Tofu-an Kondou

So here's a bit of a unusual post for this blog - a restaurant experience from Nara, Japan!

For my travels in Japan, I used many travel blogs to help me find some interesting things to do, especially Paul's Travel Pics. His introduction of a reasonably priced option for trying some interesting tofu dishes hit the spot, so we decided to give it a shot!

We didn't make reservations as we didn't make concrete plans during our Nara daytrip but it turns out we had enough time to try to make it. The place is in old town Nara (Naramachi) and is extremely difficult to find - but with asking some kind local ladies for instructions and piecing together my terrible Japanese, we were able to make it.

We made it here slightly late - maybe around 1pm? - but luckily it was a weekday and were seated immediately without a reservation. (I would recommend you get a reservation though - the place could seat maybe 10 parties or so? and this meal is a two hour long affair.) I'm pretty sure international reviews have been highly beneficial and helpful towards their business, because more than half of the people in the small restaurant were speaking non-Japanese languages.

We opted for the smaller, fourteen course set. First three courses came out together: soymilk, boiled soybeans in soy sauce, and oboro tofu. You'll get right off the bat that this isn't like the stuff you get in supermarkets - the soymilk itself has a strong, fresh soy flavor.

Oboro tofu was this great bowl of soft, creamy tofu. It was recommeded that we try it in different ways: little bites plain, with salt, with soy sauce, or with their yuzu and kosho chili paste.

The Yudofu, which is tofu continuously boiled in soymilk - like soyception, if you will. Very soft and flavorful. When you get to the end, let the tofu keep boiling and "skinning" over, and it's kind of a poor-man's version of the tofu skin pot you would get with the larger set.

But while you still have tofu in there, cut off pieces with some soy milk and eat with the flavoring of choice. I personally liked a combo of salt and the yuzu kosho paste, since I am a sodium fiend.

Soy milk skin on shiso.

One the left is grilled wheat gluten topped with miso sauce - very tasty, and nice to get some firm bite in after a few rounds of soft tofu only. The two on the right I can't recall which is which, but one is a boiled bean curd, and one is a mashed tofu.

Deep fried tofu ball with fried, tempura veggies.

A piece of deep fried tofu with some stewed veggies - mild flavored.

A clear saltysoup, with some chunks of tofu thrown in because at this point, WHY NOT.

Along with some rice and pickles to signal the end of the meal.

For dessert: an icy, citrusy soymilk jelly with sweet bean paste. Very tasty and refreshing!

Overall, it was a terrific experience! I would consider myself a little more experienced in tofu consumption already than the general populace, but this was highly eye opening with the different amounts of way tofu could be presented, especially in a 14 course vegetarian all-soy based menu. It was a refreshingly light but stomach filling meal, and is great if you've been sampling the salty and deep fried street foods along the streets for a few days (guilty of that). 

We spent two hours in this beautiful restaurant slowly sampling the different tofu dishes, and it was a highlight of the trip. It is also a tofu shop, so if convenient, you can purchase some delicious tofu to take with you.

The place is pretty difficult to find, so if using the map on the Tofu-an Kondou website doesn't help, just look for the monkey shrine called koshin-do (which is a cute stop in and of itself.) 

And now, the oro-I-failed-at-life-so-you-can-win protip: when I asked the local retired ladies out for a stroll using my highly rehearsed and terrible Japanese where Koshin-Do was, they didn't know... but they all knew there was the one in town with monkeys. So if everyone you stopped looks confused and pitying just say or listen for the word "saru" (monkey), nod eagerly like the tourist you are, and bumble your way to it! 

Tofu-an Kondou
Tofu-an Kondou TripAdvisor
Nara, Japan

Hash House

Brunch: a joy to eat, a horror to wait in line for three hours at 10am on the cold streets of San Francisco while smelling all the delicious scents waft out from those crazy enough to have showed up at 8am. Hungering for brunch but not quite wanting to make the journey into the city, we hit up Hash House in Campbell. It was quite popular still, and the wait was about an hour for a party of six.

First thing you notice upon going in is that everyone is using garishly colored plates. Second are the strange little goblets people drank from. JP got one of these, which are the caramel apple mimosas - quite tasty, though not particularly special.

In order to diversify, I got the Mexican hash, which has chorizo and jalapeno and was quite spicy. It was okay - I realized upon getting this that I do NOT like hash with this much potatoes.

Oh, why diversify you ask? Well...

Two of our group got fried chicken dishes. Fried chicken waffles...

...and fried chicken benedicts. The concept of a fried chicken benedict actually sounds cool, but incredibly heavy.

Because of the time's proximity to St. Patrick's day, half of our party got corned beef dishes: corned beef benedicts, and corned beef hash. I actually quite liked all of Hash House's corned beef dishes, although I prefer the benedict slightly more.

Hash House has a pretty solid breakfast, though I'm personally not a fan of hash. (Why did you order a hash then, you ask? Because someone else already ordered corned beef benedicts... sigh.) It's a good option for a brunch in the south bay and has big hearty portions of comfort food options, but from the choices we ordered I didn't find anything particularly standout to warrant an hour long wait. I'll likely come again due to proximity and it being a rare decent brunch option in the San Jose area, but there's no need to make a long trip here if you have closer places.

Hash House

Hash House Yelp

Campbell, CA

Aliment

When going out, we seem to have an aversion to making plans more than 24 hours ahead of time. For San Francisco, that means that booking a dinner reservation in order to get to any other plans is less "what finicky thing do I feel like" and more "what's nearby and has opentable reservations open tomorrow night so I won't be late to my other plans??" And that is how we stumbled into Aliment in Nob Hill on one Saturday night. 

It's in a slightly nondescript location, which is likely the reason we easily got a reservation on 7pm Saturday. Very roomy and open place.

We shared the fried brussel sprouts, which were AMAZING. Fried, crispy, and in a rich sweet fish sauce glaze. I wouldn't have thought it was possible to make brussel sprouts taste unhealthy and downright decadent, but this greasy, sticky, and delicious mess of vegetable has proven me wrong. 

I believe this was the hanger steak. Not bad, nothing too special.

I personally got the mushroom gnocchi, because I had never tried legitimate gnocchi before! SS, having traveled in Europe, assured me that it was legit gnocchi, but I didn't enjoy it as much - it looks like I just don't like gnocchi that much.

Braised short ribs - very soft, standard kind of sweet-salty glaze.

Scallops were simply done, but the green curry sauce made it more interesting.

We shared a yuzu cheesecake as dessert, which I thought was phenomenal. Very soft cheesecake, with some kind of a citrus jam or chutney spread on top to cut the sweetness. 

If we had to pick a fault, it would be as JP said during dinner about San Francisco having too many of these New American cuisine gastropub-ish restaurants that they all seem boring unless they had something special to stand out. (First world problem of the day: have gone to so many top of the line restaurants that just a normal tasty one is too boring to return to now...) I'd agree that the entrees were entirely forgettable, but the brussels sprouts and the cheesecake are worth noting and returning for. Overall, Aliment is a pretty solid dinner spot in the city.

Aliment

Aliment Yelp

San Francisco, CA

Mama's Fish House

Prior to my trip to Maui, I had asked my friend JP for trip recommendations - and the advice, to paraphrase it, was "there's no need to really plan... BUT GO TO MAMA'S FISH HOUSE." Well, why not? On their site, Mama's bills themselves as the first fresh fish restaurant on the island, and we're always down for good seafood.

Mama's Fish House is located on Maui's north shore around Paia and is literally on the beach. The two pictures above were taken while standing literally from the same position! Parking is valet only, because the place gets busy, but it is free. Definitely get a reservation, since it got packed, but don't worry about dressing up - it's very casual and beachy.

We all got started tropical fruit mashed iced teas - ice tea with pieces of either mango, passionfruit, or guava. I'll make a note here that, if the weather is nice, either come early or request for a table next to the open window - we were looking out onto the palms and the beach our entire meal, and it really accentuated the experience.

Soft fluffy bread and asparagus bisque were complimentary. 

We had the three fish sashimi for an appetizer - three types of fish, four slices each, just enough for us to all get a taste and for me to immediately wish there was more. Each type was dressed with a different kind of flavoring with a tropical, Hawaiian touch.

Ono (which wikipedia tells me is the wahoo fish?) with calamansi citrus and Molokai pink sea salt: very salty and citrusy, fresh and clean flavors.

Ahi with ponzu, shiso, and citrus pearls: this had a more traditional Japanese flavor with the ponzu and the shiso. I LOVED the citrus pearls (the little stub on the top right): it's basically filled with tiny little beads that tasted limey. I poked out and slurped up every last one of them, dignity be damned.

Onaga (snapper) with lilikoi, chili pepper, and black salt: unusual combination. The passionfruit flavor is really strong and, despite only being a small pile in the picture, the chilis manage to pack a decent kick.

We splurged on a fish cooked the traditional Hawaiian style. It's listed as a "Ti-leaf Roasted Opakapaka caught over 80 fathoms deep", which uses a lot of words I'm going to assume is a local codeword for "fresh and tender." The snapper itself isn't strongly flavored, and you use the tomato-y sauce above to add some saltiness to the dish, but the fish is fresh enough to not need much flavoring! 

Our more traditional other pick of mahimahi came with some veggies and Kalua boar on rice. 

The mahimahi itself we got was in a much more traditional manner: stuffed with crab and lobster, with a macadamia crust and a decadent sauce. Tasty, but the portion was small when splitting amongst four people.

We didn't know what octopus luau was but decided to give it a try, which to our surprise, was actually pieces of octopus in a sweet, green, coconutty sauce. I'm not a fan, but I'm not sure how octopus luau should taste anyways.

Poi is complimentary and freshly made on premises - just make sure to ask for it. The day before this I had tried poi at a luau, which was very sour and watery and just utterly unlikable, but this was nothing like that! Our server said that Mama's doesn't ferment their poi, so it tastes more like smooth taro grits. I wouldn't say I'm a poi fan, but these were actually not bad and I finished my little bowl.

We had a post-meal coffee, locally farmed. Came with some cookies for everyone.

Our first dessert was what our server said was a customer favorite: the passionfruit creme brulee! Very nicely done creme brulee with good crust and a definitely strong kick of passionfruit flavor. Flavor wise, this was my favorite of the desserts.

Our server also mentioned they had a "most instagrammed dessert", so as major vacationing camwhores we had to give it a try. The Polynesian Black Pearl is a mousse placed in pastry shells, with some chocolate syrup, passionfruit syrup, and cream all around. This was beautiful, and delicious as well.

Finally, full and satiated, we're sent off with some squares of coconut treats and towels. (Funny anecdote: we were used by now to foods with unfamiliar Hawaiian names, so as we were brought the plate by a server, AK eagerly asked him "ooh, so these are towas? How do we eat them?" "...towels. For your hands. To wipe.")

As you leave, you can see all the celebrities who have also come and enjoyed them.

Terrific, memorable meal, and definitely some of the best fish dishes I've had since it has the benefit of fresh fish and great cooking methods. Honestly, even with all the beaches and sunsets and activities I had on my vacation, the meal at Mama's remains one of my fondest memories of Maui.

Yelp rates it as $$$$ but I think the prices make this more of a $$$ establishment? (Considering I pay bay area prices for restaurants, I don't know if that's much of a consolation, but still...) This is one of those rare restaurants that I went to knowing the massive hype, but still had my expectations exceeded. Visitors to Maui, definitely schedule this into your itinerary. And residents of Maui... if you could only feel my jealousy right now.

Mama's Fish House

Mama's Fish House Yelp

Maui, HI

Hops & Hominy

A trip for a belatedly bar night in San Francisco needed some pre-drinking food. Luckily, a yelp search in the afternoon found us an interesting place that actually still had reservations for a Saturday night. Hops and Hominy is around Union Square and has southern food with a nice selection of beers (ah! pun names, my favorite).

The place was packed but thanks to our last minute reservation, we were seated immediately. We had cornbread served in a little cast iron dish, with an amazingly soft and sweet butter. Together, this was amazing - I would've gladly made a meal out of this alone.

We had every intention of getting our grub on, but to get the "hops" part of the meal satisfied, we also ordered drinks. FT had an Alegash White while I went with their "porkchops and applesauce" cocktail. Good beer selection, but fairly standard cocktails. There was a slight salty/bacony flavor to my drink, but it was hard to distinguish.

Chicken fried steak: tasty. Arugula salad side was just a tad toooo healthy, but the mashed potatoes helped even it out.

Cheese grits were amazing! Best dish of the night, we literally scraped the dish bare.

Pork belly sliders: good sauce, but very meh bread and portions.

For dessert, we got this monstrosity of sweet potato ice cream covered in marshmallow and topped with gobs of caramel syrup and nuts and all that. Not bad but super sweet - too much sucrose for just two to handle.

Overall, very enjoyable dinner; there's hits and misses with the dishes but if you stick to their versions of more traditional southern dishes you'll probably be safe. They have stick to your ribs southern dishes reimagined with kind of a hipster, more-health conscious execution.

Hops & Hominy

Hops & Hominy Yelp

San Francisco, CA