Hooray for Hobee's

Why has Hobee's been voted best breakfast in Palo Alto by readers of the Palo Alto Weekly newspaper so many times it's now in the Hall of Fame? Let me count the ways. Hobee's offers the quintessential California breakfast and brunch with a lively atmosphere and comfortable setting. You can even order breakfast for dinner and no one will bat an eye. Starting with their very cinnamon-y hot or iced tea, robust coffee, or fruit smoothie, a meal at Hobee's brings comforting nourishment as well as big flavor and smiles. Featuring a diverse, friendly, healthy, and mouthwatering selection of choices, Hobee's is as sure-fire a restaurant for anyone looking for a satisfying meal as there could be.

Widely known for its tall blueberry coffeecake with cinnamon crumb topping, Hobee's features seasonal coffeecake flavors including apple walnut, peach pecan, cranberry, and banana toffee. The omelets and scrambles never fail to deliver. My favorites include the Florentine scramble with spinach, mushrooms, and cheese; the Pruneyard omelet with turkey bacon, onion, mushrooms, and Swiss; the Santa Cruz scramble with artichoke hearts and lots of garlic; and the breakfast burrito, a whole wheat tortilla stuffed with eggs, rice, salsa, cheese, and guacamole.  Sometimes I'll either take the coffeecake to go or just eat the top, which of course includes the cinnamon brown sugar topping. My husband often orders the BDBIT, the Best Darn Breakfast in Town -- two eggs, country-style hashbrowns, and coffeecake or toast.

Hobee's sells some items to go, including large tins of coffeecake, cinnamon tea, and crunchy granola. They also sell their famous t-shirts, and if you bring in a photo of yourself wearing the t-shirt at some far away yet recognizable landmark location, you can earn a free meal. Just look at the wall of photos inside every Hobee's to get an idea of its devoted fans and the lengths they will go to to get a free Hobee's meal.

Hobee's is always busy so if you go at the height of the breakfast or lunch hour, you may have to wait. I think the longest we've waited to get into Hobee's was forty-five excruciating minutes, but it's always worth it when nothing less will do. Luckily they have many locations in Silicon Valley. Just make sure if you're meeting a friend, to make it very clear *which* Hobee's you want to meet at so that you're not waiting and wondering, growing hungrier by the minute! (I speak from experience.) It is a good place to meet people, and sometimes you will overhear Silicon Valley business deals being made at nearby tables. It works for both business and pleasure get-togethers, but choose another restaurant if you're looking for a romantic meal or quiet conversation.

The restaurant is extremely kid-friendly with crayons, a kid's menu, and a fun happy face made of fruit on glass plates to start. My daughter Amanda's usual choice is the Mickey's Pancake, and she always gets a kick out of the menu item which reads, "Liver & Onions--with brussel sprouts, broccoli, eggplant, and lots of beets, $29.95." Dinner meals also please the palate: pastas, wraps, and sandwiches fill the menu, as well as burgers, salads, hash brown concoctions, and any of the breakfast egg dishes. It's a good place to bring a largish group with kids because there's something for everyone.

There must be something special in their cinnamon, because the cinnamon tea and cinnamon coffeecake have a special allure that always brings me back. It's extra spicy and flavorful, the kind that makes my taste buds do a little dance, and something about it fires off powerful neurons in my brain that reinforce my love of the place and the food. I wouldn't be surprised if scientific studies showed the cinnamon triggers endorphins which have the magical effect of stimulating animated conversation and pleasurable eating.

It's comforting to know that a Silicon Valley institution like Hobee's is just minutes away, and that here I can find one of my favorite breakfast meals even if it's for dinner. It would be hard to count how many times I've eaten at Hobee's over the years. Sometimes I take it for granted, and going there is more of an afterthought than a destination. But it's good to take a moment to be grateful and appreciate the wonderful elements of ordinary life, including nearby restaurants that have always been there. Hobee's definitely delivers.

XANH

If you like the vibrant flavors of Vietnamese cuisine, hip decor, and exploring new restaurants, it's worth checking out XANH. Winner of four awards on OpenTable (hot spot, most booked, vibrant bar scene, and Vietnamese cuisine), XANH offers a flavorful and fashionable culinary adventure you won't soon forget. The restaurant achieves its goal to "fuse the culinary traditions of Vietnam with modern aesthetics and complexities."

XANH, which means 'green' in Vietnamese (I love Google Translator on my iGoogle page), also boasts the Michelin Bib Gourmand designation. Located on the eclectic and electric ethnic Castro Street in Mountain View, XANH offers a completely different world for your senses the minute you set foot inside. Decorated in soothing blues with thoroughly modern decor, hypnotic background music and traditional Vietnamese motifs, the restaurant immediately creates an intriguing and inviting ambiance.

As it should be, the food is what's most compelling. As servers bring out dishes for fellow diners, it's fun to see what others order. The biggest challenge is choosing what to have off the lengthy menu. We finally settled on these dishes:

kobe roll marinated beef, rice noodles, fresh lettuce, cilantro, carrots, cucumber, and roasted peanuts | served with nuoc cham vinaigrette

papaya salad poached shrimp, green papaya, carrots, cu cai trang, sliced mango, cilantro, mint, caramelized shallot | served with roasted peanuts and nuoc cham vinaigrette

bun thit nuong choice of sautéed beef, grilled pork, or grilled shrimp | with rice noodles, sliced cucumber, sliced green apples, cilantro, mint, carrots, and crispy shallots | served with shrimp cracker, roasted peanuts, and nuoc cham vinaigrette

XANH shrimp cakes minced shrimp and chicken, glass noodles, carrots, and garlic atop toasted bread | served with lightly spiced vinaigrette | servings of four or six pieces

XANH full moon wraps™ four baby rice crêpes stuffed with shrimp, bean sprouts, white and green onions | served with lettuce, sliced mango and fresh herbs

My favorite dish was the XANH full moon wraps. Everything comes piled on crispy green bib lettuce leaves, with a little dish of sweet sauce to drizzle over before rolling it all up in the lettuce and taking that first incredible bite. The melding of crisp, crunchy, sweet, and sour ingredients works beautifully together, like a symphony's crescendo sending chills up your spine. Eyes widen, pupils dilate, the heartbeat quickens, and salivary glands go into overdrive. It's one of those dishes I could easily develop a craving for, pulling me back for more addictive delight.

I also greatly enjoyed the kobe roll and bun thit nuong, which our server assembled quietly yet dramatically for us at the table. The papaya salad gave a wonderfully crisp and clean start to the meal. The shrimp cakes were my least favorite dish. While I enjoyed the interesting flavors (did I detect cinnamon?) and the stylish European fusion (the cakes came atop a circle of toast), it didn't quite work as well overall.

We saw so many other wonderful dishes that our fellow diners seemed to enjoy, all with beautiful presentation and a bit of drama (look out for the dry ice!). It's one of those places that draws me back to try out all the dishes that wouldn't fit in my stomach the first time. I think that's a mark of great menu design and food: describe and offer dishes so mouthwatering and enticing that diners return to try out more things and tell their friends about it. Next time I want to try:

lucky egg noodles (mi xao don) chicken, shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, baby bok choy, baby corn, and white onions upon a bed of golden crispy egg noodles

crab martini fresh crab claw meat, mixed bell peppers, avocado and other fresh herbs

ahi tuna tartare spicy ahi tuna, cucumber, avocado | served with wonton chips

tamarind prawns sauteed jumbo prawns on a lake of tamarind sauce

Ahh yes, I must go back soon to get my fix...the crave-worthy full moon wraps and other delectables await....

Edible Enjoyment in a Korean Strip Mall

I love exploring ethnic markets--deciphering packages, discovering new ingredients, and stepping into the unknown. One such Silicon Valley market is the Galleria Plaza Korean market in Santa Clara. In a little Korean strip mall at 3531 El Camino Real, the Galleria Plaza is full of items I know nothing about. I've started to learn a bit more about Korean cuisine ever since my brother Doug married Yoojung Kang, who moved to the U.S. from Seoul during college. (By the way, Yoojung used to be my daughter's preschool teacher and I introduced her and Doug to each other!)

After an 'extreme' Korean spa experience at the Lawrence Health Center next door (that's a whole other story), I went to the Galleria Plaza in my blissed-out state to look for some new items to try. I ended up purchasing:

- Sriracha chili sauce in the famous rooster bottle, made in California
- crunchy rice crackers, lightly seasoned with soy sauce and individually wrapped, making them nice lunch box snacks
- S&B Curry Sauce mix, made in Japan
- kimchi, one of numerous varieties offered, including huge jars that would last for years in our home (imagine the odeur) but probably would last a month or so in a big Korean family's refrigerator
- Super Lemon hard candies, surprisingly one of the most sour flavors we have ever tried (these make a great kid's activity or fun little gift)
- Hanmi pumpkin hard candies, just because I love pumpkin
- Orion Choco Pies, like moon pies (two chocolate dipped cookies with a marshmallow filling), because I once watched an infomercial on a Korean television channel all about this company and how singularly focused it is on producing the highest quality Choco Pie dessert snacks imaginable in the entire universe

In just one shopping trip I acquired a wide variety of interesting, tasty, and, for most Americans, unusual collection of edibles. Prices are so reasonable that it's little risk to try something completely unknown. If you don't like it, pass it on to someone who might. I enjoy conducting taste tests with our family of five to see what everyone thinks of new foods and to get their ratings. We all have very different preferences, and I have to say that there wasn't any one food (even the Choco Pies) that got an enthusiastic thumbs-up from all of us. My husband loves anything hot and spicy, so prefers the chili sauce (on almost anything) as well as the kimchi. The kids like the rice crackers, Choco Pies, and sour lemon candies best.

Our most eaten food in this list is the S&B Golden Curry sauce, one of those fairly rare dinner meals that we all enjoy. It's easy to make, and completely flexible in what ingredients you include. Just follow the directions on the back. The sauce cooks up in a saute pan on the stove top, while you can make rice in a rice cooker or however you prefer. We like to serve it over brown rice cooked with sauteed onion, carrots, and peas. It would be easy to add any kind of meat pieces or other vegetables like potatoes or broccoli. We usually get the mild version because of our kids' more sensitive taste buds, but the more adventurous can try the medium or hot versions. Japanese curry tastes different from Indian curry but has a familiar aroma and kick, both sweet and spicy, with a creamy texture that coats the ingredients in its velvety embrace. It's considered Japanese peasant comfort food, a meal that starts brightly in your nose and mouth, and settles warmly in your stomach.

I'll never forget when my husband and I were in Tokyo and we enjoyed a nice curry dinner from a unique diner. We ordered our food choices from a vending machine, handed our tickets to the fast order cook, and he made our curries to order. We ate in the casual diner-like restaurant, sharing tables with other curry fans, and watching the passers-by outside through the windows. Of course it's not as sophisticated or artistic as sushi, but Japanese curry hits the spot. If you'd rather eat it at a restaurant, Gombei restaurant at 1438 El Camino Real in Menlo Park serves Japanese curry dishes.

Choco Pies are another item worth mentioning in more detail. Considered the quintessential snack of Korea, Choco Pies could be considered the Asian equivalent of Oreo cookies.  The Orion Confectionery company has made these snacks for about thirty-five years.  They now make up an impressive two-thirds of the Chinese cookie market! Also big sellers in Russia and Vietnam, Choco Pies are apparently considered a sign of capitalism by the North Korean people. Similar to Oreo cookies because of their chocolate flavor, sandwich cookies, white filling, and manufactured appearance and flavor, Choco Pies still offer some fun, sweet pleasure with their squishy marshmallow middles, crumbly cookies, and chocolate coating. You don't have to be a capitalist to eat and enjoy one.

Next time you're in the area, wander around the Galleria Plaza and try something new. You just might find a new favorite.

Etoiles Michelin

Top tier restaurants around the world covet elusive Michelin stars. Michelin stars are the equivalent of Nobel prizes in the culinary world, and just as hard to attain. Awarded by anonymous, professionally-trained experts, Michelin stars instantly endorse a restaurant for outstanding quality in culinary achievement, not only for taste and appearance, but for innovative food, drink, and top-notch service. I've been to a handful of restaurants which have received this honor and enjoyed each one immensely. The three-star designation in particular is exceedingly rare with only 81 restaurants in the world achieving this status. The following Bay Area restaurants have received a Michelin star for 2010:

Three stars:

The French Laundry, Yountville

Two stars:

Coi, San Francisco; Cyrus, Healdsburg; Manresa, Los Gatos; The Restaurant at Meadowood, St. Helena.

One star:

South Bay/Peninsula: Chez TJ, Mountain View; Plumed Horse, Saratoga; The Village Pub, Woodside.

San Francisco: Acquerello, Ame, Aziza, Boulevard, the Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton, Fifth Floor, Fleur de Lys, Gary Danko, La Folie, Luce, Masa's, Michael Mina, One Market, Quince, Range.
East Bay: Chez Panisse, Berkeley; Commis, Oakland.
North Bay: Auberge de Soleil, Napa; Bouchon, Yountville; Etoile, Yountville; Farmhouse Inn & Restaurant, Forestville; La Toque, Napa; Madrona Manor, Healdsburg; Murray Circle, Sausalito; Redd, Yountville; Sante, Sonoma; Solbar, Calistoga; Terra, St. Helena; Ubuntu, Napa.

Of these, I have enjoyed deliciously memorable meals at Chez TJ , The Village Pub, One Market, Bouchon, and Chez Panisse. I count myself lucky to have this many Michelin starred restaurants to choose from in the San Francisco Bay Area, and look forward to trying even more.

This year I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Michelin group has created a new tier of recognition for more ordinary restaurants called Michelin Bib Gourmand. These restaurants have been designated as high quality and good value for the money even if they don't achieve worldwide status. Good value for the money means that for less than $40, you can get two courses and dessert or wine, not including tax or tips. This category of more affordable, casual, and realistic options identifies a welcome new set of go-to great restaurants for Bay Area food lovers to choose from.

The ones I've eaten at include: Bay Wolf, Crouching Tiger, Junnoon, The Slanted Door, and Yank Sing.  I haven't been to elegant Bay Wolf in years, but used to love going there when I worked at the Clorox Company in Oakland.  Crouching Tiger isn't too far away from us in Redwood City, and features many spicy and mouth-watering Szechuan dishes. Junnoon takes Indian food to a new level with its Indian-California fusion cuisine and fabulous ambiance, featuring colorful decor and hypnotic music. The Slanted Door is a Bay Area institution, with to-die-for Asian dishes including spring rolls and BBQ steamed pork buns. Yank Sing features delicious dim sum and is always busy. A dim sum tip: Get a table near the kitchen so you have first pick of the hot dishes as they're wheeled out on carts.

Which Michelin restaurants have you eaten at? I would love to hear what you think of them, both good and bad, and what dishes you'd recommend. Bon appetit!

Popping Chocolate Gomashio

 

Even though it's been twelve years since I worked at Intuit software company, several former co-worker friends and I enjoy getting together for food and conversation. Recently Mari Baker, CEO of PlayFirst, invited six of us over for a delicious dinner featuring food and a cooking lesson from Chef Laura Stec, co-author of a cookbook called Cool Cuisine.

Laura is one of the Bay Area's forward thinkers when it comes to food and its link to the environment. She believes our food choices can have an even greater effect on global warming than our driving choices. As a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and former chef at local restaurants Flea Street Cafe and Left Bank, Laura has in-depth experience creating flavorful and innovative dishes using local, organic, environment-friendly ingredients.

She calls her food philosophy 'high vibe', meaning that we put energy into growing, producing, transporting, selling, and preparing food, and then get energy from eating food both physically and emotionally. It takes more effort to seek and use the ingredients and recipes that adhere to Cool Cuisine's high vibe principles. But by putting in the effort, Laura walks her talk and teaches others about her food philosophy. Taking this approach to the food we eat can result in more meaningful and satisfying meals.

I enjoyed each dish that Laura prepared for us. Laura's stories behind the foods helped me appreciate and understand each ingredient better. I ate more mindfully. It felt quite different from mindless eating that can happen when I'm preoccupied, in a hurry, or just plain stressed. Her approach is live to eat, instead of eat to live.

Our menu included these delightful dishes:

- Hometown Cheese Platter featuring bee pollinator crops

- Grass-Fed Beef Tagliata on Crostini with Arugula and Green Peppercorn

- Local Honey Sparkler

- Japanese Hot Pot with Slow-Cooked Carrot, Cauliflower, and Braised Tofu

- Baked Hato-Mugi (barley) and Brown Rice

- High Vibe ice cream with Popping Chocolate Gomashio

While each dish brought plenty of flavor, texture, and sustenance, my taste buds popped most both literally and figuratively when savoring our dessert, the Popping Chocolate Gomashio. Gomashio is a Japanese condiment (goma= seed, shio=salt). Laura brilliantly combined chocolate nibs, sesame seeds, brown sugar, agave nectar, sliced almonds, and (surprise!) pastry pop rocks (available at Rubber Chef). When Laura combined the ingredients and sprinkled them on top of Straus ice cream, she created a cold, crunchy, sweet, savory, popping experience both unique and delectable. I enjoyed every bit of the sundae, marveling at her and its genius. The sesame seeds added a wonderfully nutty flavor and texture, and the pop rocks made me laugh out loud. Try this dish if you want to make a dessert that's truly memorable, completely original, and indescribably yummy. Oh yeah, it's earth-friendly too, making it that much more enjoyable, especially when eaten with good, long-time friends.

Popping Chocolate Gomashio

Our food choices can have an equal and possibly greater effect on global warming than our driving can! Eating carbon dioxide pop rocks, like the ones in Popping Chocolate Gamashio, won't solve global warming, but they are a great conversation starter about the issues and a fun addition to any dinner party. This sweet gomashio can be sprinkled over your local organic ice cream, yogurt, pudding, or fruit. Makes 1/2 cup.

3 tablespoons brown sesame seed

1/4 cup chocolate nibs (look for fair trade and organic)

4 teaspoons organic brown sugar (see note)

2 tablespoons sliced almonds

2 teaspoons agave nectar

2 tablespoons pastry pop rocks (optional- sold at pastry stores and online)

Heat a stainless steel frying pan on high. When hot, pour in 1/2 of the sesame seeds in a single layer. Cover; the seeds should start popping immediately. Toast while shaking the pan as if you were popping popcorn, for 30-60 seconds. Watch and listen closely because the seeds burn quickly. The seeds should be lightly toasted, not dark brown or black. Pour popped seeds from the skillet into a medium-size bowl while they are still popping. Repeat with remaining seeds. Add the chocolate nibs, almonds, sugar and agave nectar; combine. Right before serving, mix in the pop rocks.

Note: Look for organic, fair-trade sugars and unique varieties, such as dark brown molasses sugar.

(Cool Cuisine- Taking the Bite out of Global Warming. Reprinted with permission from Laura Stec.)

Chez Panisse

I have one of the weirdest birthdays of the calendar year: New Year's Eve. It's in that holiday dead zone between Christmas and New Year's when people are traveling, sleeping, eating, and watching football. Still, I always look forward to this day not because I'm another year older or there are so many festivities and parties, but because it's one day of the year that I get to choose a nice restaurant for a gastronomic feast with my husband. It doesn't matter if it's expensive, trendy, prix fixe, has tiny portions, needs a month-in-advance reservation, or requires driving over an hour. It's my birthday, and we'll dine there if I want to.

For my birthday in 2009 to close out the decade, I made reservations at a renowned Bay Area restaurant we'd never been to before, Chez Panisse. All you foodies out there know about Alice Waters and her pioneering quest to combine environmental harmony and delicious flavor. Would the restaurant live up to the hype and the legend? We drove out to Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto to find out for ourselves.

Knowing we ran a risk entering Bear territory with my Stanford Alumni license plate holder (at least we weren't wearing red), we obeyed all traffic laws and paid the parking meter like good citizens. Only we soon discovered that this wasn't really the Berkeley way. We noticed several people sitting on the grassy median eating their pizza slices from the Cheeseboard restaurant right next to big signs stating 'Keep Off Median'.  Apparently civil disobedience is the name of the game in Berkeley territory, and we Cardinals had some lessons to learn.

We showed up on time for our lunch reservation, and eagerly walked up the steps to the restaurant entrance. We had reservations at the more casual, a la cart Cafe upstairs, which I knew would suit us better than the fancier and more expensive prix fixe dinners offered in the restaurant on the ground floor.  We had a nice carafe of still filtered tap water and some fresh bread with rich yummy butter to eat while we waited for our food.

I ordered and thoroughly enjoyed the following dishes:

- Salad of beets and cauliflower with a ginger and preserved lemon dressing. I'm a big beet lover although I never make them myself. The vibrant purple beet nuggets felt firm to the tongue with a fabulous sweet/spicy/sour taste when combined with the ginger and lemon. The cauliflower florets were like no other I'd ever had, small and tender, white and green, probably grown nearby and a beautiful example of fractal shapes found in edible nature.

- Homemade orecchiette pasta with mushrooms, sage, and pecorino cheese. I love any kind of homemade pasta. I love any kind of mushrooms. I love sage and cheese combined with mushrooms and pasta. While the flavors of this dish weren't as revelatory to me as the salad's, I savored every bite. The pasta was so tender yet had enough al dente to each bite. I love, love, love mushrooms, so earthy and savory, tender and bursting with juicy umami goodness. The sage and pecorino cheese perfectly highlighted and brightened the other two ingredients. I ate every morsel happily, with a smile on my lips.

- Apple and sour cherry tart a la mode. This was one of those to-die-for fruit desserts made all that much better by the perfect blend of tart apple, sour cherry, and buttery pastry flavors. Of course vanilla ice cream provided the perfect harmonious complement to the fruit tart, not only for its creamy melting texture but also for its rich, milky flavor and icy coldness. To me, this was dessert perfected.

- Blue Bottle coffee. One of the best coffees ever, and locally roasted to boot (see previous post called Yin-Yang Refreshment for more about Blue Bottle).

Brad ordered the cannellini bean soup, and a whole haddock with potatoes and coleslaw. He ate everything quickly and without speaking, a sure sign of his gastronomic enjoyment. His other telling signs included nodding up and down while chewing, tilting the soup bowl to get the last drop, and protesting when I moved the tart plate closer to me so that I could reach our shared dessert more easily. (Hey, it was my birthday, after all!)

So did Chez Panisse meet my high birthday expectations and culinary anticipation? Yes, it did. Every bite tasted divine. Each dish made its main ingredient the star, was simple and fresh, beautiful and natural, made with tender loving care. I'll remember it as a wonderfully satisfying and lovely meal, and a delightful place to try for the first time on my birthday. I wonder where we'll go next year?

Sublime Suraj Indian Cuisine

 

More than any other ethnic cuisine, Indian food transports me to a faraway place and time with its intoxicating blend of spices, textures, and sauces. My husband and youngest daughter don't like Indian food much, but one night when they were both gone I took our other two children out to Suraj Restaurant in Redwood City. Suraj was recommended to me by good friend and neighbor Kiki Kapany, whose parents originally lived in India before making their way to the U.S. and raising their family in Woodside. For her, Suraj is the go-to place when she wants some Indian comfort food. That says a lot.  Her dad Narinder Kapany is widely known as the father of fiber optics, and he too enjoys Suraj. 

On the outside the restaurant doesn't look like much, and its location on busy El Camino Real across from Target is a far cry from a more hip or sophisticated area. But the food tells the story, and we were not disappointed. We started out with vegetable samosas, a good standard Indian appetizer to whet the appetite and tantalize the taste buds. Then the main courses arrived all at once like presents on Christmas morning, and we enthusiastically dove in. The aloo gobi vegetarian dish, with its tender cauliflower and potatoes melded with a hypnotic spicy sauce, elevates ordinary vegetables to a state of sublime. Cauliflower never tasted so good. My thirteen-year-old daughter Valerie said that was her favorite dish, along with the fragrant garlic naan, a chewy accompaniment to our meal, perfect for sopping up all the sauce left on our plates (bad breath be damned).

My favorite Indian dish has always been the mutter paneer, peas and soft homemade cheese cubes swimming in a heavenly, silky sauce.  Not only does it light fireworks in my mouth, it also tingles going down, leaving a warm glow in my stomach and tears in my eyes. It wouldn't be hard to Google the ingredients, but somehow I like leaving its secret blend a mystery so I can experience it in an instinctual right-brain way instead of analyzing it with left-brain precision. We also enjoyed the curry chicken, with its mild sauce and oh-so tender, fall-apart pieces of meat. The kids ordered sweet and cooling mango lassi drinks, a nice way to offset the hot spices of the food but too sweet for my taste (and I do have serious a sweet tooth).

Eating this meal made it hard not to moan with pleasure at every bite, and I know I would have if we'd been eating privately at home. It's worth trying if you're a fan of Indian food, or even if you consider yourself a novice. Try something new and bring some companions to share the experience. Eat sparingly during that day before your meal so that you can savor and enjoy the flavors as much as possible. For me this brings out the brilliant combination of flavors, creating a more memorable and satisfying meal. The day-long anticipation heightens the satisfaction experienced when eating it (this has been proven through fMRI research done by a professor at the Stanford Business School!).

The restaurant's website lists the menu and addresses of its two locations in Redwood City and Milpitas.  But you'll have to go inside to read the back of the menu to discover the various benefits of different spices used there. Did you know coriander not only boasts fantastic flavor but also can be used as an aphrodisiac? Maybe those hidden qualities, along with the evident talent of the cooks, infuse the secret sauce that makes eating at Suraj so memorably mouthwatering.