Fifteen years ago, there was no place to go for Asian food except for the Chinatowns in Oakland and San Francisco and Daly City for Pin@y food. Thank God that there has been a revolution in thought in the business industry. The Pacific East Shopping Mall in Richmond is the culmination of a dream of having nice clean restaurants and good food.

Anchored by the presence of Ranch 99, the mall is a paean to Asian food and products. My personal favorites are the Pin@y music store and Goldilock's. The music store has a decent selection of music. Plus, the daughter of the owner is a pretty good singer. They sell her CD of Christmas songs. I recommend your buying it.

Before I began my odyssey in cooking, Goldilock's served as the store of last resort if I wanted something Pin@y. Dinuguan, kare-kare, and kaldereta are my personal favorites in Goldilock's. Except for the expense, I recommend Goldilock's a lot.

I'm currently listening to Freddie Aguilar as mp3 files in iTunes. What a great awesome system Macs have. It just blows away PC computers.

But for today, we will discuss Daimo. The minuses have to come first. There is always a long wait for this restaurant. It suggests to you that the food is just really good. Everyone is willing to wait for a seating. We did not know this when we went. I was thinking 20 minute wait. Folks, it was 45 minutes. The dinner was so late, I was pissed off. So, did I just rant and rave and go nuts? Hell no. I made it memorable. I said I was going to pay for it and to order everything that was good.

First up was Wonton with Shui Kau combination soup. Nice firm wontons with slices of the hundred year old eggs. Very good to get the appetite going. The Daimo offers a soup called Double Boiled buddha's delight which costs $125 for 4 people and $280 for ten people. Somehow, I don't see myself ordering this dish. If you ever order this, please inform me what exactly is in it. Maybe it has some gold or diamonds as roughage.

I ended up ordering the Peking duck next. Now, the last time we ordered this, there were some visitors to my graduate school lab. I did not nearly get enough of the duck and it was expensive. The duck is roasted and cut into pieces which are then eaten with some bread and green onions. The duck was very tasty. However, it was also very fatty and greasy. How greasy? As you bite the duck, the bread will soak up the fat that is squeezed from the duck meat. For those watching the cholesterol, this is a once every year kind of dish.

Since we occupied the same table that Sam Yick occupied, we had to order something exotic. By the way, Sam Yick owns one of the stores in Oakland's Chinatown. We got the Hot Pot Frog Legs with Chives in Chinese White Wine Sauce. This dish is not that great because the frog legs were chopped into pieces which resulted in small bones floating around. I'm sorry, but small bones are not fun to deal with when eating. I don't like smashing my teeth on a bone.

We also had ostrich with ginger and scallion tossed salad. The ostrich tasted just like beef and maybe a little saltier. I would order it again, though compared to the Peking duck, I can not remember the taste.

By the time we left, they were about ready to close and the line was no longer there. Ha! That shows you how serious I am about food. Make me wait? Forget it. I will make sure that I eat well.

Kain na!!!