Jim's Good Food

I was happily invited to the soft opening of Jim's Good Food last night. They served their butter burger and fries, and a couple other bites. It's where that Coconut Fish Grill place was, near University of Beer. Basic decor inside, the most  notable accent is a swirly wallpaper. There's a mix of booths and tables. Good beer selection on draft, I didn't check out the wine selection. More about Jim's after the jump


This is a really excellent burger. I am not just saying that. If I didn't believe it I wouldn't have posted anything.

No condiments except for a pat of butter. That's American cheese and a housemade pickle slice. The only thing I would like is more pickles on it. But the burger is pretty perfect as far as the prominent meat flavor, crusty charred edges, and salt level of the meat, which Thiemann said was Wagyu. The glossy bun is sweet-ish, not like Hawaiian roll sweet, but a touch. The burger is compact, tidy (a preference) and really delicious. I inhaled almost 2 of them for dinner ,and then when I was leaving I told Thiemann "I ate two of those sliders" as a compliment for how good they were  but later I realized the ones served for the opening (not sure how the size will relate to the burger on the menu) were actually bigger than sliders and maybe that was crazy to eat more than one and did it bug him I referred to them as sliders? That kind of thing haunts me. The fries were quite good, with flakes of nori here and there, but I don't really like fries.

I'm excited for this place. I feel like maybe the media is trying to hang more of a theme on the menu than there really is and I like the idea that it is just the food and dishes that Mike and Lisa like. I'm glad there will be pasta. I am not much of a bruncher so probably won't brunch much.

I went right from there to my first Japanese conversation class at Sakura Gakuen language school, at the Buddhist Church on 11th street. Man, they really had a lot of rules to start, including don't come to class drunk or high and the steps to getting expelled! I was a little surprised. Plus a lot about security in that area, since we are there until 9pm.

Then once it started it was cool, I realized that the fact that it's conversation means studying won't be enough and I will have to interact with the class which is a little stressful. A lot of people were like "oh, I took this in college" or "I lived in Japan for a year in 1977" and I'm like "I know absolutely no Japanese except 5 greetings" so I'm hoping we are all on enough of a level playing field for me to keep up.  I just want to pick up a little and go back to Japan next year, and also maybe prove to myself that I'm still smart enough to learn something new? I mean, I learn new stuff at work all the time but I often feel like I'm picking it up more slowly than others, or not as completely.

I  went to Banh Cuon Tay Ho the other day with some buds. I got the idea from it being Tet recently, but I didn't realize Tet was over the day we went. I like to get the combo platter, although I don't love those sliced deli-style meats on the bottom there, so I should probably find a combo plate without those. My faves are the banh cuon with ground pork (the grey-ish one at the top) and the fried mung bean cake sort of on the right. It's really cool, they have a veg platter, so you can get veg banh cuon, and then the deep fried shoe string yams and mung bean dish are vegetarian anyway. This place has fish sauce pitchers on the table and they bring you a vegetarian pitcher option if you get the veg. platter. This is pretty huge as far as being able to not get short shrift if you are a vegetarian at a Vietnamese place locally. I crave this platter.