Restaurant Review: La Venganza in Ikea Saluhall San Francisco

 Decided to walk around a bit this Saturday, and decided to give Salut Hall another try, and decided to try La Venganza, a Mexican Vegan eatery. Ordered a Tostada de Barbacoa (simulated), which is actually made of mushroom, and an horchata. This is what I ended up with...

It's not bad, it's not really "barbacoa", and the jalapeno isn't distributed well. There's a little bit with the guac, and that's it. I was expecting a bit more salsa, but there's enough beans here so it's okay. It's a bit on the cold side. I probably should have ordered "carnitas" instead. 

The horchata tastes okay, but it's not really that fresh, the cap was on crooked, and it's not mixed well, with a lot of the cinnamon and stuff settled in the bottom. They did warn me to shake well, but I didn't realize they mean cocktail shaking vigor. 

The problem is... the price. For $16 for the tostada, and $6 for the horchata, there's really not that much food here. I guess that's the "vegan tax", eh?  

3.5/5

Restaurant Review: Ikea Food Hall San Francisco, specifically the Ikea Cafe (will try others next time)

The Ikea Saluhall opened in San Francisco (5th and Market) back in April, and I've been inside Ikea before, but never visited the food hall. Well, I'm going in today, as I've read about it in both the SF Standard and SF Gate, and apparently it gets rave reviews... if you pay for the top-end entrees. Being a relatively poor guy, I want to see what the low end taste like. 

It's NOT great. 

Photo by Jueun Song on Unsplash

I went inside and walked around. The ground floor has 2 bars with food, and a soft-serve stand. As I don't drink and don't need a softserve, I headed upstairs... Only to find out that the elevators are back OUTSIDE. I had to walk up the stairs, yikes. 

Okay, got up to 2nd floor... Seems half of the food upstairs are vegan. I have no problem with vegan food, but they don't exactly come cheap. Fortunately, the lines to each are minimal, and choices are certainly eclectic... Vegan tacos, Sichuan noodles, open-faced vegan burger (made with Beyond Meat), mushroom nuggets... Indian street food curry, Algerian dish... But as I said, they ain't cheap. So I opted for the cheapest option... Ikea's own stuff. 

I was going to order the meatball, but in the end, I chose "pulled pork sandwich" with mac and cheese on the side, a diet pepsi, a regular hot dog, and a cinnamon roll, for about $12+tax. 

I think I made a mistake in choosing these items. 

Apparently so few people chose the pulled pork sandwich, they have to toast the brioche rolls from scratch, and that takes an extra five minutes. By the time I got the sandwich the rest of the items are cold (and the diet pepsi is warming up). 

This is what it looks like, BTW...

Pulled pork w/ mac and cheese,
hot dog, cinnamon bun, Pepsi
at Ikea Saluhall, San Francisco

The mac and cheese... tastes a little strange. The first few bites are okay, but the last half of it got a strange chemical taste to it I can't quite describe... a certain... funk? 

The sandwich itself... the roll is okay, it's toasted so the wet pulled pork didn't soak through, but they also squeezed quite a bit of liquid out of the meat so it's a little dry and thus, a bit short on flavor, mostly sweet, not much salt or spice. Pretty much tasteless. 

The hotdog was 6 inches long, and extremely thin. Like a fat-fountain-pen type of thickness, nowhere close to American hot dogs like Nathan's or Bar's or even Oscar Meyers. There's almost no snap to it, and when paired with tasteless hotdog bun, means there's also no flavor in the dogs. I ended up munching on the dogs alone, without the bun, and that made it slightly more palatable. I guess I could have tried to drown it with mustard and ketchup, but there's really no point to that. Sure, it's cheap, but Costco have no need to be concerned. They are are in no danger from Ikea dogs, regular, veggie, or plant versions. 

All in all, not fun to eat, but it does fill the stomach. Will have to go back and try the other places, even if they're vegan. 

Ikea Cafeteria: C+

Oh, and the cinnamon roll... It's tiny. While it's only 1.50, I should have just sprung for the cake. The rolls by that time is room temp and hardened up, sweetness barely showing, and icing no longer sweet. 

Restaurant Review: Tommy's Joynt (1 star out of 5, do NOT recommend)

I was at CPMC Van Ness, and for lunch, I decided to try Tommy's Joynt, supposedly a San Francisco institution with a 75+ year history. Never been there, and now I've tried it, never going back. 

(Tommy's Joynt is at 1101 Geary, cross Van Ness)

I decided to try a "slim dinner plate", which is a meat entree (I picked "brisket"), and 2 sides (I picked mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables). 

This is what I actually got: 

Instead of "brisket", what I actually got was shredded beef. 

The mashed potato gravy have sweet bits, doesn't taste like gravy. 

The dinner roll was COLD. COLDER than the butter it was served with. 

And the "steamed vegetables"? I got BOILED string beans (yes, I saw him fished it out of a steel vat.)

I am NOT going back, EVER. 

More Crap from China: A Quick Review of Xiaomi E17 ANC

One of the items I picked up on Aliexpress was a Xiaomi E17 ANC "airpod-like" wireless earbuds. The whole design is obviously a "homage" to Apple's Airpods. I thought I ordered Blue, but I got a black one instead. 

The advertised features are 11db ANC mode, transparency mode (so you CAN hear people near you), and supposedly 20 hours playtime. Clearly, it's counting the battery capacity in the carrying case, not in the buds themselves. There are 2 sets of touchpads along either stem of the earbuds. 

It does come with a small wrist-loop that can be threaded through the opening on the side of the carrying case. There's a cutout in the loop, but no explanation on what it is for. Maybe for hanging onto things? 

To charge it, plug in a USB-C cable into the bottom. When LED over the Mi logo turns solid, the charging is complete. 

To pair it, simply flip open the lid near the device you wanted (recommended distance: 2 inches). The instructions says you should turn on BOTH Wifi and Bluetooth on the device (why?)

As said before, each bud has two control pads on the stem. But all of these work on either pad alone. Swipe up or down controls volume. Single tap is pause/play, double tap is fast forward, and triple tap is reverse. If a call comes in, single tap answers. Once I triggered Google assistant by accident, but there's no documented gesture for that. Touch and hold both touchpads to toggle between ANC and "transparency mode". That's it. That's all the documentation. No explanation on what the button on the charging case back does (seems to control charging of the buds?) 

 After using it a few days, the ANC does work, and yet... it doesn't feel like it doesn't do much. I have an air purifier in my room, and it's like a fan in the background if I turn it up to any setting beyond "whisper quiet". With E17's ANC on, I still hear the fan, just... more muffled. It's similar to wearing an earplug, or wearing over-the-ear headphone with a decent cushion seal. Switching to "transparency mode" just seem to turn ANC off. 

There were no spare silicone ear tips, just one set was installed, and they fit... "okay". I'll try to replace them with foam tips when I find some of my spares. 

It also does not do multi-point. It will pair with only ONE device. And that device had to "forget" about the E17 to allow it to pair with anything else. Maybe they consider that a security feature, heh? 

My MAIN problem with the E17 is its lack of battery life in the buds. I am only getting about 3 hours when one bud or the other starts beeping, indicating low power and needing a recharge from the carrying case. This severely affects my enjoyment of the device and makes me want to bring back out my Lenovo "neckband" or other Bluetooth headsets with far more battery life, even if they don't look as "cool". 

Overall rating: B-

TIL: Item sold by the company through Amazon is NOT considered verified purchase

Today I learned that items purchased THROUGH Amazon, but fulfilled directly by merchant, is NOT considered an Amazon Verified Purchase. 

But let me start from the beginning. 

I have a wallet collection. Yes, I know, it's weird. 

Recently, I found a coupon on something I wanted, a Dango D03 wallet. Normally $79, the coupon took $40 off. So I bought it. It was sold by Dango Products, supposedly the maker. Right? 

Purchase of a Dango D03 Bifold with DTEX through Amazon from Dango Products 

Okay, so I used it for a few days, and wanted to review it. Guess what happens: 

Amazon has noticed unusual reviewing activity on this product.
Due to this activity, we have limited this product to verified purchase reviews. 

And the reviews indeed look rather weird. The most recent reviews are either 1 star or 5 star, suggesting some sort of review bomb or counter-bomb in progress. 

So what does Amazon consider to be "verified purchase"? Apparently NOT merchant-fulfilled orders, but only FBA (fulfilled by Amazon) orders. As per Amazon:

An "Amazon Verified Purchase" review means we've verified that the person writing the review purchased the product at Amazon and didn't receive the product at a deep discount.

I paid through Amazon, but the product came directly from Dango. Yes, I check the envelope. That doesn't count as verified purchase.  

My Quick Review of The Halal Guys

Yes, I live in San Francisco, and no, I didn't know about the Halal Guys as I didn't have a chance to get to them until I happen to find them recently. This is a review of their O'Farrell location. 

I have a weird work schedule that often requires me to find a meal late at night, and this particular location is near one of my late break areas that are still open. I've tried the beef "Sandwich" and the Chicken platter. Keep in mind that if you go in at late night they often may run out of some items, and one night when I showed up at about 9PM they are closed!?!  

The beef "sandwich" is really wrapped in thick pita "bread" that's soft and fluffy, but being that big, is not ideal wrap material. Still the ingredients are reasonably fresh and pretty tasty, but the trick seems to be all in their signature white sauce, which is where most of the calories seem to be from. They'll throw in a packet or two and if you read the label, that 2 oz packet is 330 calories (!) 

And the chicken platter is basically the same things albeit packed in an aluminum "bowl" with chicken added then sauce dripped all over it, plus a few bits of pita albeit cut into large "chips". If you are cutting down on carbs, this is probably what you should order. That's quite a bit of food. 

You can then add "sides" like extra olives, jalapeno peppers, and so on. 

I haven't tried their falafel yet, and if I go back again I would give them a try. 

They are expensive for fast food, but not outrageously so. Expect to have your wallet dinged for 12-18 depending on the number of options you added and/or if you ordered one of their specialty drinks (packaged a bit like the boba tea places). I personally skip the drink. 

They apparently only work with UberEasts, but not Grubhub. 

All in all, Halal guys deliver a satisfying meal of chicken or beef (or falafel, not reviewed) and they open till late night for your midnight hungers. If you live in the area, definitely give them a try. 

A Review of "Without Remorse" (TV-2021) on Amazon Prime

I watched Without Remorse the day it came out. 

I am disappointed. 

This version is not bad. It's just... Not Clancy. 

Clancy stuff have intrigue, spy games, negotiations, tense without explosions, but not giant selfish conspiracies (unless you count the villains in Rainbow Six, and even then, he believes he's doing it to save humanity) 

This... does not. 

(From here on it's all spoiler, folks.)

(You)

(Have)

(Been)

(Warned)

Without having read Without Remorse, you would probably see the Amazon movie as an "okay" revenge tale, where he found the real culprit at a somewhat unexpected place, but still got his vengeance. 

But the book was NOTHING like it. 

Basically, the screenwriter took the name, and little else (that I really noticed). 

Book TL;DR -- John Kelly lost his pregnant wife to a car accident. In desperate loneliness, he picked up hitchhiker Pam, who's running away from a drug lord and pimp who's using his girls to run drugs by forcing them to be addicts first. John fell for Pam, but in a bout of stupid, he was almost killed and Pam was kidnaped, tortured, and killed by the drug lord, then the body left in the park. John recovered, and swore vengeance on the drug lord by disguising himself as a wino, and carefully observed drug distribution network and pimp network, and started killing dealers one level at a time to find his way to the drug lord, and the police were wondering who's offing dealers and pimps in the city. But it was then CIA needed Kelly on a VERY special mission... They have proof that an MIA B-52 pilot was still alive, and they want him to do a recon because he had previously escaped from the area. So Kelly reluctantly went to Vietnam. He wasn't able to rescue the guy, but he was able to nab the Russian interrogator (pure accident). Kelly's CIA boss (Greer) extracted a promise from the Russians: the guy will be returned uninterrogated if the Russians would transfer the POW to be with all the other prisoners in the "Hanoi Hilton". Russians agreed. Greer wanted to recruit Kelly, then Kelly told Greer he was offing dealers and he needs to finish his job. Greer gave him a little time, as the CIA is not involved. So Kelly found the bad guys, killed everybody including the corrupt cop, then pulled a disappearing act, faking his death, to become Mister Clark. 

Movie TL;DR -- John Kelly, Navy SEAL, is on a mission in Syrian raiding what they were told, was a comms depot. It turns out to be an arms depot manned by Russians. They barely got away, losing one of his own. Kelly is spending some time with his wife Pam, 9 months pregnant. An assassination squad gunned down Kelly's team in the US, almost killed Kelly, and killed his wife and unborn daughter. Kelly thirsted for vengeance and ambushed the Russian liaison in public view, but he got a name: Rykov. Kelly was temporarily imprisoned but was extracted, apparently by SecDef Clay's orders, to form a special team to go after Rykov in Murmansk, Russia. On their way, the plane was shot down by Russian fighters, but they managed to escape, infiltrate Murmansk, only to find out this is a setup to leave American soldiers dead on Russian soil... Surrounded by hostile snipers and Russian police and military, Kelly decided to pull his Alamo so his team can get away. At first, he's going T2, causing plenty of explosions but no casualties, but as soon as he got flanked after his team had gotten away, he went into deathmatch mode and gunned down every guy he saw, then pulled a Leon the Professional disappearing act. He snuck back into the US, kidnapped Clay, forced a confession out of him, then drowned him. Ritter, with the taped confession from Clay, was able to secretly negotiate with Russia to deescalate and get promoted to head of CIA, and Kelly became Mister Clark. 

As you can see, apart from the names, there's almost NO commonality among the two plots, except maybe the wino bit, and "I must avenge her" thing. 

Honestly, I have no problem if they need to modernize the stuff, but this has VERY little to do with "Without Remorse". It's more "inspired by" instead of "based on". 

This is practically fan fiction where you rewrote your heroes into your own situations. 

It's "competent", but little else. It pays VERY LITTLE homage to the original material, and that... is its biggest sin. 

The Failure of "Treasure Hunter Simulator": how it trivializes archaeology and turned it into an unbalanced, buggy, hiking and metal detecting game

Treasure Hunter Simulator (THS) is supposed to be an archaeology game: go to different maps and try to locate historically significant artifacts. In reality, the gameplay was a mess, logically it made no sense, and programmatically it's a buggy mess. It was a failure in every sense of the word. The only good points are it has a relaxing pace, and when you turn up the graphics, the Unreal Engine makes the levels quite pretty. 

You can read my full review on Steam here. But we're here to talk about the failures. 

Gameplay Problems

THS can be accurately retitled as "hiking and metal detecting simulator", since all you do, except for the few "side jobs", is to hiking around the map, and use metal detectors all over the place, then dig holes all over the place finding the "treasures", which often turned out to be junk, like old nails, soda can tabs, etc. Only occasionally you will find something worth a little more. An old sawblade may be worth $10. A good condition Medieval helmet may be worth 350. But usually you find lame stuff like old medallions, old doorstop, old buttons that may be worth $5 on a good day. 

You will need TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to afford the best metal detectors, which doesn't quite work the way you expect them to. You'd think detecting large objects is easier, but not in this game. Detecting large objects is only reserved for upgraded detectors. Your default model can only detect shallow and SMALL objects. Huh? 

Frankly, with the amount of random junk lying about, there really is no sense of discovery, but drudge work, as you "grind" your way through more junk to find the few treasures in order to afford the better stuff. Having an artificial "delay" for "identification" when it's an object you've seen only the 100th time does not help with the immersion at all. And since most of the time you are looking DOWN at the ground to get the detection right, the beautiful vista and level design are wasted, except for the few who appreciate the graphical touches and take screenshots. 

It also really makes no sense for some maps to charge an entrance fee... to a supposed archaeologist! 

The job pays are also absurdly low. For example, one of the jobs on the Syrian Temple map, pays $380. However, the entrance fee to the map is $300!  So your net pay is $80! And since they only give you one job at a time, you can't even queue them together, and thus save on the entrance fee! They had to be paid each and every time! 

Random Item Reviews: Two Bluetooth headsets, one's great, other one's bad

 Recently, I decided to upgrade my personal audio by going to replaceable "ear buds". That means I can exchange the buds with something that has the same connector, even though they will sound different due to different amount of drivers inside, different material, and tuning. And no, I don't mean the tips, but the actual buds. Tips are either silicone or memory foam. I mean the buds behind them, either .078 mm or MMCX. (There is also 0.75, but those are very rare). 

Anyway, I bought a set of KZ ZSN Pro X which advertises itself as "dynamic driver AND balanced armature" dual driver design. Looks pretty good, sounds pretty good. But I want wireless, so I bought a KZ Bluetooth 5 "upgrade wire", which basically means you can unplug the earbuds from the original wired setup, into this "upgrade wire" and voila, you now have Bluetooth! 

I figured it can't be that bad, can it? 

Turns out, their own Bluetooth adapter sucks big time. It actually plays background noise that is VERY noticeable. You can hear it as it times out, and the noise drops to zero. VERY noticeable. 

I ordered a different one, and this one is much better: FiiO LC-BT2. Yes, a neckband headset that can last 24 hours (roughly), and it supports 0.78 earbuds (a different version supports MMCX), AND all the advanced BT codec on the market, including AAC, AptX, AptXHD, etc.) 

And yes, it's great.