Note: La Bella Italia has re-opened in the same location under the name Tuscany.
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We have to say a final goodbye to Bella Italia/My Ultimate Tandoori. The Italian-cum-Indian restaurant, located at the old Pring’s building, tried hard, with multiple remodels and a change of focus, but its offerings were ultimately mediocre and the place was often empty. I’m actually it survived at long as it did. I’m also sorry, as the people who ran it were very nice.
Now a new restaurant has opened in its space. It’s called Bardelli’s and I haven’t tried it yet – just driven past it. I’ve also not found anything online about it – not even their phone number. But they have a big sign that says “open”, so I assume they are.
I don’t know when I’ll get to review it, so I’d appreciate any comments from anyone who goes there.
San Leandro Restaurant Reviews
Author: admin (Page 18 of 51)
Yesterday Mika decided to make a cake all by herself. I wasn’t allowed to be anywhere near the kitchen. She started with an Angel food cake mix, to which she added milk, an egg, coconut, sugar and mashed banana – she didn’t measure how much of each she put. She baked it in a 350F for about half an hour (until golden). The results were amazing. The cake had an almost flannish consistency, a bit gritty because of the coconut, but that worked out very well. The coconut-banana flavor was subtle, but present. The cake kept its moist consistency and it tasted great. Kudos to Mika!
I am told that Chang’s restaurant on MacArthur in San Leandro Has recently closed. I’m not really surprised. I knew there was a restaurant on that street on the market, and I figured it could be Chang’s because 1) there was no buzz about the place, 2) I never heard anyone singing its praises and 3) my friend Aamani had a terrible experience there. I personally hadn’t been back since my visit years ago. I can only hope a better place will open at the location.
San Leandro Restaurant Reviews
I have started buying Taylor Farms organic salad mix at Grocery Outlet and I’m quite satisfied with the product. The lettuces are always crisp and clear (they are triple washed) and taste fresh. They last for several days while stored in the plastic container they come in. At $2 for a 5-oz pack, they are a pretty good value. And they originate in Salinas, which means they are pretty local. In all, I’m quite happy with them.
My only complaint is that the packaging is made out of #7 plastic – not a particularly environmentally friendly product.
They have several salad mix choices at Grocery Outlet, I haven’t noticed a remarkable difference in taste.
*2013 Update* According to an article on the New York Times, Taylor Farms has had an “unusual” number of voluntary recalls for tainted products. Of the 10 recalls since 2010, only the last one actually caused people to get sick. Over 200 people contracted cyclosporiasis after eating at chain restaurants. That’s a protozoan infection that is spread through feces. I hope that Taylor Farms did not claim that the salads they sold to restaurants were “triple washed”.
It’s hard to know what to make of these recalls. It may be that Taylor Farms is overly cautious. In a couple of cases the recalls were motivated by undisclosed ingredients rather than pathogens.
The last recall included companies other than Taylor. Investigators are still trying to find how the pathogens made their way into products processed in different facilities.
The one thing that I’m sure of is that now that the New York Times featured this problem, Taylor is going to be even more careful.
I’ll still eat their salads.
I was looking in Grocery Outlet for something quick and easy for lunch and came across a Butter Chicken frozen entree by Archer Farms, a generic brand sold by Target stores. Now, I didn’t realize that Archer Farms was Target, otherwise I wouldn’t have bought the thingy, given Target’s anti-gay stands. But as a food item devoid of politics this entree made for a good lunch.
The 10-oz entree is probably 2/3rds rice, and the other cubed chicken and sauce – though there is barely enough sauce for the included rice. The rice microwaved quite well, the chicken was tender and not as dry as it could have been, and the sauce was pleasant: slightly spicy, balanced but not very challenging. This is not a restaurant-quality dish, but you could do much worse for $1.30 (the price at GO) and 370 calories. In all, but for the Target association, I’d buy it again.
It’s pretty pathetic to be reviewing a Denny’s restaurant – indeed, it’s pretty pathetic to be eating at a Denny’s restaurant – but we were in our way to Lassen National Park, we were starving, and choices for food on that stretch of I-5 are all very poor. Willows offers you two alternatives, The Black Bear diner and Denny’s. We went to BB a few years ago and weren’t impressed, so Mike decided to give Denny’s a chance. I hadn’t been to a Denny’s in many, many years, and the experience was just as I remembered it: thoroughly mediocre.
The Willows’ Denny’s restaurant has a very short menu – and they didn’t have anything that really sounded appetizing. I might have gone for a burger, but they will only cook them to medium-well (I guess they can’t trust their own meat handling). Mike had their bacon burger ($9, I think) and he wasn’t impressed. The dryness of the meat wasn’t as much a problem as the tangy, strange steak sauce that came on the burger. He’d had preferred a regular BBQ sauce.
I had the Philly steak sandwich, and it was also OK. The chunks of meat had been pot roasted and they were very tender, they were covered with a mild cheese. The bread had a nice garlicky flavor, but there were pretty much no mushrooms to speak of. I ordered my sandwich with hash browns, which I quite enjoyed.
My favorite part about Denny’s are the kids prices. Yeah, the portions are tiny, but my kids never eat that much. Mika had the quesadilla ($2.90). The quesadilla was small and had some weird bright orange cheese, but Mika was happy with it. She had it with the veggies with ranch sauce – and I was impressed at the size of the portion. They made a meal into themselves. The carrots didn’t look very fresh, but they were crunchy and tasted fine.
Camila had the cheese pizza with apple slices ($3.50). The pizza was your standard microwaved thingy, but Camila enjoyed it.
We had cokes, which tasted fine, but you will want to avoid the tap water.
Probably the worst part of the dinner was the wait. We got there are 7 PM on a Friday night, and though the restaurant wasn’t very crowded, the kids food did not arrive to the table until 7:40 PM – ours came 10 minutes later. Service otherwise was fine.
In all, you could do worse than Denny’s – but I’m hoping sometime to find a better alternative along that stretch of road.
Denny’s
343 North Humboldt Avenue
Willows, CA
(530) 934-3231
Marga’s Road Restaurant Reviews
Marga’s BA Restaurant Reviews
Last weekend Mike and I took the kids to Lassen Volcanic National Park, to see the sulfur pits, and we decided to stay at the Lassen Mineral Lodge. We had breakfast there, and in all it was a pleasant experience. Given your lack of other choices in the area, this is not a bad place to eat.
The restaurant at the Lassen Mineral Lodge is pretty cute, decorated in a country theme with plenty of wood and green. There are pictures of friends and patrons on the walls, cupboards with cute for-sale trinkets and, and here is the “and”, stuffed deer heads. Yep, that sort of freaked out my daughter – specially after her father told him that the deer had been shot (rather than mounted after they died a natural death) -, so beware if you have animal-loving-children in your party.
Service was very friendly and quite good, though we did have to wait quite a bit for our food. Given how busy the place was early that Saturday morning (and we got there as it opened at 8 AM) in late August, that’s not too surprising.
The food was uneven. My French Toast (6 thick half-slices for ~$7) was OK, it was sort of dry and not particularly interesting. The corn syrup was also lackluster. Mika’s pancakes ($5 for 2 HUGE pancakes and one hot chocolate, a portion large enough for 2 kids) were actually pretty good, they were fluffy and tasted homemade. Mike had one of those egg combos ($8, I think), with fine eggs, really good bacon, perfectly acceptable hash browns (a tad overcooked) and toast. We drank hot cocoa ($1.75 a cup), which was nice and strong. Breakfast came to $24 before tip.
Lassen Mineral Lodge Restaurant
Highway 36 E.
Mineral, CA
(530) 595-4422
Marga’s Restaurant Reviews – Beyond the Bay Area
Marga’s Bay Area Restaurant Reviews
This is not really a posting for public consumption. Rather, it’s a place where I’ll keep track of the recipes I’ve made that haven’t impressed me too much. That way, when I come across those recipes again, I can just search to see if they appear on my blog and know what I thought of them. For the rest of my readers , sorry for the noise.
From epicurious.com:
– Apricot Glazed Chicken with Dried Plums and Sage. – A very dull dish as well, the chicken had almost no flavor.
– Chicken Gabriella – This is a very simple dish that makes use of the fresh rosemary & sage I have growing by my house. It’s good but not special enough. Mike & kids liked it.
– Chicken Hawaii – Basically chicken parts in a coconut milk curry. It was OK, a little spicy, but my main complaint was that it wasn’t very flavorful. I wouldn’t make it again.
– Chilaquiles Verdes – It was actually quite a tasty recipe, though it lacked umph. Still, the sort of thing you can go on eating until you’re full. However, it was too sour for Mika (who is having trouble with any acidity in her food).
– Classic Sole Meuniere – This recipe was actually very good, I enjoyed it thoroughly, but it’s basically fish swimming in butter – and for the calories it needs to be out of this world. Note: Here is a DELICIOUS version of the same dish, by Emeril.
– Cider-Glazed Lamb Chops – The lamb chops per se were excellent, but the glaze was very mild and didn’t really add much to them. A waste of good ingredients.
– Grilled Sirloin Steaks with Blue Cheese-Walnut Butter – Nice butter, but it didn’t compliment the beef. The beef itself needed more salt and lacked flavor.
From allrecipes.com
– Beer Batter Fish Made Great – Made this with sole. Took the advise of some of the reviewers and halved the spices. Not good idea, the batter wasn’t very flavorful. I may try again, or may try something else.
– Broiled Tilapia Parmesan – Mike liked it, I thought it wasn’t that flavorful.
– Cornmeal Crusted Catfish – I liked the consistency of the breading and it stayed on very well, but it had no flavor.
– Favorite Pork Chops – OK, but not very interesting.
–Honey Cornbread – Got great reviews, but it was sort of dull.
Mika wanted squash soup for dinner the other night and chayotes were on sale, so I figured why not give them a try? I found this recipe at epicurious.com, which got great reviews, and without much consideration I decided to make it. It wasn’t my thing in particular – then again, soup never is – but it did introduce me to this vegetable.
As I was preparing to make the soup, I found out that peeling chayotes can be a bit of a challenge. Chayotes have a white, milky substance inside that can be profoundly irritant to skin. Some people complain of prolonged itching and even peeling. That was definitely not something I was looking forward to. Fortunately I also run into a method for avoiding this problem (described below). Now, I can’t say whether the method per se works, or whether chayotes just don’t irritate my skin, but in any case, I was able to peel them without any negative repercussions.
HOW TO PEEL CHAYOTES
From a Chowhound posting
Cut the chayotes in side along the longest side. Wait a couple of minutes for the white milky substance to come out and solidify. Wash the chayotes thoroughly in cold running water, washing away all the white substance. Peel with a vegetable peeler. Voila!
This is an easy and excellent cornbread recipe I got from allrecipes.com. Very, very bad for you, of course, but we ate all the crumbs. I’m making a couple of modifications on technique here from the original recipe.
– 1/2 cup butter
– 2/3 cup sugar
– 2 eggs
– 1 cup buttermilk
– 1/2 tsp. baking soda
– 1 cup all-purpose flour
– 1 cup corn meal
– 1/2 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 375F. Grease an 8″ x 8″ square baking pan.
Put butter in a large microwave-safe bowl and microwave until it melts. Mix in the sugar. Add the eggs and beat using a whisk or eggbeater until well combined. In a separate bowl combine the buttermilk with the baking soda. Add the buttermilk to the butter mixture and mix well. Add the flower, cornmeal and salt and mix well again.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out dry – about 28-30 minutes.
Marga’s Best Recipes
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