BBQ Kalbi Korean Fusion Food

Ever since watching the Great Food Truck Race on Food Network, I've had a craving for good food truck eats.  Outside of NYC - where you find some of the best food trucks, we've found our own favorite here in the Bay Area called BBQ Kalbi.  Every Thursday and Friday from 6:30pm to 9:00pm, the BBQ Kalbi truck can be found at Dana and Hope in downtown Mountain View serving up Korean Fusion tacos and burritos.


We've probably tried the food here several times in the last few months and every time it's been a great experience. We've tried a few variations of the burritos and the tacos and have settled in on the regular burrito with a choice of meat or the kimchee fried rice burrito with choice of meat.  Can't go wrong with these as the blend of the flavors from the meat, rice and other fillings all blend perfectly.  Personally I'm a big fan of Korean and Mexican food so when the two are fused together, I'm in double food heaven.

As you can see the overall menu is pretty simple with various choices of meats to go with your Korean fusion taco or burrito and the prices are definitely affordable:

Here are the details if you're interested in trying something new for dinner on a Thursday or Friday nigh then BBQ Kalbi is a great choice:

Location: Corner of Dana and Hope in Mountain View
Hours: 6:30pm to 9:00pm
Website: http://bbqkalbi.com/

Dim Sum Hong Kong Saigon Sunnyvale

Today felt like a good day to have dim sum - it's Thursday so only one more day left in the work week and it's 80 degrees in the Bay Area.  Based off location, the best place to have dim sum if you're working in the Mountain View/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara area is Hong Kong Saigon in Sunnyvale.

We got really lucky and got a seat at 11:30am as this place becomes a madhouse around noon with dozens of people waiting outside.  The wait time can be as much as an hour which easily makes it a 2 hour lunch.  Not a good idea especially on a work day!

We ordered our usual for dim sum - shrimp & pork siu mai, deep fried taro & meat dumpling, beef rice noodle roll, stick rice in lotus leaf and pan fried daikon cake.  These are pretty much staples at any dim sum place and they make them here.  However if I had a choice, we would go to Mayflower at the Great Mall in Milpitas or Hong Kong Lounge in San Francisco for dim sum.  However on a work day, you go with what's close by and this is as good as it gets.

It's worth mentioning that Hong Kong Saigon does offer the taro bun which used to be available on weekends but we saw them on this Thursday morning.  We were shocked because when they were available only on weekends, it was very exclusive as they would only make a dozen every hour.  Once the server comes out of the kitchen he/she is rushed by 20-30 people and if you don't move fast you won't get a chance to try the taro bun.  However, it looks like the taro bun is available on weekdays now but the server was rushed by 10 to 15 people and they were gone within minutes.

Lunch buffet at Xanh

If you work in Silicon Valley, the Xanh lunch buffet is a must try. For 12 bucks, many of the popular items from their dinner menu are available for you to try during lunch. These items include:

Catfish in a claypot
Kobe roll
Papaya salad
Spicy curry chicken
Pineapple beef short ribs
Garlic noodles

I think you get the picture, there's about 25 - 30 different items to choose from and it's very much worth the $12.

Here's a picture of my first plate - it looks a bit messy but it was very tasty.  What you're looking is popcorn chicken, pineapple beef short rib, green beans, kobe beef roll and garlic noodles:

Red Robin Rivermark Santa Clara

We were craving burgers on a Saturday afternoon and decided that Red Robin was the place to go.  I know there's probably better local burger places but we love the burgers here at Red Robin.  They have about 15 specialty burgers here and have probably tried about 80% of them by now.  Yesterday we had the:

Prime Chopped House Burger - this has steak sauce, a dijon mustard spread, mushrooms and fried onion straws.  Definitely in the 1,000 calorie burger club

Gourmet Cheeseburger - comes with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, mayo and your choice of Cheddar, American, Swiss, Bleu, Provolone or Pepper-Jack cheese.

Throw in the bottomless steak fries and this is one hefty and tasty meal!

Town in San Carlos

We came to Town in San Carlos today for brunch today mainly due to a 20% coupon that we got when we had our Valentine's Day's dinner here.  The food was great during Valentine's Day so it was a no brainer to come back here and brunch didn't disappoint either.  First thing to note about their brunch menu is that there's just too many tasty items to choose from - there's fried chicken and waffles, loco moco, crab cake benedict, ultimate breakfast sandwich, cookie dough waffles, etc.  I think you get the idea, there's just so much yummy food to choose from that it's difficult.  After much deliberation, our party decided on:

2 Fried Chicken and Waffles - these were delicious.  The chicken was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.  It came with a black pepper gravy although it wasn't needed as the chicken was already seasoned.  The waffles were malted waffles so they were very sweet.  Also came with a maple-brandy syrup and butter on the side which weren't needed either as the waffle was so good just as is.  I know all of you are now wondering what it looked like so here it is:

Crab cake benedict - this was the most expensive item we ordered.  Although I liked it, after trying the chicken and waffle I wasn't as excited about this anymore.  However, for what it's worth this is a good crab cake benedict:

JC's Loco Moco -this is their version of a Hawaiian favorite

Mac and cheese from the kid's menu:

We'll definitely come back to try brunch and dinner again.  Just looking at these pictures is making me hungry again!