BETELNUT, San Francisco, CA

This particular stage of our culinary exploration of the San Francisco bay area was prompted by numerous recommendations from friends and co-workers, each of whom claimed that the spicy asian "street food" of Betelnut was to die for. After a weekly pit stop at City Beer Store, this time with friends Nimo & Nisha tagging along, the four of us hit this Marina hotspot with substantial appetites. Here's what we managed to devour:

Chili crusted calamari

Fried, crispy, and yummy. With or without the sauce, this is understandably a staple appetizer at Betelnut. The chili pepper kick separates this dish from a typical calamari starter.

Firecracker Shrimp

5-spiced with sambal dip

While the calamari dish satisfied any craving we might've had for crunchy, fried goodness, this shrimp starter could've easily prompted us to forget it. Drenched in flavor and spice, doubly-so when dipped in its delicious sauce, the firecracker shrimp was easily one of our favorite dishes of the night.

Glazed Pork Short Ribs

with thai basil & garlic

If any "main" dish was the winner of the evening, it had to be the glazed pork short ribs. Easily the most flavorful (and messy) dish of the evening, the pork was excellent combination of sweet and savory.

Szechuan Green Beans

While spicy and very salty (almost too salty), these perfectly crunchy green beans were incredibly easy to eat and were a great contrast to the rich pork short ribs.

Scallion Hotcake

The scallion cakes were nothing particularly special on their own, but they were a nice vessel for the accompanying sweet chili sauce and peanut sauce.

Roti Prata

with curry and yogurt sauce

Similarly, the roti really required dipping to enjoy, but there were no complaints here. Just the right amount of crispy and buttery, the roti soaked up generous amounts of sauce.

"Little Dragon" Dumpings

pork and shrimp with ginger vinegar

The dumplings were the low point of the evening. Under-seasoned, bland, and generally unappealing, the dumplings just didn't stack up well against the bold flavors of the other dishes.

Fried Banana

with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce

After a table full of shared courses, we amazingly found little trouble making room for dessert. Then again, it's difficult to go wrong with warm, crispy fried banana combined with rapidly melting vanilla ice cream. Chocolate sauce may have been preferred over caramel, but our taste buds finished happy.

Betelnut certainly has its signature dishes (pork, firecracker shrimp, green beans), and I'm sure each of us would gladly return for more of our favorites. Still, this first experimental visit opened our eyes to some not-so-spectacular options we'll avoid next time around. The size of Betelnut's menu, however, suggests we'll have some new dishes to sample when we return (ribeye, anyone?).

BURMA SUPERSTAR, San Francisco, CA

Burma Superstar is one of those small ethnic places that somehow rises above the rest to become a destination spot. Everyone in San Francisco either has been there, or has heard so much about it that they’ve been meaning to go there. It has such a following that there are always crowds of people waiting out front, which got even worse after it was featured on Food Network a while back. We’re ecstatic that we recently discovered, unbeknownst to most, that they have a second location in Oakland just a short drive away. As you will read, the 30 mile drive is nothing for a taste of their Tea Leaf Salad.

TEA LEAF SALAD

For those of you who read our blog, you know that we never voluntarily decide to order salad. Never. It’s just not how we roll. But Burma Superstar is known for their Tea Leaf salad - and rightly so. It’s is a combination of flavors and textures so unique, that it’s one of those dishes that you yearn for after you’ve tasted it just once. It consists of fermented Burmese tea leaves, lettuce, dried shrimp, fried garlic, tomatoes, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, peanuts, split yellow peas, jalapenos, and a squeeze of lemon. It’s a flavor unlike any other. And hey, at least it gets us to eat our veggies.

RAINBOW SALAD

The Rainbow salad is also another favorite, made up of a whopping 22 ingredients. Bean thread noodles, 2 kinds of rice noodles, wheat noodles, green papaya, fried tofu, sesame rice, fried onions, white potatoes, dried shrimp, cilantro, fried wantons, a ton of fried garlic, and tamarind dressing – just to name a few. Your taste buds literally dance. Indescribable.

PUMPKIN SHRIMP STEW

BUN TAY KAUSWER (Coconut Chicken Flour Noodle Curry)
Flour noodles with coconut curry sauce, split yellow pea, eggs, cabbage, and fried onions Burma Superstar also has a wide variety of Burmese curries and other savory dishes. This time, we settled on the pumpkin and shrimp curry, which although a bit one dimensional after the salads, was still hearty and satisfying. We also had a tasty noodle dish with a delicate curry sauce and more of those awesome fried onions. Although both were good in their own right, it’s really the salads that always make our face light up and our taste buds drool when we think of Burma Superstar.