My follow-up review for this restaurant. Read my previous review for this restaurant here

Update 08/28:
Had another good experience tonight. The waitress was better than my last waiter and the food was about on par. We got the filet mignon ($25) with crab cakes, asparagus, and spinach in a pepper. I really enjoyed the taste of the filet, though admittedly it reminded me somewhat of ground beef. It was in a thick buttery sauce (slightly gravy like, but much better). It was a little on the small side, though there was a lot more going on on the plate. The crab cakes were good, though I’ve had better. They were a little starchy. The rest of the additions were nice enough and added value to the dish. We also got the ahi tuna poke ($11). Its a combination of seasoned ahi with cucumber and mango in a cocktail glass. The tuna tasted great as did the mango. A little on the sweet side, but an appetizer I’d highly recommend.

Yellow Ginger is a solid entry in the ever growing list of south east Asian restaurants in the Mountain View area. While I haven’t tried any dishes yet that are out of this world, I was impressed with the quality and value of my first visit.

Despite the strip-mall locale, its a very attractive restaurant with great lighting, mood, and color. The waitstaff wasn’t terribly polished compared to most similar restaurants, but these things are always incidental to the food for me.

On my first visit I tried the roti prata ($5), Hainan Chicken Rice ($9), Roasted Game Hen ($15), and Papaya Salad ($7). The roti prata was a great start. It was doughy and soft and had a slightly buttery quality. The food came out too fast for us to finish it while it was still warm, which is too bad because its much better when its still warm. It comes with a oily chili sauce that didn’t add much to the dish. Next we got the Papaya Salad which had a good amount of flavor. It was thinly slightly white papaya shards with a tangy light vinaigrette and tomatoes. While it was tasty, its a little too large and consistent to finish once better options come along. The roasted game hen was the best dish offered. It was roasted to the point of being crispy and filled with chili sauce that tasted slightly like berries. There were many pieces and they were each worthy eating down to the bone. It came with an all too large side of rice that doesn’t really fit the dish. The Hainan Chicken Rice is a dish only a mother could love. It looks like boiled chicken breast, but not string. There’s a thin layer of almost uncooked fat which taste very similar to the chicken. Its in a sauce without much flavor and comes with a big side of rice. But mostly I’d just say this dish is useless. Glad everything else was much better.

From the wines I was familiar with, the markup isn’t too bad and the selection is better than many Asian restaurants that just get the commodity bottles that fill the cheaper sections at Safeway.

The menu has many interesting options, you can get a good amount of food for a reasonable price, and its an all around nice experience. I’ll definitely be back.

Downtown Mountain View tends to have new restaurants pop up on a monthly basis. Just outside of Castro Street, you rarely find successful restaurants. Yellow Ginger sits in a spot that was a chinese noodle house for the longest time that I can remember. It then was Baba Neo, which didn’t last long. Now, new owners have launched Yellow Ginger. I live close to this place and finally decided to check it out.

The decor inside was definitely surprisingly nice compared to the strip mall exterior. This restaurant is family owned and run, and you can tell by the random people just sitting around in the restaurant, and then occasionally popping into the kitchen.

The food presentation was great and the portions were excellent. One of our dishes got mixed up, but other than that, I’d recommend trying it if you’re into malaysian/singapore food.

After reading a few reviews by tommers, I had to give this place a try. I came during lunch and was pleased to find a moderately priced lunch menu. Most things were about 7-8 bucks which is cheap for the valley. Now that I was saving a few bucks off the dinner menu I had to splurge on the Firecracker Balls.

Overall the food was better than other malaysian I’ve had and the presentation was very clean and appealing. Our waitress was extremely friendly and attentive. She was always smiling every time I saw her. The inside is pretty fancy looking and during lunch I almost felt out of place in my tshirt and shorts, but the friendly waitress made me feel better. I’d definitely come back here for lunch, maybe even dinner if my entrepreneurial budget allows for it.

I don’t know about the other food, but don’t order the bbq pork lion on the lunch menu. It’s overly oily, thickly breaded w/ no bbq taste.

I ate here with a group of friends for a birthday dinner. The food is really good but the problem is that I went with a big group and the dishes are meant to be family style—needless to say there is way too much food that my taste buds got overwhelmed!
Here are some comments on some foods I got a good taste of:
1) Tauhu Goreng (?? its the tofu appetizer)—I love tofu and this dish is very simple and tasty.
2) Hainanese Chicken Rice—The rice is so flavorful and the dipping sauces were great, they had the ginger thing, and the spicy sauce (some places only offer the ginger one)
3) Crab fried rice—you can actually see big chunks of crab meat
4)calamari appetizer—what ever sauce they mix the calamari in taste really good. just right amount of sweet and spiciness
i got to taste a lot of noodle dishes and some chicken dish and a fish curry but i dont remember the names exactly

Yellow Ginger replaced Baba Neo which was also a Malaysian/Singaporian restaurant. I’m not sure if the wait staff we had were new but service was not very good. We had a bigger group and ordered lots of food to share, including a number of curries, roti prata, and a number of different rice dishes. We were recommended a Grandma’s special curry which really wasn’t so special. The roti prata was dark, oily and not even crispy.

I preferred Baba Neo but maybe I’ll give this restaurant another try in a few months to see if things get better.