Cycle 15 - Item 180 3 (Wed) July 2024 Seafood Soft Tofu Soup 3.0 at Sogong-Dong Tofu House -Palo Alto, California, USA- with W and IZ, Hahn Summer Holiday in the San Francisco Bay Area (Day 8 of 11) Day 1 (15.173 Sauteed Pea Sprouts with Garl…
In Los Altos. With the Family. Their first time ever in Northern California. The immediate objective is to escort DJ and three of his friends to compete in the finals of a global logic competition at Stanford University (which finished today), while taking advantage of the opportunity to show the family my hometown, including San Francisco and Berkeley, and visit my best friend Hahn, who lives in Los Altos, maybe even drop by my childhood home in Saratoga. The itinerary is packed, nearly every hour scheduled with activities. Stay tuned.
Located at 4127 El Camino Real, about 12.5 km from the rental house, 3.2 km from Hahn's house.
After dropping DJ and his friends off at Stanford for the final Day 3 of the competition, we checked out of the house and met up with Hahn for lunch.
I was fine with Korean food, having eaten none for 7 consecutive days.
Also to extend GMTD's Korean Restaurants Abroad series. While USA remains the 1st country, Palo Alto becomes 40th city outside of Korea where I've experienced Korean food (actually, I might've had Korean food in Palo Alto when I was a kid but can't remember).
Funny to see that menus outside of Korea stick with the phonetic
This is the kind of conversation Hahn and I are wont to have.
Me: "Why does the menu say 'Please Do Not Fold the Menu' when it's encased in a plastic? It can't be folded."
Hahn: "It was the paper in the beginning, and customers kept folding it, so they added 'Please Do Not Fold the Menu,' and when that didn't work, they encased it plastic."
Me: "The menu is designed into three columns, like a folding takeout menu, so of course people would fold it. Anyway, who cares if they fold it? It's just a piece of paper - use them as disposable place mats."
Hahn: "But why waste the paper?"
Banchan (2.5): tasty, though they seemed just a sliver shy of authentic, like in Manila.
The food was fine.
But absolutely nowhere near worth $19.94 per bowl, before tax and tip.
SHOPPING
In preparation for tomorrow's Independence Day feast, we dropped by Dittmer's Gourmet Meats & Wurst-Hau, where I purchased a rib roast.
Located at 4540 El Camino Real.
As suggested by the number of establishments referenced in recent posts with addresses on it - 6, including Safeway (525 El Camino Real), Mama Coco (1081 El Camino Real), Harry's Hofbrau (1909 El Camino Real), MJ Sushi (2305 El Camino Real), Sogong-Dong Tofu House (4127 El Camino Real), Dittmer's (4540 El Camino Real) - El Camino Real is a major route in California, running 600 miles (965 km) from San Francisco to San Diego, originally linking the Spanish missions along the state's coast. Especially in the Bay Area, El Camino Real is the central commercial thoroughfare (like Broadway in New York City) and geographical point of reference (e.g., "just 3 blocks north of El Camino").
It's a street that I heard millions of times growing up - and now I'm driving on it myself (El Camino doesn't run along the East Bay, so I never encountered it while at Berkeley).
I love the thickness of beef cuts sold at butcher shops in America.
Through my on-going exploration of roast beef back in Korea, I've felt handicapped to achieve greatness simply because I can't get the right piece of meat. Various cuts of Australian beef abound - bland (see for example 15.127 Roast Ribeye au Jus). Only cheaper cuts of American beef - tough and gamy (see for example 15.152 Roast Cuck Eye Roll au Jus). And Korean beef - too expensive, too fatty. All falling short, in one way or another.
When Hahn and I had agreed to do something at home for July 4 dinner, my first thought was to a attempt a true Prime Rib with USDA Prime Ribeye - the ultimate cut.
At $29.99 per lb (9,774 won per 100 g) X 5.395 lbs (2.45 kg) = $161.80 (224,000 won), it wasn't all that big, yet the most expensive piece of beef that I've ever purchased, both by weight (see for comparison 15.086 Roast Chateaubriand - 2,980 won per 100 g) and by cost (see for comparison 15.127 Roast Ribeye au Jus - 210,000 won total).
The butcher was kind enough to trim off the end bits to make a perfectly symmetric cut.
Took it back to the house, trussed it, seasoned it with whatever they had on hand (improvised blend of A1 Steak Sauce + Kirkland Steak Seasoning), and placed it in the fridge for an overnight marinade.
DINNER
The Cheesecake Factory is an American restaurant. Offers a wide ranging menu of Americanish dishes (e,g., burgers, steaks, tacos, pastas), as well as their eponymous cheesecakes for dessert. Started as a bakery in 1972 then expanded into a restaurant in 1978. Currently 336 locations worldwide.
Located at 3041 Stevens Creek Boulevard (another iconic street), on the southwest corner of Westfield Valley Fair.
Swankyish decor, perhaps trying to reflect the chain's Beverly Hills roots.
After lunch and grocery shopping, Hahn went home, while W, IZ, and I returned to Stanford to pick up DJ and his friends, following the conclusion of the competition (they didn't win). As the friends were flying to Korea on an evening flight, we went to Westfield Valley Fair to hang out and eat dinner until they grabbed an Uber to SFO. Made the mistake of waiting until dinner time to eat dinner, at which point all the good places (e.g., Din Tai Fung) were fully booked with 2-hour wait times. Had I planned it out - this dinner and the first lunch were the only meals on the itinerary where the venue hadn't been researched and decided in advance - I probably would've gone with King's Fish House. But The Cheesecake Factory was right there, and had tables, so there we were.
Shoulda just had cheecake.
The only other visit to The Cheesecake Factory that I can recall was on our trip to Las Vegas, when we ended up there (the one in Caesars Palace) under similar it's-right-here-and-we're-too-tired-to-go-elsewhere circumstances. Apparently, the meal had been so unremarkable that it didn't even warrant a mention in that day's post. I might've eaten there during college, while visiting Hahn in Southern California (who was at UCLA then), but can't remember, probably because the food was unremarkable.
The food menu is 16 pages, not counting the cheesecakes and desserts on pages 17-19.
Even if living up to the "factory" monicker, this amount of variation is kinda silly.
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