Not Palo Alto but just across the border. Oreganos at San Antonio and el Camino closed. A place called Noodle Talk Restaurant operated by Canton Prospect is coming. Relation to Noodle Talk the Hunan noodle place in Sunnyvale? Two noodle joints in the same mall?!
ETA: Rice Thai is closing at the end of May.
Oregano’s had tough competition. “Wood fired” doesn’t cut it when you’ve got two VPN cert places so close.
I still visit the Korean place now and again. It’s not great but it’s tolerable. Never tried the noodle place (s).
The beef pho is ok when San Jose is too far.
Not sure what the ‘private kitchen’ wording above ‘Noodle Talk’ on the sign means. Construction is ongoing. There are dining tables and chairs inside.
The design and look of the sign mentioning Noodle Talk is identical to that of Noodle Talk in Sunnyvale. I remember liking their cold dishes.
“private kitchen” means they serve dishes that aren’t just restaurant dishes, but also the kind of dishes you would see served in a home. AKA “home style”. One sees it a bit in chinese restaurants, where there is a wide variation between the classic restaurant dishes and home cooking. Saw that on a couple of menus in beijing last week.
Update: MP
BBC is getting closer to completion. Sign says will def. open in 2016, this year, so they’ve got all fall to finish everything up. Looking inside, my heart fell. They’ve taken out the big handsome turn of the century bar, and replaced the atmosphere with fairly straight-ahead unimpressive fixtures. The rooftop area will be the killer plus to the place, and the location, but… how the mighty have fallen.
Old Tokyo Subway spot - lots of construction. Will stay japanese.
Old Su Hong MP spot - no construction. Same with old Menlo Hub location next door.
2 French Laundry alums are opening a restaurant on Cal Ave, next to Keeble and Shuchat. “Approachable fine dining”, they said.
Separately, I wonder how much the infamous PA permitting process may affect desire to open restaurants in PA. Everything seems to take forever.
Palo Alto Creamery on Emerson St. makes a killer patty melt (“Fountain Burger”) with griddled onions and swiss on homemade rye… good strawberry malts too! They use an original '40s Hamilton Beach mixer and offer seasonal flavors.
Not to be confused with Peninsula Creamery on High St. - formerly situated in the same building on the corner of Emerson and Hamilton!
Does Chef Chu’s get any love in this dialogue?
I know chef chu is much beloved by some people, but that seems like from the long ago far away time when regional chinese was not understood and appreciated in the bay area. I’d love to hear a review / writeup / words of some sort by a Chef Chu aficionado who has also eaten at Mandrin Roots, Da Sicuhuan, Cooking Papa, etc ( just to mention a couple places within a mile occurring to me ) and can discourse on the relative merits. What a great idea for a thread !
Old school for sure, and eclipsed by regional cuisines over the years. But he’s really good at what he does.
And what is that that he does well?
I’m curious, genuinely.
A bunch of the “older school” places have closed ( a la mings ). Some, like Su Hong Palo Alto, have pivoted to highlighting their regional dishes. Tai Pan I think is far underrated, with a higher quality dim sum in genteel surroundings.
Yum Cha Palace is open. Got two menus- dimsum and a full dine-in menu. It seems like they have Cantonese chefs from how the menus read. They even got truffle/ crab XLBs, abalone congee, sea cucumber fish maw congee, bird nest tart, xo sauce, live crab/ lobsters (didn’t expect these in Menlo Park. didn’t even expect a real Cantonese restaurant in Menlo Park. no offense, Menlo Park residents) and the dimsum menu is comprehensive.
They carry fancy tea like Dragonwell with an additional charge like the larger Cantonese banquet restaurants that offer dimsum do, e.g. Koi.
I wonder where the chefs are from.
None taken! I’m surprised too.
Now, if it only tastes good. With the incredible disappointment of the new BBC, and the exciting menu but ho hum performance at Fey down the street… gotta try it!
I forgot to include their web site:
http://www.yumchamenlopark.com/
How disappointing is the new BBC? Much worse than the old BBC?
I emailed them and I was told that the chefs were hired from Hong Kong. If the food is good I will try to ask where the chefs worked in HK.
Well… here are my disappointments with the new BBC.
They took out the old bar. The great thing with BBC was the atmosphere, now it’s just another grey box room. But… I haven’t been up on the roof.
They don’t have the beer selection they used to. Their beer selection, previously, was really quite good - now it’s about 6 of the “usual suspects”.
Food is all entree-centric. The old BBC was a great place to a beer, burger, and fries. Mostly a beer :-), and now it attempt to be a Dining Location. There’s no burger on the menu, for example.
In particular, we went in, sat down with the interest in trying the food, and couldn’t decide on anything we wanted to eat. We’re pretty happy with all the other places in that restaurant group - Reposado, Gravity, Peninsula Creamery.
