Foodtopia

Foodtopia

1600 S De Anza Blvd
San Jose, CA
(408) 873-7628

A few months ago I went to Chin's in San Diego to try their Da Ru Mian.  You can read my post about it here.  In my post, I confessed that I didn't know what Da Ru Mian was supposed to taste like.  Well, this comment caused a bit of an uproar in my family.  Apparently my dad read the post and then told my mom about it.  She couldn't believe I said I didn't know what Da Ru Mian tastes like.  Apparently, she used to make it a lot for me when I was little.  Unfortunately, I don't remember.  I'm not sure why my mom always expects me to remember every single detail about my childhood.  I personally think I remember quite a bit of what I ate as a kid, but I don't remember everything.

Anyway, my mom said that next time I came home she would make me Da Ra Mian. On this past visit home though we had so many other things we needed to eat, so she didn't get a chance to.  But on the day before I left, my dad suggested we go to Foodtopia for lunch.  My parents had been there recently and  Da Ru Mian is on the menu, though they hadn't tried it out.

Foodtopia is located in this food court.  Here's a shot of the food court:

It's a small husband and wife run restaurant.  One of the specials they have is that you can order 3 dishes for $18.95.  You get to choose one dish from each of three columns.  They are known for their spicy dishes and also for their noodle soups.  They recommended several spicy dishes to us, but none of us were in the mood for spicy so early in the day. 

We ordered a bowl of Da Ru Mian and also 3 dishes for the $18.95.

Here is the Da Ru Mian

The bowl was huge and heaping with beef, carrots, shitaki mushrooms, bean spouts, napa cabbage, etc.  It tasted much better than the one I had at Chin's.  It was hearty and perfect for a cold day.  My mom said that it still wasn't exactly authentic.  She explained that Da Ru Mian is supposed to be a noodle soup with a lot of ingredients, the soup is usually starchy and you drop an egg in at the end. 

For the 3 item deal, the first two columns you have a lot of meat, fish and tofu dishes to choose from.  The third column is a vegetable dish, and the offerings are pretty slim.  It's basically very simple cooked vegetables.  We chose the napa cabbage with little dried shrimp.  This is something my mom makes all the time at home.

We also ordered a tofu and fish dish.

This was pretty tasty.  All the dishes definitely had a home-style feel to them. 

Finally, we ordered a beancurd stuffed ground pork dish.  The beancurd is wrapped to look like eggrolls and stuffed with ground pork.

One of the things I was impressed about with this place is that instead of regular white rice, they served purple rice.

The food was decent as were the prices.  It's a nice place to visit if you are looking for home-style food and don't feel like cooking.