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...
The Biz Beat: Rollati Ristorante in San Jose serves one spicy pie
After two and a half years of planning, Rollati Ristorante has already established itself as a destination restaurant in the two weeks since its mid-September opening. Offering an elegant twist on classic Italian-American cuisine in downtown San Jose, it is the newest of the Vine Hospitality Group’s restaurants, which include Santana Row mainstays Left Bank,...
The Biz Beat: Mama Roc’s rolls into San Jose with a taste of Puerto Rico
Easy to spot in her vibrant red dress, Rochelle Cartagena-Segura was set on hugging every person who showed up to celebrate the Sept. 16 opening of her Mama Roc’s Puerto Rican and Caribbean Cuisine at Evergreen Village Square in San Jose. “We’ve had a lot of sleepless nights,” she told the crowd. “It’s been challenging...
The Biz Beat: San Jose Italian eatery has an East Coast secret
One of the greatest compliments Jordanian-born George Keshek, owner of Ristorante da Maria in San Jose, ever received was when members of the Italian-American Heritage Foundation asked him to hold a class on how to cook his classic Bolognese. “Teaching Italians how to make Italian food,” he told San José Spotlight. “But we do it...
The Biz Beat: Discover San Jose’s gateway to world-famous falafels
Falafel’s Drive-In still serves hamburgers and hotdogs, a throwback from 56 years ago, when it was a Snow White Drive-In. But it was the homemade falafels that founder Anton Nijmeh added to the menu that gave San Jose its first taste of Middle Eastern cuisine and made the little diner world famous. “Dad just made...