Last night Mike and I went to Watercourse Way, our favorite spa in the Bay Area. Before we stopped for dinner at Siam Royal Authentic Thai Cuisine on University Avenue in Palo Alto, which is pretty close by. I had been there many years before with my friend Lola, but couldn’t remember whether I’d like it or not. My conclusion this time was that it’s a pretty average Thai restaurant, there is no compelling reason to go there or to avoid it.
We started the meal with Angel Wings (“Deep-fried stuffed chicken wings with ground chicken and vegetable, served with sweet and sour sauce” – $8). The wings themselves were pretty tasteless, the stuffing was in great need of some spicing. The sweet and sour sauce was pretty good, on the spicy side, though the wings were too big for the sauce to coat every bite. We wouldn’t order them again.
My entree was Gai Yang (“Char-broiled marinated chicken with Thai herbs; served with sweet and sour sauce.” – $8). It was also OK. The skin was nice and crispy, but the chicken itself was a bit dry. As with the wings, the sauce helped quite a bit – but I also wouldn’t order it again.
Mike was happier with his Panang Salmon (“Simmered salmon in coconut milk, peanut curry sauce and string beans.” – $12), which also came with broccoli. The salmon was perfectly cooked and the sauce was very tasty, with just the right amount of spice. The portion seemed generous enough, though he still ate some of my chicken, but then again, salmon is not that filling. I think he’d order it again.
We skipped dessert because we were in a hurry to get to our spa appointment – they have the obligatory bananas cooked in a number different ways.
Service was fine, though we had to ask for the bill – they brought it quickly once we did so. The dinner, with one drink and one side of rice, came to $37 after tax and tip. Not precisely cheap, but not too bad. I’m not sure I’d go there again, there are many other choices on University Ave., but it was OK for what it was.
Siam Royal Authentic Thai
338 University Ave
Palo Alto, CA
(650) 329-8129
http://www.siamroyalthai.com/
Bay Area Restaurant Reviews
Author: admin (Page 45 of 51)
It’d been quite a while since I’d gone to Bella Italia for lunch, and I thought it was time to give the restaurant a try. So last Wednesday, when Lola came to visit me, I decided we should go there and see how the restaurant is faring. Alas, the answer seems to be “not very well”. In the hour or so that we were there, no other party came to have lunch. Granted, it was New Year’s Eve, so a reduced crowed is expected, but nobody?
For some reason, the owners have greatly expanded the restaurant from the size it was in its Prings days. I guess that makes sense if they are renting the place out for parties (and if you are looking for a banquet room in San Leandro, this may be a good choice for you), but it does it seem even lonelier when you are the only party at the restaurant. The place does look as nice as it can, given the architecture of the building (which was built as a coffee shop). There are cloth tablecloth and napkins, nicely made up tables and a new wooden bar that seems very well stocked up. Still, it doesn’t have much of a “date” or “nice dinner out” atmosphere.
It’s perfect for lunch, however, specially given the very low prices. The lunch menu offers salads, sandwiches, pizzas and pastas, dishes are mostly in the $6-8 range and they come with warm bread rolls and (unsalted) butter – there is also olive oil and balsamic vinegar at the table.
I had the lasagna bolognese ($6 lunch, $11 dinner) and I thought it was pretty good. It had a good combination of cheese to meat to pasta. The sauce wasn’t my favorite, and it was nowhere as good to the lasagna I made myself a few weeks ago, but it’s a safe dish to order.
Lola had one of their pizzas, I forgot its name but it was the one that came with ground beef. She didn’t feel it tasted particularly Italian (she’s spent a fair amount of time in Italy), but she thought it was OK. I’m usually not a thin-pizza sort of person, but I liked it. It thought there was a good balance of toppings to bread, and the sauce was not overwhelming. Lola didn’t seem to like it that much, but Mike thought the leftovers we brought home were very tasty. I think I’d order it myself.
Service was good and attentive, and I can’t believe how cheap lunch entrees are. I’d definitely go again for lunch.
La Bella Italian Inn
15015 E. 14th St.
San Leandro, CA
510-895-2792
Original Review
I bought this wine at Trader Joe’s yesterday, I think for about $7, give or take a dollar. It was one of the wines being promoted. We had it last night with the Patagonian roasted lamb with apple-curry sauce, and it actually went pretty well. I found the Red Diamond to be all in all a pleasant wine, but a bit too acidic. It didn’t have the balance of an older or more expensive wine. But it was moderately fruity, with light tannins and perfectly OK to drink.
I probably wouldn’t buy it again, because it’s not special enough to merit a second try, but I won’t mind drinking the leftovers tonight 🙂
A few weeks ago I got a copy of Cocina Patagónica y Fueguina
The recipes in the book (which, btw, is in both Spanish and English) are based on the fauna and flora of the region. There are many for lamb, but also for hare, seafood and local berries. Alas, you cannot find those Patagonian products in America (or really, in other parts of Argentina), so the result of the recipes won’t taste the same as it would back then. Still, I figured I might as well try them.
Tonight I cooked Patagonian roasted lamb with apple-curry sauce. The original recipe wasn’t too clear on some of the measures, so I made them up as I went along. Also, I skipped the celery from the sauce because I didn’t have any. This is my adaptation.
It was pretty good. The lamb itself was great, and the sauce almost resembled a cream soup. It has a very delicate flavor, with only hints of curry. Alas, I think the sauce may be too mild for the lamb – I’d make it again, though I’d have to find something else to serve it with.
- 1 leg of lamb
- salt & pepper
- Worcestershire sauce
- 1 1/2 cups red wine
- 2 Tbsp. butter
- 3 large onions, chopped
- 3 Tbsp. flour
- 1 garlic clove, chopped
- 2 Granny smith apples, peeled and chopped
- 1 small bay leaf
- 1 tsp. thyme
- 1 Tbsp. curry powder
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 2 Tbsp. parsley, chopped
Preheat oven to 350F
Trim the lamb of excess fat. Season generously with salt and pepper. Place on a roasting pan and drizzle with Worcestershire sauce. Pour 1/2 cup of wine over the lamb. Place in the oven and roast until internal temperature is 145F for medium-rare – about 30 minutes per pound.
Meanwhile prepare the sauce. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and sautee until soft. Add the flour and mix well. Add the garlic, apples, bay leaf, thyme, chicken broth and 1 cup of wine. Mix well, bring to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes. Strain the sauce into a medium-size bowl and discard the solids. Mix the cream with the sauce and add parsley.
Slice the lamb and spoon sauce on top of it. Serve.
I have been using Better than Bouillion
Years ago, whenever a recipe called for broth, I used to boil the water, mix it with the base and then add it to the other items. But I’ve become lazy. What I do now, is add the water instead of the broth, wait until the liquid gets hot, and then add and mix the concentrate. Much easier and it works just as well.
Now, I’ve never made broth myself (and I’m not likely to), but I do wonder if home made broth is better than Better Than Bouillon. In his book Kitchen Confidential
A few years ago I made Mohr Im Hemd, a type of Austrian chocolate pudding, as part of my international cooking project. It didn’t work out well for me 🙁
Yesterday I received a message with some hints on how to correctly cook it. I’m copying the message here for the benefit of those who want to make it.
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I’ve been looking for a “Mohr im Hemd” recipe for a number of years and your recipe worked just fine for me. Perhaps I can make a couple of suggestions that will make it work better for you as well.
First is the chocolate measurement. “One cup” is a challenge because the measurement is much affected by the fineness of the grating. I made it twice, once with 80 grams (not enough) and a second time with 160 grams (seems perfect). I also grated the chocolate very finely using a rasp – it was like dust and blended in very well. The chocolate in your picture looks like largish lumps.
Secondly, it is important to get the egg whites and the chocolate well-folded together. The chocolate mixture is quite thick, so add about 1/3 of the egg whites and fold it in to lighten it up before folding in the rest of the egg whites.
The resulting cakes were dark chocolate and very dense (and definitely homogeneous), as they are supposed to be. We’ve had “mohr im hemd” in Vienna a few times, but it is increasingly difficult to find a house-made version, rather than factory-made.
The sauce recipe seems to make way too much so I cut that back considerably.
Hope you find the time to read this and make some changes to the online recipe. I notice that your recipe is the same as that of Jakob Schmidlechner, the innkeeper of the Mohrenwirt restaurant in Salzberg, Austria.
Cheers – Jan Reatherford, Ottawa, Canada
For Xmas I made a completely unsuccessful Madeira Peppercorn Reduction sauce which required the purchase of green peppercorns in brine (which I found at the Pasta Shop at the Rockridge Market Hall). I wanted to use the leftover peppercorns for other dishes, so I looked for suggestions in my favorite cooking site, epicurious.com – fortunately there were several recipes that included the peppercorns.
Saturday night I made Chicken in a Dijon Sherry Sauce, which was OK though a bit bland for my taste (despite the fact that I added extra mustard & sherry). Mike liked it, though. Still, I don’t think I’ll make it again.
Last night, I meant to make Beef and Guinness Pie, but I couldn’t find puff pastry at the supermarket (and I was not going to make it myself). So I followed the recipe to make a beef stew, which I served over mashed potatoes (the box kind 🙁 ). The stew was amazing, very deep and rich, without being too dark, and just plain tasty. I am, therefore, copying the recipe below, because I mean to make it again (perhaps for St. Patrick’s Day). I think it’d be even better with bread (sourdough would be my choice, but then again, it always is). One thing – though I loved the stew, I didn’t particularly like the peppercorns. Next time I’ll omit them altogether.
- 2 Tbsp. flour
- 1 tsp. salt
- a sprinkle of black pepper
- 2 lbs beef chuck
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, chopped
- 3 Tbsp. water
- 1 1/2 Tbsp. tomato paste
- 1 cup beef broth
- 1 cup Guinness
- 1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp. dried thyme
- 2 tsp. brined green peppercorns, drained & chopped (optional)
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Mix the flour with the salt and pepper in a medium-size bowl. Cut the beef into chunks and put in the bowl with the flour. Coat well.
Heat the olive oil in a medium to large oven-safe pot, over medium-high heat. Add the beef and stir until it browns on all sides. Remove the beef from the pot (you can put it in the same bowl it was before).
Add the onion, garlic and water to the bowl. Cook until the onions softened, scraping any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Add tomato paste and stir for one minute. Add the broth, Guiness, Worcestershire sauce, thyme and green peppercorns (if using) and mix well. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat, cover and put in the oven. Cook until the beef is very soft, about 1 1/2 hours. Serve.
Restaurant.com, a website that offers discount gift certificates to local restaurants, is having a “sale”. Now, you can get a $25 gift certificate for $2 (regularly $10) and a $10 one for $.60. The gift certificates usually require a minimum food purchase of $35 to $50 (for the $25 one), and they attach an 18% tip to the pre-discounted bill. As I usually tip 20%, that doesn’t bother me.
The restaurants that offer gift certificates are all over the place in terms of cost and quality. I got a gift certificate for Jordan’s at the Claremont (which I may use for my 40th birthday, as that place is expensive), to Kenkoy’s (a Filipino restaurant in Hayward), to Shashamane Int’l Bar & Grill (an Ethiopian restaurant in Oakland), to Cocina Poblana in Jack London and to Unicorn Pan-Asian cuisine in Berkeley.
The gift certificates do not expire in California (they expire a year from purchase in other states), so it doesn’t matter when we go.
To get the discounted price use the code CELEBRATE
My menu for the Central African Republic is now online. It features a chicken couscous, beef in cumin sauce and ginger cakes.
I’ll be cooking more international food in the weeks to come – now that I’m caught up putting up the recipes. Next stop is Chad. After that I’ll be going back in the alphabet to A and cooking Arizonan cuisine (I just found an Arizonan cookbook at the library).
My international cooking project.
Vo’s has closed. Lotus Leaf has opened in its space.
January 2011
I just went to Vo’s for a late lunch with my friend Elektra. I hadn’t been there for a while, and once again I was not overly impressed. The food was fine but not exceptional, and even at discounted prices sort of expensive for what it was.
Elektra and I shared the chicken wings appetizer ($3.50, usually $7). There were five or six lightly spiced wings, deep fried, that were well cooked but completely unremarkable. They came with a very nice peanut sauce which was better by itself than on the wings.
Elektra had the Vietnamese peppered beef sandwich ($4). It was described as beef sauteed with green peppers and onions, so she was disappointed that most of what she found in the bread was cucumber and other light veggies. She also wasn’t fond of the cheap-tasting baguette the sandwich came with. I got a chicken sandwich for Mike and he had similar complaints, he found there was too much bread, too little chicken and not enough flavor.
Elektra had the banana and mango dessert ($5, I think) and she thought it was pretty good, she liked the tapioca sauce which had a generous amount of coconut milk. I had the fried banana with ice cream (also $5 or so) and while it was good, it wasn’t exceptional. There were two pieces of banana wrapped in eggroll skins and a very so-so ice cream. I’ve had a much better version of this dessert at other restaurants.
In all, it was a nice lunch, but not good enough for $40 after tax & tip.
Nov. 2008 Review
Last night, Mike took me out to dinner at Vo’s to celebrate our brief childless status (we do miss the kids, though). I had been there last a few month prior with the girls, and I’d had a pretty good meal. This one, however, was lackluster – the food seemed tired and lacked shining flavors. Part of the problem may be that Vo’s seems to specialize on seafood (its specials menu featured only one meat dish), and that the choices for non-seafood eaters are very limited. After a few visits to the restaurant, you would have tried them all. I think it’s time that they revamp their menu, at least vis a vis meat choices.
Mike started with the crab puffs ($8, I think) – five or six little purses fried and filled with crabmeat. He liked them, but in particular enjoyed the mustard sauce. I had the crispy rolls ($8), an old favorite. I had loved the very light and crispy skins and the flavorful filling. This time, the rolls tasted like egg rolls in any other restaurant. They lacked flavor, and even the dipping sauce couldn’t help them much. I wouldn’t order them again.
My main dish was the caramelized pork & shrimp ($14). I’d had this dish before, and I think I’d enjoyed it, but this time it was pretty average. The caramelization hadn’t added much sweetness to the dish, and I think the meat was underseasoned to begin with. The sauce was very one-dimensional. It wasn’t bad, indeed it was perfectly acceptable – but there wasn’t much of a reason to eat it other than being hungry and having ordered it. I wouldn’t do it again, either. Also, the portion was on the small side (something I’ve noticed to be an issue with Vo’s from the start) – if you came in moderately hungry and haven’t had an appetizer, you’ll still be hungry after eating it.
Mike had the lemongrass catfish filet ($16) from the specials menu. He didn’t think it was that great. The sauce was too viscous and bland, but at least the catfish was properly cooked. He wouldn’t order it again.
Probably the worst part of the meal, however, were the desserts. Mike had the caramelized bananas with ice cream ($7, I think), and the dish consisted of perhaps half a banana sliced and covered in caramelized sugar, it was served with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream. The banana slices were nice, but again, nothing special. And given how small the portion of bananas they serve was, the dish was grossly overpriced.
Worse still was the cheesecake ($8). I knew that they didn’t make the deserts on site (with the exception, I imagine, of the two banana dishes) – but they really need a better dessert provider. This cheesecake ($8) was flavorless and had been badly defrosted. While part of the cheesecake had the unpleasant texture of ice crystals, the other was thawed to the point of almost melting it. I’m not sure if they did it in the microwave, or how they managed to mess it up so much. The portion was pretty small for the price, but in this case it really didn’t matter as the whole thing was a waste of calories. If I do eat at Vo’s again (and I may very well do so, if I go out with friends who insist on going there), I will make sure to avoid dessert here.
Service was adequate (though the waitress did not ask how our meal was), but the timing of the dishes was off. Our entrees came before our appetizer dishes had been removed from the table. In all, it felt like it was a pretty rushed meal. Which is strange, as the restaurant was almost empty on a Friday night.
Dinner came to about $82 after tax and tip. I used a $25 gift certificate that I got at restaurant.com for $3 (they are usually $10, but they were running a special) – but I felt that even at $60 the dinner was overpriced. Too bad, because I like Vo’s, or at least the concept of Vo’s – somebody just needs to get back in the kitchen and shake things up a bit.
Vo’s Restaurant
277 Parrott St.
San Leandro, Ca.
510-357-6600
Original Review
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