Guest Blogger: California Bay Area Travel ~ Of Pastries & Xin Chap Lai

Dear Diary,

What started off as a zombie killing morning routine turned into something a little more, shall I say, fantastic. It’s approximately 1am, and even as I burp now I can feel the wonderful bitter sweet taste of 2009 Le Crema coming up my throat *hic*. Diary, you’re not gonna *hic* mom this to report, are you *hic*? ARE YOU? Wait a minute, where am I now? Fuzzy are a little details *hic*, but no matter, we’ll back track what *hic* happened…

So it was morning. I I woke up. I made some Nutella sandwich. I valiantly killed platoons of zombies in Left 4 Dead 2. And then I went back to sleep. It was weird because I started coming in and out of dreams, and sometimes when I dreamed I dreamed I was dreaming, and a few times I dreamed myself dreaming myself dreaming, it’s like some crazy multi-level dreaming Inception shit.

The funny thing is, in each level, I dreamed I was in my room. I wondered if I accidentally put in some sort of weed or cat nip into my sandwich or something. A call from a friend in Redwood shores provided the kick necessary for me to ride all the way back up to reality. We decided I would wash up and look up some good lunch restaurants, and he would come over and pick me up.

It was either Pepper Lunch USA or Maruichi restaurant. Google reported 4 stars rating for both. We decided on Maruichi, located in Milpitas, CA. Good old GPS took us a block too far, so I guess it’s bad old GPS now. We found the place (*hic* oh man this wine is awesome I can still taste it in my throat) and promptly walked in. We were about to walk away actually because it looked crowded from the outside but when we walked in it looked half full (you can tell I’m an optimistic person because I say half full instead of half empty *hic*).

Maruichi

Inside Maruichi

Menu of the day

An old waitress got us water, handed us a menu and walked off to the kitchen. The layout was kind of awesome; it’s like this bar thing in the middle, where you get individual seats to the right, and tables to the left. Now that I think about it it wasn’t that awesome because I had a hard time slipping into my chair because there wasn’t much space because the uncle behind me wouldn’t budge because the tables were arranged really close together.

Tiny little light bulbs hung from the ceiling oozed out not-so-brilliant light the best they could. The kitchen was visible with a cloth hanging from the top of the doorway.

Anyhow we scanned through the menu and decided I would get a Maruichi Ramen Special and my associate would get an AKA spicy Ramen. The folks didn’t take long to prepare them and soon enough we saw our ramen coming. Smell wise, it smelled like regular ramen with stock soup. As you can see in the picture below my ramen had this big piece of meat. That in my opinion was really the highlight of the ramen as everything else was just okay and not too spectacular.

The meat came in five alternating layers of skin, fat, and lean meat. They called this five-layered-meat chasu and I think it’s what we commonly called charsiew, or hong shao rou. The difference is, it’s just sweet enough to be comfortable, unlike charsiews with sugar overdose. The different layers provided interesting chewing experience; it did felt like I was eating the meat equivalent of layered cake, except much better.

My associate’s ramen was pretty okay. In his words, “the ramen doesn’t seem to have any particular origin. The bean sprouts reminded me of South East Asian style noodles; the ramen itself, Japanese; the red spicy soup tasted like Korean; the spring onions are definitely Chinese; etc etc etc. This ramen is basically everything.”

We were also given a jar of Kimchis to add to the ramen. They were okay, not particularly brilliant (*hic* man did I ever tell you how I had this awesome wine and the taste keeps coming up my throat). If you’re feeling Japanese and are in the area, you should drop in this place. Each ramen will set you back approximately $10.50 USD.

AKA Spicy Ramen

Maruichi Ramen Special

We walked out not having any particular place to go, and my friend suggested going to the beach over the mountains on the west side of the Bay area. We took 101-N and then 92-W I think, I’m not too sure, I have to ask our bad old GPS.

We passed by Half Moon Bay by a few miles and stopped at this wonderful beach. Just a couple days back I was frantically coding at work and now I was on the beach chilling with a can of Coke given by a kind family in my hand.

The beach was the interface between the American land and the Pacific Ocean. We stretched our upper body in the direction of Japan amidst the chilling breeze and wondered if any Japanese did the same. It’s summer but the temperature’s pretty okay (74F by my estimate). We walked up the cliff and enjoyed our high vantage viewpoint of the Pacific Ocean. Occasionally a sea gull or two or three would fly by, slowly, gracefully, and deploy a poop or two on you. We decided we had enough of running away from sea gull poop and the high vantage point and walked down to the beach.

We strolled across the beach and noted how fine the sands were. It’s definitely nice to walk on as it’s neither too warm nor wet. There were also a cave or two and my friend and I got a once-in-a-life-time chance to be cavemen. It’s chilling and dark in the cave, definitely a good place to hang out in after an hour or two at the super bright beach. We walked into the water and instantly regretted doing so as it was ridiculously cold. By my friend’s estimation it’s about 50F.

Yours truly also made an art worthy of Picasso’s praise on the beach. If you close your eyes and smell the breeze, you’d notice a salty sea smell, along with the scent of sea gull poop. If you look as far as you can to your left and right, you’d see an almost infinite range of cliffs and beach that eventually faded into the fog. If you want to understand the concept of infinity but have never had the IQ to visualize it, this is it. If you like the beach and are in the area, I definitely recommend this place.

This dog fails to understand fetch - it wouldn't release the stick.

This art is made by yours truly.

Beach.

It was approximately 6:38pm, and we decided to get dinner. We drove into Half Moon Bay City and stopped by at Miramar Beach Restaurant. It’s a well-known sunset restaurant as you can sit and dine and watch the sun set from a strategic location. When we were there the inside seats were all taken up, so we volunteered to dine at the outdoor patio.

One highlight of this restaurant is some of the dining tables were really a stone surface (I think) with a fire site in it. It was pretty breezy and chilly so chilling beside the fire was an awesome feeling. We did not get such a table and opted for one under a tent.

We scanned through our menus, and decided we’d start off with bread, soup du jour and cocktail prawns. Bread was okay. The soup was basically New England clam chowder. Its taste of clam was rich but otherwise the saltiness was overpowering. No good.

Cocktail prawns tasted fresh and sweet, and with the sour cocktail sauce, made for a wonderful combination.

For our main course, we decided on a Seafood Paella for me and Angel Hair pasta for my friend. For wine, I got myself a 2009 Le Crema and my friend got himself a 2009 Robert Talbott “Logan”. Both were white wine and were perfectly suited for seafood dining.

Seafood Paella came with a diverse combination of tasty sea animals including mussels, clams, prawns and salmon. Underneath all that is a hearty mix of Dungeness crab meat, chicken and chorizo, all of which were slow cooked with saffron infused rice. The seafood tasted fresh and sweet, and worked well with the perfectly cooked fine rice. The rice was tinier than regular ones, providing an interesting texture as I worked on it in my mouth.

My friend’s pasta was a combination of Bay scallops and shrimps pan-seared with slivered garlic, Roma tomatoes, virgin olive oil, and basil tossed with angel hair. In his words, “it tastes fresh and the garlic was perfectly cooked.”

As night fell, the tungsten light bulbs lit up and made for a warming, wonderful atmosphere. The light refracted from the wine glass made for an interesting play on the wine’s color and the heater’s light. The night was made the more perfect with a full moon in the night sky.

For our dessert, we ordered a Coffee Gelato. The gelato was well made, softer than a regular ice-cream, not overly cooled, and melted in just the right way in my mouth. The coffee taste and smell were sweet and bitter, punctuated by the occasional blend of chocolate. Rubbing the gelato on the decorative peppermint leaf gave it a nice added touch of minty fresh flavor.

It was overall a satisfying gastronomical experience. As we waited for the receipt I played with the restaurant cat. We fist bumped (my finger and its paw) a few times. It’s a cool cat really.

The soup, the prawns cocktail, the Seafood Paella, Angel Hair, and Coffee Gelato should set you back $4.95 USD, $14.95 USD, $26.95 USD, $19.95 USD, $6.95 USD respectively. The wines are $9.75 a glass each. By the way, we didn’t really get to see a nice sun set (it set at approximately 8:03pm today), as the clouds were hovering near the horizon.