Pearl Cafe (Mountain View)

A surprising find! The bulk of the food menu was Hawaiian. We tried loco moco, morning musubi and the pepper chicken with jasmine milk tea. The milk tea was decent (tasted like Quickly and the pearls were not hard), and the food was pretty nice. We liked how the pepper chicken had a good meat-to-batter ratio. We had never had musubi before, but the morning musubi was quite nice (the hashbrown and the rice melded together), although the seaweed was pretty old and couldn't be torn apart.
It's pretty decent food at decent prices (the portions were HUGE), so we'll probably return in the future. Also, the ambience is pretty nice for relaxing and hanging out with friends!

Loco Moco with katsu and curry sauce. This could be two persons' lunch.

Morning musubi. Egg, spam and hasbrown with rice wrapped in seaweed.

 Pearl Cafe

506 Showers Dr

Mountain View, CA 94040

(650) 917-8988

Sushi Sam's Edomata (San Mateo)

At least two friends recommended this Japanese sushi restaurant to us, so we decided to make the drive up to San Mateo. It was worth it.
We ordered salmon nigiri (our standard for testing sushi bars), soft shell crab roll, and omakase sashimi (our friend recommended we try it). Everything was provided at very generous cuts, and the salmon had lots of fat (close to salmon belly). We quite liked the soft shell crab roll although we found that the batter was a bit too thick and we couldn't really taste much of the meat. 
What I really wanted to talk about was the omakase. It was completely worth the $40 we paid for it. 8 big cuts of a variety of white fish, special yellowtail, flounder, TORO, and a seasonal baby squid marinated with miso. The toro simply melted in our mouth, no need for chewing! We hadn't had the other kinds of fish before, and it was a good first experience. 
Finally, the omakase dessert, white miso parfait, was simply delicious. The blend of flavors in the cream and spongecake was heightened by the slightly salty taste of the miso puree. 
We would come here again!

Salmon nigiri and soft shell crab roll. Check out the thick layers of fat on the salmon

Omakase sashimi

White miso parfait. YUM!

Sushi Sam's Edomata

218 E 3rd Ave

San Mateo, CA 94401

(650) 344-0888

http://www.sushisams.com