Converse with the chef as he prepares a multicourse feast at this new Palo Alto restaurant
Omakase restaurants have been popping up like crazy along the Peninsula. Besides masterful sushi preparation, a big draw is the intimate size of the restaurant, allowing you to interact with the chef and learn about the food you’re eating.
If you haven’t been to an omakase restaurant, think about the difference between sitting at the bar versus elsewhere in the establishment. At the bar, you get to watch the bartender craft the drinks, ask questions and learn a bit about the method behind the mixology.
Take this highly interactive service style and apply it to a seven-course plated dinner rooted in seasonality and you have Kappo, one of the newest restaurants to open at Stanford Shopping Center. Kappo means “to cut and to cook” in Japanese, and it’s a multicourse meal left up to the chef featuring plated hot dishes.
Kappo seats 12 people, and there’s just one server and two chefs. It’s practically dinner and a show. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of the service style soon.
Stay tasty,
Adrienne
Seasonal ingredients and a hands-on chef take center stage at this new 12-seat Midpeninsula restaurant
Nikolas Neuwirt, aka Chef Nik, describes himself as “super outdoorsy, like almost to a fault.” He dives, fishes and forages, so it’s no wonder that his love of exploring the great outdoors comes through in the food at Kappo, an intimate new Californian fine-dining restaurant with Japanese influences at Stanford Shopping Center, where Neuwirt is the executive chef.
Two additions to Stanford Shopping Center, plans for a combined bookstore, cafe and bar are underway and free Thanksgiving meals
- Zaytinya, a Mediterranean restaurant created by the José Andrés Group, is opening its first Bay Area location Monday at Palo Alto’s Stanford Shopping Center.
- Romance readers, listen up: A bookstore dedicated to the genre is opening Saturday in Los Altos. A Novel Affair’s long-term goal is to become a bookstore, cafe and bar hybrid.
- Roman-style pizzeria Delarosa opened Monday at Stanford Shopping Center.
- Frozen yogurt shop Yumi Yogurt is soft opening in Redwood City starting Friday.
- For those struggling to put food on the table this holiday season, Ristorante Don Giovanni in Mountain View is serving more than 200 complimentary dinners on Thanksgiving from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Sweetgreen is hosting the grand opening of its new Burlingame outpost Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- A new Japanese restaurant is hosting its grand opening Saturday. From the team behind Rantei in Santa Clara, Kodawari Japanese Cuisine will offer sushi and yakitori, as well as a tatami room.
Tea-infused hot pot at Four Seasons Tea House Hot Pot
My favorite meal is hot pot (in fact, that’s how I’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving this year). But since Shabuway closed in Mountain View, I haven’t been impressed with the downtown options: Superhot is a chaotic and fun all-you-can-eat style hot pot, but the quality is lacking; and Happy Lamb’s pots sit above the table instead of in it, making it very difficult for shorter people like me, and its sauce selection is less than satisfactory.
But a third hot pot option quietly opened along Castro recently: Four Seasons Tea House Hot Pot. Notably, it doesn’t have a website or social media presence.
Walk in, and you’ll come to a concrete wall displaying a variety of teas in small glass containers. Upon sitting down, the server will present you five tea options, of which you select one to both drink and use as the liquid in your spicy soup base.
I opted for the half and half soup base, and there’s a lot of customizations available within this option. For the spicy half, choose between beef oil or vegetable oil and select your spice level (I chose medium.) For the non-spicy half, choose between Yunnan native chicken with mushroom soup, jasmine tomato soup, Guizhou sour soup, nourishing herbal soup or golden sour cabbage soup (I picked jasmine tomato.) When the hot pot arrives, the server adds tea to the spicy side.
The soup bases paired perfectly together, with the slightly sweet and floral jasmine tomato soup base toning down the heat from the other side.
Both the osmanthus oolong Angus beef and Da Hong Pao smoked pork belly were melt-in-your mouth tender ($13.95-$15.95). I typically find that hot pot pork belly is cut too thick and that it’s never quite as rich or melt-in-your-mouth as the beef, but at Four Seasons, this was absolutely not the case. And the pork paired extremely well with the Chinese oolong, resulting in a lightly floral yet savory bite. The beef was delicious as well, but the flavor of the beef plus the flavor of the soup bases overpowered the delicate osmanthus oolong notes.
To accompany the meat, I also ordered the three-color noodles (green, yellow and purple) and the enoki mushrooms, both of which soaked up the delicious broths perfectly.
I’m usually a stickler for ponzu at hot pot, but at Four Seasons, the broth and ingredients themselves were so flavorful that I wasn’t missing the sauce at all.
With tax and tip, the bill came out to about $40 per person, which I think is very reasonable. (I will note that each person dining in is charged a “cover charge” of $3.50.)
To watch my review, follow @peninsulafoodist on Instagram.
Four Seasons Tea House Hot Pot, 134 Castro St., Mountain View; 650-964-8881. Open Monday to Thursday from 5-9:30 p.m., Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5-10:30 p.m., Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Thanksgiving libations
Give thanks this year for cocktails, mocktails as well as the food
FROM THE FOODIST
When you support local journalism, you support the Foodist
The Peninsula Foodist is proud to be a sister publication of Palo Alto Online, and as an independent and local news organization, we rely on reader support to bring you 100% original content focusing on the places where you live and work — and of course — eat out. Your support is needed now more than ever. Help sustain local journalism and the Peninsula Foodist by becoming a member. >SUPPORT US TODAY
About the Peninsula Foodist
We cover the dynamic, under-the-radar food scene around the Peninsula through articles, interviews and eating excursions. Pass along tips, comments and recipes to PeninsulaFoodist@PaloAltoOnline.com.
Are you looking to reach locals interested in food and dining on the Peninsula? Learn about advertising in the
Peninsula Foodist newsletter.
Copyright © *|CURRENT_YEAR|* *|LIST:COMPANY|*, All rights reserved.
*|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|* *|LIST:DESCRIPTION|*
Our mailing address is:
*|HTML:LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|* *|END:IF|*
You can update your preferences and manage your groups, or if you really never want to hear from us again, including other emails from us you may have signed up for, you can totally unsubscribe from this list.
View this email in your browser
