Sala Thai

Location: Fremont, CA
Cuisine type: Thai
Atmosphere: family-friendly, cozy atmosphere
Meal: dinner
Overall grade: 7.67

Ben

A vibrant environment filled with conversation, a lively and popular locale. The service was pretty good, though it could be a little difficult to get their attention. I was in the mood for something a little more intense than the green curry I was served - a little weak despite being warned it was spicy. The house wine was decent and had a fair price, and the mango ice cream is a real winner for a dessert. Overall a pretty solid Thai place, though I have definitely had more amped up flavors.

Food 7

Drinks 8

Atmosphere 9

Service 7

Value 8

Nina

The week between Christmas and New Years Day was not exactly a busy work week - between work holidays and vacation days, we were left with exactly one work day, a lonely Wednesday. Since that was all the time we had at home, it seemed impractical to go grocery shopping and try to cook dinner at home between unpacking from our trip out to the Midwest for Christmas and our impending drive to Disneyland for New Years Day, so we were planning on eating out. Conveniently, a friend was visiting the area so we took the opportunity to meet with her for dinner in Fremont. We found this small(ish) Thai restaurant conveniently close, located in one of the many strip-mall style parking lots so ubiquitous around the Bay Area.

The three of us shared a Thai samosa-looking appetizer, which had a spicy veggie filling, not unlike its Indian cuisine counterpart. In keeping with the Thai flavor profile, this was served with a small cucumber, carrots and cabbage salad topped with crunchy peanuts.

For the entree, I opted for a classic with a twist - Pad Thai with crab meat. The dish was not completely out of the ordinary - fairly plain in flavor, with a pile of saucy rice noodles served along finely shredded veggies and crunchy peanuts. The crab meat addition was the unique component, which I feel enhanced the flavor above and beyond the usual vegetarian or chicken varieties I’ve tried in other restaurants. I also appreciated that the peanuts were minced, which is not always the case, and served on the side with the dish, so I could control if and how much of this ingredient I would add to my plate. The glass of house chardonnay I picked to accompany my meal was merely a pleasant addition, though its role would have been more fitting had my entree been spicy (note to self - ask for more spice next time :) )

Finally, since it was a festive occasion (in the midst of winter holidays, dinner with a friend) we also went for dessert - in our case, we picked sticky rice and mango ice cream. The rice tasted almost too savory and the coconut syrup used to create the sticky effect had a strange, plastic-like aftertaste. The ice cream was tasty, creamy and satisfying, though nothing mind blowing either. Unfortunately (and contrary to my habit) the dessert course actually negatively affected my impression of the meal, which up to this point had been delicious and well executed.

Food 7

Drinks 7
Atmosphere 8
Service 8
Value 9

Kaati Fresh

Location: San Jose, River Oaks Plaza
Cuisine Type: Indian fast food
Atmosphere: fast food restaurant
Meal: dinner
Overall grade: 6.9

Ben

This is an Indian fast food restaurant within walking distance of our place, so we went to check it out. The menu is pretty short but has about what one would expect, different marinations of meats in wraps. I had a spicy chicken wrap with yogurt, which was pretty decent and cheap (though not extremely fresh - it is a genuine "fast food"). I would recommend it as a good place to try out for a different takes on wraps, with decent ingredients and a good price. The server was friendly and the desert we got (a dessert crepe with cinnamon and cream cheese) was also pretty good. 

Food 7

Drinks 7

Atmosphere 7

Service 8

Value 8

Nina

For a quick weeknight dinner, it made sense to go close to home, to the River Oaks Plaza. The place that drew us this time was Kaati Fresh - the Indian cafe. Their menu was dominated by a large variation of rolls - essentially an Indian flavor burrito, in which the tortilla shell was replaced by a large, thin crepe crusted with a very thin layer of egg on the inside. It was a unique combination, but worked great in preventing the filling from soaking into the crepe shell, and at the same time lent a richness to the overall flavor of the roll. I ordered the ground beef roll, which surprised me a little since I had never really had either beef or meat in ground form combined with classic Indian flavors. The fresh bite in this dish came from a pretty standard combination of iceberg lettuce and sliced tomato, so not much surprise there.
Since I can rarely resist dessert, I also ordered the cinnamon cream cheese roll (saffron churri churri), which turned out to share the same crepe-like base with the entree, and was filled with a soft and sweet cream cheese mixture and topped with a powder of cinnamon.
With its modest, fast-food like setting (even heating was provided by these portable radiators), and fairly unsurprising menu, this place is a solid choice for a filling, tasty and quick dinner, but not exactly a date destination.

Food 7
Drinks 5
Atmosphere 6
Service 6
Value 8

Pizza Bocca Lupo

Location: San Jose, San Pedro St. Market
Cuisine type: Italian, Fire Oven Pizza
Atmosphere: open, community style seating shared among multiple small food vendors
Meal: late night snack
Overall grade: 7.67

Nina

What’s better for a late night snack than pizza (with beer)? Really good pizza with beer on tap, that’s what. While trying to watch one of the 49ers games on TV (a game much delayed by repeated power outages at Candlestick Park), we ended up in a new establishment in San Jose - a sort of marketplace on San Pedro street which was still partially in construction but had the game on in a dining area. You could pick up food from any of the restaurants in the market, drinks from any other, and take them to this common dining area to enjoy.
The only restaurant still open that late at night was Boca Luppo, a small pizza shop with a wood fire oven, baking up crispy thin crust pies with traditional toppings (fact emphasized on the menu by Italian names for each ingredient in large letters with the English translations demoted to fine print). We got a Pizza margherita with two topics - funghi and prosciutto crudo (essentially a cheese pizza with wild mushrooms and cured ham). The flavor really delivered - the crust was crunchy and light, the sauce was rich and aromatic, and the toppings were fresh . The pizza was large enough to serve one person for dinner entree or two for a game-time snack, and it was really delicious along with the beer on tap. I am looking forward to trying some of the other small restaurants with big personalities that will open in this place.

Food 9
Drinks 8 (from the adjacent bar)
Atmosphere 8
Service 6 (mostly self-service)
Value 7


Ben

This is a pizza place in the recently developing marketplace in San Jose (a few connected restaurants and bars with a common eating area of picnic tables and a TV. They offer a good combination of fresh ingredients and an assortment of gourmet toppings, we went with a mushroom and prosciutto pizza. The pizza was good, though a little pricy for the size (~$17 for a pizza for 2 and self service). I did love the community eating style - sharing long tables with people who picked up food at any of the other restaurants - and was a fun place to catch the end of a 49ers game with some fans. It's conveniently located next to a full bar with pretty good prices and a great beer selection (rated drinks highly though it's not actually the same establishment). Overall it's developing into a fun and trendy place to hang out, with lively and young crowd, and the popularity has really boomed over just a couple of months of being open.

Food 7
Drinks 9
Atmosphere 9
Service 7
Value 6

Pho Kim Long

Location: San Jose, CA
Cuisine type: Vietnamese, Pho
Atmosphere: austere, family friendly dining
Meal: late lunch
Overall grade: 7.42

Ben

This place is very popular, with an authentic - and a little austere - feel, and has a large Vietnamese crowd. Tables fill and are turned over pretty quickly, and the service is generally self-serve. The menu had a large variety of ingredients for Pho's. I ordered a mix of rare beef (which could have been put in a little later to be more red) and brisket. The portion was pretty generous and the soup was flavorful. It was a conventional serving (limes, sprouts, basel, with a few pepper sauces available). Overall it doesn't stand out as extraordinary, but is a reliable, tasty, and satisfying place to get a good Pho, as is evident by the large local following.

Food 8

Drinks 7

Atmosphere 8

Service 6

Value 8

Nina

Christmas season sneaked up on us - before I knew it, it was the weekend before the holidays, and we still hadn’t used the discounted tickets I had purchased for the Gilroy Gardens Holiday lights event. Since it was a case of now or never, there was no time left to change our mind, or go home to cook a quick dinner before heading to Gilroy, so we stopped at the closest place on the way from the Great Mall to the highway headed south towards Gilroy.
I was a bit of a hole in the wall, a shabby looking front window with a modest sign announcing the restaurant name. Inside, the tables were pretty small and close together, lined up against the walls and in the middle. The menu was pertty predictable too - the majority of the space was taken up by variations of pho, half of which were different combinations of beef cuts and the rest the usual chicken, seafood, tofu. Overall, there was nothing new or surprising about this place, a pretty standard pho with affordable prices and generous portions.

Food 8
Drinks 6
Atmosphere 7
Service 6
Value 9

Hobee's

Location: San Jose, CA
Cuisine type: American breakfast
Atmosphere: family style dining, retro decor
Meal: breakfast/brunch
Overall score: 7

Nina

Lazy Sunday, early brunch, gift card to local cafe - match made in heaven? I'd think so!

We walked over to this friendly looking cafe down the street from where we live, looking forward to a hearty meal to start out the day right. The restaurant looked inviting and bright, with retro decor which appeared recently revamped. Their menu also looked very promising - some creative combinations with a bit of an edge. I picked the sunny-side up eggs (my favorite preparation, always) with salmon hash, spinach and rye toast. In my head, this would be creamy and tender, and possibly just a touch smoky in flavor - now I realize there really wasn't anything to suggest that the salmon would be smoked. The execution, however, disappointed me a bit. The salmon tasted like it was out of a can, the eggs were undercooked and the hash was a bit greasy. I was putting my hopes in their famous blueberry coffee cake, the description was scrumptious and I couldn't wait to pair that with my cold creamy milk. This was also a bit of a disappointment - instead of the flaky, syrupy and rich texture of a coffee cake, we got this large chunk of a somewhat dry and fluffy cake, with a few blueberries baked in and a large dollop of sugar icing. While this restaurant could provide a solid breakfast in the absence of any pantry essentials at home (or in extreme cases of the Sunday lazies), it fell short of my expectations this time.

Food 5
Drinks 7
Atmosphere 9
Service 8
Value 7


Ben

This is right next to our place and we had to give it a shot. It has the look and feel of a neighborhood classic, and it is actually quite popular place for brunch (no wait time, but most tables were full). They had a great looking menu of a lot of different eggs benedict type dishes, which come with a monstrous blueberry muffin. The food came out looking as good as it sounded, but to our surprise the taste of both of our dishes were pretty disappointing. Most of the vegetables appeared unfrozen from bags, the hollandaise sauce was bland, and half of the eggwhites were uncookied on the sunny-side up eggs. The muffin was delicious, though probably not advisable for anyone on any sort of diet. They were also severely understaffed, and it was difficult to wave down our waitress to take our orders / the bill. 

Food 6

Drinks 8

Atmosphere 9

Service 6

Value 8

China Delights

Location: San Ramon, CA
Cuisine type: Chinese
Atmosphere: plain decor, family style dining
Meal: dinner
Overall grade: 7.5

Nina

It’s not often that we make it all the way to the far East Bay, and especially not on a week day. This was a special occasion - someone we knew (however little) was being sworn in as a city official of San Ramon, and we were invited to attend the ceremony. The long trip to San Ramon and the ceremony (which only took place at the end of a city council meeting) left us starving in a part of the bay unfamiliar to us. The logical next step was to find the nearest restaurant with reasonable online ratings and go for it - this time, it happened to be a Chinese place.
We ordered the dumplings which were repeatedly mentioned in reviews, and were shocked at how large they were - probably 4 times larger than any other dumpling I’ve ever eaten, and unfortunately with a skin proportionally thicker. The inside was flavorful, though nothing striking - reminding me more of a meatball then a fresh, tender dumpling filling.
Even though the owners were Chinese and it seemed like the restaurant was family-run, the food was closer to main stream Panda-Express fare, nothing I’d feel compelled to drive all the way to San Ramon to eat. Plus, why would I? Between San Jose and San Ramon (much closer to SJ than to SR) there is the whole area of Milpitas filled with authentic Chinese restaurants, so I knew where I’ll go next time I crave Chinese for dinner :)

Food 6
Drinks 8
Atmosphere 6
Service 8
Value 8

Ben

We stopped in for a pretty late dinner. The restaurant was entirely empty but we decided to give it a try. The service was prompt and friendly. We started off with some dumplings (a legitimate almost 2 full meals .. 6 fist sized dumplings for ~$7) that were huge, had a lot of thick wonton but the filling was delicious. I had a spicy beef, which was a little greasier than I would like but overall pretty tasty and freshly prepared. We went with a house white wine which was a pretty nice price ($4 / glass) and complemented the spicy food well. 

Food 8
Drinks 8
Atmosphere 7
Service 9
Value 8