Not having an office to attend during the day, and wanting to get out of the house, has me systematically going through the lunch options in the greater Palo Alto area. I’ve made a spreadsheet of all the restaurants within, roughly, a 15 minute e-bike of my house, and have been working through the list.
Rather shockingly (not shockingly), there are 235 establishments on the list. If anyone wonders why the bay area is still great in food… 235 is a lot. I’ve removed chains above a certain size, and I’ve prioritized based on whether I’ve ever eaten there, whether I’ve eaten there for lunch, and whether I’ve eaten there in this program.
Of these, 110 are “high priority”, as I have never eaten at all, mostly because they are lunch-only. Some are newer (dumpling hours), some are sandwich counters, some are fancy (RH Rooftop).
Here are some recent hits [and misses]:
The Redwood [PA]: Hidden gem! It’s in the Avenedas home. They’ve brought in someone french who is very, very good at bread and rolls. The menu is limited, and the interior space is institutional, but that bread is heavenly. I got a “parisian ham” sandwich, ate it outside, one of my favorite lunches so far.
Jimmy V’s sports cafe: on the stanford campus, difficult parking, but a cool lunch joint. Good outside seating. Besides your diner favorites (patty melt and fries), a selection of wraps and smoothies. They take pride in roasting their own turkey, which is tasty in a wrap. It’s right in the middle of the sports part of the Stanford campus, so fit sporty people eat lunch there. Good healthy-er option but when you still want some fries.
Rara [PA, old Baume space] - fancy interior. A little hard to consider this food Nepalese. It certainly had a slightly different spice twist, but the menu was what I’d think of as very north indian (not in a bad way). Not a great lunch spot though, not much in the way of lunch specials, so I had the lamb shank which was far too much food but very tasty so I ate it anyway. I liked the place - I can’t think of a hearty north indian place until you get to maybe Amber in MV, but it doesn’t seem like they’re getting enough traction to hold down a location on california ave, unless they’ve got a sweet deal on rent.
Tarsis Taqueria [ EPA ] - I’m not sure there’s anything about this taco truck that puts it above other tacos in the area, but it was pretty danged good. The reason to mention is probably the proximity to Cooley Landing Park, so you can get your tacos and drive out and watch the bay.
Ramen Nagi [ PA ] - I have a family member currently obsessed by Ramen, so we arrived only 5 minutes after opening time. We got an immediate seat, but one of the last. The place is absolutely all that, great broth depth, excellent noodles, high quality toppings. Expensive (probably $25/pp all in for lunch), but we’ve had other ramens at the same price for lunch of lower quality. I got the spicy ramen and wished I hadn’t - my companion’s straight up tonkatsu broth showed excellent balance and subtlety.
Guapas Mexican Grill [ MP ]: place is clearly wired to be a chipotle competitor chain. I was rather shocked that they wanted to put rice and beans on my tacos. I mean beans, sure, that’s a thing, but rice? It’s part of the formula. Unlike Chipotle, the place has a bar and happy hour specials. Meats were OK in that chipotle way. No real reason to eat here with so many better options around.
The list also includes hotel lunches and office cafeterias, when open to the public. I think my least favorite so far is “Zoom Cafe”, which appears to have a contract with a bunch of Stanford Health. Premade and microwaved, not a hidden gem.
A few other lunch notes:
Cafe Zoe [ MP ], a long favorite, appears to be sliding downhill for non-Pizza options. Although the new owner clearly knows his dough and toppings, the sandwiches are fairly slap-dash affairs. The long standing art exhibitions have been missing the last few weeks. I wish them the best, but in a stop this week, I won’t be getting one of those sandwiches again, will keep stopping by for the good outdoor vibe and espresso.
Embrace Luck [ MV ] - wow! very legit chinese. Apparently chopsticks with removable sanitizable tips are the rage post-covid in china, they have them. The menu is very heavy on offal and intestines, without as much for non-offal lovers as Da Sichuan 10 minutes up the street, but I got the “boiled beef” and it was the best I’ve had outside china. Both pink and green peppercorns were in the house, and it was correctly light on red pepper spices, being long on peppercorns. Like I’ve had the dish in beijing, the color is more of a dirty green brown, not red. The cabbage was especially well prepared, soaking up the peppercorn flavors. The staff did ask nervously, “that’s spicy, would you like us to tone it down?” which I partially took as a good sign - they didn’t do it automatically. I was at lunch on the later side, and there was one other table, a chinese group of moms with kids, speaking in what I understand to be “standard mandrin” accent (the homogated school version), I couldn’t detect much accent. Place seems to have alcohol at dinner.
Amato’s - as one of my (young) family members never had eaten cheesesteak, we had a cheesesteak at Jersey Joe’s, which was ranked as amazing. The idea of cheesesteak with bacon had never occurred to me, but it seems places have bacon on the menu and are willing to fry up your meat with the bacon. It’s now my young friend’s go-to order. Jersey Joe’s roll was stale, even though they are a believer in the Hot and Sweet, so I rank it as acceptable not great. Amato’s was better. They also were willing to do bacon, had a slightly better price, but had a more correct fluffy roll, and good atmosphere. I still love the Cheesesteak Shop mini-chain but Amato’s is legit. On a different note, Refuge [ SC ] holds down a very good cheesesteak, even if they don’t hold strictly to the Philly norms (their meat crumbles, not in sheet, the roll isn’t quite as light, toppings are non-standard, but the dish is always great). Also happened to eat at Newkirk’s [ SF, mission ] and it was quite good. Good meat, good roll, maybe a cut below on toppings is all.
Kumako Den - also in the ramen exploration series, Kumako Den was chosen because of its high Google ratings (over some of the eater list). Place is clearly not run by japanese, but it was a little unclear if it was korean or south chinese or maybe both. Well regarded gyoza. Place clearly knows broth, which had depth of taste, and the dumpling filling was excellent, but the wrappers and noodles showed some lack of understanding. Shockingly expensive for a hole in the wall. Would eat there if near, not worth a trip though.
Taro San [ PA ] - shopping center noodle bar, pretty legit. As most of the spots in stanford shopping center are a bit watered down, this place might be my choice if I was hungry and in the area. On the other hand, like most ramen places, portions were huge.
Mountain Mike’s AYCE pizza lunch is certainly the place to be if you’re a burly construction worker, but surprisingly gets a fair amount of office workers doing mostly salad and a small slice on the side. With lunches pushing $20 all in as the regular amount, at $15 AYCE it’s a decent deal.
Fambrini’s Cafe [ PA ] was a rather delightful lunch. In a sense, there’s nothing particularly awesome about it, but it’s also just plain solid. Menu is generally Mediterranean, lots of seating, counter service. Part of the “high normal” lunch pricing, but with a good atmosphere. The place had escaped my attention for years, so mentioning it here.
Los Gemelos #2 [ RWC ] - a long time favorite with excellent tortillas made by hand, when Los Gemelos was on Middlefield in the spot that’s now Cucos. They moved to ECR (#1 location), and recently expanded back to Middlefield. The problem is the same as it was in the new location: same great tortillas, above average meats, and below average atmosphere. No outdoor seating, crumby fake flowers, broken down TV.
Brewery news - bonus if you’ve read this far. Two of my favorite breweries, Freewheel and Laughing Monk, have been bought or merged with people with more money, and have been expanding. I’m concerned the charm and above average beer of both places will not survive, as Laughing Monk seems to have mostly abandoned its Belgian attempts. At Freewheel, I talked to the bartender guy about the expansion plans, and he said “I heard about it from a customer”, which is REALLY not a good sign. On the other hand, Hapa Brewing on Laurel in SC has a belgian on tap. While it was a little light and maybe under-funkified, at least they had a belgian, and a fairly pleasant atmosphere among places like Towne serving overly hearty american fare.
