Village Wine & Cheese, A Gourmet Market

I got a chance to eat at this place a few months ago in May. We just ended up at this place by chance as we were walking on Broadway on a late rainy afternoon in this tiny college town of Columbia. It was great to find a restaurant that was open around 3:30 PM in the afternoon. Usually, they're closed for a couple of hours right after lunch time and before dinner time.

This one is quite a large place, one part of the restaurant is a huge bar with lots of wine choices. You can almost call it a wine-lovers' paradise. They have rows and rows of racks filled with wine bottles. And the other part is main restaurant. The ambiance was good and gives the place sort of a romantic yet casual atmosphere. The waiters were very polite and helped answer quite a few of our questions.

They have an extensive menu of sandwiches that you can choose from and more than seven different types of veg sandwiches you can pick from. The ones I got to eat and taste were the following:

The Village Garden sandwich has assorted roasted vegetables, fresh tomatoes and Swiss cheese baked on foccacia bread; finished with herb aioli, scallion cream cheese and alfalfa sprouts.

Their Mary Ellen’s Mozzarella Madness has roasted eggplant, tomato, fresh basil, fresh mozzarella & balsamic vinaigrette served hot on a French baguette.

These have been the best Italian sandwiches that I've ever eaten. The portion was quite large and very filling. I didn't get to try any desserts as the sandwich was heavy.

While we were leaving, we bought some wine for our alcohol drinking friends and asked whether they had another restaurant in California. Unfortunately, they are family owned and this is their only location in the US. I would love to visit this place again at any time!

Dinner is not served daily at this place. Please visit their site for more info.

My rating for Village Wine & Cheese is 4.5/5.


Name: Village Wine & Cheese, A Gourmet Market
Type: Sandwich, Steak, Seafood
Average Price: $10/person (Lunch), $15/person (Dinner)
Address: 929 East Broadway, Columbia, Missouri 65201
Phone: (573) 442-1010
Fax: (573) 815-9703
Email: info@villagewineandcheese.com
Website: http://www.villagewineandcheese.com/


From the outside

The Village Garden sandwich

Mary Ellen’s Mozzarella Madness sandwich

Sakura Sushi

I have visited this place at least three times for lunch. They're located right in Sunnyvale downtown.

Their Veggie Lovers Bento Box is served with miso soup, salad & rice. All the dishes come with the gari (pickled ginger) and the wasabi sauce. Both of which make all the food quite delicious!

As a veg, we have a choice of asparagus rolls, vegetable tempura, agedashi tofu, wakame (seaweed salad), vegetable rolls, inari (kind of a stuffed and fried roll), and kanpyo maki (pickled-gourd rolls).

For lunch, you can choose up to two items from the above list and for dinner you can choose up to three items as part of your bento box.

My most favorite is the wakame and vegetable rolls. Their wakame has nice amount of sesame seeds which give it a real good taste and the rolls are also quite delicious. Their miso soup is also nice.

Their menu says they serve jalapeño poppers as part of all the bento boxes but I've never seen any. Hmm... I should ask that next time I am there.

The place is small but usually isn't too crowded for lunch time. Staff is courteous and polite.

My rating for Sakura is 3/5.


Name: Sakura Sushi
Type: Japanese
Average Price: $10/person (Lunch), $15/person (Dinner)
Address: 173 South Murphy Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
Phone: (408) 481-9474
Website: None.

Ni Mo Japanese Cuisine & Sushi Bar

A vegetarian person has good number of choices here. Located right in San Mateo downtown. Ni Mo offers good service and has friendly staff. I've been to the place more than twice just for this reason that they have more veg options.

The server starts you off with some fresh boiled whole soybeans to munch on with green tea until the meal is served.

Their vegetarian bento box has all different kinds of Japanese foods one can eat including veg tempura, veg rolls, veg aged tofu, seaweed salad served with salad, miso soup and steamed rice.

In addition to that, they have more than nine different kinds of veg rolls like sour plum, wild carrot, mushroom, fermented soy bean, deep fried yam, pickled radish, cucumber, avocado, and asparagus.

My rating for Ni Mo is 4/5.


Name: Ni Mo Japanese Cuisine
Type: Japanese
Average Price: $8-14/person (Lunch), $11-16/person (Dinner)
Address: 73 East 3rd Ave, San Mateo, CA 94401
Phone: (650) 342-0288
Website: None.