Tonight we went out to dinner with friends at our favorite Persian
restaurant, Chelokababi
on Wolfe at El Camino in Sunnyvale, CA. We had a well-prepared and
tasty dinner of Joojeh Kababs with rice and tomato but passed on
dessert. On the way home, we went to
Ten Ren Tea at Wolfe near highway 280 for “spitballs in milk” or
black tapioca pearls in milky tea. In addition to wanting spitballs for
dessert, we went to Ten Ren because we were almost out of Pearl Jasmine tea
at work.
As I wrote in my
February 7, 2008 blog, one of the local events held on Sun’s Menlo Park campus
is our weekly party during which we serve hot tea from all over the world, plus
cookies and other goodies. While we usually offer Assam or Darjeeling plus some
blend flavors, jasmine tea is the all-time favorite. Ten Ren’s Pearl Jasmine
costs $100/pound but it is worth it. Just the glorious smell from the gold metal
can makes me happily lightheaded.
When we visited Sun’s China Engineering and Research Institute in Beijing for
three weeks in 2005, of course we bought tea to bring home. In the Ten-Fu
shop, we were introduced to jasmine varieties that smelled even more heavenly
than Pearl Jasmine. It was explained that there were jasmine teas available
in China that were higher up the mountain (in quality and price) than what was
available in the US. Unfortunately, we have since used up all of the lovely
tea we bought in Beijing so we buy new supplies at Ten-Ren.
Last week, we tried a new restaurant at 1180 Lincoln Avenue in Willow Glen, San Jose,
called Maykadeh Cafe. This is a sister to Maykadeh Persian Cuisine in San
Francisco. Maykadeh Cafe shares its space with an antique store so the
decorations are fascinating. The food is also very good and we plan to return
soon to try more menu choices.
KatysBlog 