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Belated 4 year Blogaversary

Yesterday marked the 4 year anniversary of Bay Area Foodie. I meant to do something special like go get a Jumbaco (j/k) then completely forgot. So on my way home from work today I stopped by a new cupcake shop in Campbell called Frost Cupcake Factory. Luckily it was Mini Monday so I could get a [...]

NOPA San Francisco

NOPA is located north of the panhandle in San Francisco and serves up rustic wood-fired cuisine. We stopped in for brunch on a Sunday morning and it was standing room only. Luckily I made a reservation. We were immediately seated at a table upstairs overlooking all the action. We had a view of  the open kitchen, bustling bar [...]

The Melt

The man behind the Flip video camera has opened up a high-tech chain of grilled cheese fast food restaurants called The Melt all over the Bay area. Since we were at the Stanford Mall in Palo Alto to pick up the new S’more cupcake at Sprinkles we stopped in for lunch. The menu was fairly simple [...]

Sprinkles New Cupcake Flavor! I want S’more!

Blake Lively of “Gossip Girl” teamed up with Sprinkles to create a cupcake for charity. 100% of the proceeds from the SUPER FABULOUS S’more cupcake will go to Oxfam. Hurry up and go get one because it’s a top 5 flavor! xoxo…Bay Area Foodie Note: Only available January 6 to February 2, 2012 See how it ranks

Chez Panisse

Who knew that it was harder to get a reservation at Chez Panisse than the French Laundry? I had no idea that it was still so popular. We attempted to reserve a table for my birthday about 3 weeks prior but they were fully booked. The reservationist said I had to call exactly at 9am [...]

Umami Burger

When humans eat, they use all of their senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste) to form general judgments about their food, but it is taste that is the most influential in determining how delicious a food is. Conventionally, it has been thought that our sense of taste is comprised of four basic, or ‘primary’, [...]

Palacio Restaurant – Los Gatos

The huge house on North Santa Cruz Ave. in Los Gatos is open for business again. The old site of  Trevese is now Palacio featuring high-end Latin American fare. Walking in we were surprised to see the amount of renovations the new owners had made since the last tenants had already made major upgrades. They [...]

Fremont Diner – Sonoma

Fremont Diner is a small revamped diner in Sonoma that serves up tasty vittles like pulled pork, corn fritters, Oyster Po’Boy, mac n cheese and fried pies. Yes, another healthy meal for us! When we told a local we were heading over for lunch he said the food was good but then warned us about the service. When [...]

Homeroom Mac + Cheese

Rolled up for brunch on a brisk Saturday afternoon. Didn’t take much time to figure out what we wanted because the menu is limited to MAC + CHEESE! This is probably the only restaurant in the area where you will find that. I went with the Breakfast mac (only served Sat and Sun, 11am – 3pm) [...]

Billy’s Boston Chowder House

Billy I wanted to fall madly in love with you but I think we are going to just remain friends. I was uber excited to find out that a New England style restaurant had opened less than 10 minutes from my house in Los Gatos. It’s located near Nick’s on Main where the Smoky BBQ [...]

Bitter + Sweet Coffee and Dessert Bar

Cool little spot that serves humphry slocombe ice cream and you don’t have to drive to San Fran to get it!!! Nuff said… You’re Welcome. Note: they don’t have all flavors just like 4-6. Good coffee too. Website: http://www.bitter-sweet.com/

Hay Market Willow Glen

We rarely venture to Willow Glen but a new restaurant caught my attention. Picture a space filled with old black and white framed photos (plus one random with Patrick Swayze and some dude with long hair), crates with bottles of wine, stacks of cookbooks and other antique looking stuff cluttered around. Johnny Cash is piped [...]

Old Port Lobster Shack

I gotta get this out before we leave for Boston tomorrow. Hi, My name is Nicole and I’m a lobstaholic. I can’t believe I’ve lived in the Bay for over 24 years and never heard of the Lobster Shack until late last year. We finally made the trek to the Redwood City Shack in December [...]

Lillie Mae’s House of Soul Food

Is there Soul Food in Santa Clara? You know the shabby looking wood building down the street from the San Jose Airport… well, they have a new tenant. Lillie Mae has moved in and is cookin’ up all your soul food favorites like BBQ ribs, brisket, catfish, collard greens, mac & cheese and of course [...]

Dishcrawl San Jose

Dishcrawl is a new company that hosts walking food tours in select cities across the Bay Area. I love a good food tour where you get to sample new and unique eats. Mike and I decided to go on the San Jose crawl on Tuesday June 28, 2011 at 7pm. Each crawl features 4 destinations. [...]

The French Laundry

What did we do for our 5 year wedding anniversary? We went to one of the best restaurants in the world…the French Laundry owned by Chef Thomas Keller!! How did we get a reservation? See below. It was a gorgeous July day in the Napa valley when we arrived for our three hour lunch. As we entered [...]

Top Chef Tour in San Jose

Last week I went to check out the Top Chef Tour since it was in San Jose just a couple blocks from where I work. I gotta say Bravo did a pretty poor job promoting it. I only found out because I happened to catch a tweet a week before. It was held in the [...]

Mrs. DeLish’s Cupcake Boutique

A friend (Thanks Julie!) brought Mike and I a sampling of cupcakes from Mrs. Delish’s cupcake boutique. She felt they were better than Sprinkles…. Here is what we got: Red Velvet – good frosting & cake but tasted like a cupcake I could make at home. Coconut/Coconut – best of the bunch..loved the toasted coconut [...]

Long Meadow Ranch Grass-fed Beef Club

Yes, we like meat! As stated in my Farmstead post we were impressed with the beef served so we decided to join the Long Meadow Ranch grass-fed meat club. There are many advantages to eating grass-fed meat: lower fat & calories plus it’s rich in Omega 3 fatty acids. We signed up in December and received our [...]

Farmstead Restaurant

Mike and I had lunch at Farmstead on one of our many trips to Napa to work on our Crushpad wine. The restaurant is unique because it sources many of the ingredients from Long Meadow Ranch including all-natural grass-fed beef, vegetables, extra virgin olive oil, and honey. If you venture outside they also have a garden and a [...]

Zero Zero Restaurant

We were in the city checking out the wine exhibit (which was pretty cool) at SFMOMA. After we needed to eat so I jumped on Yelp to see what was in walking distance and I was pleasantly surprised to find Zero Zero. I had heard many good things about their food. We arrived at 2pm just in [...]

Heaven’s Dog

A friend from LA was in town for business and staying near the Moscone center. I needed to find a place to go for dinner and drinks on a Friday night near by with only a few days notice. Heaven’s dog was one of the few restaurants I could make a reservation before 9pm and [...]

Enoteca La Storia Wine Bar

Did you know there was a new wine bar in Los Gatos? Me neither… okay, well it’s almost a year old but still fairly new. A couple people had asked me if I had been but I didn’t know where it was. Then I finally figured out it was not in the main downtown area [...]

Town Hall Restaurant

Mike and I hit up Town Hall before checking out a screening in the City. I had heard good things about Town Hall especially the fried chicken and the Pot de Crème. After looking over the New Orleans inspired menu Mike immediately decided he wanted to start off with the Buttermilk biscuits with Johnston family country [...]

Recchiuti Confections S’mores Kit

We spent Valentine’s day at home again this year but I didn’t mind because we made S’mores from Recchiuti Confections. Mike and I picked up a S’mores kit last time we were at the Ferry building in San Francisco and this was the perfect occasion to break it out. It’s a grown up version of [...]