My Top 14 South Bay Restaurants

14 of my most frequented spots in san jose, sunnyvale, santa clara

This week marks the 1 year anniversary of moving to San Jose, and at the end of July, Juan and I will be driving back to Texas for the rest of the year. After trying different restaurants in the south bay for all these months, I want to share our most frequented spots. Of course, there are lots of great establishments across these cities, but these are just the ones that made it to the top our list.

Chicken Meets Rice

(Santa Clara County)

The first feature has to be this restaurant that only serves one dish: Hainanese chicken, a Singaporean dish of steamed chicken over rice and served with raw carrots, cucumber, cilantro a variety of sauces. During busy weeks, we would order this at least once a week! Chicken Meets Rice serves each dish with a cup of chicken soup and they also have an a-la-cart sauce bar. My favorite is the green ginger scallion sauce.

Tanto Japanese Restaurant

(Sunnyvale)

After visiting Japan last summer, I’ve been missing the busy underground Izakayas where they serve tapa style Japanese grilled small dishes. Tanto, while not a true izakaya, has a lengthy menu of near a hundred small dishes that are delicious and great for sharing. Personal favorites include: grilled shishamo, unagi tamako (eel omelette) , chicken karaage, and the special chezuke, a dashi soup with rice and a bunch of seafood. Make sure you either make a reservation or go early, because the wait can get quite long!

Catalana Tapas

(North San Jose)

This restaurant is only 10 minutes walking from my apartment and had been on my list for a long time before finally trying it during quarantine. We immediately fell in love with their Spanish tapas, live music, and patio dining, and visited twice during our last month here. Our favorite tapas are the morcilla (pork blood sausage), papas bravas, and the mejillones cremosos (mussels in a creamy saffron sauce).

Banh Mi Oven

(San Jose)

This chain sells authentic Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches along with other Viet snacks and drinks. You can purchase 6 banh mi sandwiches for less than $20 which probably equals 6 meals since each sandwich baguette is 8 inches long! The store we frequented was the one located in Berryessa, San Jose.

Nick the Greek

(San Jose)

We never dined in at Nick the Greek but we did order takeout multiple times. They serve great Greek food and pita wraps and their hummus is delicious. We usually ordered the lamb and beef pita gyro with a side of Hummus and Greek salad.

South Winchester BBQ

(San Jose)

Texan approved BBQ in the bay area! We only tried a few BBQ spots in the bay area, but South Winchester really surprised us with their pork ribs, brisket, and tri-tip! Their BBQ sauce is tangy, the potato salad is delicious, and the corn bread is sweet and dense. They have a large outdoor patio as well for enjoying the food outside.

Ramen Nagi

(Multiple Locations)

Some people might say Ramen Nagi is overrated and not worth the sometimes 1.5 hour wait. However, the ramen is delicious and if you arrive at the restaurant an hour before close (around 2PM), you skip the long lines! Juan always orders the Black King ramen with chashu and extra noodles and I always get the original tonkatsu ramen with pork belly at a level 2 spicy and an egg.

Ferides Bakery

(Santa Clara)

Brunch at Feride’s Bakery was my first time having Turkish breakfast. Their shakshuka is my go-to dish that they serve with fresh bread baked in-house and if you are brunching with multiple people, order the Anatolia Breakfast that is a spread of cheeses, meats, dips, and breads. For desert, check out their beautiful pastries.

SGD Tofu House

(Multiple Locations)

I loove spicy Korean tofu soup (Sundubu-jjigae) and that is exactly what SGD Tofu House specializes in. They also serve other Korean comfort foods like seafood pancake, cold buckwheat noodles, and some Korean BBQ’d meats. My go-to is definitely the seafood jigae.

Nutrition House

(Milpitas)

Nutrition House holds a special place in our hearts. It’s one of the first restaurants we stumbled across in our first week of moving here after unpacking until 10PM and realizing that 99% of restaurants in the south bay close pretty early. Nutrition House is located in a mini Chinatown and serves 24 hour Chinese Breakfast. Yes, you can order wontons, youtiao (fried dough sticks) with soy milk, and other dimsum dishes any time of the day. It really isn’t the most “nutritional,” but it satisfied Juan’s 1AM craving of youtiao.

Tin Pot Creamery

(Stanford, Palo Alto)

We discovered this ice cream shop pretty recently but I absolutely fell in love with their Blue Jasmine flavor. I usually cannot finish an entire scoop myself because ice cream is usually too sweet for me. Their menu has some very interesting flavors and we had the Blue Jasmine and the Passionfruit Poppyseed. For $5, you get 2 scoops up to 2 flavors.

Sugar Mama Deserts

(Milpitas)

Another ice cream shop, this time a hole-in-the-wall hidden in the same plaza as Nutrition House above. I love this store because of its CRAZY flavors that I would never expect for ice cream. Some examples include: Penang Curry, Durian, and Pandan. Our personal favorites are the Black Sesame and the Guava flavors.

Taqueria Los Cunados

(Milpitas)

This taqueria is our go-to for authentic Mexican tacos and burritos, and they also have a self-serve chips and salsa bar with endless taco toppings (closed right now for covid precautions). From here, the lengua (beef tongue) taco is the best along with the Super Shrimp Burrito.

Blue Bottle Coffee

(Multiple Locations)

Juan worked as a barista for a few months at the Blue Bottle location in Palo Alto, a beautiful store connected to a co-working space and a beautiful colonial style courtyard. Because all Blue Bottle baristas go through a 6 month training process for tasting, grinding, and brewing, each cup of coffee at any location is consistently good. Their sweet, Liege waffles are the perfect snack to have with your cappuccino.

until next time, bay area!

We’ll be back soon for more Bay Area food adventures, but if you currently are quarantined in this area, please check out and support these local restaurants!

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