South Bay: Izzo
Ever since we found out that Liang's Kitchen had closed while we weren't paying attention, my mom and I kept a close eye on the space to see what would open in its place. One night, we saw people inside, but there was still no sign put up. We also saw multiple TV screens mounted on the wall blasting various sports games.
Unsure whether it was actually open or not, we patiently waited until my dad was out of the country (he's not that into trying new restaurants) to check it out. It was open!:
We dragged Ahyi with us and by using our detective skills, we found out that the new restaurant is called Izzo and it serves Taiwanese cuisine. Well, what do you know? We're Taiwanese. Izzo is Taiwanese. Of course we had to go inside.
The first thing we noticed was that the place was packed. The second thing we realized was that the servers were young and didn't speak Chinese. At least our server didn't.
What the heck? That threw us off a bit.
We started off with spicy pork ear ($5.95):
Right off the bat...who slices pork ear like that?
Then we got the sweet rice sausage ($5.95):
I always get sweet rice sausage when I visit Taiwan, so I was excited when I saw it on the menu. It's basically glutinous rice in sausage form, fried. Who wouldn't love that? When it actually arrived at our table...disappointment. Some things just taste better straight off a food cart than dressed up and plated. There's also something in me that just balks at paying six bucks for something that you can get for one in a night market.
The most interesting thing we ordered had to be the pork belly quesadilla ($8.95):
Definitely won't find this baby in Taiwan. The quesadilla was made with a green onion pancake folded over pork belly, cheese, and jalapeno. Not bad. Green onion pancake and cheese makes for an...interesting combination.
A restaurant can't claim to be Taiwanese without offering beef noodle soup ($8.95):
Whether or not it's any good is a whole other story. The beef noodle soup at Izzo? Not very good. The soup was almost undrinkable.
My mom loves black bean sauce noodle, so we ordered that too ($8.95):
It was alright. Not too memorable.
All in all, not that impressed with Izzo. It's trying to be young and hip and while it may succeed on that front, the food just isn't good enough for me to want to go back a second time. Then again, maybe my expectations were just too high.
Izzo
1701 Lundy Ave, Suite 100
San Jose, CA 95131
(408) 392-8293
http://www.izzorestaurant.com/
Unsure whether it was actually open or not, we patiently waited until my dad was out of the country (he's not that into trying new restaurants) to check it out. It was open!:
We dragged Ahyi with us and by using our detective skills, we found out that the new restaurant is called Izzo and it serves Taiwanese cuisine. Well, what do you know? We're Taiwanese. Izzo is Taiwanese. Of course we had to go inside.
The first thing we noticed was that the place was packed. The second thing we realized was that the servers were young and didn't speak Chinese. At least our server didn't.
What the heck? That threw us off a bit.
We started off with spicy pork ear ($5.95):
Right off the bat...who slices pork ear like that?
Then we got the sweet rice sausage ($5.95):
I always get sweet rice sausage when I visit Taiwan, so I was excited when I saw it on the menu. It's basically glutinous rice in sausage form, fried. Who wouldn't love that? When it actually arrived at our table...disappointment. Some things just taste better straight off a food cart than dressed up and plated. There's also something in me that just balks at paying six bucks for something that you can get for one in a night market.
The most interesting thing we ordered had to be the pork belly quesadilla ($8.95):
Definitely won't find this baby in Taiwan. The quesadilla was made with a green onion pancake folded over pork belly, cheese, and jalapeno. Not bad. Green onion pancake and cheese makes for an...interesting combination.
A restaurant can't claim to be Taiwanese without offering beef noodle soup ($8.95):
Whether or not it's any good is a whole other story. The beef noodle soup at Izzo? Not very good. The soup was almost undrinkable.
My mom loves black bean sauce noodle, so we ordered that too ($8.95):
It was alright. Not too memorable.
All in all, not that impressed with Izzo. It's trying to be young and hip and while it may succeed on that front, the food just isn't good enough for me to want to go back a second time. Then again, maybe my expectations were just too high.
Izzo
1701 Lundy Ave, Suite 100
San Jose, CA 95131
(408) 392-8293
http://www.izzorestaurant.com/
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