Chez Christina Review

Chez Christina served us decent food. All the main dishes had flavors from Asia.

• "Goi Cuon": spring rolls of bean sprouts, pork, long pieces of shrimp, and herbs, served with a peanut sauce. These were pretty standard rolls with good quality, better than average, peanut sauce. The other attendees said this was one of their favorite items of the meal.

• "Lau Canh Chua Ca Bong Lau": "firepot tamarind soup" with catfish, celery, and tomatoes. Arriving in a hot, gas-powdered metal bowl, it was mostly catfish and a green vegetable, with little broth--more a stew than a soup. The slightly sweet, refreshing fish broth was very good. The other items were nothing to write home about. The catfish came in large steaks on bones with skin, making them a pain to cut, distribute, and eat. The green vegetable, which we eventually decided must be celery, was unusual: cut into thin cross-sections, it lacked the normal stringiness of celery. Furthermore, it was much wider than any celery I've ever seen. The soup also had some lovely cilantro, some bean sprouts, and a few pineapple chunks. This was my favorite dish.

• Roasted Cornish Hen. This skin, with its caramelized, vaguely Asian flavors, was the best part of this dish and the other general favorite of the meal. It reminded S of pigeon. The meat itself was dry and overcooked.

• Mushroom Steak. Given the effusive yelp reviews, we were all the more disappointed by our steak. Even if we expected nothing, we've been disappointed. Served sizzling in a heavy metal platter, the steak was tendony and tough, seemingly of low quality meat, and overcooked in my mind. (We ordered it medium, per the waitresses recommendation. I may just think it's overcooked because I'm not used to ordering dishes medium anymore--a result of my experiences with this eating club.) We didn't want to finish it. Also, the mushrooms on the platter were standard, halved, button mushrooms: nothing special.

• Salad. An unexciting, old-looking iceberg lettuce salad with a slice of cucumber and tomato, and served with a carafe of Italian dressing. The salad came free with our entrees.

• Macaroni. Thoroughly boring, red, tomato-touched macaroni. Practically no flavor. A side dish that came with our entrees.

• Rice. Exactly like the macaroni, except using short grain rice.

Chez Christina is located adjacent to a dollar store in a welcoming strip mall in a mostly residential neighborhood of Fremont. It's decorated with funky lamps, nice pictures, and flowers in vases, though otherwise isn't very fancy. Outside the restaurant is a friendly, not garish, neon sign. When we entered, they were playing some weird, vaguely folksy, music that we found impossible to categorize. They must've turned it off soon thereafter, as I don't recall noticing it again.

During dinner we discussed many topics, including computer games (old and new). We reminisced about classics such as Lode Runner.

The total was $22/person including tax and tip but not including drinks.

Original Announcement

We'll go to Chez Christina, a family-owned French-Vietnamese restaurant in Milpitas that supposedly serves really good sizzling steaks. They're also proud of their "firepots," a Vietnamese soup.

http://www.chez-christina.com/

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