Martinson Traditional Coffee

Making Coffee in America from David Woo on Vimeo.

Martinson Traditional Coffee
Free (USD$1.99 for large can from the supermarket)
Home (Livingston, New Jersey)

I had no car by which I could easily drive to Starbucks; and in the house I had no instant coffee -- only grounded coffee; so my mom suggested that I try out my younger brother's coffee-making device for a nice, hot, free cup of coffee!

Sbarro Pizza

Sbarro Pizza
Cheese slice - USD$3.69
Supreme slice - $4.59
Sbarro (Livingston, New Jersey)

Sbarro makes the worst pizza in America. Their slices are lukewarm, and overpriced to boot. I took this photo while still in shock at having paid so much for so little. I will never eat Sbarro pizza again, and will continue to remonstrate myself over my price inelasticity at the moment I purchased the pizza -- I really should look at the prices on the menu rather than expect that pizza should come cheaply in New Jersey since it is, after all, a commodity here.

Pineapple Bun at Red A Bakery

Pineapple Buns at Red A Bakery: 3 for 1.45 USD!

I am really impressed with the price and quality of the pineapple buns at Red A Bakery located in the Inner Richmond of San Francisco. They are not only very large, but also buttery, soft, slightly sweet and the topping has that slight crunch a real pineapple bun needs. I haven't had the likes of a pineapple bun for ages, but this bakery/Hawaiian style b-b-q joint hits the spot with not only amazing baked goods that remind me of Hong Kong, but also fresh musubi, pork katsu, and b-b-q plates for very cheap. Red A Bakery's Yelp listing is here. Pineapple buns are certainly a once in a while treat, because according to Wikipedia, they are made with lard. YIKES!

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.