Disclaimer: I am aware that the food listed under the vegetable section of a Chinese restaurant menu is probably not vegetarian. I understand that even the vegetables and bean curd might be made with oyster sauce, or fish sauce or even cooked in the same wok as the beef with broccoli.
However, this never stops me from eating Chinese food, because it is one of my favorite foods, and when in San Francisco (or Oakland in this case) one just HAS to eat at a REAL Chinese restaurant.
I'm sorry, but it's just one of those simple pleasures in life. I haven't found many decent Chinese places in Southern California, so I always take advantage of my trips to the San Francisco area or the East Coast to eat some good Chinese food.
There. That being said, here is the place Will and I found just before leaving the Bay area on Friday. We first checked out Mountain View Cemetery and enjoyed the beautiful cherry blossoms.
We had a few hours to kill before catching our flight, so we referred to Yelp to find a good restaurant nearby. We were craving Asian food, again. No surprise there. To our delight we found Little Shin Shin.
I ordered the Black Mushrooms, Snow peas & Water chestnuts (pictured above) and it was exactly what I wanted. Those are my three most favorite ingredients thrown all together in a savory dish served over steaming white rice! Hello, delicious! I even made sure not to eat it all in one sitting so I could take it with me and eat the rest at the airport.
The moral of this story is that even though the vegetable dish I ordered at Little Shin Shin might not have been vegetarian, I am going to let it slide this once and just enjoy myself and some delicious food.
