Lunch – Page 25 – Elsie Hui

November 16, 2014November 16, 2014

Ole’s Waffle Shop – Alameda, California

We have been going to Ole’s Waffle Shop for many years now and the place is always packed. I love this place as it not only had the best breakfast food, it’s in an old fashioned style diner with the long bar, swivel seats and booths! Located right on Park Street, you won’t miss it at all as there’s always a line and street parking.

Once we sat down, we ordered their fresh squeed orange juice which is one of my favourites. They have really good orange juice as there is a juice extractor. Plain and simple, really fresh and tasty!

I ordered their Waffle Combo which comes with a waffle, eggs and I ordered mine with a sausage patty. It was the perfect amount of food and everything tasted so delicious. They even warmed up the syrup which was really a nice treat as no other waffle/pancake place has ever done that!

My husband ordered his favourite, the Corn Beef Hash thinking there was hash browns in with the corn beef hash, but it was more just flat grilled corned beef, no has.. and we got grits on the side. It was still really good although not what either of us was expecting.

Overall, this waffle shop has been a favourite of ours for many years and we will always continue to go here. It’s close and convenient and delicious. The staff is always friendly even though they’re really busy!

Ole’s Waffle Shop

1507 Park St
Alameda, CA
(510) 522-8108

November 16, 2014November 16, 2014

Suzu Japanese Noodle House – San Francisco, California

This one evening, we didn’t know where to go for dinner. We were on the San Francisco side as we were doing some sigh seeing, so we decided we would go for Japantown for some ramen for dinner and we ended up finding Suzu Japanese Noodle House inside a little mall. The place was little and packed so make sure you have some patience if you want to try them – it’s worth it!

We started with an order of Gyoza as well all know, I love dumplings. They pan fried the dumplings here really nicely and the pork inside was really well seasoned. It was a thin skin and delicious!

I ordered their Cha Shu Ramen with Shoyu flavour soup and it was actually really delicious! The broth was excellent and the cha shu was tender, juicy and flavourful! The texture of the ramen was really nice and the noodles were really fresh!

We saw a news article outside the window of this restaurant where someone was showcasing their Suzu Ramen so my husband got that! It was quite different as it had karaage, fried gyoza and corn in his soup. His soup was miso flavoured and that was super tasty as well. We didn’t like the fried gyozas nearly as much as the pan fried ones that we got as an appetizer but the noodles are as tasty as it looks!

We also ordered a bowl of Kakuni Ramen with shoya flavour – which was their braised pork belly. It looked and smelled delicious and it was eaten completely withouth a word! So, it was awesome!

Overall, we loved our experience here. We all thought it was worth the wait and we know we could be back! The prices were reasonable, the service was quick and friendly and most importantly, the food was so good!

Suzu Japanese Noodle House

1825 Post St
San Francisco, CA
(415) 346-5083

November 16, 2014

Kapok Seafood Restaurant – Alameda, California

We went out for lunch and decided to go for dim sum – somewhere more local with great rates for dim sum at Kapok Seafood Restaurant! All dim sum dishes here were only $2.00 and the place was quite busy for a weekday!

We just ordered a bunch of stuff and shared it at our table, which is the traditional way to having dim sum. They don’t give you any bowls here though, just a plate and chopsticks (which isn’t very traditional). We started with an order of Chive Dumplings that were steamed. It was really quite delicious and the skin was thin and delicate.

Then, we ordered some Fried Taro Dumpling which isn’t something we normally get. But, it looked really nice and light, and fresh here. And, it was! We hate it when it’s cold and hard, but it was delicately fried and the filling was hot and fresh. The pork was well seasoned, so we enjoyed this quite a bit!

We don’t normally go to dim sum without ordering my husbands favourite, lo bak goh and it wasn’t bad. Of course, nothing as good as homemade, but it was still really fresh with lo bak shreds thoughout! We love it when there are noticeable shreds so they are amazing that way!

Some more steamed dim sum for our table, we got an order of Spare ribs and it was really well seasoned here. The spare ribs were not too fatty at all and like everything else, it was really tasty and fresh. The meat was tender and it came off the bones without being over cooked!

Another dish we always order is the Steamed Beef Balls which is another of my husbands favourite, especially with Worcestershire sauce! The balls were excellent here and not made with overwhelming amounts of parsley so it was nice to actually be able to taste the meat balls here!

Just as you would think we’re done, we ordered something quite amazing! It’s their Lobster Noodles for only $8.88! It doesn’t get better than that! It was an awesome little lobster that sat on a bed of yee mein which is one of our favourites and never really order as it’s costly here. With this price, sure it’s little, but it was definitely enough as we’re having it WITH our dim sum!

Everything was amazing here and the price of the experience seems to have made us extra happy! So, if you’re looking for fresh dim sum at a great price, then you should come try here! It’s not clean, service is average, but you get good food and a great rate!

Kapok Seafood Restaurant

1511 Webster St
Alameda, CA
(510) 865-5405

November 14, 2014

Sumo Grill Japanese Restaurant – Calgary, Alberta

We didn’t know where we wanted to go for dinner this one evening, but we were checking some stuff out over at Sundridge Mall in the Northeast where we saw Sumo Grill Japanese Restaurant and figured I haven’t been here in ages, we would come back – remembering it was decent food. We did come closer to closing time, but when we were done, they closed the gate off and wouldn’t let us go back through the mall, so we walked back in to take a picture.

This restaurant is ran by Chinese people, so it’s not authentic. We weren’t actually hungry so we decided to order a Sushi and Sashimi Combo which had 7 pieces of sashimi, 5 pieces of sushi, a California roll and 2 pieces of house special rolls. The quality was decent!

Then, we decided we wanted a bowl of udon, and decided we’d do something a little different – so we got their Spicy Chicken Udon which was really different. It reminded us of a Chinese dish, but just using udon noodles. It was tasty actually! They used ground chicken which was interesting as it fell to the bottom of the soup.

Overall, a decent experience. We don’t have much complaints and the nice thing it’s in the mall – which would be ideal for cold days! But, they close the gate before the mall closes.

Sumo Grill Japanese Restaurant – Sunridge Mall

2525 36 St NE
Calgary, AB
(403) 568-6886

November 11, 2014

Feel Good Bakery – Alameda, California

We were looking for a good place to purchase a birthday cake for our nephew where we stumbled across a website for Feel Good Bakery in Alameda, which wasn’t far from where we were. We started our drive to find ourselves looking at a Marketplace, so we figured it was inside. Sure enough, Feel Good Bakery was inside of the marketplace, and there’s parking across the street (Across Park Street)

We found ourselves an 8″ Chocolate cake which we wanted them to draw a dinosaur on. They had no problem doing that, so we just bough ourselves a macaroon each as the display case was beautiful, full of all sorts of wonderful things, but we settled on a little treat each.

I decided I would go for the Pumpkin Macaron as it was fall season, and I love pumpkin anything! The macaron was delicious, not overly sweet and it was delicate but not flaky or dry! It actually tasted like pumpkin so I was impressed.

We also decided to try a Chocolate Macaron as it’s more traditional of a flavour. The chocolate was really amazing and we especially enjoyed the filling inside the macarons!

Overall, we were more than pleased with our experience here. Our birthday cake tasted amazing and looks fantastic! This was worth our little drive over!

Feel Good Bakery

1650 Park St
Alameda, CA
(510) 864-2733