New Tandoori Cafe, San Jose

New Tandoori Cafe is one of my favourite desi joint in the South Bay. I visit this place pretty often because it is conveniently located next to one of my friend's home on Stevens Creek Boulevard in San Jose. The chaats here are pretty decent although I do not eat chaat here quite often. I'm a fan of their Spicy Tandoori chicken wings and lamb biryani. Their lamb biryani is the punjabi style biryani and not the pakistani or hyderabadi style that you usually get in other Pakistani or Desi joints across the Bay Area. Their Tandoori wraps, especially the Seekh Kabab wrap is a good thing to have for lunch when a biryani would be too heavy. My cousin, who is a self proclaimed expert on Chicken Tikka Masala, rated it the best she's ever had and forced me to take her there twice on her 5 day visit to the Bay Area. There aren't many good desi restaurants in the South Bay, but this is one that has never disappointed me, be it chaats, biryanis or wraps. I often order food from here when I have guests at home and I always wonder what I would have done if I didn't have a good desi eatery close to my place ...

Dosa, San Francisco

Dosa, as the name suggests is a restaurant that serves South Indian cuisine and I must say it has the best dosas in the Bay Area!! And unlike most good Indian restaurants in the Mission and Tenderloin districts of San Francisco, this place is clean and has an excellent ambience. On a recent visit, we ordered their Paneer Dosa, Spring Onion Dosa and South Indian Moons (which was actually mini uttapams). The Paneer Dosa was absolutely fabulous. I've never had a better masala dosa although I spent 5 years of my life in South India. People who read my blog regularly will have guessed by now that I don't quite eat veggie food but Dosa is one restaurant where I always end up eating only veggie food and have never regretted it. The sambar and the chutneys here are always fresh and awesome. Their chole is also well balanced in spices and is an excellent complement to the uttapams. The only downside - a 1.5 hour wait :(. You can avoid the long wait by going on a Sunday or on a Friday or Saturday after 9:15pm. But long as the wait might be, the food that you get to eat more than compensates for your patience. Needless to say, Dosa has been rated as one of the top restaurants in San Francisco for the past several years. After I discovered Dosa last year, I've not eaten dosas or idlis at any other restaurant ...

Chutney, San Francisco

Chutney is by far the restaurant I've frequented the most in the last 6 years of my stay in the Bay Area. Whenever I long for some good desi food, I invariably end up at Chutney. Among the desi joints in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, Chutney is the most hygenic, inexpensive and has a pretty decent ambience compared to Pakwan or Shalimaar. Their Seekh Kabab is simply the best! They have some special every day of the week and I've sampled their Nihari, Goat Curry and Aloo Keema specials which have all been fabulous. Among the dishes on the menu, I love the Chicken Tikka Masala and the Chicken Korma. There is also ample choice for veggies and this is one of the places where I really do not have a problem eating veggie dishes like Baingan Bharta, Aloo Gobi etc. No matter what you order from the menu, its turned out to be good. Their Chicken Biryani is also pretty awesome though not the same style that you would get in India. I don't know what style to call it but my guess is its some Pakistani style of cooking. They also serve free tea and although I'm not a tea drinker (infact I've never tasted tea), my friends tell me its the real desi chai and they end up having several cups of it on every visit. Another good thing about Chutney is that they allow you to get your own alcohol. So you can just walk across the road to the corner liquor store and get your choice of beer to go with the food. The guys at the counter are very friendly except one time when they got a new guy who was really obnoxious and rude but thankfully haven't seen him around since then. I rate Chutney as one of my top 10 favourite restaurants in the Bay Area and I do not mind going here any number of times.

Goood Frikin Chicken, San Francisco

Goood Frikin Chicken for a middle eastern restaurant ??!!! Gimme a break. The name is something that had made me very skeptical about eating at this joint although I'd come across some good reviews. But when I was in the mood to eat some middle eastern food recently, I decided to give this place a chance. GFC is a nondescript sort of hole in the wall eatery in the Mission district of San Francisco. The food here was pretty darn good although I ended up not really having a lot of chicken. For appetizers, we had Falafel and Hummus with Pita. Although I find the Falafel at Kan Zaman a lot better, the olive pita bread was out of this world. Simply the best pita I have ever had !! For the main course we had the Mansaf, Kefta Kabab and Chicken Kabab. I'm a big fan of Mansaf and the Mansaf here made me pretty happy. However, I like the Mansaf/Beriani at Dish Dash (Sunnyvale) better. The Kefta Kabab served with saffron rice and fried nuts was excellent but the chicken kabab was nothing spectacular. On the whole, not a spectacular meal but pretty decent for the price and I wouldn't mind visiting this place again after a couple of years...

Evvia Estiatorio, Palo Alto

I landed up at Evvia Estiatorio in Palo Alto in the strangest of circumstances. A couple of colleagues and I were visiting the Palo Alto Internet Exchange (PAIX) to debug a customer router (For those who haven't read my profile, I work for Cisco Systems). University Avenue, Palo Alto is a great place for upscale dining and since we were working so hard and all on the customer router, actually missing a company picnic on that day, I felt we deserved a good (read expensive) meal at the company's expense :). My colleague suggested Evvia and after a quick search on the internet, it seemed like a great place that satisfied all my requirements for lunch that day - good non Indian food, walking distance from PAIX and upscale. The decor and ambience at this place is very upscale and charming. I loved the way they had tried to mix the rustic with the modern in terms of decor. I would rate this the best greek I've had in the Bay Area (Thea on Santana Row comes pretty close). For starters, we ordered fried calamari and flatbread. The flatbread was awesome with caremellized onions, tomatoes and feta cheese as toppings. For the main course, I had the Mostaciolli which is braised lamb served with pasta and cheese. The lamb was very well done, exactly the way I like it an the cheese was an excellent complement. For dessert we had phyllo stuffed with warm custard. On the whole a very satisfying meal and the 3 hard hours of debugging all seemed worthwhile. They had an excellent wine selection but having wine when visiting a customer site to debug a problem would have been a little too much !!!! I'm definitely going back to Evvia in a more relaxed mood ...

Mi Lindo Yucatan, San Francisco

One of the first things you'll notice about this place is that its all green inside!! It has some Mayan figurines on the walls that seem like a welcome change from the excessively green interiors. Needless to say, the decor is quite unimpressive... The restaurant serves Yucatan food and its quite a bit different from the traditional Mexican that you get in Taquerias around California. We had the Falautas and Polcanes for appetizers and I started warming up to the place :). I enjoyed both the appetizers and the salsa with tortilla chips. For the main course we had Frijol Con Puerco (Pork and Black Beans stew) and Pollo a La Parrilla (Grilled chicken with Mexican rice and orange cilantro salsa). The Pork was really well done and the beans had a flavor which reminded me of Brazilian black beans. But the best dish of the evening was the grilled chicken. Very well done with a lot of spices and the orange cilantro salsa was a good compliment. I liked eating the mexican rice with the Pork stew more than the chicken. On the whole, a decent meal but not something I would call fabulous. I might visit this place again in 2 years but probably not before that ...