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Great Wall Grill: A review by Marlee, age 3.

After a day of house hunting I was too tired to write a review of my lunch. My REALTOR's daughter, Marlee, decided to contribute her own review.

Hi. I'm Marlee. I'm 3.

My daddy helps people find new houses. Daddy has a new friend that needs a house.

This is me at lunch. Mommy is behind me. I look like that because the grownup taking the picture has Hello Kitty on his phone. Mommy says that Daddy's new friend also listens to Hannah Montana. Mommy says the new friend is very "strange", has "severe deprived childhood issues" and "we can do our Christmas shopping for him at the same time we're buying for the girls". I don't know what those things are but Mommy says if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all, so these must be nice things she's saying about their new friend. 

Great Wall Grill is in a big long building where everything is the same color. I asked Mommy if they ran out of paint. Mommy said no, it's supposed to look like that.

They have lots of pictures of other people. I wonder if they're special.

This is the strange man's bowl. It's all animal, noodles, and frisbees. He put lots of sauce on it which is why all the food is the same color. The nice lady with the strange man says he doesn't know what vegetables are. That's silly! I'm three and I know what vegetables are. I think someone should teach the strange man about vegetables, oh and then tell him that Hannah Montana music is for girls.

The nice lady got a bowl of vegetables with her food. The strange man didn't know what vegetables were so he got a bright yellow soup. I hope they didn't use Big Bird to make the soup. They also brought rice and some fried appetizers. The strange man didn't take any pictures of the appetizers because he was busy talking about Twitter.

Lunch was very yummy and I think everyone should eat there. Also the strange man should learn about vegetables.

And the map thingy is wrong, they are not closed! Silly Google.

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Sakuran Sushi: My neighborhood sushi place > your city's best sushi place.

I'm happy to report that all of my posting about Sakuran seems to be having a positive effect! We went for lunch today and the place was PACKED! It's about time. It mades me to see Sakuran half full while Mikuni has a line out the door.

Not present was Agent G"O"ldfish, our newest participant. Unfortunately, her actual job kept her from attending lunch festivities. Luckily, we keep a virtual version of her around for when this happens.

We tried to sneak Ebby into the restaurant (cats like fish, right) but she wouldn't get in the stupid bag.

I started out by ordering a round of Japanese Nachos. These were created by one of the chefs many moons ago when we were there for lunch. Ketel Boyfriend (that visit was his one and only Chomple appearance) was halfway out the door when the chef called him back in to try one. Being what he terms a "Mexi-CAN" he declared that the dish was a "Japanese Nacho". The name stuck and they are now on the menu. Tempura fried shiso leaf, tuna tartare, avocado, and tobikko. One of the most amazing appetizers I've ever had, anywhere.

The infamous Sakuran crunch roll. The roll is topped by fried panko crumbs. That way, your roll gets the crunch of a deep fried roll without the double calorie count of a fully deep fried roll. This roll has more sauce than most Sakuran creations, but the sauce is very light and works perfectly with the panko topping.

The Paradise Roll. Contains a huge amount of deep fried soft shell crab and is topped by the chef's impossibly thin avocado slices. Seriously, this guy freehands thinner slices than I could make with a mandoline or a scalpel.

I believe this is a caterpillar roll. Check out the chef playing games by alternating wasabi and standard tobikko.

I got their $20 fish lovers roll. This roll would cost twice as much anywhere else. They basically load it inside and out with the freshest and tastiest fish they have in house. I can't even begin to describe what was in it or just how incredible this thing tasted. In the foreground is a mound of chopped otoro topped with some extremely fresh uni, just in case the roll wasn't enough to blow my mind. Best $20 I've spent on sushi since... well, last time I was here.

Actual, being an engineer, felt that we needed to provide a nice cross section shot of the roll.

As we were reeling from the fish lover's roll, the kitchen sent out a plate of their new appetizer for us to try. Good f***ing lord. I swear they must spend their off time coming up with crazy bats*** ideas for tasty appetizers. These are mushrooms stuffed with fresh crabmeat and scallops, then deep fried and sauced. These things were like little bombs of oceany goodness. I could eat an entire meal of these. 

The uni from my plate was so out of control good that we ordered more. The flavor of their current stock of uni is so intense that Actual could only eat half of her piece. I don't know who their uni supplier is but this stuff tasted like it had just been plucked from the sea.

Work Girlfriend figured the caterpillar roll wouldn't be enough food (woman, hello, this isn't Mikuni's, one roll is enough) and got a chef's special roll. Like all chef's specials it has no name as it is just a one-off creation. This roll was the perfect ratio of fresh fish and crabmeat.

I was done at this point but they decided to send one more dish my way. This is yellowtail that has been minced by hand with wasabi tobikko and green onions and then topped with fresh grated ginger. This was the best thing they served me today. As full as I was I could have easily had 10 more orders of this.

Noodles & Company: Not just for hippies!

In a previous life I worked as a securities analyst and one of the sectors I covered was food and beverage. One day during some downtime I got into a discussion with a visiting food and bev analyst about where the fast food industry was headed. 

"It's funny," he said, "how hard it is to make it in the fast food industry when you deviate from burgers and chicken. If you showed me five new franchises at the beginning of the year and three were burgers or chicken and the other two were something truly new, I'd be willing to bet a year of mortgage payments that of the five, the only two that would survive would be the new burger/chicken concepts. That's especially disturbing considering that when it comes to burger and chicken restaurant concepts, the market has been oversaturated for decades."

But what about Mexican?

He laughed. "Mexican has been struggling to get a foothold for years and it's finally happening. For a long time it was just Taco Bell, but there are other chains going now."

Was there hope for other kinds of fast food?

He rolled his eyes. "I get twenty of these new-wave fast food type companies pitching to me every quarter saying that they're going to be the next big thing. They love to brag about how how many locations they have and how much money they're making. Then I ask how many of those locations are outside California or the West Coast. Not many of them have a good answer to that question. Sure, you can sell to hippies, but can you convince the rest of the country that DOESN'T have the munchies to eat your food? Haha!"

That conversation happened in the late 90s. The landscape of the American palate has changed since then. Actual says it's due to the Food Network, and I agree with her. People all over the country are out of their food ruts, and when even my hometown has a healthy selection of chain restaurants obviously America has changed for the better.

Underlining this, Noodles & Company is one of those chains that the analyst was referring to as "stoner munchies food". Now, consider the fact that many midwestern states got a local copy of this restaurant before the chain made it from their home state of Colorado to my neck of the woods in Northern California. A noodle place hitting Ohio before NorCal? Say it isn't so!

So we decided to head out to the newly opened local location and have some noodles. The ordering system is pretty simple. You pick a pasta style which consists of pasta/veg/sauce. There are 12 types under Asian, Mediterranean, and American subcategories. Next you can choose to add a protein for extra money (options include braised beef and sauteed chicken). You can order their Trio, which is a small pasta with protein add and soup or salad for eight dollars. It's a great deal if the food is good. So is it good?

Even though the menu is pretty simple, Actual had to think about what she wanted. It wasn't because she didn't understand the menu, but because there are just too many good things to pick from. Barbie decided she was tired of waiting for Actual and put her in jail.

As a side note, Barbie is by FAR the most clicked subject on this blog according to my site logs. Of the pictures that are clicked to enlarge, the top 5 most clicked subject categories are:

1. Barbie Girlfriend (and let me remind everyone AGAIN... she's MARRIED)
2. Naruto Girl (and let me remind everyone AGAIN... she's 15)
3. Sakuran Sushi dishes
4. Hamburgers
5. Sliced Meat

Congratulations, Barbie! You're number one!

Warning: if you're craving good pasta right now and you're hungry, you might want to stop here.

First up was a Pasta Fresca with braised beef. It has pasta with spinach, tomatoes, and a lot of parmesan. The sauce is made from balsamic vinegar, red onions, roasted garlic, and white wine. Their braised beef, by the way, is as perfect as you will ever get outside of a French restaurant.

This is a Penne Rosa with parmesan encrusted chicken. Similar to the Pasta Fresca, except instead of the white wine sauce they use a tomato cream sauce. Equally delicious.

Japanese Pan Noodles with braised beef. This dish is pan seared udon noodles with a sweet soy concoction. I didn't try this one but I was assured that this was very delicious.

Pesto Cavatappi. I think this will be my choice on my next visit.

Their version of potstickers are pan-fried and flat. Despite the odd shape they are quite delicious.

Actual's Bangkok Curry with braised beef. Although it's not specified on their menu, this is a knockoff of a Thai green curry. Great flavor on the sauce and the rice noodles were perfectly done.

If you're in the mood for pasta, I'm not sure you can beat their Trio combo for eight bucks. And despite what that analyst said, no, you don't have to be a hippie with the munchies to appreciate this food.

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Oz Korean BBQ: Grill your own protein party!

Oz Korean BBQ is probably the most covered restaurant on this blog other than Sakuran Sushi. We rarely go to a restaurant more than once--for us to go to a restaurant repeatedly it must present a very good value on top of being a phenomenal eating experience.

Oz is that kind of place. $18.99 for all you can grill and eat marinated Korean meats is a crazy value that can't be beat in our town.

Work and Actual were very happy to be there. Work was feeling kind of tired but she couldn't turn down the freight train of meat that we offered. 

Forks were distributed to all. I normally don't see forks here unless the party is >50% white people. As our Chomplevent was 87% caucasian we got the forks. This fork was laid down next to Cosmo girlfriend with the statement "Just in case!". I'm not sure how many people actually ended up using forks, but it was a responsible gesture on the part of the waitstaff.

The banchan or Korean side dish collection that is included with your meal. Clockwise from the upper left: pickled bean sprouts, daikon radish salad, pickled cabbage with jalapenos, broccoli with spicy mayo, more cabbage, more broccoli, and the standard spicy kimchi. At the top of the picture is Work's plate with a serving of the wasabi cole slaw.

"Can we eat yet?" "Put the chopsticks down! Picture time!"

At the top of the picture is our first meat platter. From the top clockwise there was ribeye, short ribs, brisket, chicken, pork belly, and flank steak. All perfectly marinated. For your $18.99 you get as much meat as you want.

The grill put into action. Clue #1 that I wasn't sitting in front of the grill: check out how many vegetables are on there!

Somehow we all saved enough room for dessert. This is the Xango deep fried cheesecake. Yep, it's as good as it sounds.

Then we had the tempura fried ice cream. I was speculating on how many tries it took to get the right combination of ice cream size and temperature, dough thickness, and cooking temperature and time. 

Since her birthday was the day before, they let Cosmo spin the wheel of birthday doom. She won a lunch box!

Campelli's Pizza: Chomple Tested, Barbie Approved

Can I just have some regular pizza please?

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of everything from Chicago deep dish to that weirdo stuff they serve in New Haven to the hippie stuff they have at California Pizza Kitchen. But sometimes, actually a lot of the time, I just want some normal pizza.

It makes me think of Denis Leary's rant about trying to find "coffee flavored coffee"... (language definitely NSFW)

Nobody seems to serve the normal pizza that I ate as a kid. A hand tossed crust of "normal" thickness, sauce, toppings, actual cheese. Put it in an oven that DOESN'T have a conveyor belt, bake until done, cut, serve. From now on I'm going to call this style of pizza "Just Pizza." 

Is Just Pizza so hard to do???

Apparently so. Most of the places serving the normal style of pizza are chains that cut a lot of corners. All of them seem to use prefab crust. I'm not even sure Pizza Hut bakes their pizza anymore. The last pizza I had from there seemed like it was a pre-baked crust that was topped with a disc of sauce and cheese that was microwaved. I'm sure that's not what they do there, but it's definitely what it tastes like. 

In our quest for Just Pizza, the Chomple troops have eaten at just about every pizza place in town. Several of them were never mentioned on this blog because we refuse to give free publicity to places that suck. 

Campelli's is located in a plaza with several restaurants that are just ok and was the last eatery in the plaza that we tried. Although most of the reviews online were good, our hopes were not high as most of our attempts at locating an edible Just Pizza in Sacramento and Roseville had failed miserably.

On trip #1 I was accompanied by Actual and Work. 

As we walked in we saw one of the guys making dough. Actual pizza dough. Things were looking up. And... wait, what's that? An actual brick oven? 

I was pretty shocked. This was like the ghost of pizzerias past. I started wondering if I was stuck in some sort of time warp.

We started with what they call a crisper. This is a thin round of dough (actual dough, actually rolled thin by a human being) covered in toppings. Most pizzerias have some version of this appetizer. Most of them also suck. Imagine a dry matzo cracker with melted cheese and Ragu dumped on the top and you'll be pretty close to the reality of what this stuff usually tastes like.

Not at Campelli's.

The crust was just firm enough to provide structural support for the sauce and cheese. Check out those perfectly browned edges (funny what you can do with an actual oven and not a glorified toaster).  We opted for the Pesto Crisper. This thing would have been gone in 90 seconds had we not had pizza coming.

 

Next came our large Meat Mercado pizza. I have nothing witty or enlightening to say about this pizza. It was just out of this world good. The funny part about this pizza is that we were sitting around talking about how good the italian sausage was on the pizza when the guy who made it came out to apologize that the supplier had sent the wrong sausage. He said that usually the sausage is spicier. Considering what we had was already really good, a spicier sausage would elevate this pizza into the realm of taking the leftovers and throwing them at Pizza Hut delivery cars hoping that they would learn what real pizza tastes like. Yes, reader, this pizza is worthy of committing misdemeanor assault for.

After less than a week I needed to go back and have some more of this stuff. This time, Work Girlfriend had been ensnared into something important and we were instead joined by Barbie Girlfriend. 

Taken as the pizza was arriving. Words spoken before this picture was taken:
Actual: If I have to wait for more than 10 seconds to eat because you're taking blurry pictures you will be in a world of hurt.
Barbie: You realize you're taking pictures of food, right? It can't pose or anything since it's inanimate. The only variable influencing how sucky the picture is, is you.

This time we opted for the parmesan chicken crisper. The beauty of this one is in its imperfection. Like a hand-formed hamburger patty missing that machined round edge, or the rough surface of a brass-cut pasta, the more oval than round shape of the crisper was due to the pizza maker trying to stretch out the dough a little more so we would have bigger pieces of crisper to share. 

Noticing that we were having a tough time deciding which specialty pizza to get, they suggested that we could get different halves. We decided on the Fume BBQ and Tuscan Pesto. The BBQ side was awesome due to whatever smoky BBQ sauce they are using. The pesto side came loaded with chicken and artichoke hearts. I preferred the BBQ, the girls decided both were equally delicious.

So, finally. An actual pizzeria with actual pizza made with actual crust. We have a winner.

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