This weekend Bobby and I managed to order Green Papaya Salad on 4 separate occasions. On Friday night, we ordered it with dinner. On Saturday, I ordered it for lunch. Sunday night we got it with dinner again, and on Monday we ordered it with lunch.
On Monday we went to Slanted Door for lunch. It’s a Vietnamese restaurant in the Ferry Building that uses organic produce and local meats. The food was refreshing and spunky. The papaya salad wasn’t quite spicy enough, but the texture of the papaya shreds was incredible (long and thin, perfectly biteable) and the presentation was flawless.
We also ordered vegetarian spring rolls that were fantastic. They had fresh mushrooms inside and came with a spicy peanut dipping sauce.
The following are the crispy egg noodles with prawns, squid, scallops, carrots, broccoli and shiitake mushrooms. They were okay. I didn’t know what crispy egg noodles were, and to be honest I didn’t much like them. This dish came in some kind of clear sauce that was rather bland. Bobby said he enjoyed it though.
Lastly, Bobby got a lychee-infused iced tea. Wow. It was incredible. It wasn’t sweetened except for the subtle lychee flavor, and it was great. I’m guessing it was some sort of green tea with a bit of lychee juice added in, but I can’t be sure. What I can be sure of is that I will try to replicate it!
On Saturday we went to a cute Vietnamese place for lunch called Minh’s. The food there was again fresh and very clean. They used a lot of mint, which I loved. Bobby got the shrimp vermicelli:
And I got the green papaya salad with shrimp:
At first it came out with pork and I had to send it back… Then at the end of the meal I found a small piece of pork on the plate, so I think they probably just removed the pieces and sent it back to me. Sigh. It wasn’t my fault – nowhere on the menu did it say that it came with pork. And I couldn’t say make it vegetarian because I’m only a pescatarian, and I wanted the shrimp. Anyway, I didn’t say anything. And the food was good enough that we’ll be back – but I’ll make sure to say NO PORK!
On Tuesday we were in Mountain View again to look at houses and we happened upon a cute little cafe where we got a tomato and fresh mozzarella sandwich and some delicious gelato:
Yum. Clockwise from the white: cookies and cream, raspberry, blackberry cabernet. So good. I think the place was called Gelayo Gusto. That website doesn’t seem to be working, so I can’t be sure. They had a dessert waffle that I want to try next time we’re down there.
In other news, I’m moving into our new apartment next week! The lease will start next Thursday, and if all goes well I’ll start trekking stuff over there that day. My job in San Francisco ends on Wednesday, and I have a potential job that may start on Thursday. I’m glad things are moving along as planned.
Mountain View does have some delicious gelato — I can’t remember the name of the place off the top of my head, but it’s on Castro and has the most delicious Mango gelato ever…
Also, if you’re moving down to that area, make sure to check out their farmer’s market on sundays — it’s huge! Even though I have closer markets (I’m in Los Altos Hills), I often make the trek over to MV since there’s so much to choose from at the market.
Oh man, I love that blackberry cabernet sorbetto. It is from a company called Ciao Bella and if you have a specialty food store around you, like Whole Foods, they usually carry Ciao Bella gelati and sorbetti.
I also love papaya salad – I haven’t had one in FOREVER!
Welcome to the Foodie Blogroll! 🙂
the recipes and photos look just great!
Thanks for sharing.
Oh, love all the vegetarian stuff too!!!
Look at all of that tasty food. I have been wanting to try making Green Papaya Salad at home but I have not been able to find green papayas.