![[Metro Best of the Valley]](../gifs/metro-best.gif)
Food & Drink
Best Greasy Spoon
There's no sign out front. But locals don't need banners or neon to find Howard and Wanda's. This 20-year-old orange-faced restaurant, also known as Kim's Coffee Shop, the Dana Street Cafe or Wanda's, is a local institution. Regulars aren't handed a menu here. They know the specials by heart: Monday it's turkey; Tuesday, roast beef; Wednesday, liver and onions; Thursday, corned beef and cabbage; and Friday, it's usually fish. Of course, you can always get a grilled cheese sandwich or a hamburger, and if there are leftovers, there's always the possibility of a roast beef or turkey sandwich. Be warned: Don't wait for a bill. Wanda simply tallies up the order at the register, rounding off the figures to make life easier.
Best Roadside Getaway
It's the best reason in town to eat meat. It's the consummate excuse for avoiding rush hour over the hill. And it's a perfect example of why individual style beats a formula every time. From its quirky ordering procedure (diners order their meals at the host stand and wait in the bar while their food and table are prepared) to the rustic dining room, where the grill chef labors over an open oakwood barbecue, the Cats exudes character. You powder your nose in the Sandbox. You dine in the shadow of a truly bizarre and compelling mosaic of cats in the wild. Whine about there being no burgers on the menu, and a gruff old guy in Birkenstocks snorts something about McDonald's having plenty of burgers. And somehow, everyone is charmed--especially by the guy in Birkenstocks. The garlic bread is heaven brushed with butter. The salads are fresh and crisp, the beef grilled to smoky succulence. Servers are prompt and friendly. And best of all, you leave feeling like a human being and not a walking wallet.
Best New Restaurant
Answer quick--what do you look for in a restaurant? A whimsical, relaxing ambiance? Reasonable prices? Fresh and creative foods? It's all there at Cafe Brioche. This newcomer to the emerging California Avenue scene is painted in the warm, muted colors of the south of France, including old advertisements for huile d'olive and sucre found on walls in St. Tropez. Entree prices are surprisingly affordable. And the food is spectacular, combining California innovation and freshness with European classicism. Try the brie-stuffed Anaheim chile peppers on chilled pear chutney, the grilled portobello mushrooms with sage aioli, and the salmon filet in a magnificent ginger-apple-cider sauce. The menu changes almost daily, featuring seasonal fresh fish, complemented with intense, sophisticated sauces. Already lines are long for lunch--at which reasonable prices are further reduced. Cafe Brioche is both generous (notice the fat wine glasses) and good. Who could ask for anything more?
Best Place to Burn Your Buds
The hottest hot sauce in the universe? Try Dave's Insanity Sauce, made from a resin of the habañero, the planet's hottest pepper. "We don't sell this stuff to minors," says Nathanial, a salesclerk at Salsas Etc! "It's a prank sauce; kids don't realize what it can do. Groups of guys come in here to test who can be the most macho and eat the hottest sauce. We put a little sample of Dave's at the end of a toothpick, and they run out of here with flushed faces and tears in their eyes."
Salsas, Etc!, the manifest obsession of owners Rob and Joni Rayment, contains several hundred salsas, marinades, mustards and barbecue sauces from not only the Americas but also India and Asia. All can be sampled, and all have been ranked by heat content. The hotter stuff is found on the higher shelves, and tends to attract the craziest names: Blair's After Death Sauce, Scorned Woman Sauce, Ass in the Tub Sauce.
For those who crave constant reminders of that gasping, blinkered, lachrymose feeling, Salsas, Etc! also sells dozens of pepper products: ties, T-shirts, suspenders, cookbooks, Christmas lights, pot holders, bathing trunks, mouse pads, posters, boxer shorts, wall clocks, fanny packs. ...
Best Fried Chicken
The South First mainstay has reinvented itself once again, opting this time for the casual elegance of leather-upholstered booths and good, honest eats done impeccably well. The shredded Dungeness crab-cake appetizer brings a little bit of the Chesapeake Bay to San Jose, the Baltimore of the West, but that's just the beginning. Finding exceptional fried chicken in the valley has been difficult since Dinah's chicken shack in Palo Alto faded into the mists of time. But Eulipia transforms the lowly fowl into a prince of platters. The cornmeal crust is crisp and chewy, salty but with a bite of pepper and cayenne; the flesh is savory and juicy but not greasy. It's better than the stuff you think Grandma used to make. A serving is half of a good-sized bird, so plan accordingly--everyone knows fried chicken is even better the next day, eaten cold for lunch.
Best Restaurant Job
From dishwasher to head chef, the restaurant business demands hard physical labor, long hours, skimpy benefits and the dubious honor of serving a hungry (and sometimes surly) public. Even those lucky enough to rise to the top often sacrifice weekends and evenings to the culinary muse. But what's an epicurean to do for gainful employment?
Annabelle Lenderlink, it seems, has the ideal food-lover's job. Her title: forager. Her duties: find the freshest, most delicious fruits and vegetables for Restaurant Sent Sovi chef David Kinch to employ in his top-notch Franco-American dishes. Lenderlink buys about 85 percent of Kinch's produce, and the chef says her efforts are "invaluable to the success" of his Saratoga restaurant. In addition to treasure-hunting for Sent Sovi, Lenderlink grows her own goodies on a Bolinas farm and represents a Gilroy grower at six local farmers' markets. This time of the year, Lenderlink stays on the go 16 to 20 hours a day, but she gets a chance to catch her breath in the quiet winter months. Enjoying the rustic outdoors from Marin to Santa Clara County, sampling nature's bounty, and following the rhythms of the seasons--it's hard to imagine a job that fits more naturally with one's hunter-gatherer roots.
Best Alfresco Bar and Grill
For good California dining at its alfresco best, Willow Street Wood-Fired Pizza offers personal-sized gourmet pizzas topped with truly creative combinations like chicken and brie with dill, goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, or artichoke and pesto. Even the sandwiches are unusual, especially the marinated eggplant, which comes with a big Caesar salad or a cup of soup. Elegant pasta and rotisserie dishes, the lamb in particular, could qualify Willow Street for bistrohood if it weren't for the light pouring into the airy dining room and the positively sunny atmosphere about the whole place. A few good beers to choose from and a nice blond-wood bar complete the effect--there is no finer place to sit down with some excellent food and watch the world go by.
Best Place to Eat
Local Palo Altans might remember when Dinah's Poolside Restaurant went upscale 10 years ago. After extensive remodeling, Dinah's emerged all bright and sparkly--with new interiors and menus--from once-humble beginnings as a basic motel diner serving scrambled eggs and toast at a few tables by the pool at Dinah's Garden Hotel.
Placing the hotel restaurant by the pool proved auspicious for breakfast business at Dinah's. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, they say. Appropriately, owners Bruce and Sharon Magnuson revamped the indoor dining area and have continued to remodel, adding a huge new room inside and, outside, adding tables with fancy umbrellas, gussying up the aquatic landscape, and more recently adding a new patio and lunch and dinner service. The wait has been considerably reduced, and the same cooling blue pool still reflects a wiggly world of Sunday-morning diners with their newspapers and pancake stacks, soaking up the vitamin D at Dinah's.
Best Banana Burrito
Creative Aqui chef Rob Francis designed his Cuban-style specialty in homage to a crowd-pleasing, lime-marinated pork and black bean dish he used to serve up at his previous place of employment, Eulipia Restaurant. If the combination was good on a platter, Francis reasoned, it would be good wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla and slathered with salsa. Hence Aqui's much-loved Cuban pork burrito (it has survived three menu revisions), a substantial pocket of pork carnitas, black beans, rice, salsa and guacamole--plus the ripe plantains, which make a sweet complement to the savory pork and beans. Diners can belly up to the salsa bar--with its choice of salsa verde, a smoky roasted sauce, and two salsas frescas--and take the comida out to the charming back courtyard designed to feel more like Santa Fe than San Jose.
Best Hangover Recovery Spot
The little pink elephants set loose by a monumental bender can be chased away by a delicious breakfast at the Los Gatos Cafe in the company of other overzealous partygoers suffering from similar morning-after woes. Think we're kidding? Take a look at all the people wearing sunglasses inside the cafe. You can almost see their temples throb. Everything here is designed to please. The decor is simple, the service is polite (even though the place is jammed to overflowing on weekend mornings) and the food is scrumptious. Try a gourmet omelet made with slapping-fresh veggies, or maybe an order of apricot-bread French toast. The Copenhagen pancakes are a dreamy surprise, and the salads--in case you get up really late and miss breakfast altogether--are generous. These folks provide fresh coffee and fruit outside for those patient enough to wait for a table. Is there a better reason for getting out of bed?
Best Diamond in the Rough
Spontaneity is a great thing, but with only eight indoor tables, you're taking your chances if you don't make reservations at White Dove, which is becoming the worst-kept secret in Willow Glen. Still new to the block, tucked into the front portion of Sharky's bar, the White Dove could be easily missed by the casual passerby on Lincoln Avenue--and missing it would be a shame. Within the intimate walls, owners Jeff Michel and David Laing whip up tasty (and generous) portions of exquisitely grilled seafood, creatively stuffed pork loin and lovingly seared steak, with sides like deep-fried Cajun oysters and a rich New Englandstyle clam chowder. Stay tuned for the White Dove to fly to larger territory, and say you knew them when they were just starting out.
Best New
Duh. Who wouldn't have thought that Americans--at least on the left coast--are ready for fast, fresh foods in a rainbow of international flavors, combining the best of all the world's spice combinations, and served with healthful smoothies? Save for a few forward-thinkers in Seattle who have introduced wheat-grass juice and soba noodles together in stylish, fast-food eateries, culinary trend-setting in the Wild West has been sluggish.
Then California entrepreneurs Will Weisman, Keith Cox, Matthew Blair and Eduardo Rallo-Verdugo came up with the World Wrapps concept: Take tortilla-style wraps made from sun-dried tomatoes and spinach, fill them with pesto chicken, mango snapper and teriyaki tofu, jam in some zesty vegetables, and then drizzle with tantalizing sauces. The World Wrapps in Palo Alto is testimony to the consumability of the wrap idea. Dozens of copycats now offer suspiciously similar fare.
"We've had people just Xerox our menu. It's frightening what we're seeing," says Weisman, who adds that his team "created the idea, and we think we're the innovator in the niche." Indeed. World Wrapps, with a half-dozen stores up and down the coast, plans to go nationwide next.
Best Bargain Dim Sum
The Sunday brunch known as dim sum usually starts at $1.50 per plate and can escalate to $3, but not at Golden Sun. Everything on the dim sum menu--from the steamed, dried scallops to the fried turnip paste--is $1.50. Just as the price is a winner, so is the food. Steamed fare like pork and shrimp dumplings arrives in hot metal baskets. Lightly fried spring rolls recline on an elegant doily. Because dim sum is communally ordered and shared, the emphasis is heavy on socializing. As time flies, a hungry, kibitzing family of four can stack empty plates like poker chips and not get soaked when the bill arrives. It's the community's best-kept secret, until now.
Best Place to Go When
Walking into El Faro is like a trip to the family kitchen--with the possible exception of the green vinyl booths and beer logos on the walls. All the same, the two old men chatting at the counter and the sweet waitress (who also happens to be one of the owners) made us feel right at home. The burrito ($2.40) came with a cute little side salad, a pat on the hand, and nurturing comments like, "It's very hot outside, isn't it. Would you like anything to drink?" True, it's not a fiesta like other Mexican restaurants--El Faro staffers don't pass out obnoxious sombreros and crowd around the back of your head yelping if it's your birthday. But isn't it nicer when Mom makes a hot burrito, a fluffy dish of flan and sings "Happy Birthday" instead?
Best Salsa Verde
Taqueria Tlaquepaque's green salsa makes this restaurant's fabulous burritos and soft tacos even better. Owner Ubaldo Navarro starts by boiling 60 chiles serranos and six tomatillos. He then adds cilantro, garlic, onion and avocado in amounts too secret to mention. The simmering concoction is then blended and salt is added to taste. Ubaldo's soft tacos scream with flavor when topped with this heavenly condiment. But the green stuff is available only by request because Navarro says most patrons find it too hot and prefer the delicious red sauce that the servers bring out promptly along with the de rigueur dish of warm tortilla chips.
Best Place to Flex Your Mussels
I'm kinda weird about this--I like to visit fishmongers just to look at the dead fish. I eat the critters, too--I'm a sucker for clams and mussels steamed with garlic and white wine, and the thought of deep-fried soft-shell crab with spicy mayonnaise on crusty sourdough is enough to make me go for a second lunch. Like at Race Street Fish & Poultry, maybe, where the popular lunch counter dishes up chips with a wide variety of fin-fish and shellfish, including oysters and scallops, and buckets of clam chowder. But the real joy is to gaze upon the icy biers wherein late fish, both fresh and frozen, are laid out in all their scented glory. Here's a bucket of live Louisiana crawfish, there's a tray of octopods, standing like islands amid a sea of the usual filets, and beneath them a reef of underrated mackerel and a pile of salmon heads for fish stock. It's also a dandy place to visit on the way home from an unsuccessful fishing trip. But if you've been in the mountains, don't bring home halibut, okay?
Best Louisiana Cuisine
Some things never change, which isn't always a bad thing--Wiltz Cajun Kitchen is proof of that. Brilliant cuisine, embarrassingly modest prices and truly congenial service makes Wiltz the joint to satisfy a craving for Creole feasting. In addition to such usual culinary suspects as jambalaya, owner/chef Bill Wiltz and co-owner/manager (and spouse) Lupe dish up daily specials starting off with Tuesday's back-to-basics he-man helpings of red beans and sausage over rice (with it comes a pair of Southern-style fried pork chops) to Saturday night's succulent short ribs over white rice. That the menu hasn't gone trendy in the 10-odd years the diner has been in business is perhaps the best compliment a cook can get. "[Regular customers] won't let me change it, man," Bill Wiltz chortles. "They don't want me to take anything out."
Best Panini in the South Valley
Maurizio Cutrignelli never forgets a face. During a trip down to the South County, I stopped in at the Italian chef/owner's eatery. Surprisingly, he remembered that he owed me $10 for a bet we had made on the outcome of the World Cup--more than two years ago. (He, of course, was rooting for Italy.) Since then, he's not only paid up, but he's expanded his popular corner shop in downtown Morgan Hill from a gelato/juice joint to an impressive little deli offering one of the best vegetarian sandwiches I've ever had: eggplant, giardiniera, organic spring mix, dry mozzarella, red onions and tomatoes. Cutrignelli imports his eggplant, olive oil and other Italian delicacies from his hometown in Italy, where much of his family still lives. Piccolo, which means small in Italian and aptly describes his quaint little shop, also showcases a host of other Italian sandwiches (panino deltizio, panino al tonno, panino al salame), salads, gelato and smoothies. Although the service may be slow at times, because Cutrignelli runs the show himself, his pleasant demeanor and the quality food make the drive south well worth it.
Best World's Best Deli Sandwich
Whatever happened to the guy who used to work behind the counter here, always roaring at his kitchen help? What a character! I'll never forget one time I was there, the day Clarence Thomas was on the stand disputing Anita Hill's testimony. The headline that day was "Who to Believe?" The guy behind the counter heard me chuckling sarcastically, and so he asked (in a bellowing basso profundo voice) this meek little housewife who was waiting for her tuna sandwich, "Well, who do you believe?" She squeaked out, "Oh, oh, I don't know, but, I always say, 'It takes two to tango.' " "That's right!" he shouted. "You take what a woman says; you cut it in half, and you only believe half of that!" He seems to be gone now, but the sandwiches are still really, really good, even though "world's best" may be an overstatement. The large pastrami with Swiss ($5.50) will feed two people easily and well.
Best Place to "Q" Up
Dammit, we'll say it just one last time. There ain't no "q" in barbecue. The word comes from the Spanish barbacoa, from the Taino (West Indian), and even the most casual acquaintance of English pronunciation will recognize that barbeque should be pronounced "barbeck." Or perhaps "bar-ba-kwee." Hell, we don't know. We self-proclaimed arbiters of the language just have too much time on our hands, as we take a siesta made necessary by trying to scarf down an entire plato of barbacoa--great juicy chunks of oh-so-tender beef in dark, rich brown sauce, wrapped in tortillas with gobs of beans and rice and topped off with onion and cilantro relish. Heartburn ain't in it--this here's the genuine fuego del corazón.
Best Way to Reduce the Number of Drivers on Downtown Streets
Here's an idea whose time has come: serve drive-through customers boiling-hot liquids in teensy paper cups and food on a pointed stick. Here comes a speed bump ... yeeeooowwwww! No, seriously now. Espresso Palace sells meat kebabs and espresso drinks, among the usual drive-in fare, which is reason enough to pay a visit. The pork kebab is lean--a bit dry, even--the French fries are better than average, and the espresso is thick, rich and aromatic--and strong enough to defend itself when poured over a cupful of ice on an asphalt-melting August afternoon.
Best Red Beans and Rice
Red beans and rice makes everything nice, as Spearhead says, and Popeye's recipe knocks fancy Bayou restaurants' stock starch out the box. Even Paul Prudhomme, the kingpin of Cajun cooking, swears by the top-secret recipe. The plump red beans nestle in a sauce that cuddles the soft, plucky rice. Creamy and smoky, it's the best pairing since Shields & Yarnell, and warms the stomach like a fat, contented cat. At $1.99 per serving, it beats a round-trip flight to the Big Easy.
Best B-B-Q
First the bad news. After years of making drooling lunch-time idiots of San Jose's downtown workers, Goldie's #2 has closed its doors. The good news is that the East Palo Alto original is still serving barbecue so good you'd think proprietor/chef Goldie Jones has a patent on the messily delectable stuff. Having conducted scientific experiments, we've concluded that the sauce Jones swabs onto the racks at #1 possesses more flava, more character, than its San Jose counterpart. Goldie's cooking method involves the use of oak, as opposed to the traditional hickory; Jones swears using oakwood adds that indefinable certain something to the meat dishes. All we can tell folks is that Goldie's barbecue is straight scrumptious. And the portions are exceedingly generous. You'll need assistance transporting the three- or four-way platters to your mode of transport. Careful not to leave a trail.
Best Ethiopian Food & Boutique
For proof that continental African culture is coming up in the valley, consider San Carlos Street's Gojo Ethiopian Restaurant and the adjacent Merkato African Goods. Gojo provides a flow of culinary marvels as authentic as the Blue Nile. Especially popular among health-conscious types, according to assistant manager Ayalnesh Haile, is the vegetarian combination plate (lentils, split peas, cabbage, potatoes and carrots). Carnivores generally desire the beef or lamb selections. And the little things count as well. For instance, the butter is handmade; so is the cheese. Note the artwork adorning the restaurant's chalk-colored walls, and the ceremonial coffee serving display in the center of the room.
Next door, Ethiopian/African culture reigns. Though postage-stamp sized, Merkato is stuffed with great gifts: handsomely wrought jewelry, an array of miniature figurines, leather jackets. Just about everything is hand-crafted--except, presumably, the CD and cassette collection, which does not, by the way, include modern rock.
Best Free Dessert to Delight
All right, we used to call it the floating brain, but that was before we learned the real name of this Transylvanian science project they serve at China Palace. It consists of a dish of vanilla ice cream floating in a goblet of colored water, which churns from the infusion of dry ice, but words do not do justice to the spellbinding result, which comes free with meals (you may have to ask) and makes China Palace the perfect place to take visiting kids, or your own when other amusement missions have failed.
Owner Larry Yu ran King Tongs in Berkeley for 10 years, and as a result of dietary diatribes from Berkeley-ites, his menu contains no MSG, minimal oil and one of the most extensive vegetarian selections anywhere. He invented the volcano thing himself, after years of what we can assume was some fascinating experimentation.
Best Way to Consume
Refuse the bins of Healthy Choice "ice cream" and pass up Slim Fast's sorry excuse for a chocolate shake. Five Star Ice Cream dishes out 30 ounces of fat-free frozen yogurt that is the dieter's ultimate triumph. In fact, Five Star is the teppan of frozen yogurt--made to order, right before your eyes. Two scoops of frozen vanilla yogurt and a handful of your choice of frozen fruits are thrown into a giant blender, producing a guilt-free treat of only 70 calories. The health-conscious can gorge, gloat and allocate fat grams elsewhere.
Best Faux Fast Foods
Browsers at Sunrise Bakery might be startled by the fast-food fare mingling with the baked goods in the display cases. But upon closer inspection, the pizzas and hamburgers (topped with real sesame seeds) reveal themselves as creations of an imaginative confectioner.
Truly, the bakers of Sunrise Bakery should be dubbed the gurus of frosting, fashioning amazing shapes out of sugar, food coloring and water. But the unique sculptures don't end with fast foods; animals both real (frogs and bears) and fictitious (unicorns) occupy the glassed-in menagerie, as do the more prosaic eclairs, truffles, cupcakes, tea cookies and wedding cakes.
Best Cinnamon Bread
Cinnamon rolls and cinnamon bread are a bait and switch; they never taste as good as they smell. Or almost never. At $3.50 a loaf, Greenlee's cinnamon loaf seems pricey, but management apologizes for the price increase. (I suppose one could blame the war in Sri Lanka and its effect on the cost of cinnamon.) Once you weigh the bread in your hand and smell its aroma, you won't feel gouged. The loaves are pungent with spices even through a plastic bag; the slices are marbled through with cinnamon and lightly glazed with sugar. Most of all, the bread is tender; so much cinnamon bread tends to be stale. Nice surroundings, too; the place won an award for its retrofitting, and they've added various fancier coffees to attract the breakfast trade. An old-fashioned neighborhood bakery like this is a treasure.
Best Old-fashioned Denture-Breaking Bagels
The other day at a soft-bagel franchise, good friend Marvin, a proud denture-clad old-timer, drawled, "These soft bagels are okay, since I can't chew too well now, but I miss them real bagels. You know, the hard crunchy kind. The kind that hurts when someone chucks one at your head."
There's one place that still sells those head-cracking bagels, crunchy on the outside and dense but soft on the inside. After 23 years, the Bagel Works bakes (not steams) a wide variety of crusty bagels. Their creations are doughnut-size, smaller than the fluffy, high-volume, pillowy variety. These gnashers have one major thing going for them: a density high enough to stave off hunger till lunch.
The asiago bagels rate high marks: hefty, golden marvels crowned with crisp caps of melted asiago cheese. Aromatic and tasty, these puppies need neither cream cheese nor jam. Perfect for those who don't want to risk dripping jam on their suits--or dropping cream cheese fat onto their thighs.
Best Bottled Nostalgia
The aisles are a wee bit narrow, and the chill air blows right through the open-sided building in the winter. But for lovers of old-fashioned milk in bottles and fresh cheeses, the Milk Pail is a rare find. The 23-year-old business on the corner of California Street and San Antonio Road has the ambiance of an old-time, open-air European market, down to the glass milk bottles, outdoor produce stands and strong customer-service bent.
Owner Steve Rassmussen, who bought the business with his father in 1973 and gradually transformed the drive-through milk stand, takes pride in the store's eclectic mix of specialty items--like the strawberry-, root beer and coffee-flavored milk bottled by his family-owned business, Castle Creamery. Another highlight is the redolent garlic herb bread that Rassmussen orders from a Pescadero bakery. Milk Pail's produce prices sometimes run a bit high, but the flavor is worth every penny. Felipe, Milk Pail's produce manager, boasts that the sweet white corn sold here is only available at one other gourmet grocery store on the Peninsula. On the other hand, the cheese prices often beat out the competition. For more information on Milk Pail, visit the market's home page at www.milkpail.com.
Best New Grocery Store
Food shopping has always been convenient for downtowners--at least for those whose diets lean heavily toward sugar, salt and lard, and who have a pocketful of quarters to buy off the bums squatting outside Vile Foods or Yucky's.
Menu Driven: Dinah's Poolside Restaurant in Palo Alto ranks as the best spot for poolside pancake-eating--though diners have to be guests of Dinah's Garden Hotel to take a dip in the drink.
Howard and Wanda's
854 W. Dana St., Mountain View
415/969-1464
Laura Stuchinsky
The Cats Restaurant
17533 Santa Cruz Hwy., Los Gatos
408/354-4020
Traci Hukill
on the Peninsula
Cafe Brioche
445 California Ave., Palo Alto
415/326-8640
Ami Chen Mills
Salsas Etc!
126 The Great Mall of the Bay Area, Milpitas
800/40-SALSA
http://www.salsasetc.com
Richard Sine
Eulipia Restaurant & Bar
374 S. First St., San Jose
408/280-6161
Broos Campbell
Forager
Sent Sovi Restaurant
14583 Big Basin Way, Saratoga
408/867-3110
Sharan Street
Willow Street Wood-Fired Pizza
20 S. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos
408/354-5566
Traci Hukill
Pancakes in a Swimsuit
Dinah's Poolside Restaurant
4261 El Camino Real, Palo Alto
415/493-4542
Ami Chen Mills
Aqui Cal-Mex Grill
1145 Lincoln Ave., San Jose
408/995-0381
Corinne Asturias
Los Gatos Cafe
340 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos
408/354-4647
Traci Hukill
White Dove Cafe
1151 Lincoln Ave., San Jose
408/280-5297
Corinne Asturias
Entrepreneurial Concept
World Wrapps
201 University Ave., Palo Alto
415/327-9777
Ami Chen Mills
Golden Sun Restaurant
4632 Meridian Ave., San Jose
408/267-6550
Todd S. Inoue
You Miss Your Mama
El Faro Restaurant
168 S. Murphy Ave., Sunnyvale
408/739-5136
Shweta Govindarajan
Hitting the Sauce: Ubaldo Navarro withholds the full recipe for Tlaque-paque's breath-empowering salsa verde, available only by request.
Taqueria Tlaquepaque No. 1
2222 Lincoln Ave., San Jose
408/978-3665
David Cohen
Fishing for Compliments: Not only are the lobsters at Race Street red when dead, but can be cleaned and taken apart by request, along with virtually anything else in this still-wiggling fish emporium.
Race Street Fish & Poultry Market
253 Race St., San Jose
408/294-4857
Broos Campbell
Jumpin' Jambalaya: Nothing trendy about Wiltz Cajun Kitchen, except the timeless trend of big portions at small prices.
Wiltz Cajun Kitchen
354 N. White Road, San Jose
408/251-2728
Nicky Baxter
Piccolo
45 E. Second St., #1F, Morgan Hill
408/776-0519
Judi Blackwell
Corner Liquor & Deli
1097 W. San Carlos St., San Jose
408/280-0141
Richard von Busack
for Barbecue
Tacos Al Pastor
400 S. Bascom Ave., San Jose
408/275-1619
Plus two other locations
Broos Campbell
Espresso Palace
400 W. San Carlos St., San Jose
408/294-5805
Broos Campbell
Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits
1671-A N. Capitol Ave., San Jose
408/923-2645
Todd S. Inoue
Goldie's Oakwood Bar-B-Que
1940-C University Ave., Palo Alto
415/321-1019
Nicky Baxter
Merkato African Goods Shop and Gojo Restaurant
1261 W. San Carlos St.,
Suites A and B, San Jose
Merkato: 408/297-6567
Gojo: 408/295-9546
Nicky Baxter
the Inner Child
Volcano Ice Cream at
China Palace Restaurant
1346 Lincoln Ave., San Jose
408/298-2899
Corinne Asturias
0 Grams of Fat
Five Star Ice Cream
6950 Almaden Expwy., San Jose
408/268-2303
Bernice Yeung
Sunrise Bakery
666-B Blossom Hill Road, San Jose
408/227-6560
Bernice Yeung
Greenlee's Bakery
1081 The Alameda, San Jose
408/287-4191
Richard von Busack
The Bagel Works
5241 Prospect Road, Cupertino
408/255-2321
Andrew X. Pham
The Milk Pail Market
2585 California St., Mountain View
415/941-2505
Laura Stuchinsky
Midtown Safeway
W. San Carlos and Race streets, San Jose
408/882-0999