Month: July 2017

We came to Yoshi’s to watch some classic jazz–my first jazz concert, in fact. It was Count Basie’s Orchestra, and the music, the lighting, the drinks, and the congratulations made my night; and I can thank my uncle for that amazing experience.

Truthfully, we went to Yoshi’s to reserve the best seats for the concert (a nice thing they do for concert-goers), but it was actually an excellent meal, and we ordered dishes from tempura to sushi.

When we arrived, I was hungry, hungry, HUNGRY. But the service was excellent, and the food came right away (maybe they noticed me stealing glances at the kitchen 😉 ). We started out with oysters and the hamachi crudo. The oysters came out hot– I almost dropped them back on my plate after taking a bite! 🙂 They were delicious though, and the hamachi crudo, recommended to us by our wonderful waitress, was probably the best dish we had that night. Kudos!

After those appetizers, we ordered some sushi. We got the spicy tuna (eh), japonese, lobster tempura, spider, and warrior. I really like the fact that they name so many sushi rolls after San Francisco sports teams, although, I would not recommend the spicy tuna. First of all, it was blatantly MEDIOCRE, and second of all, it wasn’t even named after a sports team. Just kidding. It was okay, but I know you can do better the next time you visit Yoshi’s. Like the warrior! The warrior was the best out of the rolls we ordered, so if you’re just a couple people sitting at a table, I would recommend getting that as your main, or even as sharing dish. These are a few of the sushi rolls we ordered:

Yoshi’s serves pretty standard sushi, nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary. That being said, if you’re going for a concert there, I would definitely recommend going for dinner first, because they have excellent service and will give you the best seating possible. Their food isn’t too bad either! 🙂

So (figures), I was still kind of hungry, so we ordered the vegetable tempura and the sea bass as a follow up. The tempura was a little greasy, but other than that, it was pretty good. Also, the sweet corn on the sea bass was pretty incredible, sweet and buttery that it was.

For dessert (come on, we needed to make up for the extra time!), we had the cafe brownie. Eh! Mediocre. The berries and gelato that we ordered later were much better (plus, they came with sake).

At the end of the night, I was feeling jazzy (pun totally intended). Yoshi’s was a delicious meal, and the concert was a stellar first jazz experience.

Food: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
JAZZ!!!: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Another one of my new favorite boba places, Sharetea is a boba chain that replaced Bottles Up in Westfield Mall. Sharetea also has other locations in SF, however, like the one on 4th St, but we went to the one on Market Street.

Like any boba shop worth its name, Sharetea lets you pick your sweetness level, and has a variety of flavors to choose from, as well as fresh boba.

I got the black pearl milk tea, a classic that is always served at boba places, and one of the pluses I noticed was that Sharetea is very VERY generous with its boba. And this is a good thing– at least for me, because I’m mostly there for the boba, not the tea (tea you can get anywhere). Not only that, but the boba is high quality–and they clearly make it fresh to order. There seemed to always be a line, and like Tpumps (the ULTIMATE boba place in my opinion 😉 ), Sharetea always has samples on the side for people waiting in line to try. This time, they had wintermelon tea, which is also one of my favorites, so we got one of those to go. Here’s a picture of my boba, below:

Although the tea itself was a little too sweet, I can say that that was no one’s fault but my own, for adjusting my own tea sweetness incorrectly. 😉 Also, their generosity with the boba and excellent service certainly made up for the slightest over-sweetness.

Cheers! And here’s to boba,

Anya <3

Manna is possibly one of the most popular Korean restaurants in the Sunset area. They always have a line out the door, so it’s hard to get a table on time. Luckily, we got there right when it opened, so we were their first customers! But the restaurant filled up fast.

We ordered their famous seafood pancake, and everybody’s favorite, the kalbi! As usual, they brought out what I like to call the “infinite sides” to keep us happy in the meantime. 🙂

The kalbi was steaming hot, and as a lot of you know, it’s one of my favorite things to eat at Korean restaurants. I often put it on my rice with some kimchi and bean curd so the rice can soak up all the flavor of the meat and kimchi. It’s delicious. Truthfully, the seafood pancake was a little greasy, but it was high quality, and they even let us add kimchi to it! I would have liked to order more food for variety (sorry guys), but unfortunately there were only two of us, so there wasn’t much to go off of. 🙁

That’s okay, though! I plan to go to Manna again and try more of their dishes; you might even see a follow up post! Thanks everyone for checking out my blog, I really appreciate it! Next time, I’m getting bulgogi too 😉

Manna: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 1/2

Quaint, European, and touristy, Solvang is a small Dutch town with shops like First Street Leather, Solvang Shoe Shop, and Downey’s Dress Shop and Candy World. While walking around, we found Solvang Ice Cream Parlor, which turned out to serve one of my favorite ice cream brands–McConnell’s.

When we got there, the ice cream parlor had a line out the door. I got the chocolate-covered strawberry in a sugar cone, but for the first time in a long time, I ordered without trying any of the flavors first! There was such a long line, I felt obligated to. But no worries, it turned out to be delicious (it is McConnell’s after all).

A combination of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate, my chocolate-covered strawberry ice cream made my day, miraculously got rid of my headache, and (also miraculous) was consistent all the way to the bottom of my cone! Also, I only spilled on myself a grand total of three times. Hooray! Would definitely go again, especially on a hot summery day like that one.

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂