Red Robin

Jan13, 2009
1238 Putty Hill Ave, Tenant #16
Towson, MD 21286

Environment & Service: 65
Food Quality: 60
Price: 55
Average: 60

Detail Review:

What is a good governor? A good governor designs good laws for people. His citizens will have good lives under a country with good laws. What is a good restaurant? Food tastes good only? No......... You go to a steak house, you except a steak knife has been put on the table, Right? That is design. There are so many factors in a restaurant. However, I could not see good designs in Red Robin.

Me and my wife ordered two burgers and onion rings. Mine is a monster burger which had double patties. I believed there were at least two design problems in the meal. The 1st one was in the burger. One of the important things for a good "regular burger" (Not 10 stacks or 5 pounds) is that I can have bun, tomato and meat in one bite. Half of my monster burger was wrapped, so I thought I should use my hand to hold the burger to put it to my month. I took the burger up, but I had no clue how I should eat it. Because the Burger was too thick. If that was the case, they should put it on a plate and we will finish one layer then the other layer ( or any other ways). They should not wrap up the half of the burger and put it into a small basket, so I had problem to find a place to open the wrap. The 2nd design problem was the container that held the source for the onion rings. The onion rings were too big, I could not use the rings to touch the source because of the limitation of the width of the container. I needed to cut the onion rings into half first before I could dip into the source. The designs were bad. However, the environment was very comfortable and the waitress was pretty. I would like to go there again to have a drink "only" and there was also a nice place to talk to friends.

Todai

Dec31, 2008
11750L Fair Oaks Mall,
Fairfax, VA‎

Environment & Service: 80
Food Quality: 70
Price: 60
Average: 70

Detail Review:

I was in Hong Kong to have my 3 months vacation on 2005; and I went to my first Todai restaurant which gave me a very good impression. Even if the price was relatively expensive, I felt very satisfied with the service and the food quality. There were unlimited sashimi, uni, big shimps, small lobsters, etc. Not only the food quantity was impressive, but also its quality. The Hong Kong Todai put unlimited expensive seafood in front of you, it was amazing.

I did not have chance to go to Hong Kong Todai with my wife, so we decided to go to the VA Todai at her B-day. We drove 75 mins to VA; and reached Todai at 7:30pm. There were 150 people; and almost all of them were Asian. I could not wait to check on the buffet counters. There were ~7 types of hot dishes, ~2 types of soup, ~10 types of rolls, ~10 types of sushi, and 3 types of sashimi. I was a bit disappointed because few types of food presented; and I could not see my favor UNI (saw the plate, but it was empty) and SoftShell Crab (Not serving at all) which were listed on the online menu. After a few mins of searching, I asked the chef to give me some UNI sushi. I also ask her to give me some sashimi because only a few piece were left on the sashimi plate. She was very helpful to provide what I wanted, but the UNI sushi and Sashimi plate were not reloaded. I was a bit upset. Anyway, Let's talk about other food, most of the hot dishes were not good, but they still provided the big shrimps and small lobsters. The BBQ ribs were very bad. The sushi quality were relatively good. The dessert was very good, for example the pan cake was good. The enviroment in todai is relative comforatable than its at Tokyo; but 30 dallors a person is too expensive. I might not go there again because of total 3 hrs driving, average food quality and limited amount of food choice.

Tokyo Sushi Buffet and Grill

Dec27, 2008
Tokyo Sushi Buffet and Grill
4801 Mcknight Rd
Pittsburgh, PA 15237

Environment & Service: 75
Food Quality: 85
Price: 80
Average: 80

Detail Review:

After a few hours of driving, I finally come back to Pittsburgh. Why? Because I quitted a hopeless research lab and move to MD. In the next couple days, I will stay at Pittsburgh to clean up my house and return it to the landlord, so I have chance to visit one of my favorite restaurant again which is Tokyo. Tokyo is a city name in Japan, it also sound like "Todai" which is a chain japanese restaurant. The closest Todai from MD is at VX, I plan to go there with my wife for her birthday at the end of the month, and I will report that visit in this blog . Let's talk back Tokyo, the business was started half year ago. The selling points of the restaurant are cheap and variety of food. There are around 40 different types of sushi & roll; and 30 different types of cooked seafood & meat. The price is only around $20 for dinner.

The sushi quality is good, becuase there are more than 10 types of raw fish to make the sushi. Moreover, they provide ~5 different types of all you can eat sashimi. It is very different than other sushi buffets which only provide "extremely thin cutting fish" on the sushi and not provide any sashimi. Tokyo also use some cooked ingredients to make sushi and roll, like cream chess, salmon skin, scallop, etc. They also have some cooked japanese dishes, like tempura, crab legs, mixed seafood, steam fish, etc. To be honest, not all sushi and cooked dishes are good, but at least 50% of the sushi and dishes are delicious and the rest are considered fair (at least that is what I think). Well, I still have a variety of choice from the delicious dishes, so I give the food quality a very high score. The buffet area looks very nice and many decoration on the food, so the environment score is very high too. Overall, Tokyo is very good and I will introduce it to my friends.

Szechuan Wok

Dec26, 2008:
Szechuan Wok
11414D Reisterstown Rd
Reisterstown, MD 21136

Food Quality: 50
Average: 50


Detail Review:

My wife suddenly wants to eat chinese food, but she is so lazy to go out. She asks me to buy her a chicken fried rice. Why chicken fried rice? Let me teach you something. Almost 80% of chinese restaurants in US are not selling "real chinese food", they are selling American style Chinese food. As an Asian, we don't like those "fake chinese food". So, what can we order if we go to those American style Chinese restaurant? Fried rice. Why? Because almost no cooking skill is needed. As long as chefs don't paint the lily, almost no mistake can be made. Then a "pass' grade will be given.

It is very difficult to find a chinese restaurant in US to make a surprising fried rice. The quality of the american style chinese fried rice is really based on the types of ingredient. This fried rice is made with a few types of ingredient, like chicken, egg, green onion, and bean sprout. so I give this chicken fried rice a "Pass".

Phillips Seafood Express

Dec24, 2008:
Maryland House travel Plaza

Environment & Service: 45
Food Quality: 70
Price: 50
Average: 55



Detail Review:

Me and my wife traveled out of state to visit our friends. We were very hungry and stopped at the travel plaza. I was trying to find something to eat; and did not expect any good fast food restaurants there. It was my first time to see Phillips Seafood Express. I chose to try this restaurant because I am a seafood lover. Crab cake is a famous dish in MD, Phillips Seafood Express also used crab cake as a "chef's suggestion" dish. OK! Why not to try!

It was a bit expensive for a 9 dollar burger; and I thought the 3.25oz crab cake was too small. The taste of the crab cake was good, but not the bun. This restaurant put the good crab cake with a cold bun, it destroyed the seafood burger. Overall, the burger was better than a McDouble, but the price was much expensive.

Edo Sushi

Dec23, 2008:
10347 Reisterstown Rd,
Owings Mills, MD‎ ‎

Environment & Service: 75
Food Quality: 65
Price: 60
Average: 67


Detail Review:

The decoration in this restaurant. I like it because I can have a clear view of the sushi bar even if I am sitting 10 feet from there. Moreover, there are many decoration on the wall, and they are very nice. However, the television makes the japanese restaurant not japanese. No sushi restaurant in Japan will put a big TV in front of customers. Japanese go to sushi restaurants to enjoy the shows by chefs, not by CNN. Overall, the enviroment is OK!

They have their set dinner. Only one choice per day; and you always see the same dinner at the same day in the following week. The cooking skill is not every good, the coatings are too thick on both spider roll and tempola. However, I want to mention the soft shell crab from the spider roll is fresh and big. The taste from the sushi is OK, because the sushi rice is pressed too hard and lack of vinegar. The price is reasonable, and the service is very good.

Hikari Sushi Restaurant

Dec21, 2008:
Hikari Sushi Restaurant
9613 Harford Rd
Parkville, MD 21234

Environment & Service: 75
Food Quality: 40
Price: 60
Average: 58

Detail Review:

Around 6pm, Me and my wife went into this Japanese restaurant. There were only 4 customers inside and 2 waiters. I noticed that it may not be a good restaurant because the number of customers at dinner time, but we had driven 20 miles to come to try their buffet, so we still stayed to have our buffet dinner.The environment was nice, but do you know where the buffet dish was? The answer is that many trays were set in front of the sushi bar, all the trays were covered by plastic wrap. One chef was making the sushi, but he was not busy because there were only 8 customers from 6pm to 7pm.

The food quality was terrible. You can see how thin was the salmon on the sushi;the abnormal ratio between fish and rice of the sushi made me feel that it was a "pingpong ball sushi". Some sushi were made with fired squid. The squid was sitting too long, so the coating was very wet and soft. You can see how dry of the eel. The food quality once again was very bad.And I could not finish my 2nd plate. There was not too many types of sushi and dish. I was so disappointed.

You know what? I did not ask how much it costed before having the buffet, I thought it should not be more than 15 dollars per person. However, I was wrong. The buffet was $18.95 per person plus tax. It was too ridiculous of charging that much. I am not saying that because of the food quality, but the number of different kinds was in the buffet. Me and my wife will not go there again.