---------1---------2---------3---------4---------5---------6---------7 Seoul Garden (?) (Korean): Hot Stone Pot (9.5$) - Egg was cooked! In a hot stone pot, half the fun is cooking the raw egg in the hot bowl. Tofu Seafood Stew (8.5$) - Only small shrimp; not spicy. General - Small dishes are ok. Sushi Yama (Japanese): Atmosphere - Surprisingly no AC when we were there, so it was a bit unpleasant when the temperature outside was 29C. Sushi Dinner B (16.5$) - 8 pieces of sushi and a California roll. "Chef's choice" of sushi; we didn't know what we would get when we inqured with the waitress. The dish came with: 2 tuna, 2 salmon, 2 fluke (I think), 1 shrimp (which I changed to tuna), and 1 crab stick, along with the roll. I like the salmon, which are reasonable. However, I don't like the tuna at all. I am also a bit upset that I didn't get yellowtail, which I would consider to be standard in a sushi set combo. Fluke is ok, not great. If I come here again in the future, I will order piece by piece, unless "Sushi Dinner A" has better selection, at least including eel and yellowtail. Dragon Roll (8.5$) - Instead of eel, they have cooked salmon inside the roll with the same dressing on the top. I consider it reasonable, although I do like eel better. Spicy Tuna Roll (5$) - Reasonable. However, there is some sort of strong special oil flavor (like sesame oil) that is sometimes used in salad dressing in some Japanese restaurants. Iced Tea (1.5$/glass (free refill)) - I need to get used to the idea of free refills for all non-alcoholic drinks here. Nawab (Indian): Atmosphere - First thing you notice when you walk in is the extra space between tables! In New York, this only happens in restaurants that charge you 3 digits per entree. The restaurant is no more expansive than any others. General - You think you can eat spicy food? In this restaurant, you can choose how hot you want your dishes to be: mild, medium, hot or "Indian" hot. Since I have been in a lot of Indian restaurants in the United States, I didn't hestitate order two dishes hot and mid-hot. Goat Curry (13$) - Ordered mid-hot. I like the thickness, density and flavor of the curry. The only complaint is that the bone with the meat makes it difficult to eat with the bread. However, I would centainly have to have it again next time I'm here. Beef Vindaloo (14$) - Ordered hot, this is defintely the hottest Vindaloo I have ever had in the US! I would definitely give a high rating to this dish. However, compared with the goat curry, the Vindaloo seems a bit too tomato-y and watery. General - One of the best restaurants in the JLab area. Note that this is actually a chain restaurant. They also have locations in Willamsburg and Virginia Beach and now even in North Carolina. Pat Taya (Thai): Tom Gai Yau (?$) - It is nice but I would perfer the soup to be a bit more spicy to be called "hot". Green Curry Chicken (6.5$) - It's very reasonable, and at these prices, makes this a nice place to go. Smoky Bones (American (Southern), BBQ): If you ever been in "Dinosaur BBQ" in New York, it's very difficult to find another BBQ place that can compare. I was surprised how lucky I was picking this restaurant randomly, since it turned out to be good. We have been here twice. On our first visit, we ordered a three-dish combination of chicken, and baby back ribs, with beer dipped onion rings and broccoli. The second time, we tried the buffalo wings (hot) and a two-dish combo (pulled pork and smoked turkey). The onion rings are very good if you get rid of the extra salt on the rings; they are crispy and have substantial thickness of onion. The wings are good, although the "hot" isn't really that hot. The pull-out is a bit sweet, nice alone, even without any sauces. The turkey meat is nice but is difficult to match with any of their sauces though. The ribs are good, and I would definitely order them again. The restaurant serves two homemade sauces: smoky (yellow bottle) and sweet (green bottle). Although the smoky sauce has some interesting tanginess, neither sauce compares at all favorably to the four fantastic sauces you get at Dinosaur. One easy fix would be to include a third kind of sauce, that would serve as a spicy choice. Like most area restaurants, there is a huge selection of terrible beer and only one acceptable beer choice: Sam Adams (Octoberfest). Cheddar's (American): Crab Dip - Nicely cheesy but not so much crab there. Not worth its price on the menu. Sandwich with sides (broccoli and corns) - Corn Chowder - Frozen Magarita (4.5$) - Large, nice, excellent value. 2nd Street Burger (American): Great burger and french fries! The fries are crispy on the surface and soft inside. I wonder if they were dipped in some sort of flour before they were fried to make this extra layer of crispiness. I got the signature "2nd Street Burger" and it's excellent too, very juicy! I have had it twice; nothing can go wrong with this order. I also tried the reuben. It should be good, but I am not a big fan of corned beef. It turned out to be too salty for me; I guess that this is just personal preference. I never like cured meat in sandwiches. Although they had good beer selctions the first time I went, there weren't any the second time I was here. We had the Beach Bum (an Anheuser-Busch attempt at good beer); first reaction: "It's not totally without character." TGI Friday's (American): I was too exhausted from shopping for my matress... After lying down on so many beds to find the one I can tell the subtle difference between 3.0k$ and 0.8$ matresses, I just walked into the first restaurant I saw to recharge my energy. Burgers cannot be bad in most American restaurants. The new "Dippable French Onion" burger isn't quite as good as it's described on the menu. The onion soup is salty and makes the burger a bit soggy. Our old favorite, the Jack Daniel's burger is still the big winner among all the burgers here. IHOP (American): [Sep. 10, 2006] Although I have been in the US for 6 years, with the plethora of great restaurants in New York City, I never been in many nationwide chain restaurants whose ads are on TV all the time. IHOP is certainly one of them. I was excited about their variety of pancake sauces (blueberry, strawberry, butter pecan and syrup) on the table, when I heard about them. We stopped by on Sunday around 12pm, perfect timing for brunch. Unfortunately, we were not the only ones who thought the same way to start a Sunday. We had to wait 20 minutes to be seated, the first time in Newport News we've had to wait for a table. We got fruit pancakes (blueberry) and stuffed french toast combo with strawberry (comes with 2 slices bacon, 2 eggs and hash browns). The pancakes are excellent; I don't think that I can make this kind of quality of pancake myself even with our buttermilk recipe. The blueberry sauce is a bit disappointing though, tasting like canned blueberries. The stuffed french tost is also so so, not as good as those I can find around the Columbia University neighborhood, like "Deluxe" or "Am Cafe". The coffee is definitely a hidden charge; I tried very hard to find the price of the coffee. They only mention the coffee pot "never empties", but they actually charge 1.75$/person. The price is low, but I just don't like the hidden charge. If I ever come here again, I probably will try the plain pancakes and check out their waffles to compare with Waffle House, another American chain that's brand new for me. ------------ E-Mart It claims to be an "internation supermarket", but it's more like a big Korean supermarket. However, it does have good selection of most Asian stuff. The rice selection is excellent! It covers loads of varieties of Asian rice from Korea, Japan, China, India and some I have no idea where it was from. One small surprise to me was seeing a few Taiwanese products displayed there. World Market Excellent beer selection! If the variety of beer in the store scares you so that you don't know which one to start with, they have this "pack your own 6 pack" for 1.7$/bottle. There are also multiple kinds of ginger beer in the store. Also good for coffee beans, on-stove espresso maker (only place seen around the area), wines and candles. Food Lion This chain supermarket is everywhere! It's very hard not to walk in since they are everywhere in almost every shopping plaza or mall. My first impression is: stuff is cheap here! You can apply for an MVP card which gets you the "sale" prices easy and free. Basically you can pick up cans of food, frozen food and other imperishables for low prices. However, as a big fan of fruit, I lingered around the fruit section and couldn't pick up anything. The fruit isn't properly treated here, and they looked so damaged that I couldn't pick any up even though at the time I knew no other places to go fruit shopping. One later experience stops me from buying perishables there anymore is: expired hotdog buns. In new york, I've never seen any product that's expired displayed in stores! I couldn't believe the buns I got had expired 3 days ago, and there was mold on these buns already. Very sketchy. Trader Joe's. Farm Fresh Costco You can find everything here! Food, wines, funiture, hardware, clothes, books, electronics and even guitars and pianos. Basically, you can find low prices for everything. What's the catch? It's a like a warehouse. The basic idea is: they pay no attention to the store decor and sell products in huge amounts to get low prices. There is also a membership (50$/year) required to buy anything there. I walked in the store to check whether this 50$ fee would be of any advantage to me. The furniture looks to be good quantity. If I had a permanent job here, I would actually consider picking something here. However, being a postdoc here, 2 or 3 years from now, I have to face throwing away my funiture. So I would be happy to just do business with the secondhand funiture store. The vegetables here are nice but the amount of food is designed for a house of at least four. The only thing attracts me the most the the can soup (only Progresso), 10 pack for less than 11$. Since they can stay good forever, it seems more practical to have this purchase. The other item I could buy is "Move Free". As a member of a family living in the world full of vitamins, I have the duty buying "Move Free" for the senior members in the family. These things are expensive! I used to get them from drugstore.com, where it costs 27-32$/bottle. Here, it costs 20-23$ only. This is something that would pay back my membership if I ever get it. Verdict: Once I decide when my trip back home will be, I will stop by this store again. ------------ Ginger beer experience (rating from high to low) ------------ Beer Log Buffalo Bill's (US, CA, Hayward) Pumpkin Ale [2006 Sep 10] color: golden amber head: quickly dissipates aroma: nutmeg taste: nutmeg and pumpkin, lacks integration with beer flavors mouthfeel: light verdict: not as good as Smuttynose Flying Dog (US, CO, Denver) Tire Bite Golden Ale [2006 Sep 10] color: pale yellow head: aroma: taste: weak, bitter, little complexity mouthfeel: light verdict: dull Clay Pot (US, MD, Frederick) Backfin Pale Ale [2006 Sep 11] color: dark amber head: white, small but long-lasting aroma: malty taste: yeasty, nutty, bitter; no complex hop flavor mouthfeel: substantial verdict: light and drinkable, not outstanding, good with food Rogue (US, OR, Portland) Mocha Porter [2006 Sep 11] color: opaque black head: brown, thick, foamy, transient aroma: fruity, smoky taste: fruity, smoky, coffee? verdict: tasty, good character, only in small quantities