Palo Alto Restaurants

Peet's is a great little coffee shop right outside the Stanford University campus. The coffee was very fresh, and I had a tasty muffin. It was a lot less expensive than what I normally pay at Starbucks, so well worth the cup of Joe!

On the way to one of my business meetings, we stopped in at the Cook Book restaurant for breakfast. I had an omelette and it was delicious. Great place for a quick breakfast!

Enjoy it, and if you like them... try the cheese blintzes!

This restaurant is a little off the beaten path and was opened in late 2003 or early 2004 I think. The food is mostly Thai and some Vietnamese, with a few tasty vegetarian options. It is in a small, unassuming building next to a pizza place and a hair salon. The decor is nice and minimal, with nice ambient lighting and artwork. It usually has quite nice music playing too. Here is a link to an online review: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/2003/2003_11_28.mintleaf28.html

Favorite Dish: My favorite dishes are the spicy seafood soup and the green curry eggplant. The spicy seafood soup has coconut milk, lemongrass, galangal, and lots of really high quality seafood in it including large scallops, shrimp, and well-cleaned mussels. Very tasty and piping hot! The green curry eggplant also has some spicy green peppers in it, coconut milk, and basil. Very delicious!

Very homey restaurant with wood panelling. Not a touristy place. Very authentic, delicious food. Often very crowded at lunch time (so sometimes service is slower then). It is usually less crowded at dinner. The staff are very friendly and the food is consistently good.

Favorite Dish: You can get your choice of many different items on a combination plate, with a different price for one, two, or three items. I prefer a smaller plate, and usually just get one item.

My favorite is the chile relleno with rice and beans. A second favorite is the red enchilada. Neither of these is extremely spicy, but both dishes have an excellent flavor. A good compliment is an ice cold Negro Modelo beer!

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When heading off to new towns I always try to find something unique I can't get back home. In Monterey I can get just about any kind of food I can imagine, but I never realized we don't have Caribbean food. So when planning my short visit to Palo Alto, the two or three Caribbean restaurants in town really caught my eye. Mango had the best reviews on Yelp so we decided to check it out.

We finally wandered by the restaurant just as it was getting dark, maybe at 6:30 pm. There were a few people seated at a few of the four outside tables and inside was even busier. Compared to many other restaurants we passed earlier, this seemed very lively despite its just-a-little-bit-off-the-beaten-path location. We were immediately seated at one of the remaining outdoor tables and Laura ordered a sangria and I asked for a Jamaican Red Stripe; the waitress asked if I wanted a big one or a small one, and I was confused having never seen a big bottle of Red Stripe...sure enough 24 ounces!

Our meal started with the "Mobay" appetizer, consisting of spicy fried shrimp with fried plantain and rice for $8.50; this was an excellent start to our meal as the shrimp were the perfect spiciness and the sweet plantains an interesting counter to the spice. Laura decided to try something completely different for her main course and chose the "Raggamuffin Style" which is marinated oxtail with red beans and rice and fried veggies for $14.50, and I had the "Reggae Platter" with jerked chicken over white rice or red beans & rice for $12. Both meals had very large quantities of fresh and tasty food. My jerk chicken was boneless and spicy, but not over the top. The oxtail was flavorful, but without the spicy kick of the shrimp or the jerk chicken. The red beans and rice were buttery and tasty, but the fried veggies were a little heavy on the onions, which were somewhat undercooked and raw.

Overall, this was a great and unique meal that left me wanting to visit the Caribbean!

The Old Pro Sports Bar is a huge bar right in the middle of downtown Palo Alto with about 25 flat screen TVs and a huge following. It was one of the few relatively casual bars I found in Palo Alto and I was happy to spend a few hours here on a Saturday during college football season.

We arrived around noon and grabbed two of the last seats at the bar. We ordered a few cold Sam Adams beers and menus... the tap labeled Sam Adams Oktoberfest was serving regular Sam, so they were a bit confused on that one. Otherwise, the staff was knowledgeable about both the food and the sports on pretty much all of the TVs. We ordered two of the steak sandwiches, medium rare for maybe $12 each. They were very tender and tasty and came with great crosscut fries with cheese.

We stayed for about 2 1/2 or 3 hours sipping beers and watching numerous college games including the local Stanford team getting beat up by Notre Dame. Throughout the meal the three waitresses/bartenders did a great job of providing good service and changing channels and keeping customers happy.

Maybe the coolest thing about Old Pro is the mechanical bull in the corner behind the bar.

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Pizza My Heart in central Palo Alto is the perfect late night pizza spot, close to all the bars and clubs, as well as the university and many hotels. We arrived around midnight and the huge dining room was packed and the lines at the pizza counter at least 15 deep. Laura had a slice of super veggie for $4 and I had the prima pizza with tomatoes and olives for $3.75. A Diet Coke was $1.75 and a draft beer just $3.25. We stood in line for about 5 minutes, then plopped down in the second last table in the dining room. This late at night, there were at least 100 people hanging out and munching on pizza, 98 percent of them (minus us) appeared to be local university students.

Besides Palo Alto, Pizza My Heart has locations in San Jose, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Willow Glen, Campbell, Saratoga, Blossom Hill, Los Gatos, Santa Cruz, Capitola, Monterey, Emeryville, San Mateo, Mountain View, and Redwood City.

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I have only eaten at Krang Siam once and it was excellent. Many people like it though. You may read their comments.

Favorite Dish: Som tom and gai yang (grilled beef and pork too) with sticky rice