Palo Alto/San Jose Etc.

[melkor]

... San Jose isn't exactly full of good places to eat -  there are some good Indian and Vietnamese places, and a great Falafel place, most of the other places I've been in the area are mediocre.

Hi Melkor. Can you recall any more specifics of the places you liked and did not like?

I'm down that way a few times a week and have had more medicre meals than I'd like to think about. Of all the places I've been, the places I've liked best are:

Pho Ha - the best pho I've found in the bay area - the rice dishes are not good

Nha Toi - excellent clay pot dishes, good salads, good bo luc lac

Just Laziz - great Lebanese baked goods, good salads and better than average shawarma

Falafel Drive In - fantastic falafel, horrible pita

Palms Restaurant - better shawarma than Laziz has, less good falafel than the drive in, generally good

I haven't had any Mexican that compares well with what you can get in Watsonville. None of the Italian, Japanese, French, Thai, or Chinese places I've been compare favorably to what can be found in the city. I keep hearing about good BBQ places in East Palo Alto, but I haven't managed to make the trek yet.

[MaxH]

Thanks for the suggestions, Melkor.

... have had more medicre meals than I'd like to think about.

That sounds discouraging. (I'd still be interested to hear which places those were.) While also encountering some mediocre meals, I've done pretty well in the South Bay the last 15 years, going on reliable recommendations (when I came to the area, the first thing I did was inquire on the Internet -- only one Bay Area food forum then -- and the results were excellent).

Have you tried restaurants recommended in this thread? Many people have had good experiences with them. (There was a related thread in late 2004.) With slight overlap from earlier, here are a few of the well-regarded ethnic restaurants that are the region's strength. They tend to be Asian (in the full, inclusive sense, from Japanese to Persian, not to mention the number of restaurants run by Turks).

Afghani House, Sunnyvale near Santa Clara border (408 248 5088) -- Leading Afghani, of three run by cousins

Chelokababi, Sunnyvale (408 737 1222) -- Persian

Habana-Cuba, Race St., San José (408 988 2822) -- A "find"

Kabul, Sunnyvale (408 245 4350) -- Cousin of Afghani House

Regarding Chinese restaurants, Santa Clara County has one of the most diverse concentrations of them in the US, Macanese to Singaporean, owing to heavy immigration. Here are personal recommendations in local business districts, very roughly south to north. Each of these comments reflects six visits or more to the restaurant.

ABC Seafood, 768 Barber Lane (Ufferts Center, frontage road off 880), Milpitas -- Quality dim sum with unusual menu items not found in most dim sum houses. There are couple other ABCs scattered around.

Fatima, Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road (Hwy 9) near 85 -- One of several good Muslim Chinese places. High standards, hard-working. Thick green-onion breads with sesame seeds, deep-fried "shrimp rolls" with mushrooms (worth a trip for those alone IMO); soups w/paper-thin lamb and cilantro.

China Stix, Santa Clara on El Camino (408 244 1684) -- Folksy place, fresh hand-pulled noodles cooked into daily specials with fresh produce. Huge popularity locally caused it to expand in the 1990s. Haven't been in a while.

Hunan Gourmet, downtown Sunnyvale (408 739 8866) -- Classy lunch service.

Cafe Yulong, downtown Mountain View (650 960 1677) -- James and Miya Pei. Unusual specialties, Shandong province, kimchee on table, may be overall best Chinese (of the 11) in downtown MV. More in This Review.

Chef Liu, downtown Mountain View (236 Castro) -- Hand-pulled noodles in soups and chow mein. Try the noodle soup with pork and preserved Szechuan vegetables. On a cold day. (The broth has white pepper. Comfort food.)

Hunan Chili, downtown Mountain View (102 Castro) -- Hunan specialties, good value. Exceptional classic Ma Po tofu (do fu): lemony and shocking with generous Szechuan peppercorns.

There are literally hundreds more, including good ones I haven't mentioned.

[melkor]

I've been to both Kabul and Afghani House, neither were bad but I prefer Kabul in Belmont. I'll check out some of the Chinese places you list - I've been to a dozen or so others, none were worth a return visit.

[alanamoana]

regarding fatimah, i think that the place in milpitas (the big 99 ranch shopping mall along the 880) is much better for islamic chinese. edited to add name: darda seafood restaurant

joy luck place in the cupertino village, which was just reviewed on sfgate is decent for dim sum. maybe not for dinner dishes. it still isn't as good (or as cheap) as new york city dim sum.

house of falafel on stevens creek blvd @ wolf is good. i ate there when we first moved here and their falafel (the balls themselves) were delicious and freshly fried.

i also recently read that there's a "nexus of the universe" of mexican food at the intersection of king road and story road in san jose. a few blogger entries and here on this forum as well attest to decent if not delicious mexican taquerias. but i haven't eaten at any, so can't substantiate the claims.

if we're talking about the general silicon valley area, i really think there are a lot of decent places. but then again, i'm not too picky. if the place is generally clean and the service isn't awful and the food tastes like they care just a little bit...then i'm satisfied. i don't really eat out at high end places anymore as i'm just too jaded (i work in the industry).

as a matter of fact, my husband made a reservation at manresa for my birthday last weekend and i had him cancel as i just wasn't in the mood to doll up. there were some communication issues with the staff as well, so we felt it best to wait until the stars were aligned as i really do want to try it (have to get out of the fine dining funk).

as another resource, here's a thread i started when i first moved here.

Edited August 18, 2006 by alanamoana (log)

[robyn]

Just want to let you know I'm alive and kicking and still reading this thread. Almost sure we'll try Quattro one night - simply because we're staying at the Four Seasons and there will certainly be one night when we'll be too tired to drive somewhere. I know it didn't get a swell writeup in the SF Chronicle - but...

Robyn

[robyn]

Here are notes accumulated, last couple years...

Marché (chef Howard Bulka, www.restaurantmarche.com) is in downtown Menlo Park. I've had several small and large dinners there last several years and characterize Bulka's style as elegant comfort food.  For instance, one time for a group "gastronomic" dinner around certain serious wines he made oversized (4-inch square?) duck-breast raviolis drizzled with meat juices, counterposed to bitter greens and a mound of God damned garlic puree.  (Animally satisfying, with a rich red wine.)  That's what I mean by elegant comfort food.  Bulka told me that to make this dish he must sacrifice at least one raviolum to check the cooking, and therefore needs multiple people to order it, and it's not on his menu, but he'd do it for, say, four people or more, given advance arrangement.  Also I and a friend had an interesting experience there when one of the region's great wine collectors dropped in, but that's another story of little service to the question...

I put myself on an email list for Marche - and just got its monthly mailing (which is nice - recommend it to those of you in the area). It's having a slow cooking tasting menu this month. Has anyone tried it yet? Looks good. Don't know whether I'll feel up to another large meal like this during our rather short stay - but I'm keeping it in the back of my mind. Robyn

[robyn]

We're here in Palo Alto - and our only problem in terms of dining is how to eat in such a way that we don't like what the scales say when we get home .

One place I want to mention to all of you - because it's new (open only 2 weeks) is Tanglewood in San Jose on Santana Row. This is the website. We had an excellent lunch there on Sunday. The restaurant is run by the same investor group which runs The Left Bank - and includes Roland Passot (owner/chef at La Folie in San Francisco). Good pedigree.

But the food here is certainly not traditional French. American eclectic is more like it. We started by sharing the Iceberg BLT salad - local iceberg lettuce with an assortment of amazingly delicious local tomatoes - topped with some Nueske's bacon and a Point Reyes blue cheese dressing. I had buttermilk fried quail as a main. I'm from the southeast - and this was as good - if not better - than any I've had closer to home. Side of jicama, carrot and cabbage slaw - and a couple of melt in your mouth honey buttered mini biscuits based on James Beard's favorite biscuit recipe. Delicious.

Delicious in a totally different way was my husband's main - a roasted summer stew. Fresh ricotta gnocchi in a ragout of eggplant, tomatoes - onions - garlic - and Indian spices. Vegetarian - can also be prepared vegan with tofu.

Considering that the restaurant has only been open 2 weeks - the service was very polished. And the decor was slick - upscale northern California. It's clear that no one was pinching pennies.

Anyway - I can recommend this place 100% - especially for Sunday lunch. Because on Sunday you'll get not only the restaurant - and the great shopping on Santana Row - but the farmers' market on Santana Row and live music to boot. The farmers' market is small - but the produce is excellent (I should know - almost every seller gave out samples - and I don't think I skipped more than a couple ). A very enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. Robyn

[robyn]

More notes about our trip. We stayed at the Four Seasons in East Palo Alto. We were there for 5 nights.

Service at the bar (I like a couple of drinks at the end of the day) was top notch. If you are local - it is a nice place to stop by for drinks - nibbles - and small courses.

We ate dinner at the hotel more than we planned to (twice instead of once). That was because I got some GI problem the third day of our trip. Maybe it was the spinach salad I had the day before - whatever it was - I was a mess. We had reservations at Manresa that night - and had to cancel our reservation. No way I could have done justice to a meal like that that particular night. The hotel kitchen prepared a small soothing breakfast for me that morning - and a nice very light dinner that evening - except for the plate with the homemade truffles inscribed "Happy Birthday" .

Luckily - the day I was sick wasn't my birthday - it was the day before. We had an early morning flight Thursday morning - and I still wasn't feeling 100% (which more or less ruled out a long late night at Manresa - we will have to try it on another trip) - so we decided to eat at the hotel. That evening - the hotel was offering a special multi-course tasting/wine meal (it plans to do that once a month - did the first one in August - and this was the second). The food is Italian - we met and talked with 2 of the chefs at length (I think that perhaps they mistook me for a restaurant critic - we really talked for a long time) - they were both from Italy - and they are intent on serving fine Italian food in Palo Alto. The featured wineries are (very) local. This month's winery was Boony Doon.

The tasting menu was excellent - although about twice as much food as we could eat (I would have felt terrible leaving that much food on the plate at Manresa but the hotel understood I simply couldn't eat a lot that night) - not great (it's not the French Laundry) - but excellent. Some courses were big winners - and there were some losers - but that is to be expected when you're served 3 appetizer courses - 2 pasta courses - 3 main courses with 2 sides - 5 different desserts - and a "Birthday Plate" with homemade truffles. My favorites were dishes like spiced poached duck and golden beetroot salad with walnut citrus dressing - the 2 pasta courses - spinach bucatina Amatriciana with mini venison meatballs - and portobello mushroom cannelloni - the side of polenta with 4 cheeses - and the panna cotta for dessert.

Overall - there was plenty of really good food - and I was a happy camper. About what you'd hope for in a hotel dining room. And a bargain at $75/person (including all the wine you care to drink - there was a white - a red - and a dessert wine). Even if you are local and will never stay in the hotel - I recommend trying this special dinner next month to see what this restaurant can do. If you do - I suggest a table of at least 4 - since there was so much food. Similarly - I suspect the kitchen can do an excellent job catering business and social functions if you have one. Robyn

P.S. Forgot to mention - the name of the restaurant is Quattro - and the next tasting menu/wine night is October 11. Also that the restaurant - and the art in it - are both gorgeous.

Edited September 16, 2006 by robyn (log)

[robyn]

A few more notes. We had 2 lunches that were both good in totally different ways. We spent quite a few hours at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford - and had lunch at the Cool Cafe there. Simple but excellent fare. I had its take on a Cobb salad - which included shredded chicken - some Point Reyes blue cheese - perhaps the best beets I've ever had in my whole life - and a purple egg (don't know how they did that - maybe with beet juice). This is the kind of California food I love - the best of ingredients - presented without hardly any fuss. The ingredients are left to speak for themselves.

We also drove down the coast road one day - Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz - and had lunch at Navio at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay. It's a lovely room overlooking the ocean - and the food again was excellent - a mushroom soup - a crab salad - and a pork tenderloin. Only problem on my part was the food was very rich - and somewhat salty for my taste - and I couldn't handle it. I mean no disrespect for this restaurant - because the food was excellent - and the service was outstanding - but I think when you're used to eating relatively light and simple most of the time - it's hard to switch gears for a meal like this (at least on my part - my husband doesn't have any problems at all - and apparently most people here don't either). Anyway - this is an extremely pleasant place to stop for lunch if you're driving along the coast (and I'm sure it's quite good for dinner as well).

Finally - one night we had dinner with some friends who live in the area at the Straits Cafe in Palo Alto. Singapore cuisine. I have to admit I know zero about food from Singapore - and am in no position to critique it. However - we ordered 6 dishes for 6 people - and ate family style - and I found all of the dishes tasty. Perhaps the best thing about dinner is some of our friends brought us a "goodie basket" from Bouchon as an anniversary present. Needless to say - we skipped dessert at the restaurant in favor of dipping into the goodie basket later that evening .

Overall - we didn't have a bad meal in California this trip - or the one ten months ago either. Have to say that my favorite is still Chez Panisse - because - to me - it incorporates everything I like best about food in California. Robyn

Edited September 16, 2006 by robyn (log)

[robyn]

Since ludja quoted my post before I deleted it, I am reposting in the interest of thread continuity:

Is there a particular reason you're staying in Palo Alto? If not, you might want to re-think the Four Seasons... Hope these help, and that you have a nice time in the Bay Area. Be aware that our traffic STINKS!!!, so make sure you allow yourself plenty of time to reach your destinations.

Enjoy!

Just thought I'd mention that we loved the hotel - and the traffic wasn't bad at all (Stanford wasn't in session and all our driving seemed to be "counterflow" to rush hour patterns). I know that some forums here allow hotel discussions - others remove them when I post them. I'll post a more complete "review" of the hotel if that's ok here. Robyn

[Shalmanese]

I'll be staying in Palo Alto for the next two weeks and I'm wondering if there's been any updates since the last time this thread was posted. I don't have a car so, ideally, it would be places in downtown palo alto, within a mile of the caltrain station.