burger – KSDN's Adventures

Happy New Year :D!

Since I’ve moved to the Bay Area, I realized that I’ve never actually posted anything about any restaurants nearby. Well, we’re about to change that! Sunnyvale has been doing a lot of revamp for their downtown area, and a lot of local restaurants have recently (recently, is within the lifetime of 2016) opened.

Upon entering Nom Burger, I wasn’t sure what kind of expectations to have. The decor was really nice, and everything was really modern. Prior to coming here, I read about how the buns are all handmade – but y’know, you don’t believe until you see it. Right where we were seated, there was someone working on glazing the buns with egg.

He noticed we were taking photos of him, hehe. Glowing buns being glazed *yummeh*

I would classify this restaurant as one that served gourmet burgers. Prices were all within the range of $15, which is kinda expensive in my opinion given that you have to pay additional for sides…that is, until the burger came.

Every month they have a special burger. This month they have the Hella Dank Burger ($15). This is a banh mi inspired burger

Do you see how huge these burgers are? They really were a mouthful to eat. And as much as they were delicious, I would definitely not recommend on your first date. You will be a mess! Our waiter knew this ahead of time and presented us with a ton of extra napkins xD.
Of the two burgers, N and I both ended up agreeing that the California Love was the better of the two. Its freshness of local ingredients, balance of sweet and salty, and of course, avocado, definitely won my love. That doesn’t put the Hella Dank out of competition, though. If you’re up for a challenge and want to try different, I would definitely go with this burger. The compilation of the pickled radish and pate brought out its own type of umami.

We ordered one side for the two of us, and wait a minute, did you guys hear what I said – SIDE? This is huge! We order Nom Fries, which is essentially garlic fries. So apparently, this photo is taken when the food arrived, which a waiter dropped by telling us that we have been lied to, and splat on some sort of sour cream, which went really well with the fries (such great service, right?!). The fries are chopped finely, and really good…*drool*. The aioli sauce on it was a tad spicy, but totally tolerable.

I honestly feel like this place is not here to jip you. The food is good, service is wonderful (shoutout to our waiter, he really enhanced the experience), and atmosphere is great. It’s nice to know that more of these kind of restaurants are opening up around the Bay Area. I would definitely come here again.

-ksdn.

After moving to California, I’ve always been amazed by how great the weather is (despite being in a drought), and sunny weather really is great because it motivates me to get off my butt and go somewhere more “adventurous”…which leads to the purpose of today’s post.

A couple of friends and I decided to be a little more active and we spent the train in the city to bike across the staple icon of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge. In fact, if you are a tourist or live in NorCal, I highly recommend it! The weather is always extremely co-operative and the agenda for biking works so well for an entire day activity, with lots of photo spots, stopping by to capture the beautiful weather and scenery, and of course, hitting up the good food spots.

Upon biking across the bridge into the city of Sausilito in the blazing afternoon, the workout was really calling for some refueling of food. The bike between after the bridge and into the city was the most tiring..my legs felt like they were jello! I decided I wanted me some good food as a reward, which brought us to Fast Food Francais.

I guess one thing that hinders people from finding this place is that most people are here for the view rather than the food, so they hit up spots with a great view of the water. Not to say that the vibe at Fast Food Francais wasn’t good though, it was really nice to just sit outside, relax in the quiet chill neighbourhood with some good food.

To start things off, we ordered some appetizers, which really set the bar quite high, specifically those potato totes (or pommes dauphines if we’re being french..haha). I wish I had a picture of them after they’re split in half, but the crunchy outer appearance really fools you…GOOD! The insides are filled with creamy mashed goodness that makes you wonder how they got the outside so crunchy and light to begin with. The combination of light slightly bitter brussel sprout chips with the fries/potato totes really kicked it off to a good start.

Pommes Dauphines/ Fries/ Brussels Sprout Chips ($8)

French Charcuterie Plate/ Pâté de Campagne/ Chorizo/ Saucisson Sec/Cornichons ($12)

The charcuterie platter was pretty good too! I would say it’s a pretty good portion size for it’s money’s worth and although pate isn’t really my thing, I managed to appreciate it balanced as a spread on the bread. The other sausage (which is out of focus ._.), which I’m guessing is the chorizo was a bit spicy, so not for my palette, but I really enjoyed the other sausage slices.

Not sure if it was only me, but I found it a bit funky that this place served burgers. My friends and I all agreed that we weren’t really in the mood for burgers but at the end of our meal, we all changed men – we loved them! We ordered different burgers, each of which we said were all good. Juicy (and I mean JUICY), soft, cooked to order, and high in quality, these burgers were some gourmet! The most “french” resembling burger that I would say is the French Onion burger, which was also my favourite. The beef patty was made to perfection, medium rare in our case, and all burgers were not overwhelmed in sauce but managed to ‘sauced’ to perfection.

Although I didn’t really try this burger, T said that he really felt that this burger really brought out the bacon flavour in the burger, which isn’t common. There was a good balance of flavour between all the different ingredients.

BOS: Organic Grass Fed Beef/ Smoked Bacon/ St. Nectaire/ Béarnaise/ Lettuce ($13)

I had the quack burger. The duck confit was really soft and tender, which I enjoyed a lot, seeing that it’s not conventional to have a duck confit burger. One thing I would have wished wasn’t so overpowering was the goat cheese, I think it was, which I found overpowered the flavour of duck.

Quack: Duck Confit/ Black Pepper Chèvre/ Red Onion Marmalade/ Lettuce ($14)

My personal favourite was the french onion burger, which I also found was a good representation of France and their french onion soup. I looooved the gooey cheese that accompanied every bite of the burger, saucy burgers are always a plus for me.

French Onion: Organic Grass Fed Beef/Onion Soup/ Emmental/ Cheddar Fondue/ Onions Rings/Lettuce ($13)

All in all, we were all stuffed at the end of the meal, and satisfied. It was a delightful surprise and hidden behind the tourist area, in a quiet but hip street. I would definitely recommend if food > view if you’re ever in Sausilito!