Red Wings Korean Chicken

Hungry for fried chicken, Adam and I decided to try Red Wings Fried Chicken in the Western Addition/Nopa area of San Francisco which is actually fairly close to our neighborhood. The chicken was amazing, but a little pricey. It tasted like they use mostly thigh meat, as the chicken was super tender.

Although not really wings, a half order of the fried chicken is 8.50 USD, whereas the grilled versions run between 11-15 USD.

Complimentary pickles and radishes are also served at the beginning of the meal and on the side with the fried chicken specials.

1 Large OB beer (enough for two people)
Complimentary pickle and radish
Half order fried chicken
Full order grilled chicken


Total: 38 USD after tax and tip

Flash Summit "Free" Lunch

I am always fascinated by things like subsidized or "free" food. This past week was the annual Game Developer's Conference and I attended the Flash Summit. The lunch box included a bag of Sun Chips, a turkey sandwich with a cranberry relish, 1/4 cup of pasta salad, 1/4 cup of caprese salad that tasted like rancid olive oil, a fuji apple, and a cookie. The food was ok, but I had to remove the top half of the bun on my sandwich because it was so thick. Gross!

Flash Summit sub-par "bento" lunch: included in 175.00 USD ticket to conference, paid by my company

Un-Kraft Your Life with this Giant Block of Turkish Feta

a photo by pintobean on Flickr.

Most of my shopping is not done at large supermarkets such as Safeway or Albertson's or Kroger's etc (GASP!), instead I usually hit up the local delis and markets in my neighborhood, mostly out of laziness since they are only a few blocks away. My last post demonstrated what a great deal I can get on extremely high-quality smoked salmon. Keeping an open mind on what to eat, and trying substitutions in my diet, has allowed me to come across some very delicious edibles that often end up being healthier choices.

Speaking of diet, the amount of dairy I eat only proves my Western-ness, but at least I can add a little culture (hehehe, get it?) with an alternative to those giant bricks of unnaturally orange extra sharp cheddar. This 17.65 oz tub of feta cheese costs 5.99 USD before tax. Surprisingly soft, I have been spreading it on toast, crumbling on salads, and using it as an alternative to cream cheese and ricotta. This giant tub comes all the way to the US from Turkey, and is actually a cow's milk feta. That means it is extremely unsustainable if you are a localvore, but totally awesome if you are worn out on spreadable cheeses from (achem) Kraft Foods. Thus successfully convincing myself that imported Turkish cheese is harmless, I will continue to relish in this crumbly brick of white deliciousness.... sometimes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

According to the packaging, this block contains ~ 16 servings of cheese, thus, here is my breakdown:

ULKER White Feta:
5.99 USD a tub
.33 USD / oz
.37 USD a serving
~70 calories an oz ;)

The Pieces of a Better (and Cheaper) Fishy Breakfast

a photo by pintobean on Flickr.

My car was due for some new tires and the tire shop is right by a branch of the famous San Franciscan Boudin bakery. I decided to grab a baguette this morning and on the walk home I picked up some protein to go with the bread: smoked salmon sold by the pound at our local Russian deli, yum!

Baguette: 2.35 USD after tax
Smoked Salmon: 5.07 USD for .39 lbs (yup that is 13 dollars a pound, but who eats a pound of smoked salmon?)

My boyfriend and I made a fancy breakfast of lox and delicious bread that would have cost at least twice as much, for about half as much salmon, if we had gone out to a local brunch place. Plus, we still have half the baguette left. Who wants a Nutella and baguette snack this afternoon?

Edible Screen Printing: 1 Dollar

Edible Screen Printed Tortilla used for a Cheese Quesadilla
Cost: Practically Free
Location: Mission District, SF

March 31 was Cesar Chavez Day. Lots of activist and local school and community set up shop in the Mission District of SF to celebrate the birthday of this labor activist. The Farm Workers Union was handing out a print maker's dream (or worst nightmare???): cheese melted in between tortilla's that the union members were screen printing on! I think the "ink" was made with special food coloring.

The Price of Pho(od)

Pho, Vietnamese noodle soup, is a pretty popular dish around my neighborhood due the diverse population. My boyfriend and I stick to two places, Pho Clement II and Pho Garden, with the latter being the trendier and more expensive of the two. In this post I provide some ratings on the two places. It wouldn't be fare to compare two different dishes, so here I compare both shop's offering of the type of pho with everything. I like to just call it the number one, because usually the first item on the menu includes the style of pho that I like: rare steak, flank, brisket, tendon, beef balls, tripe, etc...

Your typical x-large order of everything (flank, rare steak, tripe, tendon, etc), called the Pho Garden or Xe Lua

Place: Pho Garden
Dish: the "#1", called Xe Lua here
Broth: translucent and fragrant
Meat to noodle ration: slightly lower than Pho Clement II
Quality of sides: High -- Thai basil is fresh, bean sprouts are crisp, limes are juicy
Atmosphere: 5 stars due to their eating contest called the Pho Challenge, the place is always packed and festive feeling full of families sitting at huge tables, it is painted bright green and it smells awesome
Aesthetic Rating: 5 stars, you gotta love their beautiful bowls
Price: 8.50 USD

The x-large at Pho Clement II is packed full of meat, but I feel their broth lacks the pearly translucence that makes Pho Garden's so appetizing

Place: Pho Clement II
Dish: the "#1", known as phở đặc biệt
Broth: foggy
Meat to noodle ration: tons of meat, sometimes I can't even finish the noodles
Quality of sides: Medium -- Thai basil is occasionally brown at edges, bean sprouts are crisp, limes are often lemons
Atmosphere: 3 stars, the place is often empty, the fluorescent lights are jarring, sometimes it smells a little off, the Russians love this place though, and sometimes Jackie Chan is on the TV
Aesthetic Rating: 2 stars, bowls are just white
Price: 7.50 USD

So with these ratings, you would think Adam and I would stick to Pho Garden, considering that for 1 USD more, we get higher quality. The problem with Pho Garden is that it is packed all the time, and sometimes the wait can be longer than an hour. These long waits stem from families coming in hoping that their best nephew can complete the Pho Challenge, or, eat an enormous 20 dollar bowl of Pho in under one hour and thus get the bowl of Pho for free. When we see tons of kids waiting outside, we assume the worst and run, fast, to Pho Clement II.

Blue Bottle Coffee: San Francisco's Awesome Bean

Blue Bottle Coffee: 3.00 USD Located in and around SF, this time purchased at the Ferry Building during the Farmer's Market

Blue Bottle uses single serving drip filters, it takes about ten minutes to get your coffee, but it is worth it!

Do you press, drip or percolate? Blue Bottle Coffee makes that choice for you with their single-serve, paper-filter drip process. It is quite the spectacle but well worth the hefty price of $3 and the ten minute wait. Seriously though, who can turn down a beautiful cup of joe made from beans roasted just a day or so earlier on a sunny day at the ferry pier in San Francisco? Clearly Adam could not!

Adam enjoys his Blue Bottle Coffee after waiting for about ten minutes. Blue Bottle offers sugar as well as organic milk and cream to add to your brew however you see fit!

Ai Ai, this is a Sushi Lie!

All You Can Eat Sushi (but really just two rolls only!): 13.95 USD
Ai Sushi: Richmond District, San Francisco

Ai Sushi was probably the worst experience I have had so far food-wise in San Francisco. They have a big sign outside advertising "All You Can Eat Sushi" but when you get inside, the waitress informs you that the sign is old and now it is just two extra large rolls for 13.95 per person, dine-in only. What a scam, but we tried it anyways. The sushi was pretty bad, the rice didn't seem fresh and the fish meat seemed too chewy, salty, and tasted a little strange. While we were eating, the waitress came by at least five times to remind us what a good deal it was. Why didn't we walk out immediately and go to one of the 20 other Japanese restaurants in our neighborhood? All you can eat should actually be called "all we think you are able to eat." Needless to say I will never go back.

Although the pieces of salmon and the slices of sushi were large, they were not delicious. Quantity did not make up for quality at Ai Sushi.

Tacos in the Mission: El Toro

El Toro: Mission District, San Francisco
1.85 USD / taco

Every neighborhood in San Francisco has a signature food. The Mission District is noted for amazing Mexican food. Lucky for me, Mexican food is always very affordable, filling, and sometimes even healthy! El Toro is a famous taqueria located at 17th and Valencia. At a buck eighty-five per taco you can't get much better. They also have a great salsa bar (you can see the salsas I chose in the upper right hand corner of the photo) and the side of guacamole I bought was very delicious and super fresh. In the picture above we have carnitas, al pastor, and carne asada meats.

The Bitter Endless?

The Bitter End
located in San Francisco's Inner Richmond at 6th Ave and Clement St.
Steak and Mushroom Pie: 9.50 USD

There is one thing that is true about eating food in Amerca: HUGE PORTIONS! Most of the time I just wish that the portions were a little smaller and the cost a few dollars less, other times I just take half home in the "doggy bag" and occasionally, I am so ravenous that I can actually eat nearly everything on my plate. Thus was the case just the other day. After an evening of ice skating at the temporary rink set up at Embarcadero Center, Adam (the BF) and I had a hankering for pub fare. While ice skating, we talked about heading over to an English pub style place called The Pig and Whistle that is fairly close to where we live, check out their reviews on Yelp, but it was so packed to the brim without a free table in sight we didn't go. We were pretty bummed at that point, but we ended up finding a similar English style pub not too far down the road.

The place, called The Bitter End, had much fewer people in side, but wow did they have a ton of beers on draught as well as 2-3 ciders on draught at a time. I was pretty impressed and ended up ordering both a Strongbow cider and then a pear cider after that. Their menu was pretty vast with all the usual Enlgish style food. I ordered the steak and mushroom pie. It was hardly a pie at all, instead there was just a crusty biscuit placed directly on top of the stewy steak and mushrooms. On the side were a ton of steak fries and a side of fresh sauteed vegetables. It was pretty impressive and it was only 9.50 USD. The bar atmoshphere was also super nice, a clean place with a friendly staff. I am sure someday we will make it to Pig and Whistle, but Bitter End is much closer to us, the prices can't be beat for the endless amount of food and selections of beers, and the fact there were actually tables to sit at was a huge plus!

Adam approves on the price and the atmosphere!

The Price of Food at Work in Silicon Valley

Subsidized food is pretty popular here in the valley of computer chips. The goal is to provide somewhat cheaper food to employees as a perk of working at the business. It is not as reasonable as the cheap and tasty food I used to eat at the CityU canteen when I was an exchange student, but it is a similar idea in that the food is right there and it is low price. Google boasts free food all day for their employees. The up and coming Zynga (the start-up that brings you Mafia Wars and Farmville on Facebook) advertises on their job board free lunch and dinners. The Oracle 600 cafe has nine reviews on Yelp right now. Because the food is subsidized by the company, these types of corporate cafeterias (or canteens as HKers say) have delicious food for a very low price. I will have to follow up on Oracle food, but I am pretty sure an adventure over to their canteen is in the near future. That is because Oracle is only a 15 minute walk from the building where I work at EA (Electronic Arts). EA also has subsidized food but unfortunately it isn't free like at Google or Zynga but it is fairly low priced. I thought I would share a couple of the offerings I have had lately. Our cafe is really delicious, with about six or so entrees to choose from daily with an additional salad and soup bar, a sandwich bar and a pizza bar.



Here we have a lasagna set with a side salad and a side of grilled squash. (I hope Chef Javier doesn't mind me posting on his food creations). Note that the drink I have there did not come with the meal, so it wasn't a true "set meal" in the HK style sense. The lasagna was called "free form" lasagna where the chef would layer a noodle with Riccota cheese and your choice of sauce: fancy mushroom red sauce or a fancy meat based red sauce. The majority of the ingredients at the EA cafe are organic. This entree came to around 7.25 USD. The sodas on campus always cost 25 cents so we could say this meal was roughly 60HKD. For an almost entirely organic meal (ok I know the Diet Dr. P totally kills it) I would say you can't go wrong with that price. The lasagna was delicious and it was quite a reward after sitting in the San Mateo DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) for three hours waiting to get my California driver's license and plates for my car.



We also have soups and chili on a daily basis. Pictured here is tortilla soup and a side salad. I think this cost about 7.50 USD. I think that is a little too high for just soup and salad. A large bowl of soup or chili is 2.25 USD, so clearly it isn't the soup that is pricey. The salad bar is probably the most expensive thing you can eat at EA because it is priced by weight. My salad always ends up being pretty heavy because I pile on the organic beets and a little pasta salad. The salad container here is a small one but I have to exercise a lot of self-control to get it under 5 USD.

I think this post definitely deserves a follow up with my first trip over to the Oracle cafe. To be honest, I am not sure if it is open to the public, but I won't hesitate to post here considering there are reviews on Yelp already and my EA friends venture over every now and then. If you read the Yelp reviews, they even inform you on how to keep from "standing out". I think the Oracle employees probably dress like an average executive, and since I work at a game company, I never have to dress up, so I guess I will have to plan ahead so that I can sneak away some relatively cheap, delicious, corporate food. And besides, what the heck does Oracle do anyway?

The Price of Food in San Francisco: An Introduction

As this blog starts to span more cities, countries and continents, I figure it is only fair to start my first post as an introduction to the price of Hong Kong food in San Francisco. I am no San Francisco native having only lived here for two months, but I do know that international cuisines are accessible and somewhat affordable. The average San Franciscan palate is eclectic, adventurous and quite often very picky for high standards of freshness and authenticity. I am no judge, I have no law degree, however I did live in Hong Kong once so I am on a mission to seek out some tasty HK style treats.




I came home last week after a very long day at work and decided to call in for an order of HK style Chinese take out from a joint near my home called Golden River. I chose the ever so unadventurous meal of chicken wing, kai lan, and plain white fahn. I love Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, and I hadn't had at a restaurant for a while. At home, I can barely achieve the perfect crispiness to tenderness ratio that Chinese restaurants maintain. This kai lan was stellar, and I ate almost all of it in one go.





The chicken wings on the other hand were about a 7 out of 10. I somehow missed that they were going to be fried. I really prefer mine as steamed or broiled or however Chinese restaurants magically cook chicken wings in soy sauce. The catch is that I thought I had ordered the 6 piece chicken wing, detailed in the shot of the menu, however I got many more than 6. I think the photo looks like there are 9, ok hey sure 9 is 6 upside down! Perhaps I received extra because when I placed my take out order over the phone, I asked for "kai lan" and "gai ying" and the man on the phone wanted to reward me for my extra effort for trying to order food in Cantonese. Just kidding. The time of night was late, they probably just wanted to get rid of whatever food they had and call it a night.


I thought the overall price of the meal was too high. Rice + chicken + kai lan for 16 USD is way too much (~125 HKD). The order did last me for two meals and an additional light snack, so perhaps if I look at it that way, it was worth it.



I will, however, definitely go back to Golden River. They have a good selection of food that I recognize as the typical fair I ate back in HK. I miss it there, and a lot of the heartache stems from a lack of a consistent supply of cheap shui gao, wan ton min, and ngau lam.

In the meantime I will continue to seek out HK style food and lots of other cuisines in SF and report on its price.