Thursday, July 13, 2023
30+ awesome brunch places to try in San Jose 🍳🥩
Tuesday, July 11, 2023
Top coffee shops in San Jose
SJ Today has a great guide to San Jose coffee shops--everything from from traditional American cafes, Vietnamese, Mexican, and even a famous Hawaiian coffee shop in Japantown where you can also get Spam musubi. I think I've been to most of the list with my favorites being Nirvana Soul, Academic Coffee, and Voltaire (all Downtown).
There was one great place that I didn't find on the list and that is Pastaleria by Adega (photo below). It's a Portuguese bakery featuring the famous Pastel de Nata egg custard dessert and many others, but they also have some strong espressos with enough caffeine to make you feel like you're bending time and space. Paired with a pastry, it's a great café worth adding to the list!
To see the full list of San Jose's top coffee shops, head over here.
Tuesday, June 20, 2023
Petiscos and LeYou added to the Michelin Guide
Monday, April 17, 2023
Bay Area's first Portugal Restaurant Week! April 17th - April 24th
As a Portuguese-American it used to be a huge challenge to even find Portuguese food at restaurants in the Bay Area. Once Sousa's Restaurant (Azorean Portuguese) on Santa Clara Street closed down, there wasn't a single proper sit-down Portuguese restaurant in San Jose.
Fast forward to today and it's a different story. The first and only Michelin Star restaurant in San Jose and the only Portuguese restaurant with a star in the United States is ADEGA--coincidentally in the same East San Jose retail spot as Sousa's used to be. One of the hottest Downtown San Jose restaurants is Petiscos. Then you have Uma Case in SF, LaSalette in Sonoma, and Tasca Tasca also in Sonoma. There are also outstanding Portuguese-influenced restaurants popping up like Broma in Mountain View (with a Michelin Star chef from Chez TJ).
A celebration of these restaurants kicks off today with the Bay Area's first-ever Portugal Restaurant Week. Special discounted multi-course menus will be available at Adega, Petiscos, Uma Casa, La Salete, and Tasca Tasca. Now's the time if you have yet to experience Portuguese food, which is best served family-style with wide varieties of things to try. You can't go wrong with any of the five options, but please support our San Jose restaurants so they stick around for a long, long time.
For more info and menus, head over to the Portugal Week site over here! The event only runs until April 24th.
Thursday, March 23, 2023
Downtown getting another food hall! (Updated 4/18/23)
Downtown San Jose could one day become the mecca of food halls. It all started with the San Pedro Square Market which deserves much of the credit for revitalizing Downtown. To this day it is a top destination for locals and visitors alike. Wrapping a vibrant food, bar, and music scene around San Jose's oldest historic home was brilliant. Then came the SoFA market, which is smaller but also has a selection of excellent eateries (including my go-to spot for uni handrolls). Thirdly is the Littlest Little Italy... more on that in a separate post. Now, there is a fourth (!) food hall being proposed by an Uber co-founder.
The plan is to turn a historic late 19th-century building at the corner of Santa Clara and 3rd and turn it into a food hall with 26 kitchens. You might know this as the old Hank Coco Downtown Furniture corner, which is a key space right in the center of Downtown San Jose.
The entire ground floor would be utilized for the project. This would make it larger than the SoFA Market but slightly smaller than the San Pedro Square Market. Also part of the plan is a 1,000 SQFT dine-in restaurant and a coffee bar.
Exciting times ahead for San Jose foodies!
Source: The Merc
4/18/23 Update:
Unfortunately it looks as if the kitchens will not be publicly accessible and they will be used as ghost kitchens for delivery services. The dine-in restaurant is where you can order food from any of the kitchens, but it is a very small space. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Hat tip to Kelly Snider for sending in these corrections.
Friday, August 19, 2022
28th Annual Assyrian Food Festival
One of the biggest benefits of living in San Jose is diversity. It's amazing that we have access to so many events each year celebrating different cultures. This weekend is the 28th Assyrian Food Festival. The two day event also features dancing, live entertainment, exotic teas, coffee, parties, arts, a raffle and of course a ton of authentic Assyrian cuisine.
The event runs from 11am to 11pm on Saturday and 11am to 9pm on Sunday at the Assyrian Church of the East (680 Minnesota Avenue, San Jose, CA 95125). Admission and parking are both free. For more info head over to assyrianfoodfestival.org.
Friday, March 5, 2021
We're back in the Red Tier, indoor dining is back!
This week we officially went from a Covid tier status of purple to red, which means indoor dining is open for business again! Hopefully restaurants will never close like this again (everyone please get your vaccine as soon as you can). As a reminder the scale goes from purple, to red, to orange, and finally to yellow which has the fewest restrictions.
Restaurants will be able to open their indoor dining rooms again effective immediately. However, they will be limited to 25% of their maximum capacity or 100 guests, whichever number is lower.
What else can we look forward to in the red tier? Movie theaters can reopen at 25% as can museums, zoos, and aquariums. Stores can now operate at 50% capacity. Even indoor gyms can finally reopen, albeit at a meager 10% capacity.
California is also planning to ease the requirements to get into less restrictive tiers when we hit two different milestone. The first is when we distribute 2 million vaccines in the most disadvantaged zip codes, and then when we hit 4 million vaccines in those same areas.
The stats have been looking very promising in the Bay Area--let's hope this nightmare ends soon and the post-covid era will be another Roarin' 20s.
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
Kebabery by Meso now open at Santana Row (pickup & delivery only)
The owners of Meso have opened a virtual eatery, which means they share the kitchen with Meso and don't have any sit-down options. The food is only available for pickup and delivery. Featured are some of the key signature kebabs from Meso, including Impossible meat and swordfish kebabs, and several delicious sides like sweet potato with spiced honey harissa, hummus with lemon and extra virgin olive oil, and baklava for dessert.
It's a great casual alternative option, especially considering Meso is one of the higher-end options on the Row and it can get pricey.
The virtual restaurant is open every day from 11:30am to 9pm and you can use either DoorDash or UberEats for delivery.
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Outdoor dining will finally be allowed again in San Jose!
Also allowed this Friday will be in-store shopping with face masks, childcare for all kids in stable groups of up to 12, all manufacturing as long as social distancing measures are in place, low contact services, and all pet grooming. Small outdoor ceremonies and religious services will be allowed for groups up to 25. Finally, all outdoor recreational activities that do not involve physical contact will reopen including swimming pools, hiking, tennis, golf, camping, etc.
We are slowly heading back towards some normalcy. I personally can't wait to have a meal and a cocktail again at a nice restaurant!
Source: SVBJ, Santa Clara Public Health
Monday, June 1, 2020
Downtown San Jose's Farmer's Market opens this Friday, June 5th
Of course, social distancing measures will be in place. You can see the list of COVID19 restrictions over here. The Downtown San Jose Farmer's Market includes California fruits and vegetable, flowers, gourmet foods, crafts, and clothing. For more information, the full press release is below.
Monday, May 18, 2020
The San Pedro Square Market Re-Opens Today!
Participating eateries include:
- Anchors
- Bread Brothers
- Gameday
- JORA Ceviche Bar
- Pizza Bocca Lupo
- Pasta Fresca
- Phonomenal
- Taco Bar
- Urban Momo
- Voyager Craft Coffee
Initially these will be open only for pickup and delivery. Given the abundance of outdoor seating at the San Pedro Square Market, I think this will be one of the first places in San Jose where you will be able to have a somewhat "normal" dining experience in the coming months since they will be able to easily conform to California guidelines.
It might be a good idea to shut down all of San Pedro Street between Santa Clara and St. John and use this area for socially distanced outdoor dining for all the San Pedro Street restaurants. It is not unprecedented as we did something similar during Super Bowl 50.
I will definitely be visiting sometime this week!
Monday, May 11, 2020
San Jose wants to allow more business outdoors
Currently, over 46,000 restaurant workers have lost their jobs in Silicon Valley. The industry has been devastated and many restaurants will be closing their doors for good. It's expected that restaurants will reopen with no more than 25-50% of their previous interior capacity, so any change we can make to cushion further blows to the industry I'm sure will be greatly appreciated.
City officials are also trying to offset application costs and provide quick-build infrastructure. These include barriers and potted plants.
Hopefully some of the changes will become permanent so that we can have more al fresco dining and retail in the community when all of this is over.
Source: SVBJ, San Jose Inside
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Eataly coming to San Jose
The market clocks in at an impressive 51,000 SQFT. Eataly is large enough to house multiple restaurants, cafes, food stalls, bars, and take-out counters. If you're a foodie that likes Italian food, this may be your new favorite location in the mall. It will also be the only Eataly location in Northern California.
Eataly San Jose will open sometime in 2021.
Source: SVBJ
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Garden at the Flea
There is an impressive list of events at "Garden at the Flea" which include concerts, pro wrestling, and the 8th Annual Taco Festival of Innovation (Aug 31st). To see all of the programming, head over here.
Monday, July 22, 2019
Dine Downtown San Jose 2019
To see the full list of 22 participating restaurants and their featured menus, head over here. OpenTable also set up a handy page to easily book Dine Downtown San Jose Restaurants here.
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
Taylor Street Night Market
Thursday, May 2, 2019
Downtown San Jose Farmers’ Market season begins May 3
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Bay Area Michelin Star Restaurants - 2019 Edition
Michelin has three different star categories:
- One Star - A very good restaurant in its category with cuisine prepared to a consistently high standard. A good place to stop on your journey.
- Two Stars - Excellent cuisine, skillfully and carefully crafted dishes of outstanding quality. Worth a detour.
- Three Stars - Exceptional cuisine with distinctive dishes and superlative ingredients. Worth a special journey.
San Jose Michelin Recommended Restaurants:
- Downtown
- Back A Yard
- East San Jose
- Adega
- Midtown
- Luna Mexican Kitchen
- Din Tai Fung
- Walia
- South San Jose
- Thien Long
- Lau Hai San
- Camden
- Zeni
I also created a Google doc listing all of the star recipients for 2019, along with tabs for all previous years and some general statistics. Below is an image capture from the doc. This year there were a total of 57 restaurants that were awarded Michelin stars, which is up 2 from last year and an all-time high for the Bay Area. 63% of the restaurants are locating in SF, 18% in Silicon Valley (split evenly between the South Bay and the Peninsula), 16% in Wine Country, 2% in the East Bay, and 2% in Marin. This is the first time ever where Silicon Valley has more Michelin Star restaurants than Wine Country. There are 5 new restaurants on the list for 2019 and 3 that did not make the cut or were closed down. The only new starred restaurant on the list from Silicon Valley is Protege in Palo Alto.
Monday, October 1, 2018
Scott's Seafood launches a hip new lunch menu
John Huân Vũ, Andrew Rivlin, Noe Sacoco, and I were invited to try the new lunch menu at Scott's Seafood. Collectively, we were blown away. I have been to Scott's many times, and this was by far my best experience.
Before we got into lunch, we were lucky to sample two items from the catering menu. An ahi poke in a soy sauce infused waffle cone and bruschetta in a basil infused waffle. Both were delicious with outstanding presentation. These are several of the many options available for private events.
The first lunch dishes we sampled were three salads: the seared scallop salad with organic mix greens, rainbow quinoa salad, and red & golden beets salad with grilled peaches. Each of us had a favorite. I have always loved the way Scott's Seafood does scallops, so that one was my personal fave. The pomegranate molasses vinaigrette on the red & golden beets salad impressed everyone at the table.
We also tried a tuna poke with seaweed, cucumber, and wontons that was a more elaborate version of tuna cone we had earlier. However, the real star of this round was the squid ink croquette with calamari. The squid ink added a complex and briny flavor that went flawlessly with the croquette and added a dramatic color to the dish. It sounds a bit exotic but this is an appetizer that is likely to please anyone who likes calamari or crunchy fried foods (nearly everyone). The croquette was one of the more creative plates and was John's favorite dish.
The lobster rigatoni was a combination of fresh rigatoni pasta, cherry tomatoes, Gruyere cheese, tarragon, bisque sauce and generous pieces of lobster. The halibut bouillabaisse lemon risotto was a more modern take on a Scott's classic with beautiful presentation.
Finally, our favorite was the lobster roll. It's pretty hard to find a great lobster roll in San Jose, this is it. The crispy and buttery bread with well-seasoned chunks of lobster smothered in shellfish bisque sauce--flawless. Beats Sam's Chowder House any day of the week.
Big thanks to John Huân Vũ for taking all of the photos.
Scott's Seafood
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Dunkin' Donuts comes to San Jose
This is the first of several new locations. Next up will be a second San Jose shop on Winchester Boulevard towards the end of the year or early 2019. Franchise owners are also scouting Milpitas, Sunnyvale, and other Silicon Valley cities for further expansion.
The San Jose Dunkin' Donuts is now open everyday from 5am to 10pm.
Source: SVBJ