Hungry in US - Monterray, CA: Indian Summers

Do you know the Chinese food in India. Its not Chinese. Here is what is happening to Indian food. Well not the exact analogy, since Indian is so unique you can only go so far as to corrupt it..anyways hungry from our long drive we come down to the nice city of Monterey in the night. Read that this place is a tourist destination - well not in the night.

Indian Summers. Music is arabic, not a single desi in sight. Its definitely a happening place, but chilly and the fireplace you see in the pic is not for show. You need the fire to keep warm. Well food, me and Sharayu tried to Non veg with Spicy Fried fish not spicy, Chik Jalfrezi - mysteriously spicy since we didnt see chillies. The veggies had a good time with the Maakhanwala, the dal and the peas jeera rice. They even went as far to say this was the best they had! Come on now Non Veg is also food, you have to make both of them good.

Anyways we had to leave before the Reggae band started playing. Yes Reggae band in and Indian Restaurant. On the expensive side...

On a foodie blog roll! No.3:

Hungry in US - Aptos, CA: Manuel's Mexican

I was growing loathsome about Mexican food in the US. Mexican is close to the Indian cuisine, but I just simply didnt like the fast food version. Until we got hungry along CA1 and decided to have some mexican. Thank you GPS, for guiding us to this delightful place. I like mexican now, especially at Manuel's.

Hemant guided the vehicle to this blink and you miss restaurant. This place is pretty old with and old style mexican tavern feel to it. The service was very warm and friendly. We needed a lot of guidance with the orders since we were new to this authentic cuisine which is unlike that of taco bells. Lot of variety for Non Veggies. We didnt want to risk anything meaty on the road so we opted for everything Vegetarian. Which again the hostess guided us. The Cheese Enchilada I had ordered was enchanting. Delicately made pockets of veg stuffed with cheese and covered in a wonderful tomato bean gravy melted in my mouth. Sharayu had the Quesadillas and the guys had the traditional Bean Burrito which were pretty decent. The Salsa Fresca was adequately hot. The Mexican equivalent of masala Papad - the Tortillas and Habanero sauce kept on coming. We generally dont have deserts, cause in the US, the portions are huge. Still we decided for the hostess's suggestion and again she hit the sweet spot with Flan and Mexican ice cream - a nicely spiced (not hot spice) chocolate ice cream which she described as 'her favorite ice cream'. Its really really good.

For those who would want to know and should know, they do not take Amex :)

Hungry in US - San Francisco: Burma SuperStar

This made me right a review at Yelp and give it four stars. This made me write a blog about it without a pic (coming soon). This is making me very hungry writing about it.

I said hello to Burmese cuisine in San Francisco. Burma, our country's iron curtained mysterious neighbour, has such delightful food to offer and I wonder why we didnt take it and indianize the hell out of it.

Well, authentic or not this place is a must visit. My cousin followed instructions, not suggestions, to drive all the way upto Frisco with the kids and me to San Francisco just to eat at this place. We had to wait 30 mins to get in at 5.15 pm. So that just pretty much sums up the popularity of this place.

Heres my review same as at Yelp:

The food here is very very good. For an Indian guy, even I found this place to be spicy..I guess because the server was observant of my tastes and got my order in the right time. I loved the Samusa soup,Tea Salad, Nan Pia...well heck everything. Really liked the Mango Coconut juice too. I am coming here again and ready to wait in line for a long time just so I get hungry and eat moar!