Taipan Bakery

Don't let the lack of long lines fool you. Taipan Bakery on Baldwin Ave is a great little bakery with fresh breads, cakes and pastries. Like most other bakeries, visits are best in the morning than evenings, in which the scant leftovers are all that you can choose from.

Additionally, this bakery is the only one I know of with curry bread.

They also have egg tarts, mini chicken pies and curry pies.

Dumpling 10053

I had Dumpling 10053 for lunch with mom.



We ordered the steamed pork dumplings, a mixed dumpling plate, and a beef tendon noodle soup.

The steamed pork dumplings has a thicker skin than Din Tai Fung and possibly more meat as well. However, I prefer the taste of DTF more. There is a "freezer" taste, but maybe it's just me.



The dumplings were Emerald spinach flavored skin with pork and cabbage, Golden carrot flavored skin with pork and spinach, and Gochi flavored skin with chicken and spinach. Very colorful and not too bad. The meat is well cooked but not pink on the inside.

The beef tendon noodle soup was really good, full of flavor. Noodles tasted fresh, possibly hand made and the beef was a wonderful tender texture as well as the tendons, naturally.



They present you with mint chocolates when you're ready for the check.

Another nice thing is that they also offer sesame oil in addition to soy sauce and vinegar! However, they don't have fresh ginger, like DTF.

Restaurant atmosphere is pleasant, doesn't stink like some typical Asian places. Staff is friendly, patiently answering questions and explaining the dishes. And the County Public Health Department rates it an A!

Sunday Bistro

I went to Sunday Bistro for dinner. The food was good as well as the price the first time I went. I had ordered the Portugese seafood pasta then. They were not skimpy about the shrimp and seafood at all.

However, this time I ordered the Salmon Alfredo pasta with "creamy mushroom sauce". However, it lacked flavor. They make it creamy by putting in starch. It was just bleh, like gruel.




The first time there, the servers kept coming to our table with food we didn't order. And when we asked what it was, they didn't know. That happened at least 3 times before the food we actually ordered arrived. This time, we sat at a corner, and were ignored unless we waved our hands. Maybe it is a typical Asian thing- to ignore unless waved at. Not a big deal if you don't need anything; inconvenient if you are dying from thirst or something.

Despite the cold demeanor of the staff, the food arrives relatively quickly. They seemed to have left the flavor in the kitchen though.

Do I recommend this restaurant? Yes...but steer clear from anything that describes itself as "creamy". I have learned that many Cantonese- Euro fusion styled restaurants that try too hard to be fancy have foods meaning to be "creamy" but is really "starchy" and instead of creamy, looks and feels more like a clear slug slime or sticky saliva.

The nice thing about the restaurant, as is typical of most Cantonese-Euro type are the free drink refills including iced teas and coffees.

Haiku Kitchen

Haiku Kitchen provides a variety of different dishes (as opposed to just chicken) for those who like to choose instead of being influenced by a condensed menu with only one type of meat (like KFC). It has a good selection of appetizers, ramen, salads, sandwiches, curries, and rice bowls. The only type of soup is the traditional Japanese miso soup.


Sesame chicken wings (4) and chicken ramen

On this occasion, I went for the seaweed ramen with a side of musobi. My dinner partner had the chicken ramen with a side of sesame chicken (ahh not chicken my mind couldn't help silently scream- I had KFC's double down and 10 piece hot wings the day before).


Seaweed ramen

The seaweed ramen tasted ok. The broth wasn't particularly flavorful, compared to that of ramen I had at other places. Their website says the broth is made from homemade chicken stock (not chicken!) That may be why; my gustatory sensation is numbed by too much chicken for the week! The noodles were good, tender and elastic or al dente as the Italians would say. The bowl is topped off with red ginger, green onions and of course pieces of kelp seaweed.


musobi (2)

The musobi was good. I had it just once in Hawaii. Someone had brought in a homemade kind on a Friday at work. Again, like most of my comments, it wouldn't have hurt if they had made it bigger, because the homemade version I had was larger than the one at this place. But it was tasty with spam and lightly seasoned with Furikake and what looked like either light soysauce or terryaki sauce.

As for the sesame chicken wings- it was a bit sweet and tangy, like they had marinated it in honey or sugar to it, topped with sesame seeds. I wasn't thoroughly impressed with it.

I saw an ad for Japanese tacos. They had salmon, steak and chicken topped with onions, tomatos and cilantro. It looked pretty good, but I will have to come back for that next time. I also noticed Thai Iced Tea on the menu, but I don't like ingesting hot and cold liquids in one sitting so I didn't order it.

It is a small place with just a few tables. A family of four were the only other people eating there. It is clean with friendly staff.

Overall, the place is not bad and is worth another trip for a quick snack.