Tu Mero Mole

Ed and I decided to try out this restaurant after the very good reviews on Yelp, and the fact that its super close to our house (just down a neighborhood steet 12 or so blocks). Ed and I have decided that we want to start going to more of these local, independent restaurants. 


When we got there, it was actually nicer than pictures online seemed to show. The person who took our order was super friendly and even gave us a basket of chips to munch on while we waited for our to go order (she told us it was to try out the salsas). There were lots of options - my favorites were the two green based ones (those always have such a fresh, slightly sour taste). I liked mixing the mild with the more spicy. The most unusual was a peanut based salsa, sort of hard to describe. It was a pureed salsa, sweet and sour. 


I ordered the Cochinita Yucateca, which was recommended, and had pictures online. I love anything with a lot of sauce, and this had it in spades. 

It was big chunks of pork stewed in a spicy red sauce with pepper and onions. I added a bunch of cilantro and green salsa to it, and ate it with pinto beans, rice, chips and homemade corn tortillas (though I mostly focused on the tortillas and chips with the dish). It was such good quality, especially for $9. 


Ed got a Chile Verde Supreme Burrito, which was tasty as well. Much better than Chipotle. 

Spicy Friday

To celebrate being back together after a very fun week with my sister, brother-in-law, and brand new niece, Ed and I decided to be adventurous and try out a new restaurant. We generally head to the same places, and are hesitant about trying something new, and, for some reason, seem to have an aversion to heading into San Jose for meals. It's also hard, in our area, to find places that are within our price range - our nearby areas are certainly not wallet friendly.

But, we decided to break the rut, and jumped onto Yelp to find a good place to eat. Our find? Hunan Taste. This got a solid 4 star rating, with generally positive comments. The reviews mainly said that the food was good, traditional, and spicy, but that the restaurant wasn't very fancy.



It's in an unassuming strip mall off of 4th street, in a generally residential area of San Jose, just off of 880.



The inside was nice and low key, with a clear window going across the wall of the restaurant, that allowed us to look into the kitchen. This reminded me of when I was little, and we used to go to a restaurant called, "Stixs" - we always tried to get a seat by the windows so we could see the giant flames shooting out of the woks as our food was cooked.

Our food was generally very tasty - the potstickers were some of the best we've had, very filling and delicious. For our entrees, we got sweet and sour beef and kung pao chicken. Both were incredibly spicy (we were happy that we had asked for medium, and not anything hotter!). The sweet and sour beef was really tender and wonderful, the chicken, not so much (it lacked a bit of flavor). But, for a $31, we got a large amount of food (and a refilling pot of green tea).

Anyone have any other recommendations for good (not too expensive) restaurants to try in the bay area?

(pictures are from Yelp website)