Saturday, April 7, 2012
Breakfast at home with Patrick: we split an almond pastry and a chocolate pastry, organic earl gray tea. Completed tax return 2 of 4. Lunch: leftovers from yesterday's lunch. Completed tax returns 3 and 4 of 4. Such a relief! Dinner at home with Patrick: ordered from South Sea Seafood Village (415-665-8210, 1420 Irving Street) via seamless.com: prawns with vermicelli clay pot (#703), steamed tofu stuffed veggies and bean curd (#804), pot stickers (#117), 2 orders of steamed rice (#920). Expected delivery time = 45 minutes. The order arrived surprisingly fast: 30 minutes. We were disappointed with the prawns and vermicelli clay pot because the prawns were overcooked to the point of mushiness, the prawns were extraordinarily difficult to eat if you didn't want to eat the shell, and the noodles were unappetizing because aside from the prawns and the sauce there was nothing else interesting in the dish. There were a lot of large prawns in this $14.50 dish, but we couldn't eat more than 4 of them. The shell stuck stubbornly to the prawn meat whereas usually in dishes like these there's some space between the meat and the shell that makes the shell easy to remove. We ended up throwing most of this dish away—a waste of money. Aside from not overcooking it and resolving the shell removal problem, this dish could also be improved by adding some vegetables like carrot, bok choy, and mushrooms. We surmised that the same dish in a dine-in situation might be better. Perhaps the prawns continued cooking in the closed container during delivery. (But then a good chef ought to take that into account when preparing it, right?) The steamed tofu stuffed veggies and bean curd dish was also disappointing because it was so blandly flavored. The shrimp "stuffing" sat on top of the bean curd, not stuffed inside (misleading title), and neither the shrimp nor the bean curd was marinated. There was a light, clear sauce to the dish, but this dish needs a heavier or saltier sauce to balance the non-flavor of the bean curd. The person with whom I dined thought the vegetables in this dish were slightly overcooked, losing a bit of their crispness, but I found them to be alright. The potstickers were very tasty. Each one is rather large with a generous portion of filling. When we finished our meal, we were prepared to find the same fortune cookies that seemingly every other Chinese restaurant delivery includes. (Boring!) To our pleasant surprise, we instead found a complimentary cookie assortment that was very fresh and baked perfectly. One was an almond cookie, and the other was similar to a Mexican wedding cookie but fluorescent yellow and with a candied walnut in the center. There were a handful of these small cookies in our order, and they were a delightful, atypical curtsey to a mostly disappointing meal. The cookies had perfect crispness and interesting flavors and textures. South Sea Seafood Village has a few good things going for it and could improve significantly with only a few changes. Unfortunately, we might not stick with them long enough to find out. Total = $37.43 before a 10% tip for the delivery person. Spent some time on geni.com adding info. Late meal: organic vegetable soup from a can.