My brother brought us (7 people) to this restaurant. This place is one of my sister-in-law and brother's favorite dinning places. The restaurant is stylish. High ceiling, brown and black theme, wood decoration all over the place. A quite dizzying and delightful place.
What we ordered
Braised tofu: my brother highly recommended this dish. The tofu was tender inside and with nice sauce. Totof is not a tofu person. We encouraged him to try it. He liked this dish.
Basil chicken (a.k.a. three cup chicken): this is Totof's and my favorite dish. We wanted to see if Café 101's basil chicken was better than the Bay area's basil chicken. The dish was unexpectedly spicy. Other than that, this dish was good. (hard to tell whether this dish is better or not than its counterpart in the Bay area)
Corn soup with ham: Totof told me the soup tasted funny. I tried it. Oh no. It was sweet. I asked my brother to try it. The consensus was that Café 101's chef must put sugar instead of salt to finish the cooking. The owner came and apologized. He said the kitchen would give us another soup.
Chicken soup with dried bamboo (free): this soup was a bonus due to the corn soup. This soup was quite expensive according to my sister and brother. The chef put some ginger and Totof somehow did not appreciate the strong ginger smell much. He told me my chicken soup was better. Well. I was glad to know that. But, in my opinion, this soup was great.
Cashew chicken: Josh ordered this dish. The chicken part was tender. But somehow Totof said the chicken was tasteless.
Pea sprout: a vegetable dish.
Leeks with smoked ham: Totof wanted to order this dish when he reviewed the menu. I was hesitant since I was not sure if this dish would turn out good. My sister said it was harmless to experiment. So we ordered it. It turned out quite tasty.
Dessert
We were all quite full after these wonderful dishes. But, we still asked to look at the dessert menu. My sister-in-law told us Café 101 had some nice desserts. Of course, no one wanted to miss to taste some nice dessert. We ordered three desserts: two mango shaved ice and one green tea and red bean shaved ice.
Mango shaved ice: my sister-in-law told me this dessert was gorgeous. So, around the dessert time, we ordered two mango shaved ice. The mango was not sweet at all. Maybe due to the wrong season. We were disappointed.
Green tea and red bean shaved ice: Josh and my sister ordered this. I did not try it since Josh was having a severe cold. According to my sister, this shaved ice was excellent.
