Bowl'd

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Bowl'd is the buzzy new Korean restaurant near Santa Fe we've been hearing about and anxious to try.

(Aside: still not clear whether or not Shik Do Rok is out of business now or simply remodeling.)

We went, just (again) Lady Steed, and Little Lord Steed and I. First, the place is expensive. Not for a restaurant, really, but compared to how expensive my soul believes Korean food should be. The idea of paying twelve bucks for kimchi chigae is highly unsettling.

On the other hand, this was genuinely fabulous kimchi chigae. I loved it. It was delicious, served at just the right temperature (still boiling), and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I had it with beef, but you could get it with pork or no meat at all.

Lady Steed had a bibimbop (basically, tons of tasty ingredients in a hot bowl that cooks them up as you stir) and enjoyed it plenty. I had a taste and I'm glad I didn't order it. Bibimpops are great and all --- I often recommend them to Korean-food neophytes --- but there's something about them that makes me sick of them after about three bites. I don't know what it is. But there's so much else Korean food that I love that I just don't think about it anymore.

For LLS, we got some japchae, those clear noodles that are probably the single easiest Korean food for an American to love. He enjoyed it, but didn't really eat much. 'Tsokay. More for me and the lady.

One last note: the barley tea. Just as it should be. Although I should really ask if they keep any at room temperature or chilled because I always wait for it to cool anyway and I hate waiting.

In the end, Bowl'd is, as rumored, excellent Korean food. If it cost about 20% less I would want to go there all the time. As it is, once you add in the tip, this meal cost us over forty bucks which is too much for poor us. A shame. Because I'm anxious to return.

Sandwiches and yogurt: Zarri's Delicatessen Kim's Cafe Solano Yogurt & Ice Cream

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Zarri's

Little Lord Steed and I took a long walk today and not long after we started I realized that I hadn't had breakfast and now it was lunch time. So we stopped at Zarri's which is supposed to have Solano's best sandwiches.

Instead of ordering off the regular menu I ordered today's special, a tri-tip sandwich for $5.50. On the man-behind-the-counter's recommendation I took it on sourdough and it was delicious if not transcendent. But eating it reminded me that I had had their poor boy before when my boss bought me one. That also was good but not transcendent. In both cases, however, the sandwiches left me with the belief that transcendence is possible from this place. I'm all for ordering more sandwiches from Zarri's.

Also, the deli's just cool. And their prices on sliced meats and cheeses are reasonable, so one could certainly order their make-at-home sandwich fixins at Zarri's as well.

Cash, debit, or local check only.


Kim's

For dinner, Lady Steed, Little Lord Steed and I decided to hit up Kim's Cafe, which I think is the newest restaurant on Solano (Patch article). Lynsey was excited about having Vietnamese sandwiches as This American Life just replayed their episode that talks about them on Saturday.

We arrived about ten or fifteen minutes before they closed. The place was empty but charming and the woman who runs it was supernice. She warned us against ordering one of the sandwiches (she's about to replace it with something better) and gave Little Lord Steed a free length of baguette (the same length as the sandwiches ordered by the grownups) with their "homemade butter".

Lady Steed ordered the Lemongrass Chicken and I the Black Pepper Pork. Both were great. Both came with green onions and (pickled?) shredded carrot and cilantro and some pepper (Lady Steed says jalapeno; I don't think it was hot enough to be that) and were terrific and crazy cheap (at least compared to Zarri's). We spent $7 total (another nice thing: the tax is built into the price).

We'll definitely go here again. The price-to-fun-and-flavor ratio is unbeatable. Check it out. We need to keep this family in business. Best customer service I can recall in ages. I mean --- a free sandwich for the baby? That's crazy!

. . . and yogurt

I think we've never been here before simply because the signage is so forgettable. Apparently it's an old neighborhood standby, but I've barely been aware of it.

We walked here after eating our Kim's sandwiches in front of Flowerland (LLS though, instead of eating, threw his tennis ball around and generally laughed himself silly until his ball rolled under their closed gate and disappeared from view) and the service here was just as friendly and likable as Kim's, even if they didn't give us any free food. We came with the specific plan to eat yogurt and she let us try the most interesting sounding flavors (Valencia Orange and White Chocolate & Macademia), both of which were sugarfree. (Note that all the yogurt is softserv and all the ice cream is in barrels.) The WC&M was terrific and so we got a medium cup for the three of us to share and we were plenty satisfied.

Like Kim's, the tastiness is cheaper here than at its Solano competition.

Nature's Express

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We took the boys here today for some vegan fare and I'm happy to say that we enjoyed our food quite a bit. And given the nature of eating out with our kids, everyone got to try everything. I ordered a burger (Southwest / Spicy Black Bean / / Whole Wheat). Delicious. The patty lost its form as I ate and started to squish out the sides, but that was okay. Would've been perfectly okay had I not been sharing with people too young to adapt to shape-shifting food.

Lynsey got the quinoa wrap which tasted like fresh air. (Why is it that ginger has that effect?) The quinoa was just right and the veggies perfect and the whole effect was on spot. The Big O and Large S both said they want this next time we come. (And mine the time after that.)

The Big O ordered the Spicy Rizo burrito which was spicier than expected (which meant Large S didn't eat much of it) but O said his mouth got used to it as he ate and that it was delicious.

Large S ate the Grilled Mac & Cheese which was a good example of restaurant mac and cheese. S was particularly taken with the shredded carrots on top.

We also ordered the Air-Baked Sweet Potato Fries which were the only thing Little Lord Steed even touched. They were good. I suppose the better examples I've had were probably fried. The house ketchup tastes like fresh tomatoes. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

So good vegan cuisine. Check it out. We all enjoyed our food.

(Note: Because the boys were with us we didn't try out any of their exotic sodas, but I hope to sometime. I can't believe I've never had a rhubarb soda before!)

Kathmandu Restaurant

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Something about this restaurant's awning has always caught my eye. Not sure what. It's just black and white. But it's still taken us this long to get to it.

=====================DIGRESSION===============

We're experiencing a bit of Solano fatigue. If you eat out as much as most Americans and you see, by looking over this blog, how rarely we eat out, this might amaze you. But it's true. Part of the issue is we don't like to feed our kids at restaurant prices so we generally go when the older two are visiting grandparents. But that still leaves us with the baby and come dinner time, not too many places we want to take that guy.

Solano does still have some places we're anxious to try, but when will we go? Keep in mind, we've never paid for babysitting in almost eight years of parenting. We're not good at this going-out stuff.

And so we have to do takeout which mostly means, if we're going somewhere new, Asian. And while, sure, Thai and Chinese and Nepalese and Vietnamese and Japanese foods are distinct and certainly not identical, they do have certain similarities and we are, as stated, experiencing fatigue.

Just, you know, in the interests of full disclosure. Back to Kathmandu.

=================END=DIGRESSION===============

Reading the reviews on the wall as I waited for our order, I think we might have been best off just ordering a plethora of appetizers. But I guess we'll never know now.

We bought two entrees:

Luksha Shamdeh:

Tibetan style lamb curry; lamb marinated in yogurt and spices cooked with potatoes & herbs.

Kathmandu Specialty:

Thick curry of nineteen varieties of beans cooked in fresh tomato, cilantro, ginger, garlic, and green onions.

Sounds great! And it was all well made, textures were good. Flavors were a bit bland. And, you'll be surprised to hear this having read the description, the two dishes were pretty similar in taste. Weird, right? But true. The flavors lacked strength, interest, personality. And all we really want when we check out a new nation's cuisine is a surprising new mix of flavors. Kathmandu did not deliver on this point.

The place was nice and I would recommend eating in. The couple that runs the place were clearly kind and good people. Just, before you order, ask them what on the menu will offer a surprise. Then order that.

(menu; believe the prices are out-of-date)

Little Star Pizza

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It's actually been about a month since we visited Little Star so this review may be a bit imprecise. In brief, we had a Groupon so our goal was to hit a certain dollar amount as closely as possible. We ordered two personal pizzas and garlic bread. Let's talk about the garlic bread first while Lady Steed runs off to see if she remembers where she put the just-recovered receipt.

Garlic bread

Surprisingly boring. The plating was great. Bread sliced through to the bottom crust (maybe a third of a loaf or half of a small loaf) and then near-liquid butter and a head of roasted garlic. So it was fun to take a knife and spread the butter and pop out the garlic cloves and spread them over the toasted bread, but, sadly, the overall taste effect was disappointing. Sounds great though, right? Order it and you'll see it and think delicious (I did; Lady Steed was more appalled by the amount of bread). But we almost didn't finish. If the pizza had come out quicker, we wouldn't have. Lady Steed stopped eating it well before I did.

And we're bigtime garlic aficionados!

$5

Deep-dish personal pizza

Don't quite remember what was on this. Artichoke hearts? Olives? I think it was Greek-themed. Let's see if their website will help out.

Found it!

Mediterranean Chicken – Chicken breast, artichoke hearts, red bells, green olives, onions, feta $18.50 / $23.50

For $18.50? Crazy. A nice pizza. I'm a little mystified at the awards they win. I mean --- it was good but the best of the Bay? And twenty bucks for something so tiny? Were it not for the Groupon, I would feel robbed. Lady Steed feels robbed anyway.

White Pie – Garlic olive oil base, mozzarella, roasted zucchini, fresh tomatoes, feta $17.50 / $22 (actually ten dollars because we went at lunch)

Here's the thing. The ingredients were fresh, the pizzas were good. But we didn't leave feeling like it was money well spent. Unlike, say Chez Panisse, which was much more expensive, but transcendent and worthy of the outlay.

Conclusion

So if you're a pizza snob and need to try them all cost-no-object, then definitely go. It's good. If you hate being bled, perhaps you should stay away.

The space is cool, service was great, pizza was good, garlic bread was weak, all a bit expensive.

I don't think we'll be back.

Too bad.