for 15 minutes, our server was barely around to answer any questions (because he was too busy attending to his other tables). when served, it was abrupt, very short and never with a smile. we felt bad just asking for more water. the meal was good but the bad service left a bad taste in our mouths.

with regard to food: food was good. we recommend the (i) risotto with lobster, rock shrimp, shimeji mushrooms, asparagus and peas (not pictured) and (ii) warm louisiana butter cake with apples, huckleberry sauce and vanilla bean ice cream. those were the two dishes that stood out from the rest.
service: lackluster. didn’t seem to want to serve us at all.
ambience: dark. could be a nice date place.
overall: i wish we could say better things about this place but we would probably never come back. that’s too bad given that they did win best restaurant of the year back in the day. for the price you pay for your meal, i would expect a lot more from gary danko… but that’s just me.

Gary Danko
800 N Point St
San Francisco, CA 94109

By fabliss | May 30th, 2012 | Food, Restaurants | 0 Comments

Anniversay in NorCal | Part I

for our anniversary / memorial weekend, we took a trip up to norcal to visit friends, eat at a bucket list restaurant, see the city and spend some time in napa! bad news: my 50mm lens broke on sunday…the day we went to napa! sadness. good news: we had an amazing time! here are some pictures from our trip.

day one. we met up with stell to see a’s vs yankees. even though the a’s lost… we won in friendship. lol. which is the theme of the weekend.

went to 900 grayson for brunch. best chicken and waffles. ever.

By vivilinh | May 30th, 2012 | California, Food, Friends, Life, Marriage, Restaurants, San Francisco / Oakland, Travel | 1 Comment

Sapp Coffee Shop | Los Angeles, CA

so. soup…in the morning. feelings? i know some people are a little weirded out by the idea of this… but the husband and i have been growing up eating soup for breakfast on the regs: pho (vietnamese), miso soup (japanese), menudo (mexican). and, we love it! we recently found an amazing thai soup that is eaten in the morning: thai boat noodles! this delicious (we got it spicy) soup is comforting and hearty, everything we were looking for this weekend!

what we ordered:

thai iced tea
thai ice coffee
boat noodles
jade noodles

i loved both noodles. boat noodles are wet and the jade noodles come dry. depends on what you are in the mood for. maybe it’s because i’m used to eating soup in the morning but they didn’t feel heavy at all.

the nice thing about this place that you wouldn’t expect to get amazing noodles here… it’s called sapp coffee shop! just a note: the jade noodles are a little sweet (which i loved… savory/sweet? bomb!).

ambience: small, quaint shop in thai town.
service: quiet but very nice. food came out quickly.
parking: there is a small lot right in front that you can park in. it fills up rather quickly so you might have to do street parking.
overall: i would definitely recommend this place for noodles!! be adventurous and try both!

Sapp Coffee Shop
5183 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Neighborhood: Los Feliz

By vivilinh | May 6th, 2012 | Food, Restaurants | 0 Comments

Newport Tan Cang | San Gabriel, CA

home sweet home. i’m finally home from traveling throughout the midwest (work, not pleasure)! one of the things i look forward to me given our differing work schedules (me: finance job. husband: fireman) is having time to eat dinner together. simple, isn’t it? i know but it means the world to me.

anyway, he found this new chinese restaurant! newport tan cang restaurant…and away we went. even though i have been eating steak and seafood dinners all week (aw, poor me), we decided to have a lobster night! it was his first time eating lobster chinese/vietnamese style…he loved it more than me! i leave you with pictures of our glorious meal last night. my picture of our 5lbs of lobster does not do it justice. because it’s bomb (but on the expensive side).

our beef dish was ok. the meat was a little tough.

it’s hard to rave about the calamari and clams after eating that lobster since it’s the main affair. they were ok… nothing spectacular. i got the three colored dessert as a little sweet treat for myself! it was pretty good!

food: lobster is what they are known for. that is what you should get.
service: nothing to rave about here.
ambience: pretty spacious. good for large groups. lots of natural light.

ps. i also had to point out how absurdly he eats his so-called favorite fruit-the orange. as shown above, you will find his (right) and her (left) way of eating a slice of orange. this cracked me up and i thought i’d share.

Newport Tan Cang
518 W Las Tunas Dr
San Gabriel, CA 91776

By vivilinh | May 4th, 2012 | Food, Photography | 3 Comments

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