Isarn Garden is indeed the best Thai restaurant in this area (we really like their Kaor Moo Yang) - it might not be LoS level but if you are in the area definitely worth a trip.
In general, I think if you want to focus on Asian restaurants which deliver something you don’t get easily in LA you might have to look into Burmese places or “unique” restaurants like San Ho Won. Otherwise I think the strength of many restaurants in the Bay Area lies in the Farm-to-Table / New American (or however you want to name it) which can have many different influences including Asian.
… has become a very difficult reservation. Like Hayato or close.
Donato is the only San Carlos restaurant I ever hear anything about. LA has great Cal-Italian but I think this area has better Italian-Italian. I recommend Perbacco for a splurge.
What is “Iralian”?
If we go beyond Asian food there are some very good places in the area - Camper (Menlo Park), Timber & Salt (RWC), Doppio Zero (MW), Pausa (San Mateo), Pizzeria Delfina (Palo Alto), Vesta (RWC), Mazra (San Bruno), hole-in-wall taco stands (RWC), Meyhouse (Sunnyvale), Bevri (Palo Alto)
Meyhouse is moving to Palo Alto.
That’s near the top if my short list of places to try next time we’re between Covid surges.
Have you tried Corazon or Madurai Modern?
There’s a newish Georgian restaurant in San Carlos I hadn’t heard of. Looks like the real thing. The ones I know of in LA are Russian with a few Georgian dishes.
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Tamari looks like a good find
Nice-looking outdoor seating too.
FWIW Bevri opened a second branch, in Los Altos, and Piala’s supposed to open soon in Sebastopol, so Georgian cuisine seems to be happening.
I added Takahashi because we love Hawaiian, poke or plate lunch type food, stuff you find in Honolulu that come in those to-go containers. Any better options for this?
Isarn Garden seems authentic. On a trip to SF many years ago, we absolutely loved the Duck Fried Rice at Thai Cafe but it seems they closed already. https://www.yelp.com/biz/thai-cafe-san-francisco
For Indian/Pakistani, we are now planning to try Kabab & Hut on the way to Tahoe when we go there.
I read Ethiopian is a strength in the area too, but apparently not as good as DC?
Also, I used to live in NYC and love the staple Chinese takeout of fried chicken wings with pork fried rice. You usually eat it w hot sauce. Do they have this in SF? Unfortunately, we don’t have it in LA.
There are a lot of Chinese-American dishes that are (or were once) common in NYC that are unknown around here.
You might want to try a “Joe’s-style” Italian place. That’s an old-school SF thing that hasn’t entirely died out. Looks like the one in San Jose is one of the survivors.
Actually you probably could find something like that in a black neighborhood in LA. Same goes for Oakland, though in both places thanks to gentrification they’re an endangered species.
We had friends going there and they liked Tamari but we haven’t tried it yet ourselves
They are on our list but we didn’t have a chance to visit during better covid times (and after our recent own covid encounter we have stopped at this point eating in- or outside). And Sunnyvale is unfortunately a bit too far for takeout as we try to keep it within 20 minutes radius to have still hot dishes
LOL Dim sum is more than solid. SF Bay Area has the best dim sum scene in the country and the best dim sum restaurants.
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Chubby Rice in Hawthorne
Yeah, Doppio Zero was our favored pizza place. I haven’t done much pizza in LA, but always enjoyed Doppio!
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Yeah, that’s probably fair, I held back my praise bc I don’t consider myself a dimsum expert… I’ve always loved Yank Sing and Koi Palace. For some reason, I always heard LA had this amazing dimsum scene and I haven’t found one yet that I prefer over YS / KP…
Carl
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Ok, other things we want to get now –
B Patiserrie for kouign amann (tried it in Hawaii and def best we’ve had)
Arsicault Bakery for croissants
Thoughts on Golden Boy Pizza, Dumpling Home, Tuna Kahuna, and Stick and Steam?