Tag Archives: asian
February 19, 2013 Dinner at Anzu
Last month, Yufei and I went skating at the Union Square Holiday Ice Rink right before they took it down for the year. Afterwards, we decided to have dinner around the area. It was Dine About Town that week, which is SF’s version of Restaurant Week in NYC. We looked up participating restaurants in the area and settled on Anzu. We didn’t have a reservation, so it was about a 45 minute wait. Luckily, Anzu is located inside Hotel Nikko, so we sat in the beautiful lobby and talked while we waited for our table.
Anzu is described as serving California cuisine with Asian flavors, whatever that means. The Dine About Town menu has a few different choices for each of the three courses. For appetizers, Yufei and I both got the seared ahi tuna. It was pretty good, though the serving size was really small.
For my main course, I decided on the oven roasted king salmon, with scallion gnocchi, Japanese eggplant, pickled turnips, and kaiyaki sauce. I really liked this dish. The salmon was very crispy on the outside and very flavorful.
Yufei chose the grilled hanger steak with mushroom ravioli and port wine reduction. He replaced the side of broccolini with garlic fries (so typical of him…).
For dessert, I got the pomegranate crème brûlée with macaron cookies. It was an interesting take on crème brûlée since the pomegranate taste made the usually sweet dessert more tarte and sour. I enjoyed it but it wasn’t the best crème brûlée I ever had.
Yufei dessert was a chocolate indulgent cake with grand marnier crème anglaise sauce.
Overall, the food was okay. Service was lacking a little (forgetting to bring my drink order, not refilling our waters, etc.). Even with the Dine About Town discount, we felt it was still a little expensive for a just-okay dinner, and we probably won’t be back again.
Tags: asian, dessert, dinner, food, san francisco, sea food, steak
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- Posted under Food, San Francisco
April 30, 2011 The city of brotherly love!
That’s Philadelphia, in case you didn’t know. Yufei and I took a short weekend trip there last week! It was a very successful trip and I really liked the city a lot, very different from NYC in many ways. Here are some photos!
Being a total nerd about all things biology/medicine, I was super excited to find out about the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
They have a completely fascinating collection of medical oddities, anatomical and pathological specimens, wax models, and antique medical equipment. No photos were allowed inside but trust me – it was amazing! And Yufei bought me this awesome pen from the gift store:
Then we walked all the way across town to visit the US Mint – where your coins come from! – and then went to see the Dream Garden, a beautiful 15 × 49-foot mosaic in the lobby of the Curtis Center. So beautiful.
By that time it was getting late and things were starting to close up, so we just wandered around for a bit (and dropped by an interesting exhibit at the American Philosophical Society Museum). We then headed for dinner at Buddakan. We’d been to the Baddakan in Atlantic City a year and a half ago and really liked it, so we thought we’d try the one in Philly.
We shared the crispy duck salad to start:
We both thought it was really good, generous serving (it was meant to be shared) and a good amount of duck too! For main course, I got the miso black cod and Yufei had the wok cashew chicken. Again, both were great! My cod:
Then for dessert, we shared the dim sum doughnuts:
They came in a cute little take-out box, were warm and fresh, with three dipping sauces: chocolate sauce, jam, and a cream cheese sauce. It was so good! The meal certainly didn’t disappoint, and I think I might have to go to the Buddakan in NYC sometime!
The next day, we walked around a bit more (there are so many little parks, squares, and other public spaces in Philly! I love that).
Then we took a bus down to South Street to have lunch. Of course, we had to get some Philly cheese steak! Went to Ishkabibble based on Yelp reviews, and had a pretty good experience there. The place was tiny so we had to wait a bit for a table, but the people there were really friendly and the food was great too!
After lunch – Liberty Bell Center, National Constitution Center:
Elfreth’s Alley (starting to get some beautiful afternoon sunshine!):
And then the area around City Hall (which is a gorgeous building by the way), and finally, the LOVE sculpture, which appropriately sums up how I felt about our trip and this beautiful city:
I want to go back! Not necessarily for the museums and historical sites, but Philadelphia just feels like a nice place to walk around in and just relax for a day, sit in a square, look at public sculptures and murals, things like that. In a way it almost reminds me a bit of Vancouver. I wish it weren’t so far away, otherwise I would totally go there once in a while to escape the craziness of NYC.
Tags: asian, dessert, dinner, food, love, medicine, museums, philadelphia, science, sea food, travel
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- Posted under Food, Places, Travel
