Food: Ros Ni Yom Review II [Delivery]

Edit: Read my latest review of this restaurant here.
Read my third review of this restaurant here.
Read my first review of this restaurant here.

Restaurant: Ros Yi Nom, CA, Livermore

Delivery service used: The restaurant’s own (free over $30)
Date ordered: 9th May, 2020

Dishes ordered:

  1. Chicken Satay – $10.00 – 9.8/10
  2. Pad See Ew Chicken – $12.50 – 9/10
  3. Khao Pad Gai Tod – $13.00 – 9.5/10

See my review of the first 2 dishes in my previous review of this restaurant here. Yes, I did indeed order this the second I finished my review of the restaurant. Let that say something about my feelings for this place and those dishes lol.

Flavour: The Khao Pad Gai Tod was lush. That chicken… so succulent, so juicy, so perfectly crispy on the outside and so wonderfully soft on the inside… No wonder it’s a chef special. The fried rice complemented it well, though I found it mildly on the greasy side.

The description on the website says, “Deep fried boneless chicken over fried rice with egg, garlic white onion and tomatoes. Topped with cilantro and cucumber and served with sweet and sour sauce.” However, I did not find any sweet and sour sauce in our delivery bag or in the box, so perhaps they forgot to give that to us. (The sauce pictured belonged to the chicken satay.)

The tomatoes are actually a couple of thin slices of tomato placed between the chicken and the rice, presumably to stop the chicken from getting soggy sitting on the rice. I’m guessing they put the slices in there raw, and it then absorbs heat from the chicken so by the time it arrives at your door, it’s nice and soft while the chicken remains crispy. Smart.

Needless to say, the fried rice part consisted of rice fried with egg, garlic, white onions and scallions. There were no tomatoes mixed in the fried rice, thankfully.

Read More

Food: Caraway Indian Cuisine Review [Delivery]

Restaurant: Caraway Indian Cuisine, Livermore

Delivery service used: DoorDash
Date ordered: 8th May, 2020

Dishes ordered:

  1. Butter Chicken – $10.99 – 9/10
  2. Navratilova Korma (9 vegetables cooked in creamy onion sauce) – $9.99 – 9.5/10
  3. Goat Biryani – $10.99 – 9/10
  4. Garlic Naan – $3.99 – 9/10
  5. Bonus yoghurt/minty thing – free – 6/10

As you can see, the photo was from taken from half way through. I was pretty much stuffed by this point, Jacky continued to eat a bit more haha.

Portion sizes: substantial! They really pack as much curry as they can fit into the container. The biryani came in a larger plastic tub. It’s definitely enough for 3-4 people… or 2 with very large appetites.

Flavour: yum!!!! Both of the curries were so full of flavour, creamy, cooked well. The chicken was tender and the veggies were soft (as I like them).

The goat biryani was dry, but we were going for that as the carb to eat with our curries. The goat meat was seasoned well and some pieces were so tender they fell apart on my fork when I tried to spoon it out.

I was particularly impressed that the garlic naan actually had a strong but not overpowering taste of garlic (my pet peeve is getting garlic naan where the garlic has clearly just been thrown on, and the rest of the bread does not have a hint of garlic taste). I loved getting a mouthful of the coriander to balance the richness of all the other dishes as well.

I think the yoghurt sauce is also there to cut through any potential heaviness or grease. I personally am not a fan of American dairy yoghurt but even so, I didn’t hate this one; it tasted refreshing and had more of a liquid consistency, but I didn’t have much because I did not find either curry too creamy or heavy. I’m not going to count that towards my overall rating because it was a bonus extra rather than something we ordered. Can’t knock free.

Read More

Food: Ros Ni Yom Review [Delivery]

Edit: Read my latest review of this restaurant here.
Read my third review of this restaurant here.
Read my second review of this restaurant here.

Restaurant: Ros Yi Nom, CA, Livermore

Delivery service used: DoorDash
Date ordered: 4th May, 2020

Dishes ordered:

  1. Chicken Satay – $10.00 – 9.8/10
  2. Pad See Ew Chicken – $12.50 – 9/10
  3. Pad Thai Beef – $11.95 – 6.5/10

Portion sizes: Very good! The mains lasted Jacky 2 meals and lasted me 3 (though I was trying to eat smaller portions in general).

Flavour: Let’s talk about that chicken satay. We were craving chicken satay and honestly I was a little overwhelmed by the number of restaurants offering chicken satay on DoorDash, with varying prices and no information about portion size.

I then checked on Yelp and this was the first Thai restaurant with a full 5 stars and a bunch of reviews, the first of which was praising its chicken satay as the best she’d ever had and that was enough to pique my interest.

The prices were reasonable, though I considered $10 for 4 skewers a little steep, but the hope was that the taste would be worth it. And oh boy, was it worth it!

Juicy, succulent, tender chicken – seasoned perfectly with a mild spice rub, accompanied by nutty, creamy, sweet with the perfect amount of tang satay sauce. This is the mother of all chicken satays, I’m telling you. When I think of chicken satay, that sauce is exactly how I’d imagine it to taste.

It also comes with a mini sweet/pickled cucumber, sweet pepper and red onion salad. This flavour combo was a pleasant surprise and I really enjoyed it.

Jacky immediately suggested we just go back for more chicken satay hahaha. And, to be honest, while the size of those skewers is substantial, I have to admit I still find $10 + tax & tip & delivery fee for 4 skewers a bit difficult to swallow.

I suppose it’s a good thing they aren’t any more affordable otherwise Jacky and I would really be eating them daily. Anyway, after singing allll those praises, why isn’t it a 10/10? I suppose I’m leaving the 0.2 for when we finally visit Thailand one day and I find the same dish except this time I’m sitting on a sandy beach sipping something cool instead of being locked up indoors heh heh heh. A girl can dream, right?

Read More

Sake no Hana

My food adventure through London-town was almost over, but I had one final stop that I had been seriously looking forward to for weeks already. As soon as my friend posted a list of top places to eat sushi in London (yes, she works for BuzzFeed and has a blue tick on Twitter and real followers on Facebook – #claimtofame), I insisted we go to the one that instantly caught my eye: Sake no Hana.

The Japanese sister to its Cantonese counterpart, Hakkasan, which ended up being my favourite dim sum place in London (I had previously blogged about this but the post was among those lost by Servage), Sake no Hana also comes with a set menu that is terrific value for money. I was dead excited to try it.

This one, I had been determined to blog about properly.

sakenohana-london Read More

Food, Glorious Food

At one point, the tagline for my site was “this is not a food blog, but most of it is about food”. I think at one point, I might give up on pretending it’s not a food blog and just turn it into one. Until then, I will continue to stubbornly insist it’s simply a personal blog because sometimes I buy expensive shoes and write about them.

Still, everyone’s talking about Halloween and here I am posting about food. Really, I haven’t changed, lol! Ah well, I can’t help it if I just so happen to eat a lot and thoroughly enjoy doing it.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” – Virginia Woolf. I guess I need some other excuse because lately I have dined embarrassingly well.

Back in July, I went back to the UK on a half-business, half-personal trip. The primary purpose was to spend time back at our London HQ office for a week, but I was able to extend my stay, giving me more time to get to know new colleagues but also visit my family and attend a friend’s wedding.

I spent about 2 weeks in London in total, during which time I more or less met up with different friends every day (night). When catching up after work, there is only one rightful place to do it: over dinner. Sorry for the terrible photo quality in some of these; I only had my iPhone 5S and was much more excited about the idea of stuffing food into my stomach than photographing it to perfection #glutton #fat #sorrynotsorry.

quovadis-london Read More