All posts by Nate

Nate is the Techie / Barbecue-y half of the House of Annie team. Born in Hawaii, his favorite hobby is surfing...WEB surfing that is. Visit my Google+ Profile
Bay Area

Rasa Malaysian (San Jose)

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Malaysian / Singaporean restaurants are becoming more popular here in the South Bay. The most popular one is Banana Leaf in Milpitas. Layang Layang in Cupertino is another well-known one. We used to go to one called Cafe Sochi in Cupertino but that closed down a long time ago. The manager went to Penang Village on Coleman near the San Jose airport and we went a couple of times but hadn’t been back in a long time.

I read in the Metro that there was a new Malaysian restaurant called Rasa Malaysian (no relation to Rasa Malaysia) that was operating in the same space as Penang Village. I thought we’d go check it out to see if it was any good. We arrived around 6:45 and were seated immediately. We heard the manager speaking Hokkien to the cook so we asked if she was from Penang. She said yes. We said we want authentic Penang-style food, not “fixed” to American tastes. She said they would try to accomodate us.
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Bay Area

Brittania Arms (San Jose)

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Annie has a great taste memory of a visit to England where she had real fish and chips. The fillet of fish was so long it hung over the sides of the plate. The chips were fresh cut potatoes just out of the fryer. It was some of the best food she had there (notwithstanding the mushy peas).

Went to Brittania Arms on Almaden Expressway for some Fish n chips for Mother’s Day lunch. This being Mother’s Day, we were very surprised that there was only one other occupied table in the whole restaurant. Annie got the two-piece fish with chips. The cod fish fillets were huge! The breading was nice and light, and the tartar sauce worked well. The “chips”, though, were totally lame.


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Beef, Thai

Thai Beef Salad

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Thai food offers an alluring balance of sweet, sour, salty, and spicy. You’ve got sweet sugar, sour lime juice, salty fish sauce, and spicy chillies all melded together in a tantalizing and mouth-watering concoction. It’s hard to resist.

Annie took a top sirloin steak, seasoned it lightly with s&p then broiled for 4 mins per side. After resting, she sliced it up and marinated the beef in fish sauce, lime juice, brown sugar, shallots, chili flakes, and chopped Thai bird chiles.

The salad greens included romaine lettuce, napa cabbage, carrots, green onions, mint, Thai basil, and cilantro. She laid out the veggies, pile on the beef, and then poured the remaining dressing over everything.

This was awesome!

Aloha, Nate

Italian, Pasta, Poultry

Chicken Piccata

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We were at California Pizza Kitchen with some friends one time. One of the dishes they ordered was Chicken Piccata. We’d never eaten it before (I usually don’t like capers) but Annie sneaked a bite and pronounced, “I can make this!”

So while out shopping she picked up a bottle of capers. A little later, she found a recipe off of Epiciurious and decided to try it. It’s a pretty easy recipe calling for chicken breasts pounded flat, lightly breaded then pan fried, laid over a mound of angel hair pasta and covered with a sauce containing butter, lemon juice, capers, and various seasonings. We threw in some mushrooms for fun.

It was very very good. We served it to our friend, who pronounced it better than CPK.

Aloha, Nate