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San Francisco/Bay Area restaurant reviews by Chris NorrisArchive for S’Ok
Zafran, Santa Clara
Zafran, Santa Clara
June 2008
S’Ok. Zafran is a small Indian eatery on El Camino near Scott Boulevard. I came across this place at lunchtime after getting my car washed just down the street. While looking for a quick bite to eat without resorting to fast food, I decided to give Zafran a try. I opted for the all-you-can-eat buffet and loaded up on tandoori chicken, chana masala (chickpeas), curry vegetables, rice biryani, and more. Complete with some piping hot naan from a real tandoori oven, my lunch was fast and tasted great! On the grand scale of Indian food, as found in Bangalore or elsewhere in the Bay Area, Zafran is not especially ahead of the pack. But the service was friendly and efficient, the food was good, and you could do lots worse for lunch.
Taqueria Vallarta
Taqueria Vallarta
June 2008
S’Ok. Taqueria Vallarta is a bit of a dive joint that serves Mexican food on Scott Boulevard in Santa Clara. What’s unique about this establishment is that they’ve been around for years, and although it doesn’t look like much more than fast Mexican food, it is SO much more than that. The food here is fantastic, and after you’ve stopped in for your first time, The Taqueria will become a favorite lunch time option. Whatever you do, don’t miss the Carnitas Tacos – they Rock!
On the downside, we ordered food for about 15 people here on a take-out basis and were pretty underwhelmed. A combination of poor preparation and no good method to keep the food at temperature made this a poor experience. For example, the pinto beans were runny – like soup – while the cheese in the enchiladas was hardened. Best to order and eat on-premises.
Picazzo’s, Flagstaff
Picazzo’s, Flagstaff
March 2008
S’Ok. Stuck in Flagstaff and want to eat somewhere not yucky? We were and we did, and we found this pizza place that did a pretty good job of cranking out some good, stone oven pizzas and the normal accoutrements of salads, bread, etc. We struggled with yucky Chinese and yucky Mexican in Flagstaff, and I didn’t expect that pizza would be the winner. Add it to your list!
Parcel 104, Santa Clara
Parcel 104, Santa Clara
June 2008
S’Ok. I’ve had lunch several times at Parcel 104, which is located in the Marriott hotel near the Great America amusement park and a big Intel facility. For lunch, it’s your typical hotel restaurant trying to be more than it should, charging you for the effort and not the result. In previous times I’ve had the overpriced fish, which tasted fine, but wasn’t worth the $30. This time a friend and I ordered salads. I had the $20 shrimp cobb salad and he had a $20 romaine Caesar. Small servings, high prices, but tasted good. Bottom line, for a business lunch Parcel 104 is sufficiently formal and tasty to do the trick. Want a fine dining experience? Probably not going to happen here. While you’ll pay for a fine dining experience, don’t expect the food to keep up with the check.
Red 8, Wynn, Las Vegas
Red 8, Wynn, Las Vegas
December 2007
S’Ok. Red 8 at the Wynn has a pretty good selection of dim sum items off the menu, but alas, no dim sum carts. Red 8 has a good selection of dishes representing China, Malaysia, and Singapore and we’ve always enjoyed eating there. Is it fabulous? Nah, not really. But its certainly workable.
Noodles of Asia, Venetian, Las Vegas, NV
Noodles of Asia, Venetian, Las Vegas, NV
December 2007
S’Ok. Regardless of the limited menu, Noodles of Asia at the Venetian Hotel is good, with great noodle soups and a pretty decent selection of appetizer sized items on the menu. Unfortunately, there are are no dim sum carts. We’ve tried several different noodle soup selections and liked them all. The barbeque duck and pork appetizers are mighty fine and the traditional steamed dumplings and such don’t disappoint. And the other items on the menu? Well, they don’t always come together.
Meritage Martini and Oyster Bar, Sonoma, CA
Meritage Martini and Oyster Bar, Sonoma, CA
January 2008
S’OK. My good buddy Dave and I took a pasta making class some months ago at Ramekins cooking school, located in Sonomo, CA. Our instructor that day, Carlo Cavallo is the owner and executive chef of Meritage and I finally had the opportunity to check out Carlo’s restaurant for myself. Unfortunately, we could only do lunch, but we did get a sense for the place. It’s open, casual and friendly. The service was fine. We ordered the sampler of 10 oysters on the half shell, followed by the lentil soup of the day, and then shared a prosciutto panini. Maybe we just go spoiled at Café La Haye, but the oysters at Café La Haye were an order of magnitude better that at Meritage. There was nothing wrong with the Oysters at Meritage, but they just didn’t grab you and say “I’m a damn good oyster!” in the same way as their fine fellow crustaceans at Café La Haye. And the shells were chipped, and we had to wipe off some grit, … The lentil soup was good. Real good. Unfortunately, the extra parmesan cheese and tablespoon of olive oil on top didn’t add much to the soup but sure added a lot of un-needed weight watchers points to the meal. Finally, the panini was OK, but had too much prosciutto, making it tough to chew, and then too much soft cheese which became overwhelming and left us with cheese dripping everywhere.
Are we just complainers? I don’t know. I wanted Meritage to be great because I like Carlo and I really liked his pasta class at Ramekins. I remember my first, uneducated attempt at making pasta. It took half the day, made a complete mess of the kitchen, and tasted crummy. Since the Chef’s class, plus a few more practice sessions, I can make fresh pasta as part of a one hour meal! Regardless, Meritage needs a little work on the details.
Martini House, St. Helena, CA
Martini House, St. Helena, CA
January 2008
S’Ok. The Martini House in California’s wine country has good reviews, and we expected to have a pretty impressive meal. The ambiance, service, open kitchen, friendly staff all point to a happy dining experience. The night we visited, the restaurant offered a mushroom tasting menu that included shitakes in mushroom tea with duck wontons, a salad of hedgehog mushrooms with hollandaise sauce, roasted hen of the woods mushrooms with potato puree, and candy cap bread pudding. The waiter emphasized that mushrooms were a specialty for the establishment, so we bought in on the mushroom tasting menu!
I have to hand it to the chef – the menu concepts were terrific and it’s clear that there is a lot of creativity in the menu. In addition, the flavor of the mushrooms was expertly coaxed out of the mushrooms, without overwhelming the dishes and the mushrooms themselves were almost heavenly. So what happened?! Well, every single dish with the exception of the (very good) bread pudding, was immersed in a reduction of some kind that tasted of soy sauce and was so salty and overwhelming that after a point, we couldn’t eat anymore of our dish! It’s a shame – Café La Haye perfectly executed much simpler dishes and was a world-class dining experience. Martini house presented dishes with incredible potential, but that we would never bother to order again as presented to us.
If I didn’t think our experience might be a fluke, I wouldn’t recommend Martini House at all. Let’s keep out fingers crossed.
