The Slanted Door

It was a hectic journey for me to eat at this well-known modern Vietnamese restaurant.

First I called their number for the reservation,

Accidentally, I dialed 8023 instead of 8032,

The Lady: San Francisco Police Station.

Me: Hello, is it Slanted Door?

The Lady: No....it's San Francisco Police Station...

Me: So you guys are not a restaurant?..Oh..Ohhhhhh...Sorry.

Then I quickly hung up.

I wonder how many phone calls they get for reserving a table..

Anyways, so I finally got a table for 3 at 9:30 p.m.,

And the search begins.

The front door of the restaurant is actually hidden behind the Ferry Plaza,

Took us a while trying to figure out where in the world the restaurant is.
After walking in the cold for about 15 minutes (fine...15 minutes is not that bad),

Here we are, The Slanted Door-

The tables on our left-

The tables on our right-

The view from the window seats-

So you basically get an idea of the design for the place,

Hip and modern.

When you first enter the place,

There's a lounge area on the left with a full bar in the middle;

To the right is the dining space,

Located in between the open kitchen and the ocean view seats.

Enough about the layout, how about the food?

Spanish Mackerel with Fresh Ginger Scallion Oil-

Mackerel is actually fresher than I expected,

And the dressing tastes really familiar to me,

It's like the sauce you eat with Chinese boiled chicken,

The sauce you use for Hainan chicken rice.

An interesting combination.

I like it.

Cindy's Rating: 6

New Zealand Cockles with Thai Basils, Crispy Pork Belly and Fresh Chilies-

Delicious,

The sauce is also a good match with their brown rice.

Cindy's Rating: 6

Prather Ranch Beef Carpaccio with Roasted Peanuts, Rau Ram and Fresh Lime Juice-

No special feeling for this dish.

*Rau Ram is also known as Vietnamese Coriander.

Cindy's Rating: 5

Cellophane Noodles with Fresh Dungeness Crab Meat-

I'm not a fan for this dish,

Basically only the ingredients are above average,

Flavor-wise....maybe I can do a better job than that.

Cindy's Rating: 4

Oven Roasted South Carolina Stone Bass with Spicy Ginger Fish Sauce-

This one is goooooood,

The fish is tender and flavorful,

Together with the sauce,

I'll have to order one more rice!

Cindy's Rating: 7

Warm Chocolate Bread Pudding-

Very disappointed,

Probably the worst chocolate bread pudding I've ever had,

First of all, it wasn't "warm" enough,

And the texture was harder than it supposed to be.

Cindy's Rating: 3 (ice cream added one more point for the bread pudding)

There are many other authentic Vietnamese restaurants out there on the streets,

Just you probably won't see them with trendy interior, hip music, ocean view, and excellent service.

If you take out the above factors,

The Slanted Door won't really stand out among the crowd.

It's hard....

This place has its goods and bads,

I wouldn't mind coming back for a few cocktails at the lounge area,

But most likely I won't be here again for the food.

*I do want to applause to The Slanted Door for the use of organic or local ingredients though.

(claps claps)

Overall Rating: 5

The Slanted Door

1 Ferry Building #3

San Francisco, CA 94111

(415) 861-8032

http://slanteddoor.com/index.html

Taiwanese Style Thanksgiving Dinner

While you guys are enjoying your Thanksgiving turkey,

I'm having my very own Asian style Thanksgiving dinner here.

Taiwanese Style Hot Pot-

(It was still cooking so I had to quickly take a picture,

Otherwise the heat will run out,

And no one has the patience to wait for another 5 minutes)

Basically what we do is cooking all the ingredients together with light chicken stock,

And those ingredients can be quite different and adventurous base on your own preference:

Cabbage, corn, enoki mushrooms,

Pork, beef, chicken, lamb,

Egg dumplings, shrimp dumplings, fish dumplings,

Intestine, stomach, tendon,

Ramen, udon, instant noodles,

Pork balls, Beef balls, fish balls,

Crab, Scallops, Lobsters,

Mochi, cheese balls,

You name it.

Here's our not so fat beef of the night-

People sometimes are confused between hot pot and shabu shabu,

Here are the two biggest differences:

Shabu shabu usually use water or water with conbo (dried seaweed) as their soup base;

Whereas Taiwanese style hot pot use flavored stock for it.

Also there are some differences for the dipping sauce,

Shabu shabu usually comes with sesame/miso sauce and ponzu sauce;

Whereas Taiwanese style hot pot uses Chinese Barbecue (Sa Cha 沙茶) or soy sauce.

Egg dumplings and scallops-

Ingredients Parade-

Most of the people just buy the pre-made chicken stock from the grocery store,

What can I say? It surely saves a lot of time and energy.

But this year,

My friend's brother actually made the soup by stewing the chicken meat and bones for hours,

It tastes pretty good,

Fresh and healthy.

So when I was glad that I don't have to chow down thousands of calories this year with turkeys, gravy, mashed potatoes, and pies,

Cupcakes and red bean soup showed up in front of my face all the sudden....

Oh well,

We only have one Thanksgiving a year,

Just let me eat.