If all you know about Indian food is butter chicken or chicken tikka masala, the training wheels of the cuisine, a trip to Saapaaduu is in order. Specializing in the dishes of southern India, the San Jose restaurant offers diners a unique rotating menu prepared with no food dyes, MSG or seed oils — homestyle...
The Biz Beat
The Biz Beat
The Biz Beat: One Fish Raw Bar in Campbell pairs fresh fish with fine sake
The ever-changing selections at One Fish Raw Bar in Campbell offer a daily adventure for customers, not to mention for chef and owner Trent Lidgey and General Manager John VanBuhler, who finalize the menu half an hour before they open. “We have standing orders for lots of things,” VanBuhler told San José Spotlight, “but for...
The Biz Beat: Poor House Bistro is a bit of New Orleans in San Jose’s Little Italy
There’s something improbable about the existence of Poor House Bistro in San Jose, as if the fates were playing a game of chance with unlikely twists and turns that made this stellar New Orleans-themed restaurant land in the center of Little Italy. Take the building itself, built as a sorority house in the 19th century....
2023 in review: The top 10 Biz Beat stories
One of the great pleasures of compiling stories for The Biz Beat is meeting remarkable restaurant owners and soaking up their enthusiasm. Having the chance to stand in a corner of a kitchen and watch them prepare their dishes is a joy and an education. Their stories are diverse, from those who learned recipes by...
The Biz Beat: Midtown San Jose restaurant puts a spin on breakfast
Groucho Marx once said he would not care to belong to any club that would have him as a member. But if he’d seen the fantasyland of selections at The Breakfast Club at Midtown San Jose, it is likely he would have made an exception. While the menu is broken down into traditional breakfast and...
The Biz Beat: The food at San Jose’s Funny Farm is no joke
The sandwich board outside The Funny Farm Restaurant advertises a rum cake so good it needs a designated driver. A sign on the front counter next to a bucket of rubber chickens reads, “Warning: Snarky Staff.” A stuffed unicorn hangs upside down from the ceiling, surrounded by dangling multi-colored Slinkies. “We’re a very homey place,”...
The Biz Beat: Authentic Cuban food hidden in San Jose’s SoFA Market
It would be hard to question Habana Cuba Restaurant’s authenticity: it was founded by Ciro Calvo, the personal chef to the island’s former president, Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country when the dictator was deposed in 1959. Located inside First Street’s SoFA Market food hall, Habana Cuba faithfully recreates Calvo’s recipes, serving dishes with street...
The Biz Beat: Tikis, comics and jazz intersect at San Jose’s Art Boutiki
It is almost impossible to describe what awaits you at San Jose’s Art Boutiki as anything other than “eclectic.” It is a serendipitously curated shop in downtown that combines a live music venue with a store that features graphic novels and comics, an art gallery and a large selection of Tiki items you never knew...
The Biz Beat: Milohas in San Jose makes divine empanadas
As you enter Milohas Pastries in San Jose, the enchanting aroma of fresh-baked empanadas fills your senses long before you can take in the display cases packed with a bounty of the golden brown pastries. They range from sweet and savory Colombian standards to imaginative takes on calzone ingredients. “People would come in, thinking we...
The Biz Beat: Try the grasshoppers at Mezcal in San Jose
Mezcal Restaurant in San Jose specializes in authentic Oaxacan cuisine, from the mole negro and mole coloradito—two of the seven famed Oaxacan chocolate sauces—to the chapulines, or grasshoppers sauteed in garlic, lime and salt. Umm… grasshoppers? “Why not?” owner Adolfo Gomez told San José Spotlight. “It’s a traditional item for us. People say we’re trying...