After snagging a deeply discounted ticket for the show at the orpheum, I walked through some choice areas of SF for a coveted bowl of ramen at Katana-Ya. I had consulted yelp and it had gotten good reviews.
It’s a teeny little place with a tiny sushi bar with 4 seats and a handful of small tables. It’s definitely not made for big parties. And you will wait during lunch. They have ramen and udon and soba and tons of sushi, as well as other japanese treats. The menu was actually surprisingly large. I figured it would be ramen, ramen, and more ramen.
I went with the buttered corn ramen. Why? Because I was clueless, and the chick next to me ordered it. So I figured I’d give it a go. And plus, I love corn in just about anything. I got the soy broth, and you can order the broth is a certain strength. I did not indicate, so by default, I think they give you light. This is a big bowl with a good sized helping of noodles. And the noodles were awesome. The broth however, was a bit on a bland side for me. It definitely tasted pork-y, but there wasn’t much actual flavor. It was underwhelming. But the noodles definitely rocked it. And the corn was great. Like I said, you could put corn on just about anything and it would make me happy. I haven’t had enough authentic japanese ramen in my life to know whether this was good or not, but I was definitely a fan of the noodles and the value. Perhaps I would need to try the miso or the salt broths to know more. But it was definitely a good and hearty bowl that filled my belly plenty. But I certainly have a feeling there are much better bowls of ramen out there.

Katana-Ya
430 Geary St.
San Francisco, CA
415.771.1280

I met up with A in Burlingame after cruising around Monterey and the south bay. Burlingame is another cute little ritzy town with a strip of shops and restaurants. We decided on Mingalaba, which is burmese. I’ve only had burmese, years ago, and don’t remember too much from it. I think I remember that it was like thai food. The menu is a strange amalgam of indian, thai, and other asian cuisines. Which makes a helluva lot of sense when you look at a map of burma. It’s a rather large country, with india and the bay of bengal on its left, and thailand and china on its right. We ordered mango lassis, and we all know that’s traditionally indian/pakistani.We didn’t really know what to order, so we picked the House Special Noodle with chicken. It was a flat rice noodle dish with coconut chicken, lime leaves, cilantro, yellow pea’s powder, onion, and fried thin noodle on the top. It comes unmixed and then the server mixes it in front of you.
And here’s the result. We both enjoyed this a lot. I’m usually not into anything with coconut milk in it (like this chicken), but I still liked this. The one thing I absolutely did not care for was the lime leaves. I found them to be absolutely disgusting. They were sliced extremely thin but still gave off an extremely strong taste. Luckily, after realizing their awfulness, I was careful to avoid them.
We had to order something else so we just threw the dice and went with the Asparagus Spicy Chicken. This was pan fried chicken breast with asparagus, fresh basil, eggplant, fresh mushroom, and green chilies in a spicy sauce. This had a straight up thai basil flavor, reminiscent of many thai dishes. So if you’re into that, you’ll be into this. This also was not spicy at all, so don’t let the name fool you. It’s just a nice chicken stir fry dish. The asparagus were of the extremely fat variety, and I’m partial to the scrawny spears.

Service was fine, if not seemingly cold and robotic. But I think that was just the server’s personality, or lack thereof. One could not describe her as warm and fuzzy, but the service itself was fine. And the meal actually turned out to be quite a bargain! On this tuesday night, the place was packed! If you’re a fan of thai food, then you should definitely give Mingalaba a try. Heck, I can’t stop saying mingalaba!

I headed off to vegas for a short work-related visit. For our first night there, we had a rough time finding food. We went to the Rio to eat at an italian place that C had been to before, but when we got there, we found out it was no longer there. So then we walked to a different italian place there, but it was too expensive and the advertisements for the restaurant were too creepy. Several other places we tried to go to were already closed. This is why we resorted to eating at Mah Jong. It’s a fast food chinese spot. I went with the beef chow fun. It was ok. The hot and sour soup was awful. It’s hard to describe why it was so bad, but it was neither hot nor sour nor good. And this food was horribly overpriced as well, for less than mediocre chinese. I like the Rio, but not for this place!