Gladiator was released in 2000 and won Best Picture. I remember seeing it in the theatre with two friends I first met when I began working in politics.
24 years later, Gladiator II was released, and I drove down to San Jose to see it with the same two friends I met when I began working in politics.
What can I say about the film? I like it. It’s a good sequel; it ties up many of the loose ends from the first film and leaves one loose end dangling at the end of the film. It’s a Ridley Scott film and I’ve been a big fan of his films since before my USC days. These are my faves, all for different reasons that could come up in future posts.
- Blade Runner (1982)
- Apple Commerical (1984)
- Aliens (1986)
- Black Rain (1988)
- Thelma & Louise (1991)
- Gladiator (2000)
- Black Hawk Down (2001)
- The Martian (2015)
- Blade Runner 2049 (20`17)
- Gladiator II (2024)
Guess why I like these!
It’s really sad that to get much of the Chinese/Asian food I like, I have to leave San Francisco. Why? Because the experience and quality of the food in San Francisco is generally lacking. Why? Because more often than not, it’s overpriced and underwhelming.
(Stands on soapbox) San Francisco, THE home of the Chinese America diaspora, should do better with its Chinese food. I understand the difficulties of running a restaurant here, with all its bureaucratic nonsense, taxes, hostile business environment and lack of parking. Still, that should be incentive to do better. Despite this, I will continue to endeavor to find good places to eat here. (Steps down from soapbox) Amen.
So that’s why a lot of the good food has migrated to the South Bay and dinner often requires a drive and an entire evening. Anyway, enough about work. Let’s look at Duan Chun Zhen (AKA, that “Taiwanese noodle place in Cupertino”).
It’s newish, clean and modern. It wouldn’t look out of place in Taipei, except for the size (It’s too roomy for Taipei). It’s located in one of the many ubiquitous mini malls that populate De Anza Boulevard from end to end and its next door to a Pacific Market with good parking. There was a good mix of customers, us and families out for Saturday night dinner.
You get different degrees of spicy beef noodle soup. Regular, (one hot pepper), Mala (two hot peppers) and Sichuan (three hot peppers). You can also have thin, thick or housemade (wide) noodles. Naturally, I went with the housemade.
The noodles came out with steaming hot broth and an acceptable amount of noodles and beef stew. The beef was a good in-between; more tender than Hon’s and not quite as scrumptious as Yin Du (see post here to get what I’m going on about).
We also ordered two appetizers; xiaolongbao and red oil wontons. The xiaolongbao isn’t the usual ones like you would get at Din Tai Fung or Paradise Dynast with soup inside the wrapper; these are instead standard dumplings that have soup soaked steamed pork inside. Tasty, but not a XLB. The red oil wontons are a home run. They came out hot and the red oil that they soaked in had several different kinds of heat, including some numbing. Yum. The wontons were devoured so quickly that I wasn’t fast enough to get a picture…cos my mouth was full.
Definitely worth eating here if you’re in San Jose.
Duan Chun Zhen
10118 Bandley Drive, Suite H,
Cupertino, CA 95014