Still craving Taiwanese food and tried Betty

After that pork belly bao I was still thinking about Taiwan best mart, so I went back on Saturday lunch with Smiller to try dining in. It only has two tables and both were full but within a few minutes of ordering both opened up. While I was waiting for a table I poked my head in Osaka Ya. There was a line of people for the mochi, but I noted that Osaka Ya is looking careworn. Using this word made me look it up and it means "tired and unhappy because of prolonged worry" so I am somewhat using it incorrectly. I guess I mean "worse for wear". They have that broken window that's been boarded up for a long time. Anyway, wondering what is going on and hoping Osaka Ya is thriving.

At TBM I ordered an oyster omelet. It had 5 or 6 big oysters in there, strong-tasting ones. I would describe the texture with the gravy, and rice flour out-muscling the eggs as "gloppy". It's my first oyster omelet and I ordered it due to being bummed to not have the opportunity to order an oyster omelet in Thailand, so for me it was swing and a miss but interesting! I'm sure it is quite different from a Thai oyster omelet so I think my ordering motives were not pure. 

One of the main dishes commonly associated with Taiwanese food is beef noodle soup. I have had tastier versions, including at Yang's (RIP) but this was good. The seemingly house made noodles were the best part. The bok choy was too chunky to be able to get good bites of it.

Smiller got sesame noodles with the same noodles above and he purported to like it, that dish is a bit plain if you don't add anything to it.

It was fun to eat there, and I am very stoked on Taiwan Best Mart and trying more of the dishes. 

I know you are marveling that I posted this here rather than saving for the Gram. This is like Instagram gold right here so feel privileged. This is the back patio at new Southside wine bar Betty. I hesitated to go in because I am ride-or-die on Good News and I always feel like I should spend my wine money there. A friend said Betty was really cute so I had to go. It is indeed, cute as hell. Smiller was wondering aloud who created the wine bar/store as pantry/larder concept? Who was the first to decide that a wine bar should sell foodstuffs such as drum roll please....tinned fish! I know Ordinaire has been hugely influential on natty wine stuff but they pretty much focus on wine, so it's not them.

I respect the vibe of the Betty selection, particularly in the store part. It's tough to order a glass when a place picks one wine for each category (like one white, one rose, etc.) because if I want a white wine but not the one they have on offer then what the heck do I order? But I loved the classic Euro feel of some of the picks on the shelves. I feel like it is respecting the greats and has lots of natural wine but is not trend chasing. It has such a female feel to it, due to the name, the owner being female, and the crowd when we were there being 80% female, so it's like the antithesis of natty wine bro. 

Due to the limited selection, I had to order an Italian orange wine (shudder), this is an orange version of a pinot grigio and it tasted mostly just like a glass of white PG. I am kinda kidding when I say shudder but I find orange wine to often have off flavors and mouth textures (didn't say mouthfeel) that I don't enjoy. For my first glass I got an Italian white,

Betty is a cute (did I say mention it's cute?) new addition to the "scene" and hopefully Sac is big enough for all these places to find their niche.