What I Ate: April 5, 2009 (Ma's Restaurant)

I had to make a quick trip to Costco today, so I had a Costco hot dog and slice of pepperoni pizza for lunch.

We ate dinner with Tina's parent's friends in San Jose at Ma's Restaurant (1715 Lundy Ave # 168, San Jose, CA‎ - (408) 437-2499‎) which serves Islamic Chinese food. Ma's restaurant does a good job with the style of cuisine they offer:
da bing (big/thick pancake) - a staple in Islamic Chinese restaurants. It's covered with sesame seeds and layered (with salt, oil, and scallions in between the layers). Order this.

Clay pot soup with beef and suan cai (Chinese sauerkraut). Sometimes sour or vinegary soups work well at making a heavy meal feel lighter and also to get the appetite going at the beginning of a meal. This soup is a good example of this kind of soup. (It also came in a HUGE bowl.)

Cumin Lamb - if you like cumin and thinly sliced, tender lamb, you'll like this dish. Tina grew up eating a similar dish and loves this.

Sauteed fish fillets - the fish was light and tender (falling apart in my mouth). I felt the sauce had a little too much wine flavor though.

Salt and pepper shrimp - unlike other salt and pepper shrimp, Ma's version is heavily battered. This works in their favor as the batter is flavorful and adds an extra crunch to the shrimp. While crunching through the batter, I didn't even mind that some of the shrimp skin wasn't breaking down fast enough in my mouth (really good salt and pepper shrimp should be fried such that the shrimp shells as so crispy they shatter as you bite down allowing you to eat them whole without feeling like you're swallowing stuff you shouldn't be).

jiucai he garlic chives box (a fried dumpling of garlic chives, egg, and bean noodles) - I found this dish too have a bit more dough (in the wrapper) than I'd like. The overall flavor was good, but I wish the garlic chives dominated a little more.

sauteed da dou miao (large pea sprouts) with garlic