So I had two unusually cool food experiences over the past couple of weeks, and wanted to write about them mostly because I had no idea what I was doing during the ordering process and would love some suggestions.
First, last weekend we went on a trip to a pumpkin patch that landed us in a part of San Jose that we’ve never been to before, and when we were driving back we noticed that there were a ton of Vietnamese places in the area. So we Yelped to find out which one was the best, and went, and it was awesome. I’ve only ever eaten what I assume is fairly Americanized Vietnamese food, and this menu was like nothing I’ve ever seen: all tripe and blood soup and tendon stews. I wanted to try all of it.
So we ordered way, way more than we needed to. Except about half of the stuff that landed on our table didn’t appear to be anything that we’d actually asked for. And then, when we asked our waiter what the dishes were, he said “I don’t know.” Innnneresting. But whatever, fine by me. They were good (like, really good) anyway, and the whole bill came out to something like thirty-six bucks.
I don’t know what any of this is called.
What we ended up with: A pho-style soup with rare beef and beef tendon that came with a big plate of herbs and limes for self-seasoning (yaaaa I loved this). A bowl of vermicelli topped with fried egg rolls and a bunch of…other stuff? Peanuts, definitely. Green onions. Chopped-up meat (what kind, I’m not positive, but I assume beef). We also had another soup that was more of a stew, with big chunks of meat and vegetables. And finally, there was a fairly pedestrian (but CRAZY good) beef-and-broccoli dish that we had in fact ordered, figuring that the kids would eat it if they weren’t into the other dishes (which they were).
But this place was so good that I think we could have done better. Can someone please tell me what to order next time we go? …Please?
Asian Ghetto | Berkeley, CA
And second: Over the weekend we took a trip to Berkeley to stop into Industrial Tattoo and Piercing, and when we were in search of somewhere to have lunch we ended up stumbling into a place that’s apparently pretty famous, especially among students looking for inexpensive late-night dining options. It actually is called “Asian Ghetto” – Yelp says so – but apparently used to be referred to as “Crack Court” in the late 1990s. For fairly self-explanatory reasons. Yikes.
The customer service was close to nonexistent. One review I read advised diners to “Leave your leftovers on top of the garbage cans so the homeless people don’t have to dig through the trash to get them.” The bathrooms were so bad that I took one look and turned right around, and I am not someone who is persnickety about bathrooms (although the central eating area itself was pretty clean, considering the amount of traffic that must go through there).
But still. STILL. It was kind of my personal idea of Food Heaven.
What Asian Ghetto is: A ton of tiny (mostly Asian, obviously) restaurants all grouped around a central court area with communal bench seating. We’re big ‘try little bits of lots of things’ people, so Kendrick and I were both practically vibrating with excitement when we realized that we could all get exactly what we wanted, even if what we wanted was a little Thai, a little sushi, a little Vietnamese, maybe some Italian, and a little bulgogi on the side. And donuts.
It was almost impossible to choose which restaurant to start the pick-and-choose process at, but I ended up going with Miso Ramen and potstickers from Bear’s Ramen. Kendrick got dim sum from Mandarin House (ahhhh the sesame balls, ahhhh), and we picked up a few extra little dishes from Thai Basil. We thought about getting donuts from King Pin, and then thought better of it, because holy full.
The place definitely isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and the quality of the food seems to vary (although I was personally pretty thrilled with everything we tried), but for me? Heaven. Total heaven. I will be back. (Tell me what to get next time??)
