Hole-in-wall serves great Chinese
Stephanie Shin
Published: April 20, 2009
La Voz Weekly Online / the voice of De Anza College
Hana is a great place to eat if you're looking for a small, hole-in-the-wall restaurant with good food at a reasonable price.
Located in a Japanese shopping plaza at Moorpark and Saratoga, Hana offers fresh Chinese food, which is free from excess grease and oil that most Chinese restaurants can't seem to get away from.
The food is clean, healthy, and light (not too overwhelming with blasts of various flavors similar to Thai food), but it hits the spot and leaves guests satisfied with a full belly and brain full of endorphins.
Behind a large display glass and a wooden countertop, a woman stands using her roller to flatten floury balls of dough into circles to prepare gyoza, a Japanese term for dumplings.
She spoons a mixture of vegetables and raw meat onto the flattened round dough, folds it over in half, and pinches the sides together with skill and speed, enclosing the pocket of goods inside. The gyozas are then cooked for hungry diners, and they are also sold in sealed plastic bags for quick and easy cooking at home, although they cost about 50 cents each to-go.
The gyozas are hot when they are served and juicy to bite into. Sui gyozas are boiled in water. They are soft, delightful and a healthier alternative to the scrumptiously crisp and heavenly fried yaki gyozas.
On each table lies soy sauce, hot sauce, chopped and minced garlic, readily available. The hot sauce contains pepper seeds and its oily consistency is like a combination of vinaigrette and olive oil.
Soup, the first entrée, comes out right away. The hot and sour soup is just right and not too salty, and the egg flour soup is an exceptional pleasure with its thick texture and its surprisingly subtle yet distinct flavor.
The fried rice is simple and not too greasy. The chicken fried rice makes a delicious filler, and the salmon rice also has a nice and buttery scent.
Expect at least a 5 to 15 minute wait for any of the items on the menu, but the Mongolian Beef is ideal for a fast and filling lunch. The tender meat is cut into bite-size pieces and tossed with green onions, perfect for eating quickly with chopsticks.
Pork and Chinese chives are the lightest and most refreshing entrée of all. Served along with bean sprouts and pork, this dish makes the perfect side salad. The bean sprouts are moist and crunchy, the chives are deep green. It brings together and completes the flavor of the rice, meat and gyozas. Soy sauce and hot sauce liven up the taste of this green dish.
It is worth spending the money to eat out at this little restaurant. The proportions are generous and leftovers can be taken home to enjoy.
With homemade noodles and dumplings on sight, one can't help but feel a more direct connection to the food they are eating.
Noodle shop focuses on Chinese, JapaneseAleta Watson
Published: Friday, November 4, 2005
Many restaurants suffer from overly ambitious menus, promising diners a vast selection of dishes from many cultural traditions. Not Hana. The cheerful little shop focuses on handmade dumplings and noodles.
Located in a West San Jose shopping center devoted to Japanese stores and restaurants, the restaurant serves Chinese food with a Japanese sensibility. It makes a point of advertising that its dumplings and noodles are made from flour milled in Japan, which is whiter and softer than flour milled in the United States. Dumplings are called gyoza, the Japanese term for pot stickers.
Owners Takao and Myka Kitamura are also partners in Sushi Tomi in Mountain View. He's from Japan; she's Chinese. ``We want to take the good points of Japanese and the good points of Chinese food,'' he says.
The shop is inviting, brightly lit and simply decorated with a long blond wood banquette and wood tables and chairs. Service is as friendly as the setting. Carry out orders are quickly filled.
I'm a fan of Hana's negimochi, a delicate pan-fried cake that layers bits of scallion between layers of paper thin dough. It's nicely browned and crackling crisp with a pleasant green onion flavor.
Gyoza are good, too. Wrappers are thick but tender, encasing juicy, fresh-tasting fillings. Yaki gyoza ($4.95 for 6) are pan-fried to a golden brown on the bottoms. Negi gyoza ($6.50 for 12) are smaller and boiled. Fillings include minced vegetables and four variations on pork, including the tasty pork and shrimp.
Noodles are properly chewy. Chile lovers shouldn't miss the Tan Tan noodle dish ($6.95), which pairs vermicelli-thin noodles with an intense sauce of chopped pork and crushed peanuts that clears sinuses and leaves lips tingling.