Girl's Night at New KrungThai - San Jose

My favorite Thai restaurant in San Jose, or anywhere, is Krung Thai. There are two Krung Thai restaurants down the same street and rumor has it that the owners divorced and the wife opened New Krung Thai down the street. I've eaten at both plenty of times. I've taken a bunch of food pictures here. Why haven't I posted them? The lighting is often so dim in the dining area that none of my pictures have been usable. I've also always forgotten my camera and had to rely on my poor phone camera. Anyway, in digging through my old pictures, I found some usable pictures of a girl's night at Krung Thai with my classmates. Please enjoy.

$12.95 for a large, Tom Kha Gai - Lemon grass coconut soup.Creamy coconut flavor with tangy and spicy seasoning. The best part is the mushroom. The large served 6 with extra for me! yay.

Some of our spread, minus the crab noodles and pad thai. The first two dishes will be discussed shortly but I want to focus on the yellow chicken curry. $10.95 - Gaeng ga ree. I loved the mild yellow curry flavor on top of rice and as always the chicken is really tender.

$9.95 - I forgot so I'm guessing this is the Jan Pad Phoo, Thai rice stick noodles with crab meat, eggs, and chili. Very delicious. My absolute favorite is still the classic pad thai.

 

 $13.95 - Goong Gra Tiem , again also guessing the name but I think this is the crispy fried prawns with crispy onion and garlic topping. I've eaten so many times and tried so many things at Krung Thai and yet this baby slipped under the radar...until now. My classmate introduced this to me for the first time and I am definitely going back for more. The best best best part is the crispy onion topping. I started putting that on the noodles and basically everything. It adds so much flavor.

$17.95 - Garm Phoo Mor-Din, crab claws in clay pot with cellophane noodles. This was also my first time trying this dish. It is much lighter in your stomach than the other heavier foods. Also delicious. So I pretty much loved everything, as I always have. Hooray for the favorite Thai restaurant still being the favorite!

Sweet sticky rice with mango, no price because it varies by season. A few Asian countries have this as a dessert, and I've tried different variations. All are wonderful, including this one. Of course Krung Thai has good presentation points because of that orchid. =D

$4.95 - Fried banana and ice cream. We chose vanilla ice cream but you can choose coconut or mango ice cream instead. LOVED THIS! How can you go wrong with ice cream and something fried?

Afterwards we hopped across the street for some drinks and dancing at Rosie McCann's. Girl's night out fun!!!

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

I love Krung Thai, and I still love it. I love Thai food in general. Maybe I should go somewhere with this type of tropical food for my honeymoon. yummy...traveling for food. I hope that if you ever try Krung Thai, either old or new, you will like it just as much as I do.

New Krung Thai on Yelp

Teske's Germania Restaurant & Beer Garden - San Jose

Kind of a cute little fellow isn't he?

How about his friend with the broken nose? 

The other week, Phil and I had the pleasure of trying German food for the first time. Well first time if you don't count the polish dog with sauerkraut I had on campus one time. That's hardly considered authentic German though. My classmates were celebrating the end of our quarter with a big dinner and beer fest at Teske's Germania in downtown San Jose.

Everyone and their sigs took up the large banquet table in the dining hall. When you enter Teske's you pass through a dimly lit bar with wooden floors which reminds me of an Irish pub. Patrons are casually dressed and it looks like they come there for a few drinks and sports games. Few steps later, you enter the dining area and it's a roomy dining hall with stuffed animals of the non-fluffy variety on the wall.

Look, I even found a German drinking German beer. SO AUTHENTIC!

The beers were really good from what I sampled. I've grown quite fond of beers ever since we hosted our beer tasting and from this selection of German beers, I was very impressed.

Regardless of what entree you ordered, everyone was served with a creamy potato soup. Pretty good except for it being too salty. Had great potential.

The salad was rather lackluster with a barely noticeable dressing and some pickled cabbage on top.

We had also ordered appetizers to pass around. First around were fries and onion bread. The fries were good.

Then came this mushy on the inside, crispy on the outside potato cake-thing with apple sauce topping. LOVED IT! It was sweet and crispy fun.

LOVES IT with a cheesey smile. (this was the onion bread though).

($19) Wurst Platte - Polish sausage and bratwurst with sauerkraut and potato salad. The polish sausage which is darker was made of pork and the lighter bratwurst was made of veal (*tear drops for baby cows*). Overall I thought the dish was ok. The sausages were super good, especially the polish sausage. The sauerkraut was not that good, too sour and even the potato salad was sour. I was just not used to these sides. But man that polish sausage was good.

($23) hah for once, Phil's plate costs more than mine. He got what was nicknamed the "breakfast, lunch, and dinner plate" which is the Holsteiner Schnitzel. A couple people had food envy when the waitress described his plate. It contains a breaded pork cutlet with fried eggs, anchovy, capers, fried potatoes, and fresh seasonal veggies. I found the pork cutlet to be too dry but he enjoyed it. Everything else was very delicious. Now the fresh seasonal veggies, I'd have to dispute that. Did pickled red cabbage = fresh or the cooked peppers on the side?

The meal ends with one of the best apple strudels I've ever had. The crust was just so flakey and chewy. mmm so good

The boys say bye!

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

 Teske's is a really great place for large parties. Per entree, the price is somewhat high but then I realize you get soup, salad, and dessert with each entree so the price is very fair. We walked away stuffed. Some items were a miss for me, some were a hit, some were just bland but overall the experience was good. The beers alone are definitely worth a visit to Teske's, even if you just sit at the bar.

Teske's on Yelp

Orenchi Ramen - Santa Clara

IN HONOR OF JAPAN  

Remember my notorious hatred for ramen and my never ending quest to find a bowl of ramen that would change my mind? and no, it was not just that bad bowl of street fair ramen that spurned me, it was also this lackluster bowl from Japantown, and at least one more from a popular place in LA that have all disappointed me. I have a stubborn tendency to refuse to accept that there are foods I just don't like. So despite not liking them, I keep eating them at various eateries hoping that one day I will understand what others see in the dish. Search no more as I have now found life changing ramen at Orenchi in Santa Clara. My friends recommended this to me and I went with them once before but I returned to introduce Phil to it. The wait was over 1 hour long and I hear this is standard.

 Once seated, I ordered the Orenchi Ramen with tonkotsu base with all you see above, and I added extra spinach for $1.

Phil also ordered the orenchi ramen but chose the omori (larger portion) for $1.50 extra. 

We observed the red powdered pepper and ground garlic or horse radish? seasonings while we waited. That white garlic or horse radish thing turned out to be so good when mixed in with the soup. Someone tell me what it is please.

Someone's a little tired and hungry because we spent an hour waiting in the lobby and we're starving by the time this photo was taken.

Finally our agedashi tofu appetizer came. I've only had agedashi tofu twice. This would rank in 2nd place but it is still very good. The portion was tiny for ~$5 though. Still loved it.

Forgot the price of this chicken karage. This is one of Phil's favorites and he ranks it as one of his top 3 chicken karages he has had in his entire life. I ranked it as number 1. The best chicken karage I've ever had. Bonus points because I don't really like chicken karage but it converted me. You always have to score higher for a conversion. 

ahh my ramen. my life changing ramen. so good. tonkotsu broth is the best. flavorful. brothy? I am really at a loss for words to describe broth. tee hee. The soft boiled egg is everyone's favorite because it's perfectly boiled with a soft white part but a runny yolk. There is a pork slice in there, some bamboo shoots, delicious soft noodles and my favorite, sliced wood ear mushrooms. That extra $1 for the spinach is so worth it. It gave an extra pop to my noodle. And also adding the red pepper and the white horse radish gave the broth a great kick.

 Phil only added the red pepper to his bowl but he seemed to like the kick it gave. Basic is good, I guess you don't need extra spinach if you're Mr. Boring....

 Orenchi is indeed life changing ramen. I went from having ramen maybe once every two years, to twice in one month. HIGHLY RECOMMEND! Totally worth the wait. Get the orenchi ramen with the tonkotsu broth but my friends have really enjoyed the shoyu also.

I am sure you are all aware of the crises in Japan. If you would like to help, you can donate to The American Red Cross, Unicef, or here is a helpful site for things you can do to help. Don't forget that the animals will need help too so please check out World Vets.

Orenchi Ramen on Yelp

Side Street Inn Personal Food Challenge

Hello all,

This is Phil, my bad in not posting for awhile, I've been really lazy, just watching all these stories about Charlie Sheen. Who would've thought that there would be someone crazier than Mel Gibson?

Anyways, I guess I have two more postings from Hawaii afterall....

We went to this restaurant called the Side Streeet Inn, based off of one of my friend's personal experience with this restaurant and his high recommendation.

Here's the beautiful sign....this is the only evidence that shows that this restaurant is real.

We were informed by our waiter and my friend that the portions were very generous and served "family style." When I think "family style," I like to think of it as a perfect portion for myself.....or at least that's what I used to think. Everyone split plates amongst themselves, I ended up ordering the special fried rice, which is the kim chee fried rice and chinese sausage fried rice mixed together.

This plate is awesome. For $14 or $15 bucks, totally worth the money. The kim chee added a nice kick to each bite and the chinese sausage reminded me of chinese sausage. Green onions, carrots, and peas round out the remainder of the plate. This picture shows just how large this plate was. I purposely ate the rice at an angle for this picture.

So now here's my own lil commentary here......at the halfway point, I'm thinking I'm done, I'm at a nice comfortable level with what I ate and I can just box everything up. Then the waiter comes by, makes some type of commentary sorta like "wow, I can't believe your eating all that," and then my dumbass says something like "I want a high five if I finish this plate..." So now he's hyped up, which pressures me to continue and now I've mistakenly put myself in a dilemna......Do I power through this and finish this plate for my own pride or do I box it up and eat it back at the hotel later like a wuss?

I made my first big boy decision.................

The End

One funny tidbit, after I finished the plate, we all heard the waiter walk into the kitchen and yell to the cooks "he finished it!" That was pretty hilarious. I told him that he can't advertise these dishes as family style anymore.