A couple years ago, Renisa Satrijo found a hobby that was quite different from her biotech career in Silicon Valley: making ice cream. Initially, she made small batches for friends and family. She was so passionate about it she would spend hours upon hours tweaking the recipes to get them just right for her family to enjoy.
Articles by Aaron Carnes
Butter & Zeus in Santa Clara is taking waffles to new, unfamiliar places with a variety of savory and sweet waffle sandwiches. The top seller Chicken’n’Waffle is a favorite, combining chicken, waffles and syrup.
Fusion isn’t an uncommon component in any country’s cuisine. People immigrate, nations conquer other nations, spices get traded with neighboring countries. It all affects the food. Malaysian food has major elements of Indian, Chinese, Portuguese, Thai and others. The flavors are all over the map. Considering how interesting the food is, it’s a bit underrated compared to the attention Thai and other Southeast Asian cuisines get.
Delicious Crepes Bistro, which opened recently in Santa Clara, has a nice coffee shop feel to it. There are a few scattered tables in the two rooms, some couches, newspapers and WiFi for your laptop. You can grab a cup of coffee and just hang out if you like, but it’s the crepes that are the focus—and they are big, some of the biggest I’ve ever seen, so big they come pre-sliced into 8-10 squares, presumably to facilitate sharing.
If you’ve ever wondered what traditional breakfast in Turkey is like, wonder no more. Olympus Caffe & Bakery offers several common breakfast and baked good items that are otherwise difficult to find in the Bay Area.
Walking into Campo 185, a new Italian restaurant in downtown Palo Alto, it’s not hard to imagine this place plucked right out of a modern Italian city where families come to dine. There’s a lot of cozy seating for large groups and families, though it still is accommodating for couples. But if you are going there expecting a quiet, candle-lit, romantic Italian dinner, the tables’ close proximity might not make this the best choice.
Wing Box doesn’t actually serve wings, at least not in Super Bowl finger-food sense. The place sells fried chicken: drumsticks and full-sized wings, with five different flavors, all of them Asian.
Before settingfoot in the new Restaurant Guo Cui in Cupertino, go ahead and erase all Chinese dining experiences from your mind—at least ones from this area. The owners have gone to great lengths to breathe new life into what an American Chinese restaurant can be, right down to the ambience, which marries traditional Chinese culture with a flair for modern interior design and a casual atmosphere.
Hai Nam, a new Vietnamese restaurant in East San Jose, is centered on chicken, particularly its flagship dish, com ga hai nam (whence the name of the place is derived). Roughly 80 percent of the dishes are chicken-based, including pho ga, which is Vietnam’s chicken noodle soup, while the more common beef-based pho is nowhere to be found on the menu.
While this is a casual deli/cafe that sells some Middle Eastern foods, its specialty is Turkish food. Where Five Star Falafel shines is with its kebabs, shawarma wraps, Mediterranean salads and lentil soup.
