Did you know that restaurant services in the USA amount to 430 billion dollars a year? I do not.
Common sense suggests that good restaurants will be located in high-income areas like Silicon Valley. Why is PaloAlto - Menlo Park - Los Altos so little to offer? In the end, the population here eats a lot, and with technological wealth in the hands of people, there is certainly a demand.
Here are some restaurants in San Francisco that I would like to see in the valley:
-Thep Phenom: A fine Thai restaurant in the Haight-Ashbury area of downtown, on Fillmore Street.
-Chous Nous: A french-patronian fusion restaurant, also on Fillmore, but further north in the Pacific.
Of course, given the student population at Stanford, some cheaper alternatives can also be healthy. Pakwan is perhaps the best Pak-Indian restaurant in the Gulf, but is clearly missing from the valley. In the category of cheap eats this would be my choice.
Over the past couple of years, there have been some good additions to the restaurant scene in Palo Alto, the Coupa Cafe is a wonderful and very successful example. This week we were at dinner with the owners Nancy and Jean-Paul and listened to their plans to create a new coupe-cafe on the North Canon Drive in Beverly Hills. These are ambitious entrepreneurs.
Another successful is Tamarin from the Vung Tau group. A group of Vietnamese kitchen blends gained their initial popularity due to the loyal pursuit of Vietnamese people. The original restaurant Vung Tau, dining at twelve tables, opened in 1985 on San Carlos Street in San Jose, California. In less than two years, the owners Nhan Huin and Anthony Le transported the restaurant to its current location at 535 East Santa Clara Street, and went from 32 guests to 150 people.
The family opened the second Vung Tau restaurant in Milpitas, California, in 1996, and four years later opened the third Vung Tau in Newark, California. Tamarin, the first modern Vietnamese family restaurant in Palo Alto, is operated by owner Ann Lea (the prodigal daughter) and chef Tammy Huyn.
The Le family and the Vung Tau group offer a great example for the likes of Thep Phenom. Chez Nous and Pakwan are on expansion roads. Pakwan chose Fremont as the place to go outside the city. It makes sense, because of the density of the Indians. They can also take the Tamarina route and discover a more classic version in Silicon Valley, rather than diving now.
And if you have spare capital and you want to buy a promising restaurant concept, they all have the basic right.
Great food, I mean.
