san francisco

LONGING FOR THANH LONG!

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For my family, a trip to San Francisco is not complete without dining at Thanh Long.  Their Roast Crab, Royal Garlic Prawns and Garlic Noodles are so mouth-wateringly delicious.  It’s the kind of meal where you just have to dig in and dig through the crab shells for every single morsel of crab meat.  When we first started eating there in the mid-80’s, I’d actually have a whole crab to myself plus maybe 2 bowls of rice.  (now we know why I have a weight problem)

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THE FAMOUS THANH LONG CRABS UP CLOSE

Back then, the crabs were less then $20 each.  These days, one crab can cost more than $50, so usually we just split one between two people. 

For the non-crab eaters like my brother, the garlic prawns served over a bed of garlic noodles were a tasty alternative.  

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PRAWNS ON A BED OF GARLIC NOODLES

This last trip, I decided that, after 20 years, it was time to discover other items on the Thanh Long menu.  After all, even if my dad was footing the bill, I’d still like to stay on the Travel Poor Diet.  Plus, I knew that the My Fitness Pal app would judge me. So, on our two Thanh Long dinners (just 2 days apart) I decided to explore other items on the menu.  And I’m so glad I did.  On the first day, I ordered the Tempura Style Coconut Prawns and a plate of Garlic Noodles.  I figured that way, I’d at least have one of my staples. 

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CRISPY AND DELICIOUS COCONUT PRAWNS

The plate of prawns arrived and they did look yummy.  One bite into the crispy prawns and I realized, “Hey they really do have other good dishes!”  The coconut prawns paired perfectly with the Garlic Noodles.  The family kept asking me why I didn’t just have the prawns but I said I was perfectly happy with my choice.

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MUST-TRY GARLIC NOODLES!  

On the next visit, I decided to try a couple of other dishes on the menu.  My brother and I shared an order of the Dungeness Crab Puffs.  Or as described on the menu, minced Dungeness crab, peanuts & herb cheese wrapped in a light, crispy wonton shell, served with a peanut-mustard dipping sauce.  Sounds good right?  It was yet another good choice.  The creamy cheese was a perfect partner to the crab meat.  After all my two favorites inside crispy wonton? How can that ever go wrong?

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ALMOST FORGOT TO TAKE A PHOTO OF THE CRAB PUFFS BEFORE THEY WERE GONE

Next up was an order of Chicken Satay.  This was a last minute decision.  And another great decision. It was the juiciest Chicken Satay I had ever tried.  It went great with the sweet-garlicky flavors of the Garlic Noodles.

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BEST CHICKEN SATAY EVER! 

Thanh Long is a family-owned Vietnamese restaurant that has been in the same location since it opened.  It’s not the nicest neighborhood in SFO but people have been going there for years.  They now have valet parking, thank God! And have expanded into several restaurants including Crustacean in SFO and in Beverly Hills, Anqi in Costa Mesa and Tiato in Santa Monica.  Each restaurant has it’s own specialty dishes, but the crabs and prawns are always special guests. 

Many restaurants, even here in the Philippines, have claimed to serve Thanh Long crabs but I have yet to try anything that comes even close to the original.  I wish that people would just call them garlic crabs so that you can just enjoy the crabs for their flavors and not be disappointed that they are poor imitations. 

I am so glad I decided to live a little dangerously and try some new items on the Thanh Long menu.  Can’t wait for the next trip to the US to discover even more delicious options.

Hmmm all this food talk is making me hungry.  Is it dinner time yet?

That’s all for now….bow!

 

SLEEPLESS IN SAN FO

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It’s 430am in San Francisco (well actually Foster City) and I am awake. I think I dozed off for 15 minutes around 1am, but that was then, and this is now.  I did debate about taking some of my trusted Advil PM a couple of hours ago, but I think I missed my chance.  And if I take some now, it’d be 6 before I fall asleep and will probably wake up by noon and there goes the rest of the day.  But this trip was supposed to be a vacation, where I would rest and recover and just veg, but I kind of wanted to do most of that awake and enjoying my soap operas, Vegas reruns, Target shopping runs and just inhale the California air.

So what do you do when you can’t sleep? It’s important not to panic.  Panicking will just make it harder to fall asleep.  As an experienced insomniac, my attitude is, I’ll sleep when I sleep.  And so, I already have my tried and tested things to do to pass the time till I fall asleep.  (Though most people might say, after reading this, no wonder she can’t sleep!)

  1. You watch TV.  Or in my case, you watch the shows and movies that you saved on your computer’s hard drive.  I had about 50 episodes of whole bunch of shows to catch up on, not to mention the Inside the Clubhouse episodes about the San Francisco Giants that my brother DVR’d for me before I arrived.
  2. You google.  Google what? Whatever comes to mind.  Sometimes I look for recipes I want to try.  Sometimes I look up actors and see what they’re up to.  Other times, I look for possible variations on the haircut that I’ve been sporting for the last year or so.
  3. You shop or rather you cart.  You don’t have to actually buy anything, you just pick and choose and put them in your shopping cart.  Though since I’m here, I probably will end up buying them and, more often that not, returning them.
  4. You work.  Even if things aren’t due for a few days, if you’re awake and have nothing much to do, then just get them out of the way.  At the very least, you can get the first draft out and just review and revise when the due date is closer.
  5. You eat.  This is probably the worst thing you can do.  (my mom might argue and say it’s #3).  We used to keep snacks in our room, but I’ve tried to avoid that and these days, I just have a glass of water in my room.  The good thing here is that it’s too cold to bother going downstairs just for some potato chips.
  6. You clean.  No not housecleaning.  I just clean my files.  I back-up, I delete, I rearrange files, I create folders.  I sometimes even revise the names of files so that they appear more organized (this sometimes means changing upper case to lower case and vise versa)
  7. You play games.  Words with Friends, Scramble with Friends, SongPop, Draw Something, or my latest obsession, Spider Solitaire.
  8. You read.  I have about 90 ebooks on my iPad that I have yet to read, plus subscriptions to about 6 magazines.  I don’t think I have to worry about running out of things to read.
  9. You make lists.  Of what to wear, what to do. Of what you need to do. Of what lists you have to make.  Of what to pack for that next trip. Of what to buy, of whatever you might want to list.  Of what to do when you can’t sleep.
  10. You blog.  About whatever you can think of, like maybe…what to do when you can’t sleep.

Ok now it’s 5am, and I am still wide awake.  I think this means we go back to #1 and see what happens….