We have committed to eating at every single restaurant in the Castro St. area in downtown Mountain View, in sequence, no matter what the restaurant. You will find our daily reviews here.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Day 28: Maruichi (Niniane)
I didn't take a photo, so here is an internet photo:
My guest was Matt, who worked on the cloud rendering for the movie Avatar. We talked about 3-D graphics.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Day 27: New Mongolian BBQ (Yishan)
Sometime in the past few years, they upgraded the interior of the restaurant and changed the name, but everything has actually stayed the same: the inside looks a lot better, but the staff is exactly the same (in particular the one chef who waters down all your food) and the serving trays and food selection are the same as well.
Today's visitor was Alex Khomenko, from 23andMe. We knew each other from PayPal days when we were on the same team, and then later we went our separate ways when I joined Facebook and he joined 23andMe. Alex was an extremely good engineer back when we worked together; these days he is Director of Engineering at 23andMe. They are hiring, by the way.
I have been able to identify two chefs here, the older one and the younger one. The older one is much worse than the younger one, because he throws water on your food and basically washes out all the flavoring sauces that you put on it. It makes your dish incredibly bland. The only way to counteract this is, when to get to the sauce area, to fill up all the interstitial space in your bowl with sauce (and I mean all - right up to the brim) with sauces, including sauces much spicier than you would normally use. After the watering-down, your dish will taste approximately okay. If you get the younger chef, he doesn't water down the food and you can use a normal amount of sauce, which is to say that you still need to use quite a lot. I really loathe the old chef (he has been here since the Colonel Lee days), as he's pretty much the primary reasons why this mongolian BBQ lags significantly behind in terms of meal quality (because the ingredients and such are perfectly fine) compared to Su's Mongolian BBQ in Santa Clara and Great Khan's Mongolian Festival in the Valley Fair shopping mall. Great Khan's is, incidentally, probably the best mongolian BBQ you can get in the area - the problem is that you have to go to the mall and walk all the way to the food court to get to it.
The price here is very low, and quality is commensurate. While Alex and I were eating, Ted Wang from Fenwick happened to walk by looking for lunch and said hi (apparently Fenwick works with 23andMe as well as Facebook, so Alex and I both knew him) and then asked how this place was, to which I replied, "Well, it's commensurate with price." He looked at the price of the lunch specials which were posted, chuckled a bit, and thanked us before continuing on.
Bottom line: This place is a bargain.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Day 26: Bella Vita (Yishan)
Today's guest was Michael from Facebook, and people from Sunfire were Andrea, Niniane and me. Unfortunately, that front-facing camera picture I took was quite poor. I don't remember what everyone got, but Niniane got the special, which was crab ravioli, and I got the pepperoni pizza. Both were good; I got to sample some of Niniane's crab ravioli via a pizza/ravioli trade agreement.
Other than that the restaurant was unremarkable, but if you are looking for a new alternative to the other Italian restaurants on the street, this one is quite adequate.
Day 26: Bella Vista (Niniane)
Michael from Facebook talked about crazy business-development ideas. At first, everyone thought the idea was crazy. Then Yishan slowly came around, and decided that it's "so crazy it might be great". I remain of the opinion that it's just crazy.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Day 25: Taqueria Los Charros (Yishan)
I never know what to say when I meet Peter Norvig, because he is so much smarter than me. This was useful for not leaking any information about Facebook features.
Day 25: Taqueria La Charro (Niniane)
We talked about his times at NASA, and how Google has evolved over
time. Peter and I speculated about Facebook features, while Yishan
tried to keep a poker face to not leak information.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Day 24: Temptations Indian Chinese (Yishan)
The food was decent, and I especially enjoyed the appetizer. Gobi Manchurian is apparently deep-fried cauliflower, which is great. Next time I go I shall try one of the Chinese or fusion dishes.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Day 23: Pho Garden (Yishan)
Luckily, today's pho restaurant turned out to be a class above the other two (I'd never been here), so it could credibly be called an actual thank-you lunch. You don't want to thank someone for driving you to the emergency room at 3am by taking them to the worst restaurant at the street. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of David and me (Niniane is usually the one who remembers that we have to take pictures), so all you have is this picture of the best calamari appetizer I've ever seen. It was pretty tasty too. In the corner you can see David's hand, which he uses to produce quite exceptional code.
This place is the home of that huge "2 lbs of Pho, 2 lbs of random meat products" bowl where if you eat the whole thing in under an hour, you get to keep the bowl or something. If you fail, you get a t-shirt. We both declined to try this challenge as we are both several years out of college, and instead got other dishes. I got a dish involving cubed filet mignon with garlic noodles and David got something similar but with rice. Neither of us got pho, and we appreciated the expanded menu sparing us of this. Both dishes were quite decent. If you have to eat pho on this street, this one is the place to go to - and it definitely qualifies for a mention in my other blog, Sucks Less Than Expected.
I think this is the last pho restaurant in the downtown area, thankfully.
Day 22: Nami nami (Niniane)
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Day 22: Nami Nami (Yishan)
I've never been to this restaurant, despite the fact that it's right in the middle of the street amongst a bunch of restaurants I've been to. As it turns out, it's an excellent sushi restaurant, rivaling the other good one in downtown Mountain View, Sushi Tomi. You might need a reservation for lunch; we didn't have one and had to wait 15 minutes for a table to clear for us.
Today's group consisted of Chris, Jahanzeb, Niniane, and me. I ordered the ten-piece nigiri (a one-piece upgrade from my usual 9-piece that I often ordered at Kanpai in downtown Palo Alto. Jahanzeb ordered a really good duck and mango appetizer (see pic below). We talked about Chris and Ben's project to build a product to tell you what size you are across different clothing brands and lines.
In the future if I want sushi in downtown Mountain View, I'm definitely coming here.
Afterwards we went to get some gelato, because at some point I think Jersey Shore was mentioned and in this season they are all working in a gelato place.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Day 21: Chef Liu (Yishan)
Until now.
It had been a few years so maybe things had improved. They own the place above them which they rent out to various small startups, and a friend of mine had worked for a startup there (WeBook), where they ate at the restaurant often without incident. This time, I saw the beef stew noodle soup on the lunch menu and was about to order until I happened to check their Yelp reviews to find recommendations on specific dishes since I hadn't been there in so long and was horrified to discover this particular review. I decided not to order the soup, and got General's Chicken instead.
The lunch party consisted of Adam, Matin, and Mike Tsao, and after all that, we ended up eating perfectly good meals without incident. They also came around and offered us complementary tea eags, which were quite beautifully done. I was half-afraid that they were pawning off some expired eggs on us, but a close examination of the film integrity just inside the shells indicated that they had been made with fresh eggs. The tea eggs were good, the rest of the food was okay - though obviously much better than my fears. The green onion pancakes were a little too doughy, rather than being light and crispy.
Interestingly, one of the servers apparently recognized me, and confirmed it by asking me if the last time I'd been here was 5 or 6 years ago, and if my girlfriend at the time was white (the literal translation in Chinese being "foreigner"). I suspect this may have been because I'd either made a scene last time (I do recall being quite put off by two health code violations in a row) or if I'd made a positive impression by tipping them reasonably despite the negative events (I tend to believe the waitstaff shouldn't be excessively punished if the kitchen is run poorly). Maybe both.
In any case, I still don't think I'm going back there again. Niniane happened to be absent for this lunch, the lucky duck.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Day 20.5: Pho Hoa (Niniane)
BART to Millbrae and transferring to Caltrain ended up taking almost
three hours. I never want to do it again. I ended up arriving after
everyone else finished eating the Indian food. Yishan was gracious
enough to sit with me at Pho Hoa while I ate.
There is a "just big enough" meal at Pho Hoa, which is $5 and gives
you a reasonably sized bowl, as opposed to the typical ridiculously
large portion at typical pho restaurants.
The sunlight streamed in through a skylight and shone on Yishan as we
spoke. We sat for a long while talking about startups, and the sun
moved during this period to shine directly on me instead. It's quite
surreal to have the sun on you, almost like a spotlight.
The tea was very strong.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Day 20: Godavari (Yishan)
Godavari is formerly known as Sue's Indian Cuisine. The interior is different - more sparse and modern. It's an Indian buffet, and I have trouble telling if it's any different than Sue's because I only went to Sue's once, many years ago. In any case, I'm a very unsophisticated Indian food eater, in that I just get whatever thing seems to be most effective marsala/butter-based chicken sauce as a naan delivery mechanism. The food at Godavari performs adequately at this task.
Today's visitors were Yumi Hosaka Clark, a colleague from PayPal days who now works at Intuit, and Jessica Mah from InDinero, a Web 2.0 version of Quickbooks (intriguing). I later tried signing up but wasn't able to get my Chase account integrated. I will try again later, I guess. Jawed Karim and Chris Robinson from the office also attended, with Chris coming up with numerous terrible analogies relating Y-Combinator to in-vitro fertilization. Niniane took the Caltrain down from San Francisco, which arrived much later than expected and resulted in her showing up as we finished eating, so she went to eat separately at the next restaurant (Pho) herself, knocking it off the list and taking one for the team like I did with the other Pho restaurant.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Day 19: Gyro House (Niniane)
the office is more bustling than usual. LG came down from the city,
as did Omar, my former colleague on Google Desktop.
I was dismayed to see that we were at Gyro House, because the gyros
I've eaten in the past were disgusting. But I think those may be
memories from college, where the chefs did not know how to make proper
gyros. The chicken gyro I ate today was great! I would definitely
eat there again, even though I still experience a tiny amount of
disgust every time I type the word "gyro".
We talked about startup culture, and what's happening at various hot
startups now.
Day 19: Gyro House (Yishan)
Day 18: Hong Kong Bakery (Yishan)
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Day 17: Totoro Korean House (Niniane)
One of them said, "You make fun of the site until one day, you realize it's gotten to the point where you need to use it. Then you are depressed for a day, and sit in your apartment feeling bad."
None of us had ever eaten at today's restaurant before. so we were all a bit wary. My bulgoki was quite good. I would definitely go back. It was only $12 for lunch including tax and tip.
The waitress barked orders at us -- to move to a different table, to take our entrees from her when she brought them over. It was strangely endearing, like having your mother boss you around in a harried tone of voice. Yishan ordered fried chicken, which took twice as long as other entrees. It turned out to be many pieces of chicken that were not battered and had clearly been cooked in a vat of oil. I feel like this restaurant is "keepin' it real".
J told us about his surreal life last year, when he was doing his PhD thesis on software to help developing countries, but he'd also developed one of the best-selling iPhone apps. By day, he was helping illiterate Pakistani villagers use a voice interface to interact with computers. By night, he huddled in a tent, doing customer support for wealthy Americans.
On another note, we debated about which product would be more offensive to men: a product where the man's friends vote on what they think his salary should be, or one where his friends vote on which of ten women (of varying levels of attractiveness) he would be able to land. I thought it would be the salary-voter, but the guys at lunch all agreed that the babe-voter would hit home harder.
Day 17: Totoro Korean House (Yishan)
If you fry the food for too long, the water inside eventually boils off and the oil wins the battle, simultaneously seeping into the food while the food becomes dried out (because the water is gone). So, skillfully-fried food is still juicy and not greasy because it's removed from the fryer after the food is cooked but before the water boils off, which keeps the oil on the outside - most of which also boils off from the residual heat, leaving it not particularly greasy. Unskillfully-fried food is greasy and dry. This fried chicken was unskillfully fried.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Day 16: Pho To Chau (Yishan)
Yesterday Jack Dorsey came to visit, and since Niniane was away meeting someone else, I decided to skip Brute Force Lunch Tour. It was only Jack's second time visiting downtown Mountain View, and it seemed uncouth to subject a guest to what I knew was going to be a terrible restaurant. We went to Shabuway instead. Now that I've eaten at Pho To Chau, I'm glad we did.
Today Niniane was up in San Francisco, and no one was in earshot at the office (Andrea and Alex came in after lunch, and Ed Lu met someone else for coffee), so I figured I should take one for the team and go to Pho To Chau alone and just take care of this one for the tour, so that at least only one person would have to suffer.
It was worse than I remembered. I even picked the soup that had the most "legitimate" meats (top round sirloin and flank steak), rather than the crazy stuff like intestines and tripe, but the whole thing was still kinda gross. I ate maybe half of my meal, paid for it (no credit cards accepted for under $10), and quickly got out of there. On the way back I got a yogurt cup at Posh Bagel to try and wash out the taste.
Having just finished the yogurt cup as I write this, I have to say that I highly recommend the delicious yogurt cups at Posh Bagel.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Day 15: Ryowa (Niniane)
Ryowa is my favorite ramen place in South Bay. The noodles are chewy in a very satisfying way.
Hang had an idea for people finding carpooling partners. This was inspired by him wanting to find a carpool to come to Sunfire from SF.
Day 15: Ryowa (Yishan)
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Day 14: Villa 8 Buffet (Yishan)
I've passed this restaurant many times but never eaten there. The advertised menu is quite intriguing, however, in that it is a pan-asian buffet - and the reality lives up to the hype, at least in quantity and variety if not quality. I was able to combine dim sum, fried chicken, steak, sushi, General Tso's chicken, soups, and soft-serve ice cream all in a single meal. You can see my first plate of food in the picture.
By the second plate, however, the reality of a pan-asian buffet began to set in - namely, that all the food had been cooked in similarly-flavored oils and was thoroughly mediocre in quality. The excitement of the grand variety had began to subside and was replaced with a conversation about McDonalds restaurants in other countries. Incidentally, this restaurant lets you eat free if it's your birthday and your party has five adults, and half-price if your party has three or four adults.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Day 13: King of Krung Siam (Yishan)
Also, I ate a crab.
Day 13: King of Krung Siam (Niniane)
We talked about health-related software products, and Sasank's medical information project.
I ate pumpkin chicken. It was pretty good, probably as good as Amarin.
Yishan had the honey duck.
As we walked back, we debated whether our brute-force method requires us to eat lunch at bakeries and cafes, such as Hong Kong Bakery, Red Rock Cafe, and Starbucks. Yishan convinced me to decide on a case-by-case basis.
Day 12: Zucca (Niniane)
Yishan took this photo using his iPhone.
Congrats to Chiu-ki (upper right) on finding a new job through Sunfire! Also congrats to Gogobot who was lucky enough to hire her. This is the first engineering hire made by one of our sponsors' portfolio companies through Sunfire.
We did a new opt-in system where each person orders the food for the person to their right, instead of their own food. It worked pretty well. Elaine was to my right, and gave me such exact specifications that I picked the dish she wanted. I was going to get kobe beef short ribs, but Yishan instead ordered salmon for me, which is probably healthier.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Day 12: Zucca
The interesting thing today about lunch is that four people (out of the six today) opted in to the "order for someone else" arrangement which, after its backstory had been explained via a lengthy anecdote which I am too weary to repeat here, involved everyone in the opt-in circle having their lunch being ordered by someone else at the table. At first this idea seems foreign (even risky), but after you think about it, it's not that bad, and is a pretty good way to add some adventurism and unpredictability to your eating. The typical fear that someone might order something bad for you (or rather, the fear that you might order something the other person doesn't like) is greatly ameliorated by the fact that once you know only a few facts about the person's dietary restrictions (if any) and general preferences, you can usually narrow down the choices to a few likely options. From there, you don't actually have to get it exactly right - so long as you hit something close, the person will enjoy their meal, and the novelty besides.
Chiu-Ki Chan ordered the day's special for me, which was snapper. It was good. I ordered the grilled salmon for Niniane, who at least pretended to like it, despite trading away some of it to Elaine for some angel hair pasta.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Day 11: Shabuway (Yishan)
Caveat: Not for vegetarians.
Day 11: Shabuway (Niniane)
We spent most of lunch discussing Matin's new mobile-payment startup, and how he could test for market validation.
Shabuway is healthy, and interactive. A delightful dining experience!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Day 10: Amarin (Yishan)
The only exception is the fried tofu, which I ate with peanut sauce. But that's just an appetizer.
I mean, in theory I love noodles with peanut sauce (made a certain way), but i can never find an adequate dish of any type, including "noodles with peanut sauce" at any Thai restaurant, ever. I literally have a 0% "I enjoyed myself" success rate at Thai restaurants. I really hate Thai food.
And now we're on "the Thai block" on this damn lunch tour. Ugh. At least Shabuway is in the middle there somewhere.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Day 10: Amarin (Niniane)
I don't know whether Yishan has invited a representative sample of Paypal people to Sunfire, but I've really liked all the ones he's brought. Also Skye Lee said she used to go into work at Paypal every day and announce, "Skye in the house! Two tunes!" and then play two hip hop songs, DJ-style. So now I have a very positive impression of the Paypal work environment.
I ate the spicy sweet basil with chicken. It was pretty good. I appreciate that Amarin has brown rice.
The first time I ate at Amarin, years ago, I was bowled over by how good it tasted. Subsequent times have been diminishing returns. It's still an above average Thai restaurant, but I rarely go there of my own accord.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Day 9: Pasta? (Yishan)
If you, like me, came to this restaurant numerous times many years ago in your early days in Valley and then got sick of it and stopped, it turns out that it's not that bad. Maybe they've improved, maybe I've just become un-sick of it. You could probably stand to come back and eat a few meals here. In any case, an affordable alternative to Vaso Azzuro on the same street.
A funny story from those years past: once, when my wife was out of town in L.A. - this was back in the days when she was at grad school - I went out to dinner with male friend of mine at this restaurant. My now-wife and I weren't married yet, so I didn't have a ring or any other distinguishing "taken" features. When we were to be seated, the maitre'd, apparently surmising that we were two single dudes out on the prowl, decided to play matchmaker and sat us at a table very close to two (apparently) single ladies. Very close - it was one of those situations where they usually take two 2-person tables and push them together to make a 4-person table, but they had split the two by about literally six inches to make it two 2-person tables. We were right next to them - uncomfortably close. It was not due to the restaurant being full either, as there were plenty of other open 2-person tables.
It ended up being entirely stupid and awkward, because both parties were not actually out on the prowl (my friend was single, but he wasn't looking for women that night), and I think we all sort of seethed at the maitre'd for his presumptuousness and ruining our respective dudes-night-out and ladies-night-out dinners.
Day 9: Pasta? (Niniane)
Our waiter took this photo and cut off several people (Andrea, Jared, half of Yishan). Chris said that this waiter previously waited on him at a different branch of Pasta?, and stepped on his foot for many seconds without apologizing afterwards.
Candid photo where most of us were not ready. Andrea is talking to someone else in the background.
I had caesar salad and whole-wheat spaghetti pomodori. The food was okay, not great. The restaurant generously allowed me to substitute pineapple juice for the soda that comes with the lunch set menu.
I don't intend to return to this restaurant, especially with Vaso Azzurro on the same block.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Day 8: Bushido (Niniane)
Today's visitor is Adele from Apple. She manages the engineering team working on Webkit. We talked about the culture of secrecy at Apple, and whether it is wise to project how your future self will feel. (My stance is that it's reasonable to predict that static things about your personality will stay similar, but predicting how you will change is usually inaccurate.)
I ate the omelette fried rice. I was introduced to this dish last week by George Pang, a member of Sunfire. Alas, Bushido's version is not as good. Even though the decor of the restaurant is lovely, the food itself left much to be desired.
Andrea: [examining menu] "What is saba shioyaki?"
Yishan: "Well, there's only one way to find out."
Niniane: "By Googling it?"
Yishan: "No! Googling is the enemy of self-experience!"
Day 8: Bushido (Yishan)
Niniane discovered that you could get a free cocktail if you checked in 8 times on Foursquare at this restaurant. She remarked out loud that perhaps she should try faking 8 checkins in a row to get the free cocktail, until I reminded her that Bushido related to the old samurai code of honor, so it would be especially inappropriate to do so.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Day 7: La Bamba (Yishan)
Day 7: La Bamba (Niniane)
Today's visitor is Sutha.
Adam Stepinski told us that his car is unused right now, and Sutha said he also has a second car which is not used. Then, the four of us talked about whether you could apply the AirBnB model to unused cars.
I had chicken fajitas, which were very good. I was only able to eat a fraction of it, so I feel like I got a good deal for my money.
Adam would like to state for the record that his burrito was good.
Sutha ordered carne asada and declined the rice, beans, and fajitas, so I asked if he was trying to avoid carbs. He confirmed that he is, and also said that he's living according to paleo-evolutionary nutrition, where he approximates how pre-historic man would eat. Sometimes he fasts for 24 hours suddenly, and other times he eats three normal meals.
I am now very confused by all the conflicting nutrition advice in the world.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Day 6: ZPizza (Niniane)
Yishan's parents also came to lunch. Yishan's dad asked JonHoward about his work at a Facebook games company, and then asked, "Why don't you start your own games company?" This won him major points with the audience, for being a "cool dad" and not risk-averse like many people of a previous generation.
The pizza was rather oily. I tilted one slice on its side, and oil dripped off into a small puddle on my plate.
Day 6: ZPizza (Yishan)
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Day 5: The Kitchen Table (Yishan)
Also, yeah, the food was pretty good. Soy mayonnaise is indistinguishable from regular mayonnaise when mixed with ketchup.
Day 5: The Kitchen Table (Niniane)
The food tasted really good, but service was slow. They gave Yishan soy mayonnaise. The decor is elegant, with chandeliers and a wall of embossed metallic panels.
Today's visitors were the Noteleaf founders, and Dileep (founder of a computer-vision startup). It turns out that the Noteleaf founders are roommates with our visitor Jared from lunch yesterday, but they independently emailed us about Sunfire.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Day 4: Hangen (Yishan)
We also realized today that our Brute Force Lunch Tour does not guarantee (and in fact runs a high risk against) making sure we impress potential new office members with our lunch selections.
I really just didn't think that a restaurant that had survived for a decade on Castro St could be so bad. Maybe it is the Kapp's of Chinese restaurants.
Day 4: Hangen (Niniane)
I ordered sesame chicken, which had a tangy sour taste that became overwhelming after a few bites. Yishan's general tso chicken had a similar problem. Chiu-ki's bean curd and meat dish was fine, and she shared it with the rest of us.
I do not expect to return to this restaurant again. However, I'm glad that we sampled it as part of Brute Force lunch tour!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Day 3: Xanh (Niniane)
Lunch at Xanh is a buffet.
The catfish stew was my favorite dish. Noodles with sprouts was also good.
Today's guest was Yezdi, who told us about co-founding Firefly, selling it to Microsoft, and starting another startup in 2008. I liked how candid he was about the various challenges he faced.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Day 2: Vaso Azzurro (Niniane)
Candor shot, taken by the waiter while we were not ready.
Our guest today is Garrin, an ex-paypal'er. He is so funny! He also made a lot of effort to remember everyone's names, which is nice.
On the menu was a pasta dish with EVVO. Elaine said it sounds like a robot. I said it sounds specifically like the robot from Wall-E. Yishan corrected us that it stands for "Extra-Virgin Olive Oil".
Taher pointed out that "Brute Force lunch tour" is not the most accurate description. He said it's more like "Round Robin lunch tour". Brute Force sounds like we have to order everything on the menu, and then finish it.
Veal scallopini, which was very tender.
The owner was exuberant. We overheard him telling one of the waiters, "I need olive oil, and bread. Thank you! I love you, brother." He also started singing impromptu, and one of the cooks sang a duet with him for a line. We were inspired. We're going to introduce all new members to Sunfire by singing and saying how much we love each other.
Elaine with her lemonade, which she said was very syrupy.
Day 2: Vaso Azzurro (Yishan)
I ordered the Scallopini di Vitello (veal), which was pretty good. It came with green olives, and I don't like olives, but they did not detract from the meal.
The proprietor's singing and presentation of the meals and day's specials was so good that I was tempted to order dessert when he offered it, but at the last moment I caught Niniane shaking her head out of the corner of my eye and remembered that I too didn't actually want dessert, and my resolve was fortified.
Day 1: Hunan Chili (Yishan)
Friday, June 25, 2010
Day 1: Hunan Chili (Niniane)
During lunch, Ben and Terrence showed us their cool iPad augmented-reality app. They imported a scene from the game Myst, and as you pan the iPad around, you can see different sections of the Myst scene.
We got so excited that we forgot to take photos of the food.