James’ World

Whenever I’m in Japan, I make an effort to eat traditional Japanese food like sushi or nabe. I had dinner in the Sushi-Hokake Hotel Nikko Narita restaurant near Tokyo.

The decor was beautiful Japanese traditional - lots of pine and lacquer. I ordered the Chirashi Zushi dinner. My chopsticks were placed on a blue origami swan - a nice touch. The sushi was fresh, delicious and plentiful. The price including tea was 4,030 Yen.

I’ve eaten here several times, getting the impression that it’s a friendly place with over-sized sushi compared to other places. This time I had the Dinner Nigiri and Sushi plate. True to form, it was the most sushi I ever had at one time, an entire plate with enough for 3 people. Several thick, fresh tuna nigiri, 6 plump California rolls, and about 10 different sushi items.

They also had toro. To my left, one fellow was eating a hamachi jaw that he said was good. And to my right, another guy finished off a seaweed salad and 2 huge specialty sushi rolls.

Everybody left stuffed and contented.

My item was $16.95. They have 2 locations, this one in Campbell and one also in Berkeley.

Campbell Location
100 West Hamilton Ave.
Campbell, CA 95008
Tel: (408) 871-0123
Open until 10 pm every day.

Aloha Airlines had a $99 special airfare to Honolulu from Oakland, so I spent Thanksgiving in Honolulu. I used to live there, so it was nice to see what’s new, and do some flying.

According to one hotel employee, a 3,500-room hotel in Waikiki was under renovation, so rooms were scarce in Waikiki. Factor in a lot of Japanese tourists and the upcoming Honolulu Marathon and you have a hotelier’s Christmas wish come true. (See CNN’s Feb. 10, 2006 article on Hawaii close to capacity)

The weather was hot and humid during the day with a couple sessions of light rain and sprinkles for 2 of the days.

I had a delicious old-fashioned Thanksgiving dinner at the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani hotel to celebrate the holiday. During the week I ate a variety of Hawaiian food, including shredded pork, Hawaiian greens salads and macadamia popcorn.

The main beach in Waikiki is known as Kuhio Beach Park. It took several years for the city to finally finish renovating it, but they did a great job. There’s a couple of new statues, small waterfall display, and a grassy hula area. More practically, there are some lifeguard towers to keep an eye on the thousands of sunbathers and the occasional shark.

One of my favorite rituals in Honolulu is to walk down to the beach as night approaches and clap with everyone else as the sun sinks into the ocean in a blaze of color.

And I had a blast flying Cessna 172’s at Honolulu International Airport again at George’s Aviation. Always fun to watch the Aloha 737’s, Hawaiian DC9’s, and F16’s take off while doing my preflight. It’s been a while since last flying, so I did a checkout and a night currency flight, as well as a landings practise flight. About 3.5 hours altogether. Some nose shimmy during the night landings, but otherwise the city and airport lights were gorgeous and the air smooth.

George mentioned that avgas peaked at $5.60 a gallon, but was in the $3 something range this week. (George’s rates for a C172 were $98/hour for members, $114/hour for non-members plus Hawaii tax of 4.166 %, instructor was $25/hour.)

I played with my Canon S400 digital camera during the week that I bought from ilist:forsale. Took about 140 photos of the Waikiki, Honolulu City Council Christmas display and Honolulu airport. Had some fun walking out on a pier and taking a nice 180 degree panorama photo of Kuhio Beach Park. Canon provides a panorama shooting mode and Photostitch software to make it easy. A tripod would give even better results, but I’m plenty happy with my hand-held effort.

Wireless was almost always available, usually for free, in all the airports and hotel that I visited. Just fire up your notebook and there’s a non-WEP AP somewhere nearby these days. George’s Aviation has free broadband Internet on request. I also used my T-mobile wireless account at Kinko’s Honolulu locations when I needed a real office environment. Here’s a Hawaii hotspot locator.

Looking forward to next time? You bet. Aloha.

Trip photos

I was in the vicinity of Eastridge Mall today, so decided to drop in and see how the renovation is going (looks good - not a construction project anymore with most of the stores occupied) and go to Todai for dinner. It is one of a chain of two dozen large Japanese all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants.

It’s been a few years since eating lunch there, but since I barely remember it, I guess it wasn’t too inspirational.

Todai’s serves a buffet of Japanese sushi and cooked items, plus some Chinese menu items. I’m from the school of “less is more”, so I seldom like all-you-can-eat buffets. I’d rather have a sit-down meal with balanced, freshly-cooked items. However, the buffet has enough choices and the traffic is high enough to make for a fresh, interesting selection. The choice of sushi is limited with respect to fish compared to a sushi bar (and tuna was out), but there was salmon, mackerel, snapper and shrimp. There was a variety of cold salads, including shiitake, seaweed, and shredded vegetables.

The cooked section has egg and fried rice, steamed rice, noodles, Chinese cabbage, broccoli, beef ribs, chicken, tempura, crab, jumbo shimp, clams and other cooked seafood.

There is also a soup section with miso and noodle soup and a dessert section with fruit-adorned cake and mini Rice Krispie squares.

Service was fine, though not much to do when a buffet is involved. The dinner buffet is moderately priced at $24.95 plus $1.50 for green tea. I normally spend less in a non-buffet restaurant and get more sushi choices, so this was no bargain for me. If I go again, I will be more choosy about the items to keep the number of plates down.

Todai
388 Eastridge Mall A-21
San Jose, CA 95122
Tel: (408) 270-8301

I had an Indian buffet lunch at Amber India, Mountain View location, on Thursday with the gang. This restaurant was recommended by an Indian friend as one of the best in the area, and I can see why.

The food was delicious, the service prompt, and the decor nice and exotic.

The various buffet chicken curries and potato/pea mix (aloo mater) were excellent.

There is not enough parking in the lot immediately outside the restaurant, so plan to arrive before noon.

Amber Indian Restaurant
2290 El Camino Real,#9
Mountain View, CA 94040
Phone: (650) 968-7511
Fax: (650) 968-1820

Tonite I ate dinner at Sushi Zone in Campbell, near the busy intersection at San Tomas Aquino and Campbell Avenue.

I’ve eaten here several times and enjoy the Japanese-style decor and prompt service. Most of the staff appear Japanese. There is a small sushi bar and a large dining area. Their menu covers the usual range of Japanese items for NorCal - sushi, rolls, donburi, nigiri, teriyaki and noodles.

The food is very good, whether sushi or teriyaki, and is always fresh and tasty. I’ve tried the Salmon Teriyaki Dinner Combination with California Rolls ($14.95), the Beef Teriyaki Donbury ($12.95), and various sushi. The average price for dinner is $20/person including tip.

The washrooms are large, clean and wheelchair-accessible.

Sushi Zone
75 S. San Tomas Aquino Rd., #1
Campbell, CA 95008
408-866-1323

I had a light dinner at Tengu Sushi Saratoga Sunday nite. It’s located next to the AMC14 theater in Westgate shopping center, so a very high-traffic area.

I’ve been there several times, and mostly stop by for the convenient location and inexpensive food. The staff consists of friendly Asian teenagers and they have a nice, large bathroom for customers and periodicals to kill time before the movie.

This time I had the Salmon Teriyaki Combo ($6.40) and miso soup ($1.25). The combo came with a fillet of salmon teriyaki, 4 California rolls, white rice, and 2 orange slices. The salmon wasn’t gourmet, kind of cold - just edible. I guess that description would summarize my previous visits as well. Kind of 7-11′ish.

They have 2 locations:

Tengu Sushi Saratoga
820 El Paseo de Saratoga
San Jose, CA 951530
408-374-2277

Tengu Sushi Downtown San Jose
111 Paseo de San Antonio
San Jose, CA 95112
408-275-9491

Had a business lunch at the Banana Leaf restaurant today. Nice day to sit outside on the patio. The cuisine is Malaysian, and encompasses Indonesian, Singaporean and Indian.

The Banana Leaf is great for business lunches because it has an interesting menu that includes many vegetarian dishes. It’s popular with Cisco and eBay staff. However, you must make reservations and arrive around 11:15 am or you can face a 1 hour wait for a table! We arrived at 11:30 and experienced slow service.

I ate the Penang Prawns ($7.95) on white rice. Adequate-sized portion of medium shrimp with a nice sauce - just a little spicy. Probably the most delicious shrimp dish I’ve had in the south bay area. Authentic Malaysian food would have a darker, greasier sauce, but I prefer this.

My friends had various vegetarian dishes and were also content.

The Lunch Specials are served with soup of the day and rice and range in price from $7 to $15 per entree. (Jumbo prawns and crab are more expensive.)

Hours are:

Mon - Thu 11 am-3 pm, 5 pm-9:45 pm
F 11 am-3 pm, 5 pm-10:30 pm
Sat 11 am-10:30 pm
Sun closed

McCarthy Ranch
182 Ranch Drive
Milpitas, CA 95035
Tel: 408.719.9811
Link