Last Friday, my teens and I stopped for lunch at The Purple Onion, a new Los Gatos restaurant, which opened April 18th at the former site of Caffe Siena (Main Street and College Avenue, across from The Penthouse Apartments).  We enjoyed outside dining and experienced prompt, polite service and great food, so it is something I wanted to share here on "Live in Los Gatos".

As with its predecessor, at The Purple Onion, customers order at the counter, pay (they do take credit cards, though there's no logos for them on the front entry), and find a seat. Servers will bring the food to you. Tables and chairs are available both indoors and out.

My kids each ordered sandwiches and I ordered a salad. Brian's was a hot sandwich, and it was so good he had a hard time keeping it on his plate between bites. Clair had a french roll with salami or prociutto and she, too, savored hers. For me it was the Cafe Salad, a wonderful mix of chicken, cranberries, a soft cheese, pistachios, greens and even a few flower petals - which made the presentation lovely - with a sweet vinegarette dressing.   We ordered soft drinks as well and our total, with tax (before tipping) was about $41.00.

This morning I returned with camera in hand to take a few pics and hopefully to meet the proprietors. (I came away with coffee and sweet rolls for home.) I was in luck and met Steve Angelo, the chef/owner, and Lisa Hanson, pastry chef & party planner. I had not realized, the week before, that The Purple Onion offers catering too, but overheard a patron inquiring about it. The store's website has information on catering, too.

The Purple Onion is open Tues-Sun from 7am to 4pm, closed on Mondays.  It is located at 26 E Main St
Los Gatos, CA 95030. Tel 408 354-4124. Or visit their catering site online: www.purpleonion-catering.com.

Parking is easy. There's a lot behind the Soda Works shopping area. Just don't park in one of the 15 minute zones. You'll never want to leave that fast.

Want to dine out in Silicon Valley? There are lots of great restaurants in Los Gatos, too many to list, really -  most in downtown Los Gatos, but Crimson and Viva over on "The Boulevard". There are a few places on our list of "want to try" but haven't gotten to yet, including Forbes Mill Steakhouse, Manresa and Restaurant James Randall.

We happen to live on the east end of town and some of the local haunts we enjoy include Los Gatos Pizza and the Tea Garden Chinese Kitchen (really for take-out, both are at Harwood and Blossom Hill Roads in east Los Gatos). Tonight, Jim wanted to take me out for supper since I'd worked many many hours today (showing a lot of short sales). By the time I got in from work, it was too late to make reservations for a place in downtown L.G., so we decided to dine at Gallo's at the Walgreen's Shopping Center at Blossom Hill and Harwood (14180 Blossom Hill Rd), which is close to where we live in Belwood. We both love Italian food, and sometimes there's a lot to be said for simiplicity: show up and eat rather than plan it all out ahead of time.

We arrived at around 7:15 or 7:30 and were seated immediately. The booths are comfy and it's a place without airs. Half the patrons seemed to be wearing sweat shirts - so the environment would have to be called casual, though not loud or overly bright. Our waiter was fairly attentive, though he never came back to ask if everything was ok.

But how was the food? A bit salty. Jim ordered the calamari dinner and it was fine. I ordered a dish called Chicken Oscar that was advertised as being chicken with asparagus and crab.

Let me tell you, that crab was no crab.

It was so clearly NOT crab that (to Jim's embarassment) I asked our young waiter if it was "fake crab" (the texture and flavor was not like the real thing). "What is fake crab?" he replied. We explained that it's usually pollack, or another cheap fish, infused with crab flavoring. He'd never heard of it!

A few minutes later, he returned and confessed that the owner and chef admitted that the dish really had "mostly fake crab" and said something about veal. Veal instead of chicken? I don't even want to ask - I do not order veal due to the way the animals area treated! (And apologetically, he said that they would be changing their menu soon - as if the age of the menu had anything to do with the fact that it misrepresented what was served.)

Does this remind you of Bella Mia in downtown San Jose? If not, it should. That's the restaurant that advertised veal dishes but in fact was serving pork - to the horror of many patrons who abstain from pork.  

As for our neighborhood eatery, Gallo's, I'm disappointed. We have been there every so often and usually found it too expenive for what we got, but never  before thought we ordered something that we did not get. But tonight, that's what happened. I ordered a chicken and crab dish and got chicken and imitation crab. And something about veal. AAUGH. What's up with that???

I was not just disappointed, I was angry.

We have been there many times because it's so very close and convenient. But being lied to on the menu was the last straw. I do not intend to go back. Goodness knows, there are lots of great restaurants in Los Gatos, and many of them serve Italian food. But I would not endorse Gallo's as one of them.

My kids attended Casa Maria Montessori (sadly, now closed) and St. Mary's Elementary School, both in Los Gatos. Many, many times I took them from school to the also-now-closed Good Earth Restaurant on North Santa Cruz Avenue to enjoy hot cocoa and oversized cinnamon buns. It's been years since that cheerful restaurant closed its doors, and my kids have not had a place in which to feast upon huge, locally baked cinnamon rolls since then.

Until now.

Thanks to Google Alerts, I see most articles and blog posts that come out with anything about our fair town (including some stupid stuff I could miss that actually has nothing to do with the town of Los Gatos). Recently the San Jose Mercury News did a piece on The Los Gatos Cafe Uptown and it mentioned the restaurant's yummy cinnamon buns.

The Handy teens, aged 18 and 16, had this to say about the rolls after feasting on them last weekend:

"I'm not sure if I was just hungry or they were incredibly good, but with every bite I just kept wondering if there was a way to get more into my mouth, it was so good...."

and

"It is really, really good when you eat it with the cinnamon butter..."

The Good Earth is gone, but the happy sentiments aroused by their much loved cinnamon buns are definitely back. It's a mouthful of nostalgia.

I'm sure that all of the food at "uptown" is good. I absolutely love the original Los Gatos Cafe in downtown. I rather suspect that the "uptown" branch will bcome my favorite of the two as it has the great food but without the lines and crowds that I avoid at all costs.

But wherever you go, do order (or take home) a cinnamon bun.

(This is not a paid blog post, and in fact the owners of this restaurant do not know that this blog post was going to be written.)