Feb 25

Jin Men

3212 Fulton Ave
Sacramento, CA 95821

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

In search for more Korean-infused Chinese food, we ended up finding Jin Men on Fulton Avenue. The restaurant was completely empty upon arrival. A friendly server quickly approached us and seated us in the empty restaurant. He quickly provided water and offered to help with the menu. After reviewing the menu, we decided to order.

Today, we decided to order the jajangmyun and the shrimp in chili sauce. After the server took the menus, he provided few side dishes which included kim chee and raw onions with black bean sauce. Eventually, the meal arrived. The jajangmyun had way too much onion in the dish. You can clearly see that almost an entire onion was evident in the dish. With so much onion, the flavor was overpowered and little meat remained. The shrimp in chili sauce was very interesting because it comes in a large shell that you need to crack with the provided mallet. Inside, you will find decent-sized shrimp covered in delicious chili sauce. I found myself eating the entire shell at the end. The shrimp and sauce went very well over rice.

Overall, Jin Men serves up a variety of interesting dishes crafted in interesting ways. Although the jajangmyun was disappointing, the shrimp in chili sauce was delicious and interesting with its large shell. Prices were a bit high, but service was excellent. If you are looking for something different other than jajangmyun, then Jin Men might be a good change of pace.

Feb 24

1¢ Staples 500 Sheet Paper Reams

Staples usually has their 500 sheet Multipurpose paper on sale for 1 cent after easy rebate. The paper is 20lb and 96 brightness.In order to score this deal, you would need to sign up for their Daily Deals email on the bottom left corner of their website at http://www.staples.com/ under “Deals! Get them Now”.

Staples does send their junk mail almost daily, but the sales usually don’t change from Sunday through Saturday. At the bottom left of the email, there will be a link to “Get your coupons”. You should check this email every week to see if there a penny paper deal. The deal is limit one pack of paper per week. If Staples offers the paper offer again next week, it will be a part of a different rebate offer, allowing you to buy a pack of paper again.

Make sure you print the coupon before going to the store. The paper is usually on a pallet or with the rest of the paper products. When you present your paper to the cashier, provide the coupon to them along with your Staples rewards card to earn points. Be aware that the 1 cent paper offer is not valid with other coupons, but you can use coupons for other products in your purchase. You will end up needing to pay between $3-6 depending on the rebate offer of the week. For example, if the rebate is for $2.80, you would pay $2.81, but if the rebate is for $5.49, you would pay $5.50.

Once you are home with your paper, you will need to submit your rebate.

Go to https://www.stapleseasyrebates.com/

Click the “In a Store” option

For the easy rebate ID, type in the long number at the bottom of any receipt below the bar code.

Capture

You may see a message saying “Your eligible rebates are still being determined”, just click next.

Fill in all of your information. If you had completed an Easy Rebate before, you can sign in to pull your information. You can also save your information by entering a password.

On the next page, you will confirm your information, and submit.

Give Staples 4-8 weeks to send you a check. I have gotten 2-4 checks at a time every few weeks due to my paper purchases. You do not need to mail anything in. After you get your checks, just endorse them and deposit them with your bank.

Enjoy your (almost free) paper!

-Jeff

Feb 23

Savings and Deals

Every now and then, I run into amazing deals that I just want to share with everyone. I do not plan on posting about specific products unless the deal can be purchased again and again. You may see these posts every now and then, but you can always click on the Savings and Deals category on the right navigation. These posts will not appear on Wednesdays since that is when the food reviews will be posted.

Stay tuned!

-Jeff

Feb 18

Samurai Sushi

12251 Folsom Blvd
Rancho Cordova, CA 95742

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

With a Groupon in hand, we decided to try out the flashy sushi restaurant on the side of Highway 50 near Folsom. The inside of the restaurant had very high ceilings and was fairly busy. The restaurant serves up a variety of Japanese dishes from sushi rolls to teriyaki, as well as some Korean dishes as well. Service was mediocre as the server took quite a while to bring us drinks or take or order. Our server neglected us so much that a neighboring server had to take our drink order. Eventually, our server took our order but was clearly seen helping other tables in a much more hurried fashion.

Today, we decided to order the stone bibimbob, chicken teriyaki and tempura combo, and a tempura maki roll. The stone bibimbob did not taste authentic since it was missing ingredients and also added in fish eggs that normally appear atop sushi. There was a lot more lettuce than expected. The chicken teriyaki tasted flavorful, but basic. The tempura tasted crispy and went well with the tempura sauce. There was not too much breading. The combo plate was presented nicely on a large plate with all the components lined up. The Tempura maki was quite small, but tasted OK.

Overall, Samurai Sushi serves up a fairly large menu that tastes OK, but the service was really lacking. Since the restaurant serves up both Japanese and Korean food, I would say that certain dishes would not be as authentic as expected. If I see the restaurant show up on Groupon again, I would not buy it. With such horrible service, I could not recommend this restaurant.

Feb 11

Jade Fountain Cafe

5021 Freeport Blvd
Sacramento, CA 95822

Rating: ★½☆☆☆ 

I had wondered what had happened to Jade Fountain Cafe when their doors closed down for a while, and now I found that they went through a complete remodel to modernize the restaurant. We decided to give the restaurant a try within a month of its grand reopening in August of 2014. Upon entering, the restaurant was completely packed, and luckily we noticed a table was leaving, so the server was able to seat us fairly quickly. Once seated, we seemed quite forgotten. It seemed like it took quite a while to receive our tea and took even longer to order our food.

Today, we decided to order the Wonton with dry noodle and the dry cool noodle with spicy sauce. The food took forever to receive and we had multiple thoughts to just leave because the food was taking so long. Eventually, maybe after 40-45 minutes, the simple food arrived. The wontons tasted just like they did in the past and were of decent size. There was not a lot of flavor in the wontons themselves. The provided sauce added flavor to the noodle and wonton, but was too salty if you added too much. The dry cool noodle with spicy sauce did not taste very good at all. The meat tasted of low quality and the dish as a whole did not taste good even with all that sauce.

Overall, the mediocre food and horrible service makes Jade Fountain Cafe a nonexistent choice for a good Chinese meal. You are better off going to the many other Chinese restaurants on the same street. The staff seems unorganized and meal tickets littered their counters. Although the decor has changed for the better, the inexperienced staff and slow service deters me from recommending them. Even though the restaurant was busy since a lot of people wanted to go try them out, they have no excuse for the level of service they provided.

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