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Back in the late 1980s, there was a Peacock Restaurant on Lake Boulevard near… oh dear. Femme de Joie was about to say it was near Timber Lanes, but that bowling alley had closed up by that time. So it was near Joann’s Fabric… but that’s moved twice since then. Well…. it was in the strip mall that is fronted by A&W (which M. de Joie thinks of as being on South Market Street, but oh dear again, that hasn’t been in that spot for a million or so years).

Let’s start over.

Does anyone remember when a new steak house was about to open in Anderson twenty-some years ago? Two Feathers was the name; it was custom-built and heavily promoted in the local rag as the next big thing, with calls going out for high-class servers and bartenders and dog catchers. It opened and closed again with astonishing swiftness before M. de Joie had a chance to bask in its glamour, so she’ll never know if it was great but just misunderstood or ahead of its time or what the story was. At some point when Femme de Joie wasn’t paying attention, the old Peacock closed in the 90’s and then reopened a few years ago in the Two Feathers space.

Peacock is situated favorably right next to a motel – sharing their parking lot, actually – and right off Interstate 5, meaning they’ve got a couple of built-in audiences. Such places can survive and be terrible because they don’t need local customers; their patrons will come in, eat, and goest away in their shiny car in the night, never to return. Still, M. de Joie read favorable things about Peacock and wondered if it was anything like it used to be when it was on Lake Boulevard.

The interior seems oversized when you look up at the circular light fixture built into the oddly high ceiling. And it’s relentlessly pink except for the carpet, which is relentlessly green and needs replacing. Still, it’s clean and cheerful, with wide windows letting in natural light. There’s a constant flow of customers, some of whom seem to be regulars. Service ranges from efficient to friendly.

Hong Kong chow mein, $9.25

Hong Kong chow mein is usually a melange of stir-fried vegetables plus shrimp, beef, chicken, etc. bound in a light sauce and served on top of pan-fried noodles. The noodles were pan-fried but really didn’t have much personality other than a little crunch; the same could be said for the meat-vegetable topping. It wasn’t unpleasant but it didn’t have that zsa zsa zsu that makes you want to order it again.

Wor Won Ton soup, $7.50 medium, $9.25 large

Wor Won Ton soup, with a delicate broth, plenty of filled won tons, shrimp, and fresh leafy spinach, was a treat on a cold day. The medium order is enough for two people to share or one person to enjoy as a light lunch. This was a winner.

Szechuan beef, $9.75

It’s deja vu all over again. Szechuan beef appeared to be virtually the same dish as the Hong Kong chow mein, minus the noodles and shrimp. Two small dried red chilies had been tossed in almost as an afterthought but they didn’t have that light char indicating they had been in the wok for any length of time, so the requisite heat was missing and the sauce tasted the same as the chow mein’s. And two slices of beef seemed to have been added from the frozen stage; they stubbornly clung to each other, resulting in raw undersides. Oops.

Luncheon combination plate #2, $8.00

Down at the bottom of the menu page listing luncheon specials are a few combination plates. Those were a terrific bargain and the food was noticeably better than the a la carte plates. Egg foo yung is too often an omelet hockey puck at sea in a glutinous brown salty sauce. Here it was puffy and light with a thin flavorful gravy. Sweet and sour pork was particularly good, with a not-so-sweet sauce and cubes of pork with crunchy exterior and tender insides. Sometimes you feel that egg rolls could just be wrung out and the oil recycled, but this one was non-oily and freshly cooked.

Soup of the day – comes with luncheon combinations

Here again, soup was very good. Beneath that eggy surface lay a good mix of tiny tofu cubes, chicken, diced Chinese BBQ pork, carrots and peas in a slightly salty broth. Adding a few drops of the hot oil from a small jar on the condiment tray made it sing.

Luncheon combination #7, $8.50

M. de Joie loved the perfectly stir-fried crunchy vegetables in almond chicken laced with a light chicken-y sauce. It was a little short on chicken and almonds, but she didn’t mind because the rest was so good. Now about that doughnut in the center of the plate: that was advertised as “fried prawn,” and there was indeed a small prawnish creature inside, but a truthful menu would have described it as “fried batter ring with a hidden shrimp prize.”

Femme de Joie liked Peacock, though it does have its flaws. The luncheon combinations were far better than similar plates in most Chinese restaurants, and the soups were warming and tasty. A little bit of attention to detail could fix the problems – a spicy dish being decidedly unspicy, some ginger and garlic added to a stir-fry. Peacock is worth a visit if you’re in Anderson and maybe even a special trip from Redding for lunch.

Peacock Chinese Restaurant, 2881 McMurry Drive (between North Street and Balls Ferry Road), Anderson, CA 96007. 530-365-9833. Open Tuesday through Thursday, 11:00 AM to 9:30 PM, Friday 11:00 AM to 10:00 PM, Saturday 12:00 PM to 10:00 PM, Sunday 12:00 PM to 9:30 PM. Closed Monday. Cash and cards, no checks. Vegetarian and vegan options. Beer and wine. Parking lot.

A show of hands, please: Who remembers where all the old local taverns/bars/dives were? Better yet, who actually patronized them? Anyone?

Possibly the most infamous was the Oak Grove, which one night became an ungodly flaming cocktail and is now a grassy lot under an oak tree. But there was also 2-Me’s on Hilltop (run by a man named Twomey) where a Subway now stands. Urban renewal took out the Old Crow Club on California, US Bank rises above the old Ricardo’s location at Placer and Pine, and all that remains of Jomar’s is a width of dirt on Railroad Avenue where you can pull over and park. There are still plenty of the old watering holes around, but they are somewhat of an endangered species as they are slowly replaced with wine bars, microbrew taprooms, and upscale bars serving 16 varieties of Pacific Northwest gin and imported ice.

A more recent addition to the local bar scene is a space on Hartnell across from the Hen House. Bubba Thrasher’s was there first, then closed and made room for 21 Taps. Jr’s Across the Way followed in 2012 with a kitchen in addition to the bar (apparently Jr’s served pretty good burgers).

A few months ago, Fusion Lounge Bar & Grill opened in Jr’s place. The premise is a new one for Redding: fusing elements of Asian cuisines (Lao, Thai, Vietnamese, etc.) with American and Mexican dishes to create such hybrids as the Pho-rito, Pho-nudo, and the Senganator Burger, while also functioning as a neighborhood bar.

Despite their new sign, it’s easy to drive right past as you toodle east on Hartnell, lost in a sea of metal auto repair and machine shop prefab buildings. The parking lot is one of those long narrow ones that passes by a long row of metal doors behind Fusion, makes a U-turn, and sneaks back out to Hartnell.

Fusion’s black and blood-red concrete block walls, easy-clean tables and floors, and a truly goth restroom took a note from the punk club playbook circa 1976, but the clientele was a mixture of locals, auto shop employees, hipsters, and families. (Note: family-friendly until 9:00 PM.) There’s a pool table near the back and a smoker’s patio out the side door. Sit at the bar or one of the tables and waitstaff will come take your order. Service was friendly and fairly fast; servers are knowledgeable about the food. Specials are on a backlit writing board at the end of the bar.

Baller Bowl, $10.99

This was an interesting mixture of a taco salad (deep-fried flour tortilla bowl) with crunchy mixed cabbage salad, deep-fried shrimp, and tataki of tuna, Sriracha and wasabi drizzle, and a soy dressing on the side. The tataki (seared ahi with sesame crust, thinly sliced) was so very much like fine filet mignon that only its tendency to melt delicately on the tongue belied its origins. Alongside were crunchy fried shrimp that made a nice contrast to the ethereal tuna. The soy dressing, however, proved to be very salty, and toward the bottom of the cabbage salad M. de Joie regretted pouring the dressing over. Sriracha and wasabi were nice to smear the shrimp in, but mixed on the plate they tended to look septic.

Fusion fries, $7.50

Femme de Joie ordered Fusion Shrimp but what was delivered was Fusion Fries, as she discovered when she couldn’t find anything but chicken in the toppings. This could be a variation on nachos or potato skins: Jo-jos – seasoned crunchy potato wedges – were topped with melted cheese, shredded chicken, cilantro, diced tomatoes, Jalapenos, and Fusion sauce. Fusion sauce is a somewhat spicy, smoky red sauce with hints of Thai curry – think of it as an exotic fry sauce. It was quite good when first delivered but after fifteen minutes or so, the potatoes got pretty soggy (there was a lot of sauce). This was plenty to share among two or three people.

Calamari, $8.00

Calamari is a popular appetizer in restaurants but it is almost always straight out of a frozen box, already breaded and ready to deep-fry and serve up with “our own garlic aioli.” Fusion’s salt-baked calamari was wonderful: thick bite-sized morsels with a dusting of tart tamarind and garnished with fried green onions and Jalapeno slices, this was addictive and original.

Kaliang Fin, $3.00

M. de Joie had never heard of Kaliang Fin and cannot find any reference to it elsewhere, so it may be an original specialty. Korean flour made from mung beans is cooked with water, cooled to produce a gelatin-like block, then cut into small pieces and served in a cold and slightly sour broth. The gelatin cubes had the texture and taste of hard-boiled egg white, slightly sulphuric and bouncy. The broth didn’t have much personality other than tartness and seemed to be mostly a vehicle to support the mung bean jelly. On the side was a small amount of house-made fermented bean & chili paste to mix into the soup – the paste was spicy-hot and delicious, though M. de Joie didn’t really think it helped the soup much. KF (as it’s called on the menu) did have a refreshing quality that might be appealing if one had overindulged in too much rich food and drink, but overall M. de Joie felt she probably wouldn’t order this again.

Fusion Burger, $9.99 with garlic fries ($1.00 extra) and pepper jack cheese

This towering burger, piled high with lettuce, tomato, onion, bacon, roasted eggplant, Fusion sauce, and a fried egg, was in no way reminiscent of a franchise burger. Goopy and drippy, the thick burger fell apart as the egg yolk and Fusion sauce disintegrated the bun, and was overall luscious, juicy, and a wildly delicious messy mixture of tastes. Garlic fries on the side were on the greasy and slightly limp side, but Femme de Joie loved the plentiful garlic bits.

In an unlikely location far from the main hubs of Redding, Fusion is trying out new and exciting ideas, and for the most part they work. The menu is wisely kept small and manageable, with weekly specials thrown in. Prices are more than fair for the amount and quality of food. Though there were a few missteps, overall Femme de Joie loved the intent and direction of the kitchen. If you’re looking for something new to try, drive out to Fusion and sample their innovative dishes.

Fusion Lounge Bar & Grill, 2704 Hartnell Avenue, Redding, CA 96002. 530-768-1360. Open Monday through Thursday, 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM, Friday 11:00 AM – midnight, Saturday 3:00 PM to midnight. Closed Sunday. No minors after 9:00 PM. Cards and cash; no checks. Full bar. Vegetarian and vegan options. Parking lot. Follow them on Facebook.

Until very recently, Femme de Joie’s only visit to 970 Hartnell was about seven years ago when a vintage furniture store was there; she and Amico del Signore picked out a leather couch which went from “this great oxblood sofa” to “that Godawful purple couch” in just a few short years. The sofa found a new home about the same time Kanya Market replaced the furniture store.

Femme de Joie had originally planned to write about another Asian restaurant (which shall go nameless); unfortunately, the beef pho she ordered turned out to be Ptomaine Pho. After a dreadful night on the bathroom floor, she elected to not make a second visit to that establishment. But then Amico del Signore discovered that Kanya Market not only sells Asian groceries but also has a small cafe and persuaded her that this might be worth checking out. And so it was. In addition to a wide variety of the usual items – soy and fish sauces, sesame oil, canned lychees, curry powder, teas (including “Sliming Tea” and no, that is not a typo), gigantic bags of rice – Kanya also carries some fresh greens, fresh noodles, and the delightfully-named Snake Brand Prickly Heat and Baby Face with Aha.

Due to the dark window tint film, it’s impossible to see inside; instead, look for the neon “open” sign on the front. When you walk in, you are entering the grocery side of Kanya. Walk straight ahead toward the cash register, then turn right into the restaurant. You can order to-go at the counter, pick up some already prepared food from the refrigerators or the racks nearby, or sit down at one of the snappy black and white tables to dine in. Each table is stocked with a roll of paper towels, a stack of deep bowl spoons, and containers of forks and chop sticks. Service is friendly and helpful.

Bahn mi, $3.00

Bahn mi – Vietnamese sandwiches – are available on the to-go rack to the right of the cash register. They include pork, “meatloaf” (more like pâté), pickled daikon and carrots, and cilantro on a sliced, mayonnaise-spread French roll. It wasn’t bad but it would have been fabulous if it hadn’t been so flabby in texture; more crunchy vegetables and a crustier roll would make it sing.

Mango drink out of the refrigerator, $1.25. Not quite as mango-y as the name suggests, but a very good foil for the spicy food to come.

Fresh spring rolls, $5.50

M. de Joie was surprised at the generous serving of spring rolls – there was surely enough to share. Accompanied by tiny cups of sweetish peanut sauce and bottled Thai sweet chili sauce, the rolls were like small portable salads. Filled with lettuce, rice noodles, cilantro, and shrimp, these were wonderfully refreshing and crisp.

Papaya salad Lao style, $5.00

Most shoppers have seen the giant overripe papayas in supermarkets here; their musky scent and perfumy taste is loved by some and reviled by others. But in places where it grows freely, green papaya is treated like a vegetable and made into salads. Kanya’s papaya salad is offered in Thai style or Lao. Both use fish sauce in the dressing but the Lao version uses fermented fish sauce (padaek) which has a more pungent aroma and taste. Green papaya was shredded and tossed with peanuts, tomatoes, green onions, and the padaek-infused dressing, served with a wedge of raw cabbage and plain rice noodles.

Femme de Joie ordered the salad with “medium” heat but either she was misunderstood or Kanya has a wicked idea of what medium heat is. It was fiery. She does enjoy hot food, but this was a challenge. The raw cabbage and noodles helped tame it, as did that mango drink. Still, she’s unsure if she actually liked the salad or not, since she was mostly concerned with not spontaneously combusting.

Yellow curry with pork, $8.00

This smooth curry with potatoes, onions, carrots, and cubed pork also carried its own measure of heat, though not as pervasive as the papaya salad. The creamy texture and warm spiced sauce were delicious eaten as a soup or poured over steamed rice. This would be excellent comfort food on a cold day.

Yum Nam, $6.00

If there was a Thai version of a chef’s salad, this would be it. It contains sour pork, AKA naem, a fermented Thai sausage, which explains the somewhat earthy smell of the dish.. Mixed with “meat loaf” (again, strips of pâté), celery, cilantro, green and red onion, and roasted rice seasoning powder, peanuts on the side, this was wonderfully crunchy with soft porky bites, hot and sour – one of the most interesting and exciting dishes M. de Joie has come across in recent memory.

Khao Soy, $5.00 for small bowl

This might be the Thai version of grandma’s chicken soup – broth filled with Ho-fun noodles (made from rice and looking like a wide egg noodle), a very generous amount of white meat chicken, bean sprouts, shards of cabbage, and fermented bean and ground pork. It might remind you slightly of pho but has its own savory taste and textures in a rich chicken-y broth.

M. de Joie likes Kanya very much. The portions for the price are excellent value, service is fairly fast and friendly, and the cooking is usually spot-on and high quality. She also enjoys prowling around in the market, picking up various jars and bottles of condiments to try out, and suggests that if you stop in to have lunch, that you also look through the grocery and maybe pick up some chile-garlic sauce (which Amico del Signore and Femme de Joie love more than Sriracha) or some pork buns to go. It won’t cost much and it’s a good introduction to Thai cuisine.

Kanya Market and Thai Video, 970 Hartnell Avenue at Churn Creek Road (across from the fire hall), Redding, CA 96002. 530-222-7609. Open daily, 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM. Cards and cash; no checks. No alcohol. Vegan and vegetarian options. Parking lot.

The term “Mongolian barbecue” was first used by Chinese actor Wu Jau-nan when he opened a restaurant in Taipei in 1951. In “Unmentionable Cuisine,” the late Calvin Schwabe described Mongolian barbecue as being Taiwanese and similar to certain cookery from Korea (bul-gogi) and Japan (teppanyaki and jingisukan). The “legend” about Genghis Khan’s soldiers cooking their meals on their shields or helmets are amusing, but Femme de Joie finds it unlikely that entire armies would be sent out on lengthy campaigns with no thought to who was going to feed all those men and instead decide that they should just rustle up some grub on their own.

The building at 2151 Market Street in Redding has been a Bermuda Triangle of bars and restaurants, some good (River City Bar & Grill), some bad (a bar M. de Joie visited long ago to hear an astonishingly loud and spectacularly awful band; she has forgotten both the name of the bar and the band), and the neither here nor there (Zippers, Rainbow Lounge, Eddy’s Grill, et al). To stretch a metaphor beyond all reason, businesses in that spot became a Flying Dutchman of doom. Femme de Joie thinks this may be because the location is apparently invisible; when she tries to describe it to someone (“South of Jiffy Lube. Kind of across from Mallory’s Florist”), the response is invariably furrowed brows and puzzled expressions.

Succeeding where its predecessors have failed is Kahuna’s Mongolian BBQ. Though kahuna is a Hawaiian word and Mongolian is, well, Mongolian, the name seems appropriate for a Pan-Asian restaurant concept. It’s been packing them in for over a year and is one of the few downtown restaurants open every day for both lunch and dinner.

The interior has a tiki-bar kind of feel with a lot of fake orchids and wood paneling. When a customer is seated, waitstaff asks if they have ever been there before. If this is the first visit, the procedure is explained and your order for white or brown rice is taken. Ramps and steps lead customers down to salad bar tables filled with a selection of thinly sliced meats, raw shrimp, parboiled noodles, vegetables, tofu, and eggs.

Diners fill a bowl with their choice of ingredients and then move to a sauce bar, where they choose as many sauces as they like (Thai chili sauce, beer, garlic oil, teriyaki ,and so forth) to ladle over the filled bowls. Just to the left of the sauce bar is a shelf with shakers of seasonings (thyme, chipotle, sesame oil, lime juice, etc.). Moving to the left is an open window to the grill itself, a small selection of last-minute additions (peanuts, coconut, sesame seeds) to toss onto the now-brimming bowl before handing off the food to one of the cooks.

The cooks do a sort of ballet around the grill, maneuvering the food with a long pair of “swords.” When it’s cooked, the food is slid off the grill into a fresh bowl and handed back to the diner.

There is a certain sameness to what all the food looks like when it’s come off the grill, a sort of swirly brownness. The end result is really up to the diner and their wise (or not) choice of ingredients and sauces. It might be tempting, for instance, to load the bowl entirely with shrimp, and some people probably do that, but it’s more fun and interesting to combine a variety of vegetables and meat with different sauces. In theory you could eat at Kahuna several times a week and never have the same flavors, textures, or ingredients repeated.

Since Asian food is chockablock with allergens – soy, peanuts, gluten – a sign says that if you tell the cooks about your sensitivity they will clean the grill before cooking your food. Femme de Joie did not witness this happening on her visits so she cannot say exactly how they clean the grill – whether that means only scraping the top of all detritus or actually scrubbing the surface to remove trace amounts. This may seem frivolous to non-allergy sufferers, but a person with a peanut allergy could die if they ate a meal cooked on the same grill that previously had peanuts on it – so ask, ask, ask.

But there are a couple of things newbie diners ought to be aware of. From Kahuna’s website:

Lunch includes one bowl of stir-fry and rice, $10.99 (you may take your leftovers home).

Dinner is TWO times through buffet line maximum, including our steamed white rice, and flour tortillas $14.99 (If you do not finish your first bowl you make take that home, but if you do get a second there will be no to go boxes

Seniors (65 and older) and children (5-10) – Lunch $10.49 – Dinner $12.99 (same as Dinner explanation)

So if Femme de Joie understand this correctly: you may buy dinner for $14.99, for which you are entitled to two trips through the buffet line. If you do not finish your second bowl of food – which you own, since the understood contract between a diner and a restaurant is that the customer pays for their food – you cannot keep it. The restaurant will throw your food away. Bad customer! At lunch, it turns out, you get one trip through the buffet line BUT (what the website does not tell you) is that if you want shrimp or lamb (which are included on the dinner buffet), that is $3.00 extra – making the lunch buffet cost as much as dinner, but you get half as much.

Femme de Joie must be missing something here. Such a policy can only result in arguments between customers and waitstaff, who will suffer the brunt of righteous anger, and waste of perfectly good food. However, the website does not say that a customer cannot place the leftover food in their own to-go box (which are available in bulk at Cash and Carry) or a piece of aluminum foil, thoughtfully folded and tucked into a pocket before entering the restaurant. And really: $12.99 for a five-year-old’s dinner? If management is afraid of grifter children and seniors defrauding them left and right, perhaps a look at “small” meal option is in order.

Other than that, Femme de Joie likes Kahuna’s. It’s rather fun, you know exactly what you’re getting, and staff is friendly and helpful (though they do tend to disappear after they’ve delivered your drink and rice). It does get crowded with long lines, so visiting before or after peak dining hours is suggested.

Kahuna’s Mongolian BBQ, 2151 Market Street, Redding, CA 96001. 530-244-4200. Open daily, 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM. Cash and cards. Beer, wine, low-alcohol cocktails. Vegan and vegetarian options. Gluten-free and other special diets accommodated (but ask about how the grill is cleaned). Parking lot. Outdoor seating available. Website at http://kahunasmongolianbbq.com/

Pity the poor cilantro hater. Genetically disposed to loathe the pungent herb ubiquitous to Latin and Asian cooking, they find themselves the object of disbelief, mockery, and repeated attempts to recruit them to the legions of cilantro lovers. There are online support groups via Facebook,
communities such as I Hate Cilantro (“The most offensive food known to man”), blog posts (“I just thought somebody had emptied a bottle of Old Spice on my pizza”), and haikus (“Evil leaf from hell/ go back to where you came from/ you are not wanted”). Julia Child claimed she would pick cilantro out of any dish and throw it on the floor.

Femme de Joie has to admit that her first encounter with cilantro was not a pleasant one. Inspired as a teenager by Elena Zelayeta’s cookbook “Elena’s Secrets of Mexican Cooking,” she optimistically planted some and was horrified at the stinky, nasty herb that resulted; she had thought it would be more like parsley. A few years later at the dearly departed Sam Wo’s Restaurant in San Francisco, she encountered some cilantro in a bowl of won ton soup and had to pick it out carefully (she had already encountered the legendary Edsel Ford Fung and did not wish to draw any more attention to herself).

M. de Joie can’t remember when she eventually succumbed to the charms of this lovely herb, but she thinks it must have been a gradual adjustment similar to what Dr. Jay Gottfried of Northwestern University suggests. A life without cilantro would certainly limit one’s ability to enjoy certain cuisines. And that brings us to Thai Hut in Redding. It surely would be hell on earth for someone who hates cilantro but a tiny slice of heaven for everyone else. Situated in the old Wall Street Pizza building, there are perhaps eight tables inside and half a dozen outside in front. Cheerful and helpful waitresses do their best to keep up with the lunchtime crowd – and it does get crowded.

Nam Koaw, fried crispy rice salad, $8.49

This dish goes by half a dozen other names and spellings.Similar to the minced duck lettuce wraps served in Chinese restaurants, this version is so much more complex. A fine mince of crispy rice, preserved pork, coconut flakes, green onions, cilantro, and peanuts, you scoop it onto a lettuce leaf, wrap it up as best you can, and attempt to pop it into your mouth without spilling any; if that fails, just use a fork. This was wildly delicious. Listed as an appetizer, it was enough for lunch.

Lunch specials all come with a salad with a sweet mustardy dressing, light and refreshing.

Curry of your day, $7.99 as lunch special

During an extremely busy lunch hour M. de Joie ordered pork in yellow curry and got chicken instead. Since it had taken 50 minutes to get that, she didn’t feel up to returning it. However, it was not a disappointment: chicken breast strips with assorted strips of vegetables in medium heat yellow curry were all cooked perfectly. The savory sauce was good enough to lick the bowl clean. She was less crazy about the sweet and sour sauce that accompanied the egg roll, as it was overwhelmingly vinegary.

Bean sprouts, Jalapenos, cilantro, basil

Small beef pho, $6.75

It wasn’t that many years ago that pho was an unknown in Redding’s Asian restaurants; fortunately it’s now served in at least half a dozen places. Thai Hut’s version used a lighter beef broth than M. de Joie has tasted elsewhere, and there didn’t seem to be as much beef in the bowl in other places, which is probably a reflection of the bargain price. Plenty of noodles, though, and a generous plate of the standard fresh add-ons helped make up for that.

Chicken wings, $7.49

These were by far the best chicken wings Femme de Joie has ever had in a restaurant: very flavorful, crisp, non-greasy, and a generous serving. They were wonderful eaten as is, though she mixed some incendiary chili-garlic paste into the sweet and sour sauce to pour over, and that was delightful too.

M. de Joie likes Thai Hut very much and will definitely return. The prices are low ($7.99 lunch specials) and the generous servings of well-prepared food have produced a loyal fan base. It can be agonizingly slow at lunchtime, so try to schedule a visit outside of peak hours. Be advised: cilantro is served.

Thai Hut, 1165 Hartnell Avenue, Redding CA 96002. 530-222-8405. Open Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM, Sunday 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Closed Monday. Cash and cards; no checks. Beer and wine. Small parking lot. Vegan and vegetarian options.

The blue cinder-block building on South Market Street that now houses Rose Garden was once home to a liquor store (name long forgotten), then an Asian market, then a series of restaurants including The Experience (which came and went before Femme de Joie had a chance to experience it) and a couple of Thai cafes of varying quality and longevity. Most recently Kanya Garden occupied that spot; it has hosted Rose Garden for some months now.

The Good:

The interior is bright and cheerful with a fresh coat of paint and good lighting. Service is fast and attentive with cheerful waitstaff. Prices are fair for the portion sizes.

The Food:

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Yum Nam Tok, $6.95

Grilled beef with vegetables on a bed of iceberg lettuce was coated with what the menu calls "a house spicy cilantro lime sauce." The lime was up front and present as was a fair amount of fish sauce, but we couldn't discern any cilantro or much that was spicy. "Nam tok" means waterfall, and the salad seemed to get a bit watery as time passed, the salty fish sauce wilting the iceberg lettuce and diluting the dressing.

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Red curry with tofu and sticky rice, $8.50

Red curry was ordered with medium heat but was very much on the mild side. Heavy on the canned bamboo shoots and light on tofu cubes, the liquid curry lacked that punch of flavor that makes a diner crave it again - it could have used an infusion of galangal, lemon grass, garlic - just about anything to elevate the complexity. It wasn't bad, but neither was it great.

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The sticky rice that accompanied the curry was wrapped in clingfilm and brought to the table in a small wicker pagoda that fell over frequently. It was kind of cute but also kind of a pain every time it tipped over, which was any time it was touched.

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Pad chow mein with pork, $6.95

The Thai version of chow mein was filled with nicely-cooked vegetables and thin-sliced pork. Not overly salty with too much soy or too oily, this would have been very good if the noodles hadn't been overcooked and on the gummy side.

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Get to know the Thai condiment tray (kreung prung): judicious use of these can make a difference in your food. They encompass sour, sweet, salty, and spicy flavors. Clockwise from top: in squeeze bottles, oyster sauce, chili garlic sauce, hoisin sauce, prik pon (dried ground hot chilis), sugar (used to balance flavors), Sriracha, Tamarind soup mix (sour flavor), salt, pepper, soy sauce, fish sauce (nam pla). Just behind the soup mix is a small jar of pickled Jalapenos.

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Beef pho, $5.00 lunch special

A small bowl of beef pho was accompanied by a plate of Romaine leaves, fresh basil and cilantro leaves, and bean sprouts, plus the condiment tray. With a goodly amount of rice noodles, some beef slices and halved meatballs, this made a satisfying light lunch. But other than a strong star anise flavor, the broth didn't have the rich melange of flavors that make the difference between an adequate bowl of pho and a really memorable one.

The Not Good:

The moment we walked in we noticed a strong scent in the air. Femme de Joie thought optimistically that maybe it was fresh herbs. Amico del Signore thought it was some kind of cleaning fluid. Eventually it became clear that it was perfume on one of the waitstaff, who had not sprayed it on so much as saturated herself in it.

On M. de Joie's last visit to Rose Garden, she approached the cash register to pay where she saw a sign saying that any debit or credit card purchase under $10.00 would be charged fifty cents for the privilege. The cashier pointed out the sign and asked if that was okay. M. de Joie told her it was illegal, and got exactly the response she expected: a blank uncomprehending look. A $5.00 pho suddenly became a $5.50 bowl of pho. After a lengthy discussion with her bank, Femme de Joie found out how the consumer protection laws in California can be sidestepped, which is apparently what happened here. Caveat emptor.(Sources: http://oag.ca.gov/consumers/general/credit_card_surcharges and http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=4e20e4b0-bd7e-47a5-824b-4f7920a45a1b and http://usa.visa.com/personal/using_visa/checkout_fees/)

Femme de Joie had higher hopes for Rose Garden, especially since their predecessor had such good food. But her overall take on the food was that it was pretty average, uninspired, and utilitarian. She wouldn't protest loudly if she was dragged there, but she wouldn't advocate for it, either.

Rose Garden, 2825 South Market Street, Redding, CA 96001. 530-243-8863. Open Sunday-Friday, 11:00 AM - 8:00 PM, Saturday 11:00 AM - 9:00 PM. No checks; debit and credit cards (watch for that user fee). Beer and wine. Vegan and vegetarian options. Small parking lot on south side of building. Follow them on Facebook.

As they always are, Amico del Signore and Femme de Joie were in search of decent Chinese food when they got to San Francisco. There's no shortage of such restaurants, but weeding out the chaff from the wheat (to mix a metaphor or two) is the challenge. We already know to skip any restaurant being shilled by women on the street corner attempting to press menus into your hand, as well as any place with a sign out front reading "Tour bus parking in the back."

After that, though, it can be a series of dead-end streets where you barely escape with your life and guts intact, or an endless parade of La Choy-coated fried cubes of chewy packing peanuts served atop Minute Rice. It's not really surprising, then, that IHOP, Johnny Rocket's, Rainforest Cafe, and the like are planted firmly around touristy areas like Fisherman's Wharf and North Beach: after a long day of sightseeing, many people aren't interested in finding great sizzling rice soup. They just want to feed the kids and go to bed.

That's where the internet comes in. Yeah, Yelp may not always be the go-to place, but neither should it be completely dismissed out of hand. Neither should local websites writing about food. 7 X 7 and SF Weekly are two such reliable sources in the Bay Area, and that's how we learned about the Capital Restaurant.

We arrived about 7 PM on a Friday night, accompanied by the Ancient Mariner and Sailor Moon, both of whom like Chinese food but don't love it like we do. Capital Restaurant was packed, but we were invited to sit at the small counter and look at the menu until a table cleared, which it did in just a few minutes. The interior is brightly lit and clean, with mirrors around the room making it look more spacious. There are menus written in Chinese characters on the walls - always a good sign - and photos of some of the dishes.

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We started with the usual pots of tea but also ordered Sho Chiku Bai hot sake. M. de Joie has never been a big fan of sake but this was smoother than some she's tried in the past, and it was the right choice for a Chinese meal. Most wines don't seem to go well with Chinese food, but sake (and beer) are better suited to the variety of differing heat levels and textures in a Chinese dinner.

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Wor Won Ton Soup came topped with squid, Chinese BBQ pork, bok choy, chicken, prawns in a rich mixed pork-and-chicken broth. Squid was particularly tender - A. del Signore is not a squid fancier but he enjoyed this. There was enough soup in one order to serve four people with a little extra.

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Sailor Moon chose Honey Walnut Prawns. M de Joie has never been enthused over sweet tastes with seafood (such as coconut shrimp); that combination has always struck her as colliding in a bad way. But this was rich without being goopy. Prawns were plump and not smothered by the sauce; the crisp honeyed walnuts made a nice textural contrast.

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BBQ pork egg foo yong was tender and freshly cooked, with abundant pork and vegetables, but the bland gravy was on the oily side and didn't enhance the eggs so much as provide a slippery sheen to keep them moist.

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On the other hand, Szechuan garlic eggplant was good enough that both Ancient Mariner and Sailor Moon - neither of whom are crazy about eggplant - came back for seconds, and then polished off the remaining bits on the plate. Spicy, yes, with whole dried chilis and garlic, but not searing, and not oily as this dish so often is.

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Usually chow mein's ingredients are cut small and mixed in with the noodles so that the diner has to prod through to find a niblet of pork or beef. Here, tomato beef chow mein had generous chunks of tender beef and vegetables on top of the noodles and a few mixed in as well. The noodles, slightly crisp from pan-frying, had a light coating of non-sweet gingery, tomato-y sauce. Ancient Mariner confessed he didn't really like chow mein but he liked this one, as evidenced by him shoveling it onto his plate.

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Roast duck was the star of the show, with a luscious lacquered skin and star anise-flavored meat. Duck is naturally very fatty and sometimes it arrives that way on your plate - making for a greasy meal. This duck, though, was mainly meat with just enough fat to keep it moist and flavorful but not be an unpleasant memory later.

Amico del Signore and Femme de Joie returned to the Capital on a Sunday night, when it was much less crowded. M. de Joie wasn't on her toes and so missed getting photos of their dinner.

The beef won ton noodle soup was a generous bowl of thick noodles in beef broth with shredded beef and vegetables - more of a stew, really, and a very large portion.

Gai lan (AKA Chinese broccoli) is a slightly bitter and austere green that makes a refreshing contrast to mixed stir-fries. It was also a very generous serving with lots of garlic, still very crunchy and a vibrant green.

However, the almond chicken went on M. de Joie's do-not-order-again list. It was as though the cook took the name literally: twists of cooked chicken were covered with almonds, and sent out on a plate, desert-dry and tasteless. Never again.

While there were a few dishes that didn't hit the mark, we liked the Capital Restaurant and would happily return. Portions are fair for the price and service is fast and efficient, and it's not on the tour bus schedule. Warning: Capital takes cash only.

Capital Restaurant, 839 Clay Street (between Stockton and Grant), San Francisco, CA. 415-397-6269 or 415-218-3883. Open daily, 8:00 AM - 9:30 PM. Sake, beer, wine. CASH ONLY (ATM at Bank of America on Grant Avenue). Street parking only; good luck. You'll be better off parking elsewhere and walking, or better yet take Muni. Lines 41-Union, 30-Stockton, 45 Union-Stockton, 8-Express, 10-Townsend, 12-Folsom, 27-Bryant, 1-California, and the Powell Street Cable Car all come within walking distance. Sample menu at http://sanfrancisco.menupages.com/restaurants/capital-restaurant/

www.walkscore.com recently rated San Francisco as the second most walkable city in the US, and indeed, a car is largely an expensive impediment for an enterprising tourist. Put on a decent pair of shoes or fill up a Clipper Card, and suddenly The City by the Bay is your oyster instead of a nightmare of one-way streets and shockingly-priced parking. And from Femme de Joie's point of view, a big bonus is that on foot, you'll find some culinary treats you'd otherwise drive right by.

A food blogger named Chili Bill steered M. de Joie and Amico del Signore to Rhea's Deli in the Mission District. It doesn't look particularly enticing from the street - basically a convenience store with liquor and a small sandwich counter. You'd never know that Rhea's makes sandwiches so good it'll bring tears to your eyes, and not just from the spicy sauces.

Korean Steak Sandwich

Marinated rib-eye in soy sauce, garlic, ginger, honey & spices served on Acme organic roll, choice of cheese, chili garlic sauce, house pickled red onions & Jalapenos, grilled onions, fresh red onions, iceberg lettuce & garlic aioli, $8.45

You might think with this many ingredients that this would be a muddled mess of tastes, but au contraire, mon frere, this is one of the most creative combinations on an Acme roll out there. Each ingredient is fresh (all sandwiches are made to order and you'd better be prepared to stand in line) and adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the whole. Just when the spicy rib steak and Jalapenos start to overwhelm you, the watery crunch of iceberg lettuce cools off the palate. Grilled and fresh onions contrast in texture and sweet/hot flavors. The whole thing is held together on an Acme roll - any ordinary supermarket sandwich roll would fall apart long before the final bite.

19th Street

Boar's Head medium rare roast beef, Vermont cheddar, pepper jack, avocado, champagne vinegar pickled jalapenos, tomatoes, pickles, baby arugula, garlic aioli, Boar's Head Delicatessen Mustard served on Acme organic sweet roll, $7.95

For another kind of kick, this roast-beef-and-cheddar looks and sounds like an ordinary cold submarine. But the roasty taste of arugula and buttery-textured avocado, plus those elegant champagne vinegar pickled Jalapenos, send this sandwich off in a much more sophisticated direction than you can get at a chain sandwich shop.

The counterman advised us that although they didn't serve beer, we could get one from the cold case and drink it with our lunch, provided we kept it wrapped in a brown paper bag (we stuck with non-alcoholic drinks, but that's good to know for future reference). Also for future reference, Rhea may soon be opening a second location at 20th and Brannan.

As we wandered up Market near Castro, we came across a space-age carnival barker who proclaimed that FREE FOOD was being given away nearby. Rhea's was still sticking to our ribs but we don't turn down free food.

It turned out to the the Dos Equis Mobile Food Academy Food Truck, who were serving up samples of Filipino food .

Itlog na Maalat - pickled duck egg with fresh heirloom tomato and salad

Adidas - Braised chicken feet, with lime and rice

The pickled duck egg tasted like a salty hard-boiled egg (from a duck that had been fed a controlled diet - no fish) and was on a sweetly-dressed tomato. We asked what chicken feet tasted like; the counterman said, "Like really, really fatty bacon." Seeing nothing at all wrong with that, we gave it a try, and found that to be accurate. Chicken bacon. The bones and toenails were removed, making it essentially a gluttonous pile of fatty smoky meat, with lime to cut the richness. Chicken foot bacon: the next big thing in breakfast foods.

Late in the afternoon, the dogs were starting to bark and we needed a place to sit down and recoup. That was when we stumbled into Pause Wine Bar - which at that moment was active as a pop-up juice bar, operated by Sow SF. A glass of juice seemed like a wiser choice at that moment than a drink, so we ordered a red juice and an orange juice (there is also a green juice).

Carrots, oranges, bell peppers and ginger

Beets, carrots, oranges, apples and ginger

Both juices were mildly but not cloyingly sweet, with each ingredient's distinct taste shining through. Not just a glass of juice, as owners Luisa and Derek explained, but a complex blending of compatible flavors from locally sourced organic and heirloom produce. Naturally, this kind of quality isn't cheap: each 8-ounce glass cost $7.00. But to put this in perspective: a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice from a place like the Brown Bruin will set you back that much - or, for that matter, a glass of wine at Pulse, had we opted for that.

No matter whether you're staying at Fisherman's Wharf or CouchSurfing, there's a lot of food to be discovered in San Francisco, but leave the car parked and save your money and sanity.

Rhea's Deli, 800 Valencia at 19th, San Francisco. (415) 282-5255 Open daily 11:30 AM - 5:00 PM. About six seats. Take BART to 16th Street or 24th Street, or Muni 14, 14L, 33, or 49. Menu here.

Dos Equis Mobile Food Academy Food Truck: Hapa Sf actually cooked the food, so see http://hapasf.com/ or like them on Facebook. Phone 650-483-5468.

http://www.mostinterestingacademy.com/ for details about Dos Equis Mobile Food Truck and a lot more.

Sow SF, currently operating a pop-up juice bar on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays at Pause Wine Bar, 1666 Market Street at Gough, San Francisco. (415) 637-7343

See http://sowsf.com/ or like them on Facebook.

BART Van Ness Station, or Muni 6, 9, 9L, 47, 49, 71, 71L, F.

Serve piping hot, with a pitcher of Soy Sauce for those who want a higher and more truly Chinese flavor. - From the instructions for Chinese Fried Rice, Sunset Magazine, 1936

Back in 1933 when Lim's opened, Americans were afraid of Chinese food. It could be argued they weren't wild about the Chinese people themselves and the fallout from that fell on the food, but that's a discussion for another time and place. In addition to quasi-Chinese dishes, restaurateurs added some foods familiar to Americans to their menus. BLTs, hot roast beef sandwiches, cottage cheese and canned peaches were borrowed from diners and became staples in a lot of Chinese-American cafes.

Over the decades, Americans gradually became more familiar with the formerly scary ingredients common to Asian cookery - sesame oil, fresh ginger, vegetables like winter melon and tatsoi, and - yes - soy sauce, which became an ingredient instead of a sauce. Some of the old-style cafes closed. Some adapted to changing tastes, adding Mongolian lamb and Buddha's Jewels to their menus. And a few refused to change at all. Lim's Cafe is one of those.

The menu is half Chinese, half American. The Chinese dishes are things like chop suey, chow mein, etc., - and are organized that way on the menu, rather than by beef, chicken, vegetables, etc. American choices include Chip Steak with French fries ($6.50), Full Order of Tomatoes ($5.00), and Denver Sandwich ($6.50) - all very retro items. There's a dinner menu as well - Fried Shrimp Dinner ($14.25), Grilled Pork Chops ($10.50), New York Steak ($16.00). You get the idea. The tropical drinks list includes the usual Mai Tai and Pina Colada, but also the Ding Ho ("Feeling Blue? Try One of These and It'll Pick You Up") and the Moon of Delight ("Very Mild, We Recommend for Lady").

When Femme de Joie first visited, she stood uncertainly near the door until a waitress yelled to sit anywhere. She'd hardly sat down before a waitress appeared at the table with water, ready to take the order. Apparently the vast majority of Lim's customers have the menu memorized.

Nearby, a young couple exulted over their lunch. He: "I'm so glad we didn't go to Grand Buffet!" She, to waitress: "This is his first time here!" Waitress. "If I'd known it was your first time, I would have warned you. It's addicting! Almost all our customers have been here before."

In a fit of retro nostalgia, M. de Joie ordered Pork Chop Suey, simply because it had been so long since the last time she's had it, she'd forgotten what it tasted like. The waitress brought squeeze bottles of ketchup and hot mustard, and asked if M. de Joie required a plate to mix rice and chop suey together. No.

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Chop Suey, $7.50

Chop suey was composed of very freshly cooked bean sprouts - a LOT of bean sprouts - bok choy, carrots, pork, bound with a thick cornstarch sauce, along with a very small bowl of steamed rice. No seasonings such as ginger or garlic had been added. It was freshly cooked and hot, but they forgot to add any taste.

On Femme de Joie's second visit, a nearby table of elderly gentlemen discussed baseball at great length, especially the Giants, as well as each other. "Bob, you're lookin' good." "Yup. 82 next week." "82? You don't look a day over... 74." They were clearly regulars, exchanging razzing with the waitress. They had the menu memorized.

Chinese BBQ ribs, $8.75 appetizer

A large portion of pork ribs was served with a small mound of steamed rice. While the ribs were perfectly cooked and very moist without being greasy, after a few bites M. de Joie became aware of an odd off-taste. It may have been something brushed on the rubs as they were cooking. After a few more bites, the odd taste morphed into a not-tasty taste. This is where those bottles of ketchup and hot mustard came in handy.

Cashew chicken, $9.00

Again, a generous portion of food, freshly cooked and colorful. But there was a large amount of very overcooked bok choy stems and celery, no seasonings, and the cashews had just been dumped unceremoniously on top of the completed dish. Bland, bland, bland.

The third time M. de Joie dined at Lim's, she sat near a man who was clearly enjoying his food. He did not attempt to disguise his moans, slurping, and lipsmacking. Thinking back now, perhaps she should have said, "I'll have what he's having." Instead, Femme de Joie ordered one of the four lunch specials always listed on a card on each table.

Special #1 - pork chow mein, egg foo yong, fried rice, $5.60

At first glance, there appeared to be a salad on the plate, but that turned out to be the chow mein. A more truthful name would be Soggy Cabbage on Lengths of Chewy Stuff. There was a small sprinkling of shredded Chinese pork on top; a powerful taste of star anise fairly overwhelmed the cabbage. Fried rice was nothing more than overcooked rice with a lot of soy sauce. At least the egg foo yong was harmless - there were shreds of an unknown green vegetable inside but there was simply no seasoning at all, not even salt, and it was blanketed heavily with a brown sauce that owed a lot to a packet.

Femme de Joie can understand some of the allure of Lim's. It's very cheap and you get lots of food. Service is very fast and very friendly. The retro ambiance can be charming in a late-night diner sort of way. And if you grew up here, you probably have fond memories of meals shared with family and friends.

M. de Joie has talked to numerous people who state matter-of-factly that Lim's has the best Chinese food around, so it does have a solid fan base. But M. de Joie finds the adulation given Lim's inexplicable and mystifying. In saying so, she's aware she's trampling on feelings and toes and happy memories, but there is far, far better Chinese food to be found in Redding.

Lim's Cafe, 592 North Market Street, Redding, CA. 530-241-9747 or 530-243-2991. Serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Open 7:00 AM - 9:00 PM, Monday-Thursday, 7:00 AM - 10:00 PM Friday and Saturday. Cash, cards, no checks. Small parking lot behind restaurant. Full bar. Vegetarian and vegan options.

Did you ever see “Eat Drink Man Woman”?

The story revolves around a gifted, skilled chef who has lost his sense of taste. (It's the same exact plot as “Tortilla Soup,” where the characters are Mexican-American instead of Chinese.)

Or how about the Food Network show, “Restaurant: Impossible” in which beefy Robert Irvine, on a mission to save failing restaurants, berates chefs who don't use any seasonings? “I don't use salt in case we have a customer who can't have salt,” says one clueless chef, to which Irvine snorts, “You don't have any customers.”

Which brings us to Golden Lantern. Occupying a prime spot of real estate on Churn Creek at Four Corners near Hartnell since 2007, this restaurant ought to be packing them in. It's on a busy corner with plenty of parking and lots of seating. The interior is well-lighted, clean, and attractive; service is unfailingly friendly and helpful; the generous servings are bargain-priced. But on each of three visits during peak lunch dining hours, M. de Joie observed that no more than five tables were occupied. So why isn't Golden Lantern busy?

Seafood tofu soup (medium $62.5, large $7.50) was very long on tofu and very short of seafood. There was what seemed like an entire cake of diced firm tofu in a bowl of hot but flavorless broth, bobbing along with diced carrots and some peas. After a few drops of soy sauce yielded only minor improvement, M. de Joie requested some chili paste: a driblet or two finally added some much-needed savor. As for the seafood, about 10 cocktail shrimp had sunk to the bottom of the bowl, where they nestled among an infinitesimally-small dice of an unknown sea creature.

Amico del Signore ordered almond chicken ($5.95 lunch special with steamed or fried rice and chow mein or sweet and sour pork). It looked good, it smelled good, and the zucchini and chicken were perfectly cut and cooked. But there was no flavor – as the dish cooled it seemed to become blander. Garlic and ginger are usually stir-fried together as a preliminary seasoning for most Cantonese dishes, but there was no evidence of either. The only seasonings were some chicken broth and perhaps a teeny amount of soy sauce. Fried rice was freshly prepared but likewise bland. Pork cubes had a lovely crisp coating but the sweet and sour sauce was neither. "The more you eat it," he sighed, "the less you like it."

Beef with broccoli ($5.95 lunch special) suffered the same fate as the almond chicken: great care had been taken in the prep and actual cooking, but there was no discernable flavor other than a very small amount of soy sauce. And here the two dishes collided and crawled all over each other - not the most appetizing presentation. Chow mein noodles were very overcooked and the entire dish was unfortunately quite oily.

Note: M. de Joie took the leftovers home and stir-fried them together the next with a shot of Sriracha, and that flavoring alone made them spectacular. Too bad they couldn't have been so tasty when first served.

In contrast, someone took pride in the hot and sour soup. This was a winner, with an almost creamy texture and good balance of neither too hot or too sour. Amico del Signore had never tasted hot and sour soup before, but he declared this a winner. Though there could have been a little more heat for M. de Joie's taste, it was still the best dish of the day.

Chinese chicken salad ($5.95 as an appetizer) was sloppily thrown together. Normally shredded chicken breast is used in this salad, both for aesthetics and for its ability to absorb flavorful dressings, but here some random pieces of lukewarm dark meat was scattered around the platter with large leaves of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, peanuts, and a few none-too-crispy rice noodles. Plain rice vinegar was the only dressing. This could have been so much better with a careful presentation and a creative dressing - perhaps with sesame oil, ginger, sugar, and garlic to cut the tartness of the vinegar. As it was, the vinegar puddled on the bottom of the plate and didn't provide a cohesive element to bring the dish together.

When M. de Joie ordered beef pho ($5.50 medium, $6.50 large), the waitress asked her if she wanted the bean sprouts and Sriracha, which seemed an odd question. The accompaniments are as much a part of that warming bowl of soup as are the rice noodles. It's like asking if you want ketchup with your fries.

Right away M. de Joie noticed the thinly-sliced beef: it looked unusually white. Plucking out one slice and tasting it alone, it proved to be not beef but pork. A broth that smelled enticingly of star anise turned out to be miserably weak and thin – watery chicken and pork with little beef taste. Usually a mouthful of the rice noodles comes dripping with beefy goodness, but here they only tasted of unseasoned rice: there was no flavor to absorb. Adding a minced slice of Jalapeno, some hoisin, Sriracha, and soy helped somewhat, but still: this was a huge disappointment.

When M. de Joie had eaten about half of the pho, the waitress came by and asked if she was done with the condiment tray. Upon receiving an affimative answer, the waitress took the tray to another table – the only other occupied table. Do they only have one set of Thai condiments?

Obviously the owners of Golden Lantern are invested in this restaurant. The place is spotless, service is good, and the prices are rock-bottom. It should be successful. But there are some decided issues with the food. The chef obviously has cutting and cooking technique down pat, but isn't using the flavor card to his advantage - in fact, the flavor card seems to have been put back in the pack. And taking the time and care to present dishes appetizingly costs nothing, but seems to be getting short shrift.

Some corners are being cut – pork instead of beef, a real dearth of seafood in a seafood soup, no one in the kitchen taking time to turn out broths and sauces with exciting flavors. This may save money in the short term, but as a long term practice is ultimately destructive. Femme de Joie hopes the chef & owners of Golden Lantern will honestly evaluate the dishes coming out of the kitchen. If prices are too low to afford filling a beef dish with beef or a seafood dish with seafood, then possibly the dish needs to come off the menu, or the prices raised. Both of those are painful choices, but the restaurant should be full during the lunch hour and it's not - and that seems more painful.

Golden Lantern, 2990 Churn Creek Road, Redding, CA 96002. 530-222-1166, fax 530-222-0918. Open Tuesday through Thursday, 11:00 AM - 9:30 PM, Friday and Saturday 11:00 AM - 10:00 PM, Sunday 12:00 PM - 9:30 PM. Closed Monday. Cards, cash, no checks. Beer and wine. Vegetarian and vegan options. On-site parking. Website at http://goldenlanterncalifornia.com/

It was financial necessity of one Yoshiaki Shiraishi that morphed the traditonal sushi bar from a tiny space with few seats into a novelty production that coincidentally involves food. The owner of a sushi restuarant on the outskirts of Osaka in the 1950s, Shiraishi was going broke paying master sushi chefs during times of slow business, as well as trying to please a customer base who demanded high-quality food. After visiting the Asahi brewery and observing the efficiency of conveyor belts moving beer bottles, he thought he could keep costs down by slowly moving plates of sushi past customers, allowing them to quickly choose and eat without ordering via waitstaff. (At first, Shiraishi also eliminated tables and chairs - an unpopular move he had to rescind.) If the sushi chefs were in the center of the conveyor belt, they could keep an eye on which dishes were most popular and make them up as needed. During slack times, the chefs could make up some of the most popular dishes in advance and be prepared for the next rush.

Fast forward to 1991, when Len-Sun Lai of Milpitas was issued a patent for "Interlinked watercourses for sushi boats," and the sushi floating boat theme restaurant boom was on. It's been good for the sushi business - but how good is it for the food?

Yama Sushi opened in 2008 in the space vacated by Pellegrini's Brazilian Steakhouse (a victim of the Cypress Street Bridge construction). Though there is table service available, there's no doubt that the floating sushi boats attract most of the attention. There are photo charts around the bar to guide diners through the offerings, as well as pricing guides (match the design of the little plate to the picture on the chart to see what it costs).

Rather than keep careful watch on the chart, it's more interesting to just grab a likely-looking dish from the boat and see if you like it. Though M. de Joie made an attempt to catch the names of these little plates, she was not near a chart and so just grabbed a few plates to try a variety of dishes.

Those little orange dots: tobiko, or flying fish roe. Not too salty or "fishy," they offer a nice little pop on the tongue. However, the sweet sauce drizzled on the plate tended to mask the delicate taste.

This vegetable egg roll was not quite as delightful as it could have been, as some of the ingredients had been mixed too far in advance and were on the mushy side.

M. de Joie enjoyed the surprise of a hot and spicy dish amongst the sushi and sashimi, but her dining companion was put off by the heat packed in these little meatballs. It appeared there was an attempt to add some sort of cooling sauce on the plate (see squiggles of mayonnaise-like goop on plate) but the it didn't disguise the heat.

This was a generous portion of teriyaki chicken for the price, but the bits were on their way to drying out by the time the boat came by. A last-minute light brushing of sauce before plating could have preserved the moisture.

After dining at the sushi bar, M. de Joie came back to try an off-the-menu item. Donburi is a lesser-seen dish around Redding, but one worth seeking out. Katsu don - breaded pork strips, mixed with egg and onion and made into an "omelet" on top of rice and topped with shredded carrot and scallion - made a surprisingly light lunch. It was accompanied by excellent miso soup with seaweed and a very good salad of spring mix with delicate miso-ginger dressing.

The floating sushi boats are an interesting way for sushi novices to see if they like it. There are some delicious dishes drifting around, but very often they are covered in honey sauce or a mango sauce. They're visually appealing and the sauce keeps rolls from drying out - but that extra sweetness obliterates the delicate taste of fresh fish. It's as if Disneyland had invented sushi.

It's fun to sit at the sushi bar with a friend and take guesses at what each morsel might be. Most of the food is tasty, and it can be a meal that doesn't break the bank if you order carefully. M. de Joie's one meal ordered off the menu was a delight. But with brightly-colored sauces and over-the-top tastes that resemble the subtle textures and flavors of raw fish about as much as Cheez Whiz resembles Stilton, this is not sushi for the purist. And unless you personally witness the chef slice and roll your sushi, it wasn't made to order. If you get there toward the end of a serving period, that lonely little plate could have been floating around and around for a while. It's tarted up to appeal to a wide audience.

Femme de Joie wouldn't complain if she was cajoled into eating at Yama Sushi, but there are more authentic sushi bars in town.

Yama Sushi, 40 Hartnell Avenue, Redding, CA 96002. Phone 530-223-6868, fax 530-223-6888. Cash & cards; no checks. Open daily 11:30 - 2:30 for lunch, 5:00 PM - 10:00 PM for dinner. Beer, wine, sake. Vegetarian and vegan options. Ample onsite parking. Website at www.yamasushi.net

Long-time Reddingites will remember Shakey's Pizza used to occupy the space on Churn Creek Road where Nipa's is now. (By the way, Shakey's is still in business. Just not here.) After it closed, a string of faux pubs and eateries came and went – M. de Joie dimly recalls one called the British Pub. Nipa's seems to have found the long-term success the others lacked.

You'd never know now that the interior was a pizzeria with a vaguely ragtimey feel. Though there's a bit of schizophrenic decor – the brick fireplace seems incongruous with the gold statues – it feels cool and comfortable inside. Out in the parking lot by a tree is a display of live birds in cages. This somehow always makes M. de Joie feel a little uneasy, though the birds seem to be well cared for and their cages kept clean.

Service is invariably friendly, smiling, cheerful and helpful.

Calamari ($7.95)

Calamari as an appetizer ($7.95) wasn't anything out of the ordinary; it was like calamari you might get at any number of restaurants. Simply breaded and deep-fried, it was a tad floppy and a little greasy. The accompanying sauce was sugar, vinegar, and nuoc mam - not really anything to write home about.

Tom yum kung ($10.95)

A large serving of tom yum kung ($10.95), the Thai treatment of hot and sour soup, was presented in a metal hot pot with space for a candle or other warming device, only there was no candle or heater underneath. The rich broth was flavorful with lime, thai basil, cilantro, mint, lemongrass, plenty of large shrimp, button mushrooms and tomatoes. However, there was also a minefield of inedible lemongrass stalks, galangal, tough leaves, etc., which the unwary diner will spoon up and discover too late. Be warned.

Chicken satay

This amuse-buche of chicken satay on a stick was brought out covered in peanut sauce. It was neither hot nor cold, but was room temperature. Where had it been sitting prior to being brought out? The peanut sauce was a bit bland but the chicken was moist and flavorful.

Pad rahm with rice ($7.95)

Pad rahm with rice ($7.95) was a melange of mixed vegetables and chicken in peanut sauce, served at medium heat as requested. The thin sauce didn't have much flavor other than a rare burst of heat or taste of peanut butter at random intervals, and the sauce refused to cling to any of the other components. Small twists of chicken were tossed in with a random assortment of vegetables. Some of the vegetables were cooked very thoroughly; others, like an unusually large chunk of yellow crookneck squash, were barely heated through.

Green papaya salad ($7.95)

Green papaya salad ($7.95) was wonderful, a colorful toss of julienned green papaya, carrots, and green beans mixed with chopped peanuts clinging all over, along with chopped tomatoes, two prawns, and Thai basil. The only problem was that it was ordered medium heat but didn't seem to have any heat at all.

Green curry ($7.95)

The tofu in this green curry ($7.95) was delicious, fried until browned and tender inside. Green curry sauce didn't have much taste other than a little heat. Again, the vegetables were mixed - green beans were apparently the veg of the day because they were also featured in the green papaya salad. They were mixed in along with some not-quite cooked pumpkin, red bell pepper, and not-cooked zucchini.

Nipa's is a bit of a mixed bag. When the cooking is spot-on, it's delightful, colorful, and exciting. Many of the dishes are budget-priced and healthy. But there's a bit of carelessness in the kitchen with prep and execution, so it's anyone's guess if the dish you order will be a winner or a bit of a letdown. Still, it's worth a visit if you're in the area and looking for a quiet meal that's a little different from the same-old same-old of chain restaurants in Enterprise.

Nipa's Thai Cuisine, 2600 Churn Creek Road, Redding CA 96002. (530) 221-0966. Open daily, 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. Cards, no checks. Beer and wine. Vegetarian and vegan options. Parking lot.

Of necessity, sushi restaurants are usually quite small, little more than a mini-van’s worth of seats. It takes time to turn out sushi and it does not lend itself to sitting around like McWhoppers, so the number of diners allowed in has to be limited. And this is not a food that can be turned over to summer job seekers: sushi chefs in Japan train for years before they ever lay knife to fish, though in America a 12-week course suffices.

There are numerous restaurants around town that attempt to combine several Asian cuisines with varying degrees of success. Now and then Femme de Joie has picked up a comely slice from a sushi roll to discover that what she is tasting is less like a delicate scallop roll than it is more like Nigiri Fish Bait.

A big reason for Tokyo Garden Japanese Restaurant's continued success is sticking to Japanese cuisine. The kitchen is focused and not so spread out with Cajun teriyaki or soba marinara that the purity and essence becomes dilute.

Tako salad, $5.95

Tako salad ($5.95) is a great way to find out if you like octopus. If you didn’t know, you might think this was bits of sweet, chewy squid. Tokyo Garden’s version makes a terrific appetizer with loads of piquant ginger and strips of seaweed. If you’re unsure, share this with a friend, but this little salad is enticing enough to keep to yourself.

Seafood noodle soup ($11.95 made with soba, $1 extra for udon noodles)

Femme de Joie had this on a blustery cold afternoon and it was just the ticket - a savory-sweet broth filled with soba noodles and a surfeit of scallops, fish, vegetables, and shrimp. Though the fish was overcooked, the rest was perfect and tender. The serving was much larger than the photo indicates and it isn’t a speedy meal to eat - you want to take your time to enjoy every bite, or you’ll wind up with a splattered shirt front.

Bento box lunch special #5 ($7.95) with beef teriyaki, assorted tempura, California roll, salad, and rice

Assorted tempura included fresh mushrooms, asparagus, and shrimp in a fragile-crisp non-greasy batter. Creamy avocado dominated the taste in the California roll - the “crab” taste was lost. Though the steak was tender and had good beefy flavor, the teriyaki sauce had a weird glutinous mouthfeel and a slightly off taste.

Spicy tuna roll, mackerel roll (saba), Crazy Monkey Roll

After Femme de Joie had spent a few months trying sushi at different restaurants around town and being disappointed, Tokyo Garden really delivered. The fresh clean taste of tuna came through. Fresh beads of masago (smelt fish roe) that popped in the mouth accented the rice and spicy sauce gave it a kick. Oily mackerel can either be overpoweringly fishy or bland, depending on how it was cured, but this version had a pleasant taste of the sea and texture. Crazy Monkey roll (snow crab, imitation crab, avocado, cucumber, topped with unagi (freshwater eel), masago, and special sauce) was almost as delightful to eat as it was to order: none of the tastes dominated or concealed the others. Each bite had a slight cucumber crunch that then melted into the softer crab and avocado.

If you’re not of a mind to wait for a seat at one of the sushi bars around Redding or you aren’t quite sure about whether you like sushi, Tokyo Gardens offers a more Americanized option. There are menu choices that will appeal to the fishphobic and more adventurous palates alike. Though fresh fish of a quality for sashimi and sushi is not cheap (do you really want to eat day-old discount salmon?), lunch specials start at $5.95, so there’s a little something for everyone here.

Tokyo Garden Japanese Restaurant, 1675 Hilltop Drive, Suite M, Redding CA 96002. Phone 530-221-6888, fax 530-221-5168. Open 7 days a week from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Lunch served from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Cash, cards, no checks. Beer, wine, sake. Sushi bar. Loads of parking. Vegetarian and vegan options. Website at reddingtokyogarden.com.

That red-and-green pagoda on Hilltop Drive was built 40-plus years ago to house the Hong Kong Restaurant. When it closed, a couple more Chinese restaurants moved in and out, and now Jade Garden has been there for several years. It would seem from Femme de Joie’s observations that while the kitchen is largely keeping up its end, perhaps the building is not being treated with kindness and could use a little upkeep.

Sometimes when she’s sitting in a restaurant, expecting to pay restaurant prices for food that will presumably be cooked in a kitchen that passes health codes, M. de Joie starts to notice things. Things like fortunes from cookies stuck under plastic window protectors (which have been there since Joe Montana was still playing and which have started to attract their own discoloration), fly specks on artificial flowers, unfinished cuts of lumber jerry-bracing ceilings next to cobwebs, rusty stains running down the wall, a grimy splat of unknown origins on the mirrored wall. She notices restrooms with two out of ten possible light bulbs installed and a damp feeling, and a cash register with a lot of tatty cheap souvenirs for sale. This is not to say the restaurant is bad because the artificial rose bush container is now being used as a trash can, but if the windows haven’t been washed since the last Ice Age and there’s condensation under the deeply-cracked plexiglass tabletop, M. de Joie starts to wonder about pride of ownership. Just because a restaurant has a convenient customer base from the motels along Hilltop doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try to do a little housecleaning.

But we don’t eat off the walls or the mirrors, so let’s have a look at the food. The menu is quite extensive but, as noted below, they may not actually serve everything.

Lunch special of almond chicken, including steamed rice, egg roll, and tea

The usual cornstarchy soup-of-the-day was utterly tasteless despite cubes of tofu, assorted veggies and minute bits of mystery meat. Soy sauce and hot chili oil were necessary to lend it a bit of flavor. Almond chicken was a moderate portion, dwarfed on the plate by an extra-large serving of steamed rice, but it was tasty with a nice garlicky flavor, crunchy celery, almond halves, and tender, moist dark-meat bites of chicken.

Pho with tendon, flank steak and meatballs

M. de Joie is a bit dubious when she sees a restaurant trying to take on too much. Jade Garden advertises Szechuan, Hunan, Mandarin, Cantonese and Vietnamese cuisine, which are really quite diverse in ingredients, seasonings, and cooking methods, but a generous bowl of Vietnamese pho was a happy surprise. The well-flavored broth was delicious enough to drink by itself and there was plenty of thinly-sliced beef and rice noodles to round out the meal, along with a side plate of not-quite-freshly sliced Jalapenos and limes plus leafy cilantro on the side.

Bun Thit Nuong

After perusing the handwritten lunch specials board, M. de Joie ordered Ginger Lamb. “Oh, wait,” the waitress said, “they might be out of that.” After conferring with the kitchen, she came back. “You’ll have to pick something else. They’ve been out of that for quite a while.” Then why was it on the lunch specials? Never mind. M. de Joie chose another Vietnamese dish, Bun Thit Nuong (grilled beef with rice noodles). First came a really sensational soup of the day -- a fabulously gingery won ton soup, freshly made, with minced scallions and finely shredded fresh cabbage. A pleasant surprise.

What arrived later was a bowl of grilled pork -- not beef -- on top of rice noodles. It came with a small dish of dipping sauce that seemed to have been diluted with water so that the only taste was a mild heat, plus a very small dish of none-too-fresh chopped peanuts. The pork was actually quite good - strips of pork steak seasoned and grilled perfectly, on top of plain unseasoned rice noodles. Underneath the noodles was a mound of shredded lettuce and a few whole mint leaves. When the dipping sauce and peanuts were added to the bowl and everything tossed together to get the greenery involved, the dish came together with a pleasing herbal undertone to contrast with the grilled meat.

Service is adequate and pleasant, if not speedy. Jade Garden isn’t Femme de Joie’s favorite Asian restaurant but she wouldn’t throw a fit if she was taken there. Some of the cooking is quite good and the prices are right.

Jade Garden, 2257 Hilltop Drive, Redding, CA 530-222-8883. Open Monday-Friday, 11 a.m - 10 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 12:00 - 10 p.m. Vegetarian and vegan options. Full bar. Parking lot behind the restaurant. No checks.

Downtown Redding used to be a fair-to-middling food wasteland with little but fast food offerings, while chain restaurants sprouted like weeds in Enterprise and induced Westside residents to venture across the river in search of dinner. But a few brave folks have taken the bull by the teeth (to mix several metaphors) and forged ahead in Old Redding with independently-owned restaurants. Fuji Japanese Restaurant occupies a spot on Placer Street that was a garage when Femme de Joie was a child but which morphed into a wide range of businesses over the years, including the late lamented Redding Bookstore and previously another restaurant.

Service is very fast and friendly; you’re seated immediately and staff is attentive. Specials are on a board facing the door when you walk in. Each table has a little card that explains the World of Sushi for neophytes.

Sake maka (mackerel), $4.25 and spicy tuna roll, $5.95

Spicy tuna roll was not at all spicy. It was tuna with avocado and tobiko (flying fish roe), nothing spicy about those. The sushi rice had been rolled in the tobiko quite a white back because all shine and "pop" was gone from the eggs, and they adhered firmly and glutinously to the rice. The only real taste was from the avocado. Mackerel is an oily fish that can be overwhelmingly fishy in taste, depending on how it was cured with salt, but this was mushy and had no taste, fishy or otherwise. Both rolls appeared to have been made in advance because they were served very, very quickly.

Beef sukiyaki, $11.95

Beef sukiyaki was a warming treat on a snowy day (though awkward to eat while working around the bail on the cooking pan). Included were tender-crisp carrots, zucchini, cabbage, scallions, asparagus, daikon with noodles, and strips of beef in slightly sweet broth. If you ever have to take someone to a Japanese restaurant who professes to not like Japanese food (fear of raw fish), this is what they should order, to break them in gently.

Bento box #5 - beef teriyaki, tempura, California roll with salad, soup, rice, $7.95.

Bento boxes come with a choice of miso soup, corn chowder, or hot & sour soup. Hot and sour was hot but not very sour, with a pleasing earthy mushroom taste. The miso soup at Fuji is packed with lots of seaweed and makes a nice light starter.

Beef teriyaki was luscious bites of tender beef in a not-too-sweet sauce with onion shards. Iceberg lettuce in creamy miso dressing occupied one corner of the tray; the miso dressing would be delicious on decent lettuce. California roll -- made ahead -- had avocado taste at the front but not much seafood taste. Freshly-made and crispy tempura had one large shrimp, one Brussels sprout (odd but really very good done this way), a slice of onion, a slice of yam, a whole mushroom, one asparagus spear, a slice of carrot, and one item that may or may not have been a log of sweet red bean paste. A slice of orange with a sweet-tart fruity powder sprinkled across the flesh and served afterwards was a nice touch.

Spicy calamari, $7.95 as a lunch special.

There was plenty of tender calamari, nicely done tempura-style, but no spice to speak of -- poking around, M. de Joie eventually located the shards of one smallish dried hot chili amongst the calamari. While not everyone is as fond of hot and spicy dishes as M. de Joie, if you’re not going to prepare a dish as hot and spicy, why advertise it so?

Bunny roll, $15.95 lunch special.

M. de Joie had to laugh at this wildly Rococo and architecturally improbable creation served up before Easter. On the inside: spicy tuna, avocado, cream cheese, and crab meat. On the outside: tempura avocado, crab meat, and special spicy sauce. This was impossible to eat with chopsticks and difficult to eat with fingers or fork: it simply would not hold together and in any case was much too big to eat in one bite. It was entertaining, to be sure, and freshly made and tasty, but the multiple and contra-distinctive ingredients meant some of the subtler tastes (like crab) got lost.

After several visits, M. de Joie is a bit torn about Fuji. It has many fine qualities but some of the food is hit-or-miss, and it appears some shortcuts are taken that affect the quality. On the one hand, Femme de Joie likes the speedy service and fair prices (lunch specials are a good value) at Fuji Japanese Restaurant. Dishes that are prepared to order like tempura, sukiyaki, teriyaki, and special rolls are very good and worth a return trip for. On the other hand, dishes like sushi rolls (particularly the most commonly ordered ones like California rolls, tuna, etc.) that depend on immediacy and fresh preparation seem to be made ahead, which does them no favor. And there’s no tea in the teapot! When you order tea ($1.95), it comes almost instantly (good) with no tea or teabag (not so good). It’s pre-made and kept hot. Tea really doesn’t improve upon standing and M. de Joie wonders why Fuji can’t just pour boiling water into a pot and add a teabag.

Fuji can be worth a visit for its good value, friendliness, and for some of the made-to-order dishes, but M. de Joie advises diners to inquire about when the fish was delivered before ordering sashimi and to ask when sushi rolls were made. With a bit more care and time devoted to each dish that comes out of the kitchen, everything on the menu could be terrific.

EDIT: Fuji is now closed.

Fuji Japanese Restaurant, 1545 Placer Street, Redding, CA 96001. 530-243-8366. Open Monday-Saturday 11 a.m.- 9 p.m, Sunday 4 p.m.- 9 p.m. Beer and wine. Street parking or park in the mall parking lot. Vegetarian and vegan options. Credit and debit cards; no checks.

Singaporean chef/cooking teacher Vanessa Frida speaks warmly of Thai sweet chili sauce and its all-around usefulness. M. de Joie had heard of it but wasn't really sure what it was -- there are many products labeled chili sauce or chili paste that don't taste at all like what a Californian might think. But Vanessa Frida knows whereof she speaks.

So the next time M. de Joie stopped in at Lao Market (2660 South Market Street, near Racha Noodle) to pick up some sesame oil and nuoc mam, she grabbed a bottle of Thai sweet chili sauce and took it home ... where it sat for several months. Finally she opened it up to make a Thai-style cucumber salad, and discovered how incredibly delicious it is served on - well, just about anything. It's gooey, sweet, and spicy-hot, and makes a wonderful dip/spread to use with wild abandon.

What's it good on? Fried chicken, shrimp, raw vegetables, grilled cheese, onion rings, pork chops, French fries, toasted sesame bagels, grilled hot dogs, steamed rice, cabbage salad, a pastrami or corned beef sandwich, lamb kebabs, cream cheese on a cracker, a hot buttered English muffin, and probably a lot of other things yet to be discovered.

Another item to pick up in an Asian market is black rice vinegar. White rice vinegar is more familiar but there are also red and black varieties. The red is a bit salty; black vinegar is more assertive than the white and somewhat resembles balsamic vinegar. If you love experimenting with Asian foods, this should be on your shelf. Try mixing equal parts good-quality soy sauce and black vinegar and adding a bit of grated ginger and/or sesame oil to make a dipping sauce for pork roast, eggrolls, spring rolls, spareribs, pot stickers and dumplings, or as a dressing for a cucumber or cabbage salad.

Then there's Trader Joe's Wasabi Mayonnaise. M. de Joie found it above the frozen fish in Trader Joe's and hasn't given a single thought to ordinary tartar sauce since. It has a nice wasabi kick and goes great on fried fish, shrimp, and oysters, roast beef, or as a sandwich spread. Also try dipping crackers or crudités into wasabi mayo, then into the sweet chili sauce for an extra blast of heat and flavor.

Sweet chili sauce, about $3.20 for a 32.5-ounce bottle at Asian markets.

Black rice vinegar, about $2.39 for a 20.3-ounce bottle at Asian markets.

Trader Joe's Wasabi Mayonnaise, $3.29 for a 12-ounce bottle at Trader Joe's.

Follow Vanessa Frida at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Culinary-Ness/151908563699#!/pages/Culinary-Ness/151908563699?v=info

It's been noted before in this space that strip malls can be an unlikely place to find good food. The many vacancies and low rent in Redding make them ideal for small family-run restaurants. Yuet Bistro is one such place.

Yuet Bistro's interior is a bit more elegant and stylish than you'd expect given it's next to a tire shop and there's a parking lot just a few feet from the window. A long polished bar describes one wall; discreet hanging light fixtures cast a better glow on diners than ordinary florescent lighting. Lacquered chairs and tables are comfortably spaced apart so you don't feel like your neighbor could just reach over and take a bite off your plate. Service is prompt and ranges from friendly to perfunctory.

So the interior’s nice. But how’s the food? With a menu extended between dim sum, Thai, Cantonese, Mandarin and Szechuan, Femme de Joie was a bit concerned that the kitchen wouldn’t be able to successfully accomplish everything they advertise. But M. de Joie is pleased to recommend Yuet Bistro for lunch or dinner, or a dim sum extravaganza. Prices are right for a speedy bargain lunch, but this is no fast-food express joint: the cuisine is elegant enough to take a date or enjoy a special occasion with family.

Hot and sour soup - $3.50 cup, $6 bowl or available with lunch specials.

Though it could have packed more heat, this warming and filling soup was nicely sour and was brimming with lots of crunchy julienned vegetables. It was a pleasant surprise to find hot and sour soup is an option to go with lunch specials in place of the ubiquitous egg flower soup.

Singapore style noodles with pork and curry, $8.95

This was the weakest dish M. de Joie sampled at Yuet Bistro. Noodles, veggies, Chinese BBQ pork, and shrimp were all cooked beautifully. Unfortunately, the curry powder wasn't stirred in thoroughly. About half of the dish didn't have any curry and tasted very bland, and then suddenly there’d be a mouthful of pasty curry powder glommed onto the rice noodles. Too bad, because the other ingredients were perfect.

Ma po tofu -- lunch special, $6.95, including steamed or fried rice and a choice of egg flower or hot and sour soup.

This was a terrific deal -- a very large portion of cubed tofu, strips of tender pork, diced carrots and peas in a gingery, not-too-sweet spicy-hot sauce, along with a generous amount of freshly cooked fried rice. Even an unreconstructed carnivore would enjoy this hearty special vegetarian dish with meaty textures. Ma po tofu can be made sans pork for a vegetarian dish.

Salt-baked squid $8.95, enough to serve two or three as an appetizer to share.

Salt-baked squid is not, in fact, baked but rather deep-fried in a light, puffy coating, with lots of browned slivered garlic, salt, fresh jalapenos, and dried chilies thrown over the top and served with hoi sin, sweet and sour, and garlic-chili paste. Femme de Joie could hardly stop eating this delicious, intensely flavored dim sum. Amico del Signore is not a squid fan but he loved this.

Thai tom yum seafood soup, $8.95 for a very large serving.

M. de Joie loved this spicy and warming Thai soup, sour with limes in a strongly aromatic broth and filled with three green-lipped mussels and plenty of squid and shrimp. This is a soup for those who love assertive flavors and unexpected combinations of tastes.

Now that the Cypress Street Bridge is complete and there aren’t 20-minute delays crossing the river, Yuet Bistro is easily accessible from downtown for lunch, or make a special evening reservation and enjoy some sophisticated Asian food in an attractive dining room.

Yuet Bistro, 24 Hartnell Avenue, Redding, CA 96002. 530-222-8322. Open Sunday-Thursday 11 AM - 9 PM; Friday and Saturday 11 AM - 11 PM. Cash, cards; no checks. Ample onsite parking. Vegetarian and vegan options. Beer and wine. See menu at http://www.yuetbistro.com/

Note: this was originally written and posted last winter. Not so appropriate for June, but still, a bowl of soup might be just what the doctor ordered.

Before the sunny streak, this winter had been very much like the Shasta County winters Femme de Joie remembers from her childhood, when she had to walk five miles to school in a blizzard uphill both ways over hot burning coals -- whoops, sorry. That’s a different rant for a different time.

But it looks like this season's rainy and cold winter has resumed, and that makes M. de Joie think fondly of soup -- not just adding one can water to one can of Campbell's, but real soup, soup that comforts you when you are sick, warms you down to your popsicle toes when you’re frozen, rejuvenates you when things look bleak. While it’s quite easy to whip up wonderful, soothing, full-meal soups in one’s own kitchen with only a modicum of effort, there are certain soups most people don’t attempt at home, putting them instead on the lists of foods they only eat when at a restaurant. And there are times when you just don’t feel like cooking, or when you need lunch but don't want to eat so much you feel groggy the rest of the day.

If you’re out and about on a miserable winter day, or at home wishing you had a large steaming bowl of soupy comfort in front of you, here are a few of Femme de Joie’s favorites. Each is a meal by itself, reasonably priced, and most are just a bit more exotic than chicken noodle (though dear knows chicken noodle has its place on a list of favorite comfort foods).

ALBONDIGAS AT EL MARIACHI’S

Albondigas, $4.50/$7.50, served with tortillas. This savory broth is seasoned with oregano and includes generous chunks of zucchini, carrots, onions and tomatoes, plus large meatballs. It’s sophisticated enough for adults while also appealing to kids.

For the adventurous, Femme de Joie can't say enough good things about the ridiculously red giant bowl of menudo (not pictured) served daily at El Mariachi's. Hot tortillas and a side plate of lime wedges, dried chili flakes, minced onion and chopped cilantro allows the diner to enhance the soup to taste. Fat tender pillows of tripe -- without what a friend described as "that cow-stomach smell" -- bob in a rich chili base. $7.99 for an enormous serving; good whether you have a hangover or not.

VEGETARIAN CHILI AT GRILLA BITES

Every day, Grilla Bites offers a selection of soups -- mostly organic, always with a vegetarian selection, and some designated as gluten-free. The day M. de Joie visited, the offerings included vegetarian chili (pictured above), lentil, minestrone, and their signature Rockin’ Moroccan. $3.50 for a small bowl, $6.50 for a large serving; add $2.00 to be served in a bread bowl.

PHO AT PHO SAIGON

As the name indicates, pho is the specialty of this little cafe tucked away in a corner of a strip mall near Raley's. M. de Joie favors tai sach - variety beef cuts including tendon, tripe, meatballs, and flanken, along with rice noodles in a star anise-spiced roasted beef broth, side dish of bean sprouts, fresh cilantro, and hot chilis to add as desired.

For those who like fish and want to expand their horizons a bit, try pho hai san - shrimp, squid, fish cake, imitation crab meat with rice noodle. A small bowl is $7.99.

KHAO SOY AT 5 THAIS

Khao soy ($6.99) may look like square marshmallows floating in a bowl of chocolate milk, but one sniff, one taste, will reveal flavor combinations of coconut, red and yellow Thai curry, and onion that are simply out of this world. If tofu doesn't rock your socks, chicken and beef are alternatives. Also available at sister restaurant Racha Noodle.

If there’s a restaurant that makes a fine soup you crave, M. de Joie would love to hear about it. Meanwhile, give these places a try for a warming lunch or dinner that won’t break the bank. Call for opening days/hours and more information. Note: 5 Thais and Racha Noodle accept cash only.

Pho Saigon, 236 Hartnell Avenue, Redding; 530-223-9888

Grilla Bites, 1427 Market Street, Redding, 96001; 530-242-6656

El Mariachi's, 2914 Churn Creek Road, Redding, 96002; 530-224-1847

5 Thais, 1003 Dana Drive, Suite A, Redding; 530-221-8929

Racha Noodle, 2630 South Market Street, Redding, 96001; 530- 246-8730

Last June while wandering through San Francisco’s Chinatown, Femme de Joie and Amico del Signore stopped in at Vital Tea Shop (see here for details). We bought some tea and on our way out, asked Jason, the proprietor, for a recommendation on a good place to eat. When he asked us, “What do you feel like having? Malaysian, Vietnamese, Szechuan, Hunan, Korean, Cantonese, seafood?” we knew we had asked the right man. We said we wanted simple Cantonese food, and he directed us around the corner and up Washington half a block - “Look for the ducks in the window.”

We eagerly hiked up half a steep block and walked into New King Tin. There were Peking ducks hanging in the window; to the right of the cash register a man worked patiently turning out won tons, chopping ducks, making fish balls. Before us was a large nondescript dining room with worn linoleum and unadorned Formica-topped tables; fish tanks bubbled in the back with live lobsters, crab, catfish and cod; and tables full of Chinese families were noisily and eagerly tucking into dishes with aromas that made us weak in the knees.

Though we couldn’t read them, the presence of hand-lettered signs in Chinese told us we were in the right place.

Since that first visit a year ago, we’ve made three more stops at New King Tin. Yeah, it’s that good. We’ve sampled a variety of dishes from the menu and we might have to visit about fifty more times to try everything, but that is a challenge we’re willing to take on.

Won ton soup - the won ton filling is made fresh on the premises, unlike many restaurants that order bulk filling (along with pre-chopped egg roll filling). The mixed pork and chicken broth makes this an especially rich version.

Those ducks in the window aren’t just for display. A generous order of star-anise scented roast duck set us back just $7.95 - tender, juicy, and meaty, this was enough for two people as part of a Chinese dinner.

Hot and spicy braised eggplant ($6.95) and sweet and sour pork ($8.95). Asian eggplants sliced and braised with hot dried chilis and pork were filling and meaty in texture. The sweet and sour pork was luscious: cubes of deep-fried pork had a crunchy exterior and flavorful, tender interior with a tangy, light sauce, not sugary sweet but piquant.

Double meatball soup ($5.50 for enough for two people) had tofu, pork meatballs, and fish balls in a lovely gingery chicken broth with spinach; though it might sound like an odd combination, it worked well. The fish balls did not overwhelm the rest of the flavors but were instead delicately flavored and light.

New King Tin’s version of tomato-beef chow mein was light and crispy with deep-fried rice noodles, small bites of steak, and a scattering of fresh vegetables. Not at all salty with soy sauce or oily as so often happens, this was one of our favorite dishes.

Oysters with black bean sauce ($12.95) were the surprise hit for both Amico del Signore and Femme de Joie. Six oysters in the shell are topped with fermented black beans, garlic, and scallions, and steamed. Briny fresh oysters took on an exotic dimension neither of us dreamed existed - salty, spicy, amazingly plump and juicy. We loved this so much we ordered it two days in a row.

If you’re in Chinatown and looking for an authentic restaurant, we can’t recommend New King Tin enough. It’s not a place many tourists go. It isn’t pretty and the restrooms are frankly a little scary. But service was polite, helpful, and prompt, servings are generous, the menu is extensive and inexpensive, the fish could not be fresher, and you’ll roll out of there wondering when you can come back.

Edit: New King Tin has closed. The Washington Cafe has opened in its place.

New King Tin, 826 Washington Street (between Ross Alley and Grant Avenue), San Francisco, CA 94108. 415-368-8088/8188. Credit and debit cards; cash. Open daily 8 AM-12 AM. Beer and wine. Street parking only; good luck. Better to park elsewhere and hoof it, or take Muni; lines 41 Union, 30-Stockton, 45 Union-Stockton, 8 Express, 10 Townsend, 12 Folsom, 27 Bryant, 1 California, and the Powell Street cable car all come nearby. Sample menu at http://sanfrancisco.menupages.com/restaurants/new-king-tin-restaurant/menu

Whoever said, “Location, location, location” is the key to success obviously never set foot inside Racha Noodle. Housed in a forgettable mini strip mall where California Street careens into South Market, this first restaurant opening by five Thai sisters (who also operate 5 Thais on Dana Drive) defies modern business models and has been turning out their delightful dishes to a hungry budget-conscious and appreciative crowd for four years.

Racha’s interior is painted an odd but pleasing lilac color; simple décor includes Thai tourism posters and pictures of Thai food. There are about a dozen tables so it can fill up fast, especially during prime lunch and dinner hours. Go during off-peak hours if you want to avoid feeling crowded.

Amico del Signore adding bean sprouts to beef pho with shrimp, tripe, meatballs, and tendons. $7.50.

Racha is a great place to get your fix of pho, that warming meat-and-noodle dish that until the last few years was well-nigh impossible to find locally. Generous bowls of hot soup come with a small plate of bean sprouts and lime wedges to add to the soup as you prefer. There’s also a tray of typical Thai condiments available, such as pickled hot peppers, ground dried chilis, Sriracha, sugar, etc. See http://www.madammam.com/articles/tabletop.html for a clearer explanation of how to use them. Note: when adding hot condiments to a dish, be aware of the accumulative effect. More than once M. de Joie has gleefully piled on Jalapenos, Sriracha, and so on, only to find the resulting broth explosively hot.

Having eaten pho at several restaurants in Redding, it’s Femme de Joie’s opinion that the rich broth makes Racha’s version the best local version she’s tasted so far. In addition to beef and shrimp, versions with seafood only, beef only and chicken are available. When you’re coming down with a cold, feeling wet and chilled, or just need some comfort food, pho will get you set on the right track again.

The duck fried rice ($7.95) was a much less salty and more flavorful version than is found in Chinese restaurants. Packed with duck, bits of pineapple, fresh herbs and vegetables, this makes a great accompaniment to curry or a simple lunch by itself.

Green papaya salad with spicy lime dressing, $6.65.

Green papayas are quite a different animal from the soft musky-scented ripe sweet papaya. Here at Racha, it makes a tart and spicy slaw-like salad that cuts the richness of dishes like pumpkin curries and salmon dishes - or a light lunch.

Warning: papaya (along with several other fruits/vegetables) can trigger allergic reactions in people who are allergic to latex; see http://allergies.about.com/od/medicationallergies/a/latexfood.htm for more information.

5 spice chicken leg soup, $5.95 as daily special.

This unusual dish is a lighter kissing cousin to pho. Two tender and flavorful chicken legs poach in a 5-spice broth, along with large wedges of fried tofu, rice noodles, scallions, cilantro and mushrooms. Eating chicken legs in soup posed an interesting etiquette dilemma since no knife and fork were provided. M. de Joie finally decided to pick the legs up and eat them out of hand - a messy but satisfactory solution.

Though not pictured, M. de Joie strongly recommends the garlic chicken, which will tempt you to pick your plate up and lick it, and the mango with sticky rice dessert, which will cause you to squabble with your dining partner. It’s that good.

About that business model: in addition to its off-the-beaten-path location, Racha Noodle only accepts cash. No checks, no debit cards, no credit cards. But Racha Noodle is worth making a stop at the ATM for, and you won’t have to withdraw very much money. This is a great local place.

Racha Noodle, 2630 South Market Street at California Street, Redding, CA 96001. 530-246-8730. Open Monday-Saturday 11 AM-3 PM and 5 PM-8PM. Closed Sunday. On-site parking. Vegetarian and vegan options. No alcohol. Cash only. No cards, no checks.

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Page Summary

A Mixed Bag at Peacock in Anderson
Fusion Lounge Breaks New Ground with Original Cuisine
Lao Meets Thai at Kanya Market
Kahuna’s Mongolian BBQ Livens Up Downtown Redding Dining
Delicious Bargains at Tiny Thai Hut
You Never Promised Me a Rose Garden
Cantonese and More at SF’s Capital Restaurant
Beets and Chicken Feet in the City
Lim’s Cafe – Retro or Relic?
Golden Lantern – Have Wok, Need Flavor
Yama Sushi – Slow Boat or Pleasure Cruise?
Nipa’s Is a Taste of Thai in Redding
Redding’s Tokyo Garden Japanese Restaurant
Jade Garden Offers Pleasant Surprises, Poor Upkeep
Fuji’s Bento Box is a Mixed Bag
Three Great Condiments to Try
Elegant Asian Dishes at Yuet Bistro
Soup of the Evening, Beautiful Soup
Menuplease: Out of Town for New King Tin
Menuplease: Racha Noodle is a Taste of Thai in Redding

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Where to Eat in Redding and Shasta County, California

Entries tagged with asian

A Mixed Bag at Peacock in Anderson

Fusion Lounge Breaks New Ground with Original Cuisine

Lao Meets Thai at Kanya Market

Kahuna’s Mongolian BBQ Livens Up Downtown Redding Dining

Delicious Bargains at Tiny Thai Hut

You Never Promised Me a Rose Garden

Cantonese and More at SF’s Capital Restaurant

Beets and Chicken Feet in the City

Lim’s Cafe – Retro or Relic?

Golden Lantern – Have Wok, Need Flavor

Yama Sushi – Slow Boat or Pleasure Cruise?

Nipa’s Is a Taste of Thai in Redding

Redding’s Tokyo Garden Japanese Restaurant

Jade Garden Offers Pleasant Surprises, Poor Upkeep

Fuji’s Bento Box is a Mixed Bag

Three Great Condiments to Try

Elegant Asian Dishes at Yuet Bistro

Soup of the Evening, Beautiful Soup

Menuplease: Out of Town for New King Tin

Menuplease: Racha Noodle is a Taste of Thai in Redding