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San Francisco Peninsula

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Osteria Coppa, San Mateo

Unfortunately, Osteria Coppa Closed in June 2016.

Osteria Coppa San Mateo exterior

Osteria Coppa is a new restaurant from the owners of Sam’s Chowder House in Half Moon Bay located in the former Pomaroma Cafe location. Osteria in Italian means a place where the owner “hosts” people or an Italian-style eating establishment. They are focusing on artisan pizza and pasta along with a variety of other authentic Italian dishes using local and seasonal ingredients. Seafood is sustainably-fished and the meats we use are antibiotic free. This mirrors places like Pizzaiolo in Oakland, Flour and Water in San Francisco. Founding Executive chef of Osteria Coppa is rising star Chanan Kamen, formerly of Quince, but he left a couple years ago for Mexico. His proteges continue turning out the menu. Our last visit was in 2016.

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Birch Street Restaurant Review, Palo Alto

Birch Street Palo Alto exterior decor

Birch Street is a French-Californian bistro in the California Avenue shopping district of Palo Alto. The focus on local, organic, and sustainable ingredients from the local farmers market. They use to be known as Bistro Elan and were located around the corner. The new restaurant is fairly small and much more casual. We liked the old restaurant, so it was a no brainer to give this one a try.

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Wakuriya Restaurant Review, San Mateo

Wakuriya San Mateo Exterior Decor

Wakuriya is a Michelin Starred Restaurant in a San Mateo strip mall. They’ve been around for several years and have established themselves as one of the finest Japanese restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area. The owner and chef Katsuhiro Yamasaki used to work at Kaygetsu (a now closed Japanese Fine dining restaurant). His wife also helps to run this tiny restaurant. You need to book roughly one month in advance as this restaurant only has 4 tables and a small counter.

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All Spice Restaurant Review, San Mateo

All Spice San Mateo exterior decor

Why did we dine here? – All Spice is one of the highest rated restaurants on Yelp (4.5 stars) within the San Francisco Peninsula. We’ve heard good things about this restaurant. A recent review on Check Please reminded us. Their unlucky but cozy mini Victorian location just off El Camino Real has housed The Dining Room, Dolly Marie, among others. This restaurant focuses on seasonal food along with the traditions of Indian cuisine.

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Attic Restaurant Review, San Mateo

Attic San Mateo Exterior Decor

Why did we dine here? – Attic is a Asian fusion restaurant in downtown San Mateo with an emphasize on Philipino cuisine. Tim Luym (Poleng Lounge) is their consulting chef. He previously ran restaurants in San Francisco. This restaurant has been here for about two years, so we figured it was worth a try.

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Orenchi Restaurant Review, Santa Clara

Orenchi Santa Clara Exterior Decor

Why did we dine here? – Orenchi is a very popular Japanese Noodle House that has been on our hit list for a while. They are a sister restuarant to Sumika in Los Gatos. The broth that they use is cooked for a minimum of 18 hours. It is made with organic chicken, Canadian black pork, and filtered water. There is a line much of the time. We had to wait approximately 45 minutes for a Saturday night dinner. They close up when they run out of broth, which happened about 8:30pm on this particular evening.

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Mitsunobu Restaurant Review, Menlo Park

Why did we dine here? – Restaurant Mitsunobu is a new restaurant from Owner Chef Mitsunobu and Executive Chef Aoki. They serve “traditional Japanese cuisine inspired by California.” Kaygetsu was located here previously. This restaurant focuses on local and seasonal ingredients.

Insider Tip – Lunch is cheaper.

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Hoshi Restaurant Review, Santa Clara

Hoshi Santa Clara Exterior Decor

Why did we dine here? – Hoshi is a small Japanese restaurant next to Lucky’s supermarket in Santa Clara. We were in the area and decided to eat here or Yuki Sushi. This restaurant is fairly informal and is run by a couple.
They have an extensive menu making it a cross between a general Japanese restaurant (IE Chicken Teriyaki) and a Izakaya restaurant. The kitchen is small, so food takes a while to arrive. The waitress also wants you to order everything at one time to prevent long pauses in your meal.

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Buck’s Restaurant Woodside Restaurant Review, Woodside

Bucks Woodside Exterior

Buck’s is a quirky restaurant nestled in the small town of Woodside. The interior is full of off the wall models, toys, posters, and more. Even the front of the seasonal menu has a lecture on different topics. Their website is pretty crazy. Our last visit was in 2014. They have a separate lunch special menu that changes from time to time. They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We came for lunch.

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La Costanera Restaurant Review, Montara

La Costanera Montara exterior decor

Why did we dine here? – La Costanera received One Michelin Star for 2012, raising the restaurant’s profile and putting it on our hit list. They focus on Peruvian cuisine and are located above the beach in Montara in a nice multi level building that housed The Chart House.

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Ike’s Place Restaurant Review, San Francisco

Ikes Place San Francisco Exterior Decor

Ike’s Place has been serving sandwiches since 2007 with lines out the door almost all the time. Ike Shehadeh’s believes that sandwiches should only be made with the finest ingredients and the utmost quality control. They added a Redwood City location (Ikes Lair of Redwood City) in July, 2009 and a Stanford location. Ike’s has 9 locations now! Our last visit was in April 2013 to Redwood City.

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Seiya Restaurant Review, San Carlos

Seiya San Carlos exterior decor

Why did we dine here? – Seiya is a small plates oriented Japanese restaurant in sleepy San Carlos. It is situated in a location that once housed Hamon Japanese Restaurant.
This restaurant is highly rated on Yelp, with 4.5 stars when we dined here. Chef/owner Kuo Hwa Chuang, from Domo and Blowfish in San Francisco runs Seiya.

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Sunny Shanghai Restaurant Review, San Bruno

Sunny Shanghai San Bruno Exterior decor

Sunny Shanghai is a small family owned restaurant located in southern San Bruno along busy El Camino Real, not far from Asian Pearl Peninsula. People have said that this owner started this restaurant because he was unhappy with family members at Little Shanghai in San Mateo. Our last visit was in April 2011 when we upgraded their food rating, finding this place a high quality cheap eats restaurants.

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Madera Restaurant Review, Menlo Park

Madera Restaurant Menlo Park exterior decor

Madera Restaurant is located in the Rosewood Sand Hill Hotel, just across the way from venture capital central. This is a high-end hotel that opened up just a couple years ago. Chef Peter Rudolph used to work at Campton place in San Francisco. He uses a wood-burning grill and explores artfully-crafted, market-driven cuisine of bold flavors. Sustainably harvested and produced seafood and meats. Madera means wood in Spanish.

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Piacere Restaurant Review, San Carlos

Piacere San Carlos exterior decor

Piacere means Pleasure, to please, a source delight or joy in Italian. This restaurant is located in San Carlos in the Laurel Street shopping area right across the street from restaurant Town and near Spasso. Piacere focuses on modern California-Italian cuisine using local and organic ingredients. One last visit was in May of 2011, where we sensed food quality slipping.

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Burger Joint Restaurant Review

Burger Joint Exterior

Burger Joint is another trendy high end burger place that uses high quality Niman ranch organic beef and Double Rainbow ice cream. They have 5 locations in the San Francisco area and have been around since 1994. We house dined at the Burlingame location several times, which is located in the Burlingame Avenue shopping district with our latest meal at the San Francisco Airport International terminal location. Burger Joint’ s quality has improved over the years.

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Asian Pearl Peninsula Lunch Dim Sum Restaurant Review, Millbrae

Asian Pearl Millbrae Exterior Decor

One of the better Chinese restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area… Asian Pearl Peninsula in Millbrae was at one time, part of the same Culinary Wonderland group that owned the highly rated The Kitchen in Millbrae, hence the same menu. We’ve been to this location a couple times and have found it to offer very good Cantonese Chinese cuisine, in face some of the best in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Richmond Asian Pearl has also served up very good Chinese food. This place stays open till 1am. Our visit was for dim sum lunch. Asian Pearl Peninsula has a separate Asian Pearl Peninsula dinner review. Our last visit was at the beginning of 2011.

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Caprinos Restaurant Review, Belmont

Caprinos Belmont exterior decor

Why did we dine here? – Caprinos is a long-standing Italian restaurant in Belmont that in March, 2011 became home to chef Gator Thompson. (Gators Neo Soul, several unsuccessful short stints after that) We were passing by and decided to see how his influence was taking shape. We focused on ordering items that he had added to the menu or reformulated. He is focusing on using fresh seasonal ingredients and healthy cooking.

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Taste In Restaurant Review, Burlingame

Taste In Burlingame exterior decor

Taste In is a family owned Mediterranean deli and restaurant in Burlingame’s Broadway Street shopping district. They focus on Mediterranean cuisine including falafel’s, schawerma, kabobs and the like. This place opened in late 2009. Our last visit was in fall 2011.

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Shanghai Winter Garden Restaurant Review, Millbrae

Shanghai Winter Garden recently opened in Millbrae, continuing the trend of new Shanghai restaurant on the Peninsula. This restaurant is located in the spot that once housed the deli, so the interior is pretty nice.

Summary – Shanghai Winter Garden is a pretty mediocre restaurant except for a couple interesting dishes.
Insider Tip – Go for Snacks

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Restaurant Mutsu Review, San Mateo

Mutsu San Mateo exterior decor

Mutsu is a long-standing family run Japanese restaurant about 2 blocks from the CalTrain station that has been here for a while and probably hasn’t changed much. We’ve been to most of the Japanese restaurants in this area, except for this one, so it was time to expand our horizons. San Mateo is home to a large Japanese community, so there are Japanese restaurants on practically every block.

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Armadillo Willy’s Restaurant Review

Armadillo Willys exterior decor

Armadillo Willys is a local BBQ restaurant with 8 locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was started in 1988 and offers ‘real Texas barbecue’ cooked over a wood fire. We were in the shopping center and decided to give it another try so we could more fairly gauge other BBQ restaurants. We visited the Foster City location.

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China Bee Restaurant Review, San Mateo

China Bee San Mateo Exterior

China Bee is a Chinese Restaurant in Downtown San Mateo, near the Caltrain station. This restaurant has been here for at least 10 years and focuses on Taiwanese Chinese Cuisine. They have $6.50 – $6.95 lunch rice plate specials during the weekday. They have additional special menu items on the weekends. China Bee specializes in dishes like Stinky Tofu and Spicy Beef Noodle soup.

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The Counter Restaurant Review

The Counter Palo Alto 4

Another trendy fancy burger place… The Counter opened in 2006 and is another fancy casual restaurant located in the Palo Alto, California Avenue shopping district. They have locations in CA, CO, GA, NC, and TX with many more coming soon. We revisited in March 2011 at the brand-new San Mateo location, click next door to Trader Joes. Loud music greeted us as we entered the place along with some flat screen TVs at the counter.

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Hotaru Restaurant Review, San Mateo

Hotaru San Mateo Exterior

Downtown San Mateo has a very high concentration of Japanese restaurants with one on almost every block. Hotaru is one of the best and most economical.  No surprise, there is a line out front most of the time. We’ve tried pretty much all the nearby Japanese restaurants. Sushi Sam and Kisaku are also good but more expensive. Nearby Yuzu and Sakae are also very good Japanese Restaurants. Our last visit was in 2016.

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Crouching Tiger Restaurant Review, Redwood City

Crouching Tiger Redwood City Exterior

Crouching Tiger Restaurant is a Chinese Sichuan, Hunan, and Mandarin style restaurant in downtown Redwood City on a Street full of different restaurants. Their name in Chinese is really Crouching Dragon. They specialize is spicy dishes, noodles, and authentic local dishes like Xingjian Lamb and Pickle Fish soup. Our last visit was in October 2011.

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Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine Restaurant Review, Foster City

Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine is a restaurant in Foster City, a couple doors down from popular 5 Joy Chinese restaurant. They also run a vegetarian Thai restaurant next door. We were going to 5 Joy decided to mix it up a little bit after having a very good meal at Osha Thai in San Francisco.
Decor, Vibe – Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine has very nice interior decor with Buddha fountain by the door, modern art lamps, wooden banquettes, and bamboo tables. The place was pretty full for a weekend evening.

Menu

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Pilita Grill Restaurant Review, San Carlos

Pilita Grill, a Turkish, Mediterranean restaurant, is run by friendly Chef owner Burak Epir. He tries to “capture the freshness and vibrancy of Turkish cuisine, where vegetables, whole grains, and yogurt are the stars and meats serve as condiments.” This restaurant is on Laurel street, home to a ton of restaurant.

Pilita San Carlos interior decor

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