Shabu Club, SF

Do not go here.  I repeat, do NOT go here.  At least not for the ramen burger.  Ever since Tutu showed me the ramen wings article, I have been a bit obsessed with ramen-y things, especially since Hot Sauce and Panko deprived us of ramen wings when they took it off their menu permanently.  So when we heard about the ramen burger, we thought we had to try it.  We had originally identified Nombe, but it had such bad reviews.  Shabu Club had pretty bad reviews too, but was a tad better than Nombe.  So, after much waiting and anticipation after being out of town, off we went.

The restaurant actually looked really nice for a shabu place in the Inner Richmond, so we were pleasantly surprised and had high hopes!  We ordered the kamikaze wings and the Kobe beef fries.  The wings tasted alright, but both the Kobe beef fries and the ramen burger were extremely disgusting.  They had a huge dollop of mayo which wasted weird.  The meat tasted like it was just minutes shy of going bad.  The ramen bun of the burger tasted like it had been fried hours ago, and was somewhere between being crunch and super soggy.  The fries themselves were fine, but just the sight of the meat and the mayo just made me sick.  I rarely waste food, but there was no way I was going to finish any of that crap.  We barely finished, got the check, and left feeling very ill.

Do.  Not.  Go.

Toy Boat Dessert Cafe and Loving Cup, Dessert in SF

After a savoury dinners, the urge for something sweet presses.  Who you gonna call?  Erm... no one?  It's no secret that San Francisco's dessert scene is somewhat dismal.  Plus the fact that things close early, and dessert occurs after dinner, the choice is sparse.  Faced with the brain's screaming for dessert and the limited choices, we hit up Toy Boat Dessert Cafe and Loving Cup (on separate occasions).

Toy Boat Dessert Cafe is an interesting place.  It looks like a diner with a bunch of toys.  Yes, exactly that.  We had a chocolate cake and an olallieberry pie.  I wasn't impressed.

Loving Cup is a fro-yo and rice pudding place.  I have tried both on 2 separate occasions.  While both are fine, they are by no means great.

No pictures of these, unfortunately, but you're not missing much.

Side note, when we went to Sweden, the supermarket sold rice pudding that was really good.  I'm going on a supermarket hunt tomorrow for this!

Cafe Bunn Mi, SF

I've been to Cafe Bunn Mi before, quite a while ago, and I think I tried the banh mi.  It was good, but really not good enough to make it all the way back to the Inner Richmond.

Last November, I went to Vietnam, and one of my favourite, if not my favourite, dishes I had was bun rieu cha noodles in a crab tomato soup.  Such a simple dish, one small bowl of noodles with fresh vegetables and garnish, and such a lasting impression.  My travel buddy Chewy was asleep, and since I'm an early riser I had to find something to do.  I had read that this was one of the to-eat dishes in Hanoi, and right outside our hotel was a little shop that sold this!  I dabao'd for us, and we ate it in the hotel room for breakfast.  I should have bought 2 portions instead of one.  That's how good it was!

When I got back to SF, I decided to look for this dish.  The first one I tried was Soup Junkie.  The broth was flavourless, did not taste anything like crab, and the vegetables and garnish were unmemorable (were there any?).  Luckily this place was just 2 blocks from my apartment, so I did not make a wasted trip.  Yelp told me of Cafe Bunn Mi's bun rieu cha, and the photos looked really good.  This dish did not disappoint.  The noodles were firm, the broth was thick with crab and tomato flavour, the tofu was a nice touch that was not in my Hanoi version, and the vegetables and garnish were super fresh.  I would definitely go back to the Inner Richmond for that.  Yes, it was THAT good.

Lingon made it on this odyssey with me to the Inner Richmond.  He got the Saigon noodles.  Those were good too, but to me they were not any more special than stuff we could find near our apartment.

Well, for those who like or are interested in this dish, please do visit Cafe Bunn Mi.  I have dreams of this place now.