Rainier Restaurant and BBQ - review

 So last night, my family and I decided to eat at the Rainier Restaurant and BBQ located on MLK in the Seattle area.

Not gonna lie, we mainly tried it because it was recently featured on Anthony Bourdain's: The Layover TV show on the Travel Channel.

 

There menu is kind of hard to follow for newbies..soo if you have Vietnamese friends that know their food or family members...you should consider taking them with you to help you out!

 

 

The first thing we tried was the Ong Choy salad. I saw Anthony Bourdain eat this on the show, so my dad wanted to try it too. It cost a lot more than I thought it would for the large size ($18.95) so if you wanted to try it, I suggest getting the small. I know it cost a lot more because of the hand work that goes into this dish. All the Ong Choy (a type of chinese green) is hand shredded. Overall it was a tasty dish, with the salad dressing which was sweet and had a peanuty flavor. The beef on top was also nice and tender and went well with the greens.

upclose picture of the salad

 

The next dish we had was another appetizer sort of dish. It was a fried onion, fried garlic, friend lemon grass and baby clam dish with a puffed up black sesame tapioca crisp type of cracker. This wasn't from the show and I ordered it because I saw the word baby clams. It was a lot different than I thought it would be but it tasted pretty good. It actually went well with rice too. Its a bit on the drier side so if you were looking for a saucier dish, this isn't it.

 

upclose of the baby clam dish.

 

Next to come out is the friend quails. Now this dish was very bland in my opinion and I have indeed had way better flavored tasting quail than here. I can see people who do not like the gamey aspect of quail to enjoy this with the lemon and sour salt mixture. But I don't really recommend this one either.

 

 

 This dish however I do recommend! This was also featured on the show I believe. I love the Vietnamese Sweet/Hot/Sour soups and usually try them at every Vietnamese restaurant that has this. Most of them usually only have cat fish and its usually in steaks so it gets a bit annoying to eat because the bones are in the way. However, this one had strips of catfish and other seafood as well such as shrimp, squid, clams and fish balls. They had the basic vegetables and fruit such as the spongey taro stem (I think thats what it is called), okra, bean sprouts, pineapple and some other ingredients.

  

upclose picture.

I will say it was a little sweeter than I have been used to but I don't really mind it. If you're into sweet and sour soups, definietly check this out.

 

 

Now for the last dish, my mom kind of ordered it on a whim and was thinking it would be something else. We knew we were getting fish, but not a whole deep fried Pompano with no sauce added on. It came with a fish sauce you're supposed to dip it in.

 

 

 

I have to say it was probably the most disappointing dish. I ate the head part but it was a little too dried out for me. The fish is also not seasoned or marinated so it was very bland. I didn't really feel like fish sauce so I dipped some in my soup.

 

 

Overall, the place was okay, and we probably have to try some other dishes or go with my aunt who speaks Vietnamese and knows what to order.

Our price too was a little more than I expected, especially for a Vietnamese restaurant. Including tax and tip our bill for 4 people was $100 and that is usually way more when it comes to this kind of food. It was the deep fried fish and large Ong Choy Salad ($18.95 each) that put us over the usual cost.

 

I will say that I will go again to try some other dishes, but I'm in no rush to go that soon. 

Healthy Eating: Avacado and Goat Cheese Sandwhich

 

Despite my many junkfood/candy posts, I do eat pretty healthy.

 

Just wanted to share this healthy sandwhich that not only tastes good, but is good for you and fills you up!

 

 

Taking two slices of Dave's Killer Bread (which is much healthier than plain white bread and even wheat bread since it has seeds, whole grains, spelt and sprouted wheat) , spread one side of it with some hummus and spread the other side with some pecan butter. Add two slices of lettuce to it (romain lettuce hearts tastes the best, in my opinion, because they have a slight sweetness to them).

Then add half an avocado to it, sliced, or mashed, however you like, and sprinkle some fresh cracked sea salt and pepper on top of it. Then add some sliced up goat cheese (in a monteray jack or cheddar form) and add some alfalfa sprouts (it may be hard to find some alfalfa sprouts in grocery stores now, so I had to use home grown ones..its really simple and takes no time!).

 

After that, cut in half and enjoy with a healthy beverage! (I decided on Zico's coconut water since I didn't have an actual young coconut).

 

 

Myung-Dong Soft Tofu House-Korean Restaurant

Today's restaurant review is on this Korea Tofu House located in the U-district of Seattle.

 

 

 

Located right on the side of 'The Ave' (what most UW and Seattlites call it)aka. University Avenue, it is a small Korean restaurant at the bottom of some stairs off a side street (Brooklyn).

 

 

sorry i couldn't rotate this picture for some reason

One of my favorite parts of eating at a Korean restaurant is the Banchan, or small appetizer dishes. (sorry if that's not 100% correct). We had Nappa Cabbage kimchee, this sweet soy potatoe dish, the korean pancake, seasoned mung bean sprouts, and seasoned fish cake. The potatoe one was my favorite.

 

Then my friend and I shared a Dokbokki to Toppokki ,i'm not sure on the romanization for this one either! I thought it was one of the better ones i've had but just wished it had the fishcake in it. My friend said it still doesn't compare to her favorite one she had where it had spam and cheese and all this other good stuff.

  

For my main entree, I had the mixed tofu soup which had the soft tofu, seafood of shrimp and clams, and beef. The waitress also cracked a raw egg over it while it was sizzling hot, which is one of my favorite parts.

 

They didn't ask for how spicy I wanted it to be so I was a bit scared at first that it would be too spicy. But it surprisingly wasn't and was very tasty. It is a little bit on the saltier side so for me it is a must mixing the soup with rice.

 

This was my second time here and I would probably come again if I am craving for Korean food and i'm in the area. The pricing is reasonable, but the only down side is one of the older Korean ladies that works there. Not sure if she was having a bad day, but she had a lot of attitude and it would be funny watching her and her facial expressions to.

 

The service is fast, don't get me wrong, but if you don't mind their shifty attitude, then you should check this place out anyways for the food.

Henry's Taiwan Restaurant-Chinatown, Seattle

Last week, I went with my parent's to eat at this Taiwanese restaurant located in Chinatown in Seattle, WA. Now first off, there are two restaurants that go by the same name, (same owner), on the same street, and you want to go to this one (closer to the Chinatown gate/king station side). 

They offer some more things than their other place

For appetizers, we started with an oyster egg fry (omelet type thing) and stinky tofu (popular in Hong  Kong and Taiwan). The oyster egg fry was a lot different than I expected. I was waiting for a yellow regular egg omelet you might find at say, an American breakfast place, but was a layer of oyster, spinach, fried egg, with this crunchy light pastry yet gooey batter on top. I actually liked this a lot, and the sauce that went with it matched well. It wasn't spicy like I thought it'd be due to the color, but was on the sweeter side.

Now the 'Stinky tofu' or chou dofu in Chinese, was not bad for being a stinky food. There isn't an overpowering scent, unlike if you're in Hong Kong and you can smell it a couple blocks away and you think you're smelling the sewage. lolz. The stank is more prominent when you actually bite into it, but it tastes very good. The sweet glaze that is drizzled over it complimented the sharp bite of the tofu, so did the pickled cabbage.

Now for my main course, I had knife cut noodles in a red braised beef broth along with baby bok choy or shanghai bok choy, onions, pickled cabbage, and cilantro. I kind of wished the broth was a little more flavorful, not to say that it wasn't, but it was a little clear for my liking. But this probably means there was no added flavor enhancers like MSG (monosodium glutimate, aji no moto) to it so it probably overall was healthier for me. The beef was nice and tender and flavor loaded . The hand shaven noodles were also nice and firm, an al dente like texture. I was able to finish this all and didn't feel overly stuffed.

The pricing is reasonable, with the two appetizers, my noodle dish and my parents food courses, it was around $40 with tax and tip included, so i'd say around $6 to $8 dollars per dish.

Chinese New Year--Foodness!

In honor of yesterday being the start of Chinese New Year aka. Lunar New Year, aka the Year of the Snake--Black Serpent to be classically exact..I wanted to post the picture of food from my family's early celebration Saturday night.

We started off with Veggie wraps, the center is a mixed up concoction of carrots, mushroom, pork, oysters, onions and a whole lot of other things together. To the left is a piece of BBQ'd flank steak-my dad's specialty is bbq--and then we had a smoked pork shoulder to the right.

up close picture of the filling for the veggie wrap..i know this took a lot of work for my mom, those pieces are tiny!

Then the main attraction was our family style hot pot! So healthy but soo good!

We had a mixture of all sorts of good food: udon noodles, sha ho fun (rice noodles), sukiyaki beef, sliced side pork, tofu, a variety of mushrooms--shitake, enoki, maitake, etc--nappa cabbage, shingiku (chrysanthemum leaves), pea vines, watercress, whole shrimp, oysters, rockfish, chicken, fish balls, shiritake noodles, and I think that's it? Everything, for the most part was raw, and we cooked it in the soup and it just made the broth taste so much better.

picture of family enjoying themselves

more food enjoyment

Thanks for letting me share!

And Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! =P