Tsing Tao (not the beer) and Fatima

To me, this Korean-influenced Chinese restaurant is not so known around the Bay Area. Maybe, that's because they don't advertise, don't mean their food is lousy. Surprisingly, the food was quite ok. The chow mien is fried with chives, shrimps and vegetables. This dish ...yummy! The zhajiang 炸酱面 (bean sauce) noodle was average, and different from zhajiang(bean sauce) noodle I've tried before. I guess this is a Korean version, since in a Korean drama I watched recently, the male and female leads ate the same dish (I remember that bowl of black bean sauce they poured on top of their noodles). It's black bean sauce...making the entire noodle dish sweet and non-spicy. We prefer the spicy version, so did not like this dish so much.

Tsing Tao Restaurant
104 N San Tomas Aquino Rd
Campbell, CA 95008
Price: $$
Taste index:

Another noodle venture was in Fatima Restaurant. Sounds Muslim, isn't it ? It is. Chinese-Muslim cuisine. This restaurant serves Northern Chinese food that complies with Islamic regulations. I found in a old restaurant review that Chef and owner Hsu is from Taiwan and his wife, Fatima, was converted to Islam in her mid-20s, after living among the large Muslim populations in Southeast Asia for most of her life. She named herself after the daughter of the prophet Muhammad. Hsu then converted to Islam when they opened the first Fatima at the Cupertino-San Jose border.

About the food, we had noodles soup since they serve up home-made knife-sliced noodles (刀削面; dao xiao mian, ). These beef noodles soup come in clear broth and thick broth. The thick broth beef noodles soup is more flavorful than the clear version. But the servings were HUGE!!! I could only manage 50% of it. Should have ordered one bowl and share...but we did not know the portions. The sesame pancake with green onion was HUGE too, but did not really like it because... too little green onions.

Oh, no food pix!?!?! I forgot to bring my camera!!!

Fatima Restaurant
1132 S De Anza Blvd # A
San Jose, CA95129
Price: $$
Taste index:

Tag: chinese, korean, chinese muslim,bay area food