Tamarine Restaurant - Palo Alto, CA

We had 2 apps, 2 entrees and 1 dessert. . . result Full and satisfied.

Had the Calamari and Hamachi-Tartar. Tartar was great with chopped up onions, and something slightly crunchy and sweet like jiacama, cilantro, lemongrass, tons of flavor. The Calamari was good but I think I like it better w/o the batter fried. The cilantro emulsion was a very tasty dipping sauce.


The dinner entrees said "small plate" but I thought it wasn't that small. We ate the lemongrass bass. Nice portion actually. I like the side of noodle since it had sliced mango on top. Nice touch as I like a little sweet. The 5 spice duck was cooked very well, but it was just Okay. We had two orders of jasmine rice. Rice comes in these cute baskets wrapped in a banana leaf.



I was full but since the waiter slipped the dessert menu to us ever so cleverly. . . we shared the tapioca w/ passion fruit and lemon grass sorbet. Sweet but not too sweet, ahh nice ending.


Pretty pricey place, but food was good.

http://www.tamarinerestaurant.com/

Cliff House, San Francisco, CA

We went out to dinner for my Birthday at the "Cliff House". The restaruant is located along the sunset district of San Francisco and the restaurant is situated along the cliff of the water. Over looking the water, there are large rock formations.



We go to the restaurant around 7pm and sunset was at around 8pm so we got to view the sunset. They asked if we wanted to wait for a window seat but it was okay the booth was comfortable and I was hungry and didn't want to wait.

The menu is largely sea food. I over heard that they change their menu every month so the selection was not vast. For appetizer, David got the salmon slivers (i.e. house smoked salmon arranged on the plate) and I got dollops of oysters. Was good.






For Dinner I got the scallops and David got the filet minion & lobster tail (surf and turf) with risotto and mushrooms. The Scallops were nicely cooked. There were 5 big plump ones. The salad was a fresh spinach salad with sautéed mushrooms and avocado slices.






The filet was also good but not great. But it's nice to have a piece of meat.

Since it was my birthday I got a free dessert. I picked the cream trio. A sampling of pistachio crème Brule, orange glazed flan, and butter scotch cream in a shooter glass. David's chocolate cake was uneventful and too dense. The chocolate gelato on the side was good however.





We left the restaurant stuffed. I think it was because I drank a whole bottle of iced tea.

Cafe Boronne - Menlo Park, CA

The cafe food is pretty good. That day we order the specials which were a chicken panini w/avocado and ham and asparagus sandwich. Both were really good. However, it's cafe food, even at it's best it's nothing that blows your socks off.

Minus a star because our bill was $30 for just cafe food (mind you it was a step above Panera), however we found a thick metal wire curved into a half moon and about 3 inches long on the plate while we were eating. Whoa, gotta watch it there.

Chaat Paradise - Mountain View, CA

I had the Spinach and chick peas dish, was good, but salty. The kofta curry. .yummy sauce but what were those hard t balls inside? The bateta vata (i think) which were deep fried balls of potato w/spices. That was pretty good!

However, the service guy is very pushy. I said I just wanted rice w/my meal and he suggested rice w/ vegetables. Okay, so I think about his suggestion and it's 6.99 vs. 2.00 for my plain rice. "I'll just have plain rice."

Then he suggested bread. I look at the menu, and again he pointed out the most expensive ones and said " very nice, taste very nice". Hey, man I just came in for lunch and I already ordered 3 dishes w/ drinks so stop it. But, we ordered the bread and he pushed for two but I said "one order is enough". It wasn't the nice fluffy naan that I like and we ended up leaving 1/2 of it behind.

Food is good. . . but not *that* good and not *that* cheap, so I probably won't return. I don't like to feel like a used car sales guy is selling me food.

Darn we haven't found a good Indian restaurant like the one in Berkely (Tandor Kitchen).