Look for Three Stars in the Fog
June 27, 2003
Three Star Restaurant
Westlake Shopping Center
323 South Mayfair Ave.
Daly City, CA 94015
650-757-9723
Hours: Mon.–Sat. 11:00 a.m. – 9:30 p.m., Sun. 11:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Prices: $4.25–$5.50 for soups and appetizers; $4.25–$10.95 for entrees; $4.00–$4.75 for daily lunch specials.
Cash only.
If there were ever a great invention, the suburban strip mall has to be it. A convenient one-stop shopping and daily chore extravaganza for the busy mom, the strip mall is a magical maze of drug stores, dry cleaners and eateries.
My dad had a small Chinese restaurant in a strip mall when I was little, and although it’s long gone — replaced by an overpriced chicken joint — I still have memories of working there. Most of the original stores have left the 1950s-style shopping plaza. No longer can I find the small barbershop with the old-fashioned red-and-white barber pole, the neighborhood Rexall drug store or the Benjamin Franklin store. A mobile phone retailer, a manicure shop and an Office Depot have replaced them all.
I remember the routine of watching as families exited their wood side-paneled station wagons and made their rounds through the strip mall. On some days, it would be a visit to the drug store, on others, the Alpha Beta supermarket. Sometimes the busy moms, the local barflies or the little old ladies, who got their blue-hued permanents several doors down from us, would stop by our restaurant to pick up some dinner. Chow mein, fried rice and egg foo young were just some of the faithful standbys. And no one could ever leave my dad’s place without fortune cookies.
These days, I doubt that strip mall restaurants get a lot of customers, unless they belong to a chain of pizza, fried chicken or sandwich places. Before last Friday, I hadn’t eaten at a strip mall restaurant for quite some time.
I didn’t know where or what Three Star was: the only coordinates I had were “Daly City,” “cheap” and “good.” My friend and I headed south on 280, entered the fog and found ourselves in the parking lot of Westlake Shopping Center.
Three Star is a small restaurant tucked away in the corner of the shopping center which serves Chinese and Filipino food. We entered the brightly lit, rectangular dining room and were seated between two families. The restaurant was busy and I began to think that Three Star’s food might be better than I had anticipated, since most of the customers were Filipino.
I must say, however, that the service is, how shall we say it, brusque. But I’m not really one to turn up my nose at affordable restaurants that don’t feature four-star service. Our main waitress looked like she was having a bad day, but as the night progressed, I began to think she was just an unhappy person.
To experience the duo-cuisine at Three Star we ordered a mix of Chinese and Filipino dishes. We started off with Lumpian Shanghai ($4.25), golden-fried spring rolls with a sweet-and-sour dipping sauce. The dozen rolls, each about 2.5 inches long, were filled with minced pork, cabbage, carrots and celery. The lumpia wrapper, made with a thin skin of flour or cornstarch with water, was light and crispy, which makes me think the filling was pre-cooked to prevent the delicate wrapper from getting soggy.
Pancit Miki ($5.50), satisfied our carb craving with thick, chewy, round egg noodles sautéed with chicken, pork, shrimp, cabbage, mushrooms and carrots. This was comforting and hearty, and tasted even better when I squeezed some lemon on top of the steaming heap of noodles. The Filipino noodle dishes, known as pancit, show the heavy influence of Chinese cuisine. Miki is the type of noodle used in the dish, a thick noodle similar to that of freshly made spaghetti.
Next, came the Chinese dishes, starting with Szechuan Style Prawns ($6.50), deep-fried shrimp coated in a doughy batter and then tossed with a sticky, tangy brown sauce and doused with sesame seeds.
I examined my prawn and after close inspection realized it was just a shrimp in disguise. It reminded me of those fake sumo wrestler costumes that people wear. A slightly dried out shrimp hid underneath the thick, heavy golden batter. I’m pretty certain that this isn’t an authentic Sichuanese dish, since Sichuanese cuisine doesn’t use a lot of sugar or thick, sugary sauces. But the sauce was delicious and it went well with the steamed rice ($1.00 per person). It was sweet and savory, and had just enough spice.
I never order fried rice at Chinese restaurants, because outside of Chinatowns and American Chinese restaurants, fried rice doesn’t exist. The closest authentic dish might be from Hong Kong, where locals eat yang zhou fried rice and salted fish and chicken fried rice.
We knew our dish of Fried Rice with Salt Fish and Diced Chicken ($5.50) was coming even before it got to our table, that’s how pungent it is. It was good, but we thought it could have used some more bits of the melt-in-your-mouth salted fish. I ate the rice with the pancit miki, and the two created a nice texture and flavor. There are no chopsticks here, but forks and spoons, as in a traditional Filipino table setting.
Filipino food, unlike other Southeast Asian cuisines, does not feature a lot of fiery and hot dishes, and after several spicy meals these past few weeks, my tongue and stomach were grateful for the reprieve from chilies and peppers.
So if you’re ever in the Daly City area shopping at Trader Joe’s, or coming in from a surf session at nearby Pacifica or Linda Mar, head on over to Three Star to get some decent food, but one-star service.
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