While walking back from Duc Loi, I noticed some people hanging out by a scary looking store-front. Then I peeked in and noticed cute little old asian ladies furiously cooking up some noodles. And in this tiny closet of a place, all the seats were taken. And people were waiting outside. Then I looked this place up – Yamo. It’s a teeny little burmese joint in the mission where everything is about $5 dollars or less. I had to check it out! So on the night we went to see Conan, we grabbed some to-go because we didn’t have enough time to dine in.

Since everyone was raving about the tea leaf salad, we had to try that. I’ve never tasted anything like this before. It’s got some various shredded greens, and by that I am guessing tea leaves, along with a bunch of other random things like red onions, fried nuts, regular nuts, legumes, herbs, etc. It’s tossed with a tasty savory and slightly sour sauce. It’s just good, and difficult to describe.

J got the curry fish. Contrary to what I thought, this does not have coconut milk in it. Whoo! It is really good high quality fish, extremely lightly battered and fried. And it’s covered in a nice slightly spicy curry-ish sauce (barely curry tasting) with some onions and bell peppers as your veggies. You can get this with rice or noodles. The noodles are just the flour type noodles that you would find in lo mein.

After reading good things about the house noodles, I got one with beef. It’s an extremely simple dish… just noodles and beef! The beef is also high quality and tender, and is just lightly seasoned. It was a bit on the salty side for me, but still good. And there’s a bit of sauce for the noodles that make them quite smooth.

This place is slightly intimidating to order from because I feel like it’s one of those places where you have to know how to order correctly. The ladies are not scary, but the place does not have a cash register and there’s no “order here”, “pick up here” signs. It’s just a big counter with the kitchen behind it. When I called, it rang and rang for a long time, and then finally someone picked up and screamed, and I say screamed, “YAMO!” She didn’t give me a time, she didn’t take my name. It just all seemed crazy. But once we got there, after some slight confusion, we got the food. And it was certainly worth the scare. For $5.25 for each dish, how can you go wrong? Yes, the portions are not large, they are pretty much for one person and one meal. But there’s nothing wrong with that! This is one scary hole-in-the-wall you need to visit!

Yamo
3406 18th St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 553-8911

After eating out for pretty much four straight days, it was definitely time to cook at home. We stopped by Duc Loi (asian / mexican mini-mart in the mission) to grab some ingredients for a quick shrimp stir-fry dish. We picked up some brown rice too, so we could pretend to be healthy.

For the stir fry some garlic, shallots, and onions were browned in a pan with some olive oil. Add sliced bell peppers (we used yellow because that’s what looked the best at the store). Add shrimp, either raw or cooked. We went with cooked because we felt lazy. After these are all heated through, add broccoli, and cover so that the broccoli gets steamed through. Add whatever sauce you want to aid in the steaming process. We just added a little bit of teriyaki marinade. It’s truly that easy. Who says cooking has to be a pain?

We’d been planning on going to Zorba’s for awhile. My friend C, who is greek, talks about it all the time and about how amazing the calimari is. R was even talking about it awhile back when she went there on a pseudo-date. And ever since I’d watched a terrible movie on my last flight, which happened to take place in greece, I wanted to go to Zorba’s even more. It’s a very low-key BYOB in fairmount. On this beautiful evening, there were a few tables set up outside. We chose to sit indoors. As soon as you sit down, you get some complimentary bread with olive oil, vinegar, and dried herbs for dipping.

H/A got the lamb shank. It wasa baby lamb shank cooked in an egg lemon and artichoke sauce, served with rice & potatoes. According to the menu, it is one of the classics of the sunday family table. Neither of us had ever had lamb that came out like this before. I’ve had lamb chops and I’ve had ground lamb that was made into kabobs, but I’d never seen a lamb shank. It’s kind of like a big drumstick. And it kind of tasted like it too! It was very lemony yet creamy.

I was feeling the seafood so I got the shrimp santorini, which was shrimp sauteed with garlic, paprika, and red wine, served with rice, roasted potatoes, and mixed veggies. These shrimp were excellent! And so was the rice and veggies. The potatoes were way too salty for me. The food came out really quickly, almost too quickly. But then I figured all of the sides were probably all ready to go, and the lamb was probably also already cooked and probably just needed sauced, and shrimp are super speedy to cook.

The service was fine. I think I scared the original waitress slightly at first when I decided to mess with her. But then after she realized I was just kidding, she played along. Something that amused me was that there was a bottle of windex that was constantly being used to clean up the tables. It made me chuckle because of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Zorba’s Taverna
2230 Fairmount Ave
Philadelphia 19130
(215) 978-5990