Hunting down the Chowdermobile. Will report back with results!

Candybar

Yesterday night, Mark, Paul and I stopped by the Candybar on a rather crowded and busy night to use up a groupon for this place.

Going in, I envisioned that this would be an upscale place where you'd bring a date. Just thinking about their playful name and their mantra ("dessert/wine/art"), you'd think it's a place where two people would stop by after dinner to grab drinks and to chat for a while. But actually, it's kind of the opposite. This place is a bit too noisy and raucous for just two people, and all of their customers were there in small to large groups.

Onto the food:

Chocolate Mousse

Mango sauce|Roasted White Chocolate|Milky Way Malt Ice Cream

Once more, with flash:

Mark had the Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

Chocolate Tart|Peanut Butter Cream|Salted Caramel Peanuts|Blackberries

(And for the record, yes, they did play the Peanut Butter Jelly Time song.)

Strawberry Limeade

Strawberry Mousse|Vanilla Cake|Calamansi Cream|Strawberries|

Oh, right. And cocktails. I had the blood orange cocktail (sparkling wine, blood orange bitters, and a sugar cube). I was a bit disappointed that the blood orange flavor didn't come out more, and was otherwise not anything special.

A big part of the appeal of this place is not so much the dessert itself, but the lounge-y kind of atmosphere. It's clear from looking at the presentation of the food, the art on the walls and even the furniture that this place is all about the ambiance. Yes, people there are dressed nicely, perhaps having just come from a fancy dinner. With the lights slightly dimmed, it's a good place for a small group to spend a few hours just hanging out. Oddly enough, in contrast to the very much grownup decor, board games are left on a shelf for customers to pull out and play (adding very much to the noise factor =P). And yes, before the end of the night, we did get through a quite few rounds of Connect-4 and a game of Sorry.

Without the groupon, it's somewhat pricey for what it is. But I hear that the kungfu taco cart swings by during happy hour, so it might be worth it to come back to this place at some point.

For us, it came down to $15 a person. Most drinks and desserts were around $8 or $9, so full price for one dessert and a drink would be about $20 per.

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http://www.candybarsf.com/

http://www.yelp.com/biz/candybar-san-francisco

Candybar

1335 Fulton St

San Francisco, CA 94117

Nom of the day: Mission Minis

Yeah, I still have to get my groupon order (another two dozen of these babies), but in the meantime, I picked up a dozen for my mom's birthday.

From front to back: Ginger carrot, banana maple glaze, pink lemonade, and peanut butter chocolate.

The pink lemonade is the prettiest one. It also reminds me of childhood.

These cupcakes are good, yes, but I still think they're over-hyped. I like the frosting on these cupcakes. Substantial and holds its shape well, but not overly heavy (unlike Sprinkles). The cupcake itself, though, was wayyy too dry. I've had better. Notably from a young up and coming baker (also a very good friend of mine), whose cupcakes are absolutely heavenly. You know, not that I'm biased or anything.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/mission-minis-san-francisco

Mission Minis

3168 22nd Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

The Pot's

A blustery, cold night made this the perfect backdrop for a night of hot pot. And so our ragtag gang (three people is a gang, right?) headed over to The Pot's in the Outer Sunset, where we indulged in sweet, sweet, all-you-can-eat. And eat we did.

Romina sipping tea while Mark marks off what we want from a checklist (not pictured, of course).

Some condiments while we wait.

We had the satay soup base. Not too spicy, and overall a really good choice.

Food's here! The fish and shrimp balls dive in first. Not shown was the prime rib, lamb, fish, imitation crab, shrimp, tofu... you name it, we ate it. At some point there were veggies there, too. I think.

Yes, there were veggies. See those green onions? Those count, right? Just kidding! Bok choy, yams and winter melon, too. (We are good kids who eat our vegetables.)

Alright, at this point I stopped taking pictures, cuz I was hungry.

Overall, I was pretty impressed at the selection that this place had. They had a pretty good selection of ingredients, including some things that I'd never tried before (shrimp balls with some kind of meat inside). The ingredients were pretty fresh, though since it's DIY, we may have killed some things by leaving it in the pot too long. The shrimp dumplings were very good, and so were the beef and lamb. Weird to pick on their tofu, but I actually didn't like their tofu. Oh well.

Being a good Chinese kid, I keep telling myself that this could have been done at home, better and for cheaper, too. But this really wasn't bad at all. With tax and tip, $28 a person.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-pots-san-francisco

The Pot's
2652 Judah St
San Francisco, CA 94122

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P.S. We went to Tuttimelon afterward to get some frozen yogurt, but on our way back saw this lying on the floor:

We think a piggy bank committed suicide by jumping off of the building above. The police have notified and are investigating the situation, and caution tape has been drawn around to cordon off the area.

Elephant Bar

Came here on a Friday night at the end of a long day with the CLS folk. Yes, it's a chain restaurant, and yes it's in a mall, but really, this wasn't bad at all. For a group of 8, they seated us pretty quickly. I wasn't feeling the Asian food, pasta or burgers, so I ordered the lamb shanks, and I'm pretty happy that I did. Everyone had gotten their food for 5 minutes already, but still hadn't brought my dinner out. I wanted to attribute it the fact that it takes more time to make mine, but it turned out someone just plain forgot about it. =/

Braised Lamb Shanks with mashed potatoes and peas, carrots and zucchini

The lamb was pretty decent! Not as good as Aziza, of course, though I'm not sure it's fair to make that comparison. The lamb shank here wasn't gamy at all, and was fairly tender. If anything, it was a bit dry and could have used a bit more seasoning, but I guess that's what the sauce is for. (Not complaining at all here, the sauce was pretty good.) Portions were decent, and I was definitely full at the end.

Wonder why all the Yelp folk insist on bashing this place. I guess I'm not too picky about service.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/elephant-bar-restaurant-daly-city

75 Serramonte Ctr

Daly City, CA 94015

Dim sum!

Dim sum at Hong Kong Lounge with Romina, Mark and Mark's friend Jonathan on a lazy Sunday morning. Though of course the place is already packed with a 40 minute wait by 11am. Oh well, it was one of the few sunny days we had in February, so it's hard to complain about waiting outside.

Can't do dim sum without tea.

One of our first dishes comes out. I think Romina's really happy.

Shrimp dumplings. Nom nom nom.

Shumai. Nom nom.

Shrimp rolls, my favorite. Just look at that thing glisten.

Their turnip cake is pretty good too!

Rice noodles in XO sauce.

Shrimp Potstickers

Sesame balls

Sweet tofu soup/dessert thing.

Hong Kong Lounge

http://www.yelp.com/biz/hong-kong-lounge-san-francisco
5322 Geary Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94121

Happy Chinese ahem, Lunar New Year!

These are just some of the random snacks that we usually have over the new year. Not sure how some of these came to be Chinese tradition - as far as I know, pistachios aren't native to China - but I ain't complaining. Chocolate coins were (and are!) my favorites, with pistachios a close second. Except for those pesky nuts that won't crack. As a kid, my go-to methods were to bite down until either the hull or my teeth gave way (luckily no major casualties), or just whack it with a hammer. Not once did I think to use a nutcracker.