On Friday I enjoyed a late lunch with a real estate colleague and friend of mine at Willow Street Pizza in downtown Los Gatos.  The food is always good but this time I had a bowl of clam chowder and it was the best I've had in years.  

With New England Clam Chowder (the "white" one, as opposed to the red, Manhattan Clam Chowder), there are a lot of things that can go wrong. Sometimes the clams are gritty. Frequently the potatoes disintegrate and the whole soup becomes mushy and too thick.  Perhaps most often, there's excessive cream or fat in the recipe and the chowder is unpleasantly oily.

The bowl of chowder I was served on Friday, though, was a very pleasant surprise. The potatoes and other vegetables were not overcooked. The soup was very tasty and not overly heavy.  And if I'm not mistaken, there were small, delicious dumplings cooked into the recipe too. The combination was unbeatable as the look, texture and taste were all fantastic.

Willow Street does not have a "soup and salad" combination on the menu, but you can do what I did and order a half or side salad plus a bowl of soup and create your own combo. I ordered a Romaine Gorgonzola half salad with cranberries together with the bowl of soup and it was very filling.  A side salad instead of half salad would have been plenty!

If you enjoy clam chowder, look for it at Willow Street (and other restaurants) on Fridays. Very few places will offer it on any other day of the week. (The reason for this tradition has to do with religion and demographics.  Catholics, who constitute about 20% of the population here in Silicon Valley, used to be prohibited by their church from eating meat on Fridays so many "fish specials" used to be featured on that day. That religious rule was changed in the early 1960s after Vatican II, and  today the "no meat on Friday" rule only applies during Lent. Even so, some continue to keep to the older, stricter standards.)

Willow Street does have good pizza, it's a kid-friendly restaurant, and the salads and soups are really quite delicious. Don't let the name "Willow Street Pizza" fool you: there's much more to the menu then just pizza. In fact, you can browse their menu online and see for yourself at http://www.willowstreet.com/LOS_GATOS/Los_Gatos.html

If you have a favorite, local place to enjoy a cup or bowl of clam chowder, please share it in the comments below!

 

Los Gatos is not known for "affordable dining", but here and there we find hidden gems with good food and very reasonable prices. That's the case with Jasmine Chinese in downtown Los Gatos, a modest restaurant in an upscale part of town. 

Lunch at Jasmine Chinese is a very good deal if you keep to the specials menu. For $7.25, you can enjoy one of the house lunch combination dishes, such as sweet & sour pork,  plus soup, rice and hot tea, of course. If that's too much for for a midday meal, there are smaller lunch specials for $6.25, including a heaping plate of Chinese Chicken Salad, a dish of almond chicken and rice or several other selections. Dinners are more expensive, but still very affordable by downtown Los Gatos standards.

Variety is abundant here, so Jasmine is a great place to bring children, vegetarians, those with special diet constraints, folks preferring mild or spicy food and even picky eaters. I have eaten there dozens of times, mostly at lunch but also for dinner, and have found the staff to be consistently conscientious about "food issues" and special needs. Service is uniformly good and the staff very pleasant.

My own favorite menu items include the eggrolls, the chinese chicken salad, tangerine chicken, hot & sour soup, any of the kung pao dishes and any of the eggplant dishes.

Like many Chinese restaurants, Jasmine will prepare food "to go" as well.

This restaurant can be a little difficult to find for some people, but it's actually in a great, central location. It is in the Lyndon Shopping Center (which is where the old Lyndon Hotel used to stand and where famous people like Charlie Chaplain and John Steinbeck used to drop in for a drink). That building is a bit of a maze, but Jasmine is on the outside, facing Main Street, just in from the corner of Main and Santa Cruz Avenues. There's free valet parking, and also a public lot off Main Street that backs up to Mountain Charlie's and St. Mary's School, so it should always be possible to park. 

Jasmine Chinese Restaurant is open for lunch and dinner weekdays, and open for dinner on Saturday and Sunday. For more information, see their website, http://www.jasminechinese.com/.

Jasmine Chinese
20 South Santa Cruz Ave.
Los Gatos, CA 95030
408-395-2373

 

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.

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.)

The Los Gatos Town Council has given permission for Viva Restaurant, an upscale eatery at Los Gatos Boulevard and Blossom Hill Road (near Whole Foods in the Cornerstone Shopping Center), permission to expand into the space formerly occupied by High Tech Burrito, according to the Los Gatos Observer. 

Viva is one of the only restaurants outside of the downtown area which offers great food, fabulous wine selection and live entertainment - and it is one of my favorite places to enjoy a meal out - with or without the musicians.  It's also an excellent place to throw a private party, as one wing can become either one large separate room, or two smaller rooms.  If you want to contact them or visit,  the address is 15970 Los Gatos Blvd., and the telephone is 408-356-4902 or email info@vivalosgatos.com . Enjoy!

Looking for a burrito replacement for High Tech Burrito? My suggestion is to give Una Mas a try (and order the Foghead Burrito - yum!). It's all of a half mile away, at the corner of Los Gatos Boulevard and Los Gatos-Almaden Road (near Nob Hill Grocery and 31 Flavors Ice Cream). Their address is 15724 Los Gatos Blvd, and tel is (408) 358-8680.

College and Main: A Photo Tour

Unmistakeably Los Gatos, the intersection of College and Main has both recognizeable design elements, such as the two-story "cats" which are the town's signature images, and also classic older architecture blended with new construction in a tasteful manner. The latter is a hallmark of the town's high value on character and history.

The Penthouse Apartments is the view to your left, with the two story image of Leo and Leona, the cat sculptures which are synonomous with Los Gatos itself. This four story building is the gateway of St. Joseph's Hill, home to beautiful houses, an entrance to a hiking park and open space preserve (St. Joseph's Hill Open Space Preserve), The Holy Names Sister's convent, retreat center and retirement home, and also, accross the street and up a long driveway, Sacred Heart, the California Jesuit's (Society of Jesus')  headquarters & retirement home  (and one time novitiate, founded in 1888) and the wonderful Testarossa Vineyards Tasting Room, located on Jesuit land. 

Just as there's a lot going on "up the hill", there's a lot going on at this intersection too!  (It is a three-way stop sign intersection and I must advise you to be very careful of cyclists - sometimes they are not as careful of all the activity as we might want them to be and I have seen many near-accidents here.)  We have a saying in Los Gatos, which is that if you have cash, you won't starve: there are a lot of restaurants here. One of my favorites is Tapestry, which is across the street from the Penthouse Apartments on College Avenue. The food is an ecclectic mix of fresh California style cuisine. The servers are friendly and there's usually no trouble parking nearby, as they have a shared lot plus street parking.

In the same little quad as Tapestry is the ancient Soda Works Building, which now houses a cigar shop.

Right next to Tapestry lies a little sandwich shop that I tried twice recently and really love: Caffe Siena. It is Italian-style with many delicious imported specialty foods and great entrees. It's also a great place to people-watch! The building itself is newer but just outside lies a lovely old stone wall that begs to be photographed.

On the other side of Main is one of my favorite dinner spots, I Gatti (not pictured), which is Italian for "The Cats".  If you are getting the impression that Los Gatos has a number of places with an Italian flair, you're right. But there are many other types of food too: Romanian, Thai, Viet Namese, Japanese, Mexican, American - and these are just the ones on the top of my head!

Testarossa Vineyards is a popular destination for people heading up the hill. It's quite scenic, starting with the long trek up the winding driveway, and then at the top there are beautiful valley views.  The tasting room itself is extremely inviting - it's spacious, comfortable, and nicely laid out. But best of all, the wine is truly delicious and the folks who work there are both knowledgeable and friendly. There are no pretentious airs, just genuine helpfulness and useful information. I'm always proud to bring our out-of-town visitors to the old novitiate for a little tasting.  It is a wonderful way to wrap up an afternoon of strolling and shopping - a calm oasis just steps from the business of this bustling town.  And perhaps one of the reasons I like it so much is that like much of Los Gatos, it is a classic mix of things to do...and places simply to relax and be.

Photographs by Mary Pope-Handy,
Los Gatos & Silicon Valley (San Jose area) Residential Real Estate Specialist and
Realtor, CRS, ABR, SRES, ASP, CNHS, RECS, E-Pro,
Intero Real Estate Services, 518 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos, CA 95030
www.PopeHandy.com

. Please do not use without permission!