restaurants

Meatball Mondays at Bucca di Beppo

March 17, 2019 By Kat

I love a good deal, so when I was driving in downtown Palo Alto one night, I saw a sign outside Bucca di Beppo (the Italian restaurant), which caught my eye.

It said Meatball Mondays – 50% off spaghetti and meatballs!! I made a mental note. A couple weeks later, when Vince and I were hungry on a Monday night with no dinner prepped, I said, “HEY! It’s Monday! Let’s go to Bucca di Beppo for Meatball Monday!” He loves Italian food, so he was down.

We drove there, parked in the downtown Palo Alto Ramona Street garage, and saw this tasty meatball truck parked there too. Made us even more excited to head to dinner.

Apparently they have a Sunday night special too!

Unique decor inside.. how to describe it…cozy?
I never understand the photos on the walls..

If you’ve never been to Bucca di Beppo, the restaurant is family-style Italian food. You can order the typical salad, pizza, pasta, appetizers, etc.. from the menu, but all portions come in family sizes – small (feeding 3 people) or large (feeding 5 people). No portions are individual sized.

Ok so we ordered the spaghetti and meatballs! You would think we would’ve ordered the small size, per the recommended portion sizing. However, Vince adamantly wanted the large family size – which is for 5 people!! and we are 2 people!!! Sigh. Why?! But we did so anyways.

Free bread and butter!! Yes please! I’ll happily fill up on that.

Hungrily waiting for our food.
Eyeing the empty table next to us where they left meatballs! So tempting.

Finally our LARGE family size of spaghetti and meatballs came! And boy, was it large.

Here’s his hand next to it for comparison.

After I had about 2 servings onto my small plate, I was already full. By the way, I couldn’t even eat a whole meatball. They’re ENORMOUS!!! Maybe it was because I was still chomping on the free bread through dinner. I can’t help myself.

P.S. to Bucca di Beppo if you’re reading this, Vince’s chef commentary is that the dish should come with 5 meatballs if the dish is meant to serve 5 people. Otherwise people would have to split meatballs…

Okay he finally gave up. This is how much was left. He did an admirable job.

Leftovers for many days to come…

Alright, that’s a wrap on our experience at Bucca di Beppo for Meatball Mondays! Next time, we need to bring a larger group. Plus I would probably like to order some other dishes next time. Eating plain spaghetti and meatballs can get a tad boring. Definitely add a generous sprinkling of red pepper flakes to add flavor. I think I actually prefer spaghetti with bolognese sauce instead of spaghetti and meatballs – spreads out the meat to pasta ratio better. 🙂

Okay if you try this out, let me know how it goes! Happy eating!

No more meatballs for us for awhile.

Interactive Sushi Experience at Kura Revolving Sushi Bar

January 20, 2019 By Kat

I had the chance to eat dinner at Kura Revolving Sushi Bar in Pleasanton with some friends, and it was so fun, I had to blog about it!

By the way, this is located near the Livermore Outlets by the way, if you’re in the area for some shopping, and still have money leftover. 😛

Eating at Kura Revolving Sushi Bar was an interactive experience, almost a game, and I loved it. Here are the basic instructions of how it works. Once you sit at the table, you can order items from a menu on a tablet at the end of table.

Then things start magically coming down the conveyer belt! You pick them up and enjoy your tasty food. They have so many menu items from sushi and hand rolls, to ramen!

The food comes in these little containers that pop open and you grab your plate.

Here are some snapshots of the food! I got a California roll of course. I know I’m so American.

So many choices on the menu!

I think the most thrilling part was ordering things from the tablet and eagerly anticipating them to come down the conveyer belt. Sometimes it’s a little too easy to order and you get carried away with too many orders in the queue!

Also because they’re geniuses, the restaurant also gamified the ordering/eating process. I believe the game part was called Bikkura-Pon. Every time you finish a plate, you discard it into a plate drop at the end of the table. The tablet keeps a count of how many plates you’ve put in there (so it can tally up the price of your meal – a set price multiplied by # of plates). BUT you also get rewarded the more plates you put in there.

After like 10 plates or so, there’s a fun little cartoon animation that plays on the tablet screen. And after 15 plates or so, there’s a little prize thing that drops from above. That was exciting! It was like automated, so it seemed like magic! And of course, it made us want to EAT MORE – in increments of 15 plates to be exact!

I captured a little video of it here: Bikkura-Pon Game Kura Sushi Bar

The prize that came out!

The anticipation…

A food keychain of a creamy tart..meh it’s alright. I don’t know who ended up keeping it. But the process was more fun than the end result. Ha!

Anyhow, we had a great time eating here! I would love to come back. Note that the line is really long, but I think they have an app where you can “get in line.”

And after you’re so bursting full, you can head several doors down to 85C Bakery for some dessert!!

Open Paint Night

August 16, 2017 By Kat

Earlier this month, my friend Jodie and I dropped by a free Open Paint Night in downtown Redwood City at a cute little bicycle themed cafe called Cyclismo Cafe. I found out about it on Facebook and the concept sounded really cool! The event was put on by CATA (Community Advocacy through Art) which creates public art spaces and street art murals throughout Redwood City. Next up, I think they’re going to create a mural on the side of a local Whole Foods store. I love the idea of more street art, adding more flair to our neighborhoods!

At each paint night, they promote a local artist and a local nonprofit. That night, an artist named Cristal Chen (@sweetbloomsco) was being featured. She had her artwork and prints in one corner of the cafe by the window. Super cutesy flowers and plants and some abstract design elements. Sorry it’s a bit hard to see in this picture, you can check out her Insta page for a closer look!

She also designed some large canvases as a color-me-in, so anyone could go up and just paint it. It’s kind of neat for random strangers to just build on each other’s work in an art piece – sort of like the graffiti messages you find on the walls of bathroom stalls. 😛

Cristal also made some kokedama – these little plants that were hanging off the spokes of the bicycles that lined the cafe walls. I never knew such a thing existed! You can spot a tiny one hanging in midair in the picture below.

Some other people doing cool things were from Incredible Edible Peninsula, the featured nonprofit of the night. Apparently, they have planted over 20 fruit trees in a local park for community sharing. Anyone can basically go up and grab a fruit. How awesome is that! A snack in the park if you’re feeling the grumbles in your tummy. In addition, they have garden shares, where people can share the excess fruit/veggies they have grown in their backyards by swapping with what others have grown in their homes. Too bad I have nothing to offer. 🙁

Anyhow, I loved the vibe of the event. It was a great place for people, young or old, to come and create, and learn about some new things happening in the community. The cafe was quite packed, people were sitting on the tables inside and also outside on the patio. Jodie and I managed to find open seats to sit down and paint. Here’s our finished Picassos! 😛 For some reason, I really like painting leaves.

Here are some shots from outside on the patio. This woman was painting a horse and it was so amazing, it blew us away.

If you’re interested in attending a future Open Paint Night, they’re held on the first Thursday of every month (link here).

After we had our fill of artist time, Jodie and I headed over to our favorite Indian restaurant for dinner. On the way, we passed an outdoor movie night in the courthouse square. There was still daylight, so people were staking out a good spot with their lawn chairs in front of the outdoor screen to watch the movie of the night – La La Land! Haven’t seen it yet, but we were hungry, so we kept on moving!

We headed into Broadway Masala. It’s finally reopened again after the remodel, hooray! They even have fancy tablets with photos of the menu dishes on them (see below). We had the butter chicken and a lamb dish, and of course GARLIC NAAN, as well as some chai tea and mango lassi. No pictures of that, we were too busy stuffing our faces. We were so happy and full afterwards.

Overall, it was a great night in downtown Redwood City, seeing people out and about enjoying themselves. I love living in the Bay Area!

Let’s Go Eat At That Place That Had The Thing – Bay Area Restaurants

May 6, 2017 By Kat

Sometimes we forget the names of restaurants. We resort to other quick-hand ways of referring to them based on location, a memory we had there, or a particular dish they serve that is seared into our tastebuds. When those cravings arise, we pester the closest human body nearby, “Hey, when are we going to such-and-such place?” We anxiously await the burst of joy in our hearts when our glistening eyes meet the dish as the server brings it to our table and sets it down in front of us. We proceed to inhale it, savoring every last crumb on the plate. And then we feel whole again.

On that note, I’ve decided on more appropriate names for my favorite Bay Area restaurants and wanted to share these good eats with you.

the dumpling place

I always order the three delight dumplings (pan-fried), vegetarian egg dumplings (boiled), $1 bowl of hot and sour soup, and green onion pancake. Even if I get seated in the narrow hallway to the bathroom, I’m a happy camper because I got my dumplings and nothing else matters. (Tong Dumpling – Cupertino)

the garlic bread place in Los Gatos

My friend and I stumbled on this place accidentally. We were overeager and filled up on the garlic bread and free bread (both spectacular). As a result, we took most of our entrees home in to-go boxes. Months passed and we forgot the name of this place so we didn’t know how to come back. After a lot of intense Yelp searching and browsing user photos of restaurant decor, I tracked this place down. Once I sunk my teeth into the spicy garlic bread again, it was all worth it. (The Pastaria & Market – Los Gatos)

BWW

Ever since I discovered 10 cent wings in college in Boston for happy hour, I love me some wings. It’s not 10 cents anymore and I can’t eat as many as I did in my early 20s, but this place hits the spot. The best flavor and only flavor I eat is lemon pepper. Don’t forget to have a celery stick to cover your dose of veggies for the day. (Buffalo Wild Wings – Fremont)

the falafel place

My friend introduced me to this place, and I was ecstatic eating a falafel sandwich on a cold winter’s night on a picnic bench under a heat lamp. A couple days later, I convinced my sister that she was also craving Mediterranean food, so I could buy us some for lunch. Twice in one week, it was THAT good. (Falafel Stop – Sunnyvale)

best bread pudding in town

This bread pudding is like heaven. The rest of the food is amazing too. Warning: don’t sit at the chef’s table (bar facing the cooks) because you’ll see all the dishes as they come out, and you’ll want to order EVERYTHING!!! *Eyes following the waiter as he walks away with a glistening pile of onion rings atop a teriyaki skirt steak* (Town – San Carlos)

the egg tart place

Okay, here’s the thing. They’re so successful that they can go on vacation. A lot. Sad customers find a closed shop with a sign but no egg tarts in sight. If you happen to catch them when they’re open, don’t just buy one! Buy a dozen or actually, buy more than you think you will ever need/want. That should last you until your next craving. Also pass them out to friends and family so they get hooked as well. (Golden Gate Bakery – SF)

the pork belly quesadilla place

I never knew this place existed! It’s like one of those mirages that disappear. It’s hard to find this restaurant because the sign blends in with the trees or something. You have to know exactly where it is and look head on at the restaurant to see it. The other stuff on the menu is okay, but the pork belly quesadillas are BOMB – a heart attack in a pocket of tortilla. (Mandarin Roots – Palo Alto)

gelato bar place from my cousin’s wedding

The owner is a sweet old man. There is no customer storefront. It’s more like an office/warehouse, and you have to setup an appointment to go. He works with hotels and airlines, but also does catering events. If you want to do a small order, you can call and pick up a box on a weekday morning. Hint: Try the chocolate gelato bar. If you can’t say no to gelato, sorry for introducing you to your downfall. (A-Lot-A Gelato & More – Belmont)

tapas place where I drank too much sangria

This one is an obvious choice. Everyone and their mother knows about this place in Mountain View. The mushroom empanadas won’t let you down. Anything with prosciutto melts in your mouth. If you can come on the company dime, even better. Then you can try all the plates and order a pitcher of sangria! The pitcher is not really meant for 2 people, hence the title. 😮 (Cascal – Mountain View)

the japanese tapas place

How to describe this place? I took my friend here when she was visiting from Seattle, and now she dreams about the food here. She’s coming later this month, and I think her dream was a not-so-subtle hint on where I should take her. 😛 (Gochi – Cupertino)

it’s past 9pm, we can go to kirin

Cheap asian food after, you guessed it, 9PM. The fish fillet porridge is my comfort food. Yes, sometimes it’s 8PM and I’m hungry, but I wait an extra hour to get the late night menu. A penny saved is a penny earned! (Kirin – Mountain View)

chimney cake food truck

Well I haven’t been here, but I’m dying to try it. I have already imagined I will love it, otherwise I will be heartbroken. Chasing food trucks is hard though. They’re in the Target parking lot only on Friday and Saturday nights. Last weekend we got there too late and it was nowhere in sight. My dashed hopes could not be assuaged with tacos from the truck that was there instead. (Sweet & Yummy Bakery – Mountain View if you’re lucky)

That’s a wrap! Hope you liked this list. If you have any other suggestions on hidden gems in the Bay Area, let me know in the comments. 😀