1. Pho Tai – Probably the most popular Vietnamese dish. Pho broth with rice noodles served with rare steak slices. Once served, I usually squirt a little bit of sriracha hot sauce, Oyster sauce, and a CRAP LOAD of lime.Then ask for a side of fresh onions, drizzle some sriracha sauce over it and you got yourself a BOMB late night meal.

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I always thought that I would love Norcal forever. It’s my place of birth, my original home, and where I spent the last 19 years of my life before moving to Socal for school…

But after living 4 years in Socal, I realize how freaking COLD it is up there! My folks don’t turn on the heater at the house which impresses the hell out of me cause I feel like im in a freezer.  Anyways, this trip to Norcal was great as I got to hang out with some friends and family that I haven’t seen in a long time, most notably my internet marketing mentor Aaron, as he is going to move back to Sydney for a few months. We hung out for a few hours and he gave me some advice on setting up PPC campaigns on Microsoft Adcenter. He stressed on how crucial writing adcopy was and demonstrated to me how a small tweak in a single text ad could improve CTR by 200% or more. I took some of his advice and launched a campaign with a merchant in the health/beauty industry. So far, the campaign is doing better than I expected, I am at a 18.8% CTR and hold a conversion rate of 8% which are some pretty solid numbers. I’ll keep track on these statistics daily and pray that everything stays consistent.

Anyways, I met up with my other friend after and decided to look for good sushi restaurants around San Francisco. She yelped something close by and a place called “Okina” came up, it had 4.5 stars and we figured that it would satisfy us since we are such sushi freaks. I booked the reservations for 8pm and arrive around the area around 7:30pm, too early you say? Hell no! It took me 25 minutes just to find parking around the area! One of the things I hate about San Francisco is you can not find parking ANYWHERE, most of the meters charge a quarter every 5 minutes and the parking lots are either super expensive, or always full.

It takes me about 10 minutes to find the exact location of the restaurant as the street was incredibly dark and made me wonder if I came to the right area. I finally notice a small building which looked like a house, outside are 2 curtains blocking the doorway with a large Japanese symbol, on the top of the symbol, I saw the words “Okina” telling me that I indeed came to the right place.

As I enter, I see a very small room with 4 tables and a tiny sushi bar on the right, I see only 1 chef working. What suprised me was that even though the place was full, everyone talked quiety. I was then greeted by 1 Japanese waitress confirming our reservation. She then promptly seating us at the last 2 seats on the sushi bar. The menu was only 1 small page and all I see is nigri sushi, handrolls, and sashimi. This was definitly not one of those Americanized sushi places and immediately I was excited because I love fresh fish. I then notice the chef who was a big bald Japanese man with with glasses, his facial features resembled a samurai that you would see in movies and cartoons. He notices me looking over his direction and he immediately comes over and with his thick Japanese accent says:

“Hello! You should take my Omakase! It is good! Here I serve you!”

He immediately takes 2 pieces of nigiri sushi  and puts it in front of us.

Me: “O wait…How much is the Omakase?”

Chef: “O! don’t worry! its the same price!”

Me:….*thinking wtf!??!”

He then starting serving us more which worried the hell out of me, its not the issue of price, but I always want to know how much I am paying for something before I buy ya know?

I then call the waitress over only to get the same EXACT answer:

“don’t worry! same price!”

Me:…”can you give me a price range at least?”

Waitress: “don’t worry! same price”

FML….

Suddenly, the white guy next to me turns around and tells me:

“Dude, don’t worry you’ll be fine”

Me: But what ab-

“Dude! just relax! it will be reasonable!”

Me: “ok…can I get a range at least? Like what? 50 – 80 bucks a person?”

“It will be less, don’t worry”

So I just drowned my own worries and enjoyed the meal. The presentation was not very good as all the fish he bought out were pre-sliced. However, the fish was VERY fresh and pretty much everything just melted in my mouth. I definitely recommend this place for hardcore sushi lovers. Although I was enjoying my food, the curiousity of the price kept lingering in my head. The chef didn’t make it much better as he kept joking that I shouldn’t worry and if i can’t pay I can “wash dishes” topping it off with a really creepy meniacal laugh.

The bill finally came, my friend and I have each eaten 4 peices of toro Nigiri sushi, 1 toro handroll, 2 fresh oyster nigri, and a lot of other fresh fish which we thought would come out to be 60 – 100 bucks a person.

…As I looked down at my bill…I saw the numbers 39.95 glance to my eyes…

At this point I am thinking “WTF!  its gotta be wrong!” I stare at the chef who shoots a wink back at me and says “I told you not to worry! ”