Rose Market, Mountain View

Rose Market is a Persian Grocery store that serves some of the best Persian Kababs I've ever had !! Conveniently located at the intersection of Castro Street and El Camino Real in Mountain View, this place is packed at lunch time. The ordering process here is a bit confusing and unorganized. You go into the store and wait in line to order at the checkout counters. You're given a ticket and you have to go out to the other end of the building to collect your order and the worst part of it all is that they do not tell you that at the counter!!! So the first time you go here, you'd be confused as to where all the food is coming from, but the key here is to move in the direction that everyone is moving and you'll figure out the process :)... Their Koobideh is awesome and on my last visit, I tried their Barg Kabab which has become my new favorite. All the kababs are served with Cilantro on a Lavash bread and you could order a side of saffron rice that goes very well with the kababs. You also get some good Zoolbiah which is the same as the Indian Jalebi. The Baklava that you get in the store is also pretty good and one of my friends discovered that its awesome with Ice cream...

Kennedy's Irish Pub and Curry House, San Francisco

Kennedy's Irish Pub and Curry House is my favorite watering hole in San Francisco. They had the most amazing collection of beer on tap. The surprising thing about this place is that it serves Indian food and in my opinion, a place like Kannedy's can survive only in San Francisco. Where else would you find a sports bar, Irish pub and Indian restaurant bundled together ??!!! The pitchers here are priced at a very reasonable $ 15 and I get some of my favorite European beers on tap - Boddingtons, Guiness, Smithwicks, Fattire, Warsteiner etc. On my last visit, I was there with 8 other people and ended up ordering 6 pitchers of all the above mentioned :). And for the first time, I also found out that if you buy 5 pitchers, you get the 6th one free !! A couple of my friends who don't drink beer weren't very happy that we'd dragged them to an Irish pub but the bartender made them an awesome drink from Soju and Sprite which got them in a mood to enjoy the evening. Soju is the Korean equivalent of Sake. We'd also ordered some appetizers - Curry fries, Onion pakoras and Sambar Vada which were all pretty decent. I used to come here more often a few years back because they had really good Indian food too but over the years, the quality of their Indian food has deteriorated and I wouldn't recommend eating dinner here. Kennedy's also has a couple of pool tables and a foosball table and a few of my friends decided to play pool with a couple of other guys hanging out at Kennedy's. Although both teams sucked, my friends were the ones who ultimately lost.

Schnitzelhaus, San Francisco

I wouldn't call myself sober when I ended up at Schnitzelhaus after the San Francisco Lovefest. I'd downed about 7 drinks and comeup with a new superhero "Meterman" who could walk thru parking meters :) !! But for once, I'd trusted my Austrian friend to pick the restaurant and he highly recommended Schnitzelhaus. This Austrian/German restaurant at the intersection of Folsom and 9th Street has a homely family restaurant feel. Not much in terms of decor but I still somehow liked the place, maybe because I was just too tired and got to sit after a few hours. We practically ordered everything on the menu and I don't really remember all that I ate. I do remember the Goulash being awesome and the I loved the Schnitzel served with spicy potatoes. There was another chicken dish which had a creamy spicy sauce. I always had the impression that German/Austrian food was bland and all potatoes but after eating at Schnitzelhaus, I got a feel for real good German food and I enjoyed it. By the time we finished our meal, I was getting sober and realizing that I had way too much to eat, so decided to skip on dessert. I got to know later that their Apple Strudel with vannila ice cream is supposed to be awesome and I might go there again just to try that ...

Pizzeria Delfina, San Francisco

I finally managed to go to Pizzeria Delfina after trying to go there twice in the last one month but it just wouldn't work out. The first time, we were looking for parking and found one right in front of Dosa, so ended up going there. And the next time I decided to go there, one of my friends wanted to try out Pizza Orgasmica which ended up being good but not at the same level as Delfina. This time, I was determined to go to Delfina, come what may !! The overall experience was awesome as always. We ended up sitting at the bar as the place was packed and would have taken atleast 30 minutes to get us a table. Since we had two veggies with us, we decided to go for all veggie appetizers - The marinated cannellini beans and the Ricotta cheese salad. I absolutely loved the Cannellini beans in their creamy sauce with just the right amount of spices and the ricotta cheese served with stuffed chillies and spinach was fabulous too. For the main course, we ended up ordering the Pizza Margherita (veggie) and the Pizza Salsiccia. The pizzas here are the authentic italian style thin crust pizzas which I like a lot better than the american style deep dish ones. Our Salsiccia was amazing with a well done thin crust, spicy italian saussage and 2 different cheeses. The veggies didn't quite enjoy their pizza all that much because it hardly had any veggies and ended up just being a cheese pizza with 3 different cheeses. Washed down all the food with Birra Peroni which is a light Italian beer. For dessert, we tried the Canoli which wasn't upto much. I've had better Canoli at Lunardi's Supermarket and ofcourse my favourite Italian dessert place - Caffe Greco. On the whole, a very good dining experience with a friendly wait staff.