By Elena Kadvany
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I am a perpetually hungry twenty-something journalist, born and raised in Menlo Park and currently working at the Palo Alto Weekly as education and youth staff writer. I graduated from USC with a major in Spanish and a minor in journalism. Though my first love is journalism, food is a close second. I am constantly on the lookout for new restaurants to try, building an ever-expanding "to eat" list. As a journalist, I'm always trolling news sources and social media websites with an eye for local food news, from restaurant openings and closings to emerging food trends. When I was a teenager growing up in Menlo Park, I always drove up to the city on weekends with the singular purpose of finding a better meal than I could at home. But in the past year or so, the Peninsula's food culture has been totally transformed, with many new restaurants opening and a continuous stream of San Francisco restaurants coming south to open Peninsula outposts. Don't navigate this food boom hungry and alone! Feed me your tips on new chefs and eats and together we'll share them with the broader community.
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Madame Tam Asian Bistro closed at the end of last month after five years of operation on University Avenue in Palo Alto.
Ringo Le, son of owner Tam Minh Le, said his mother decided to shutter the Asian-fusion restaurant in the wake of his father's death last year.
"Though she loves the restaurant industry, the loss took a toll on our mother, Tam Le, and she was no longer in the right mindset to handle the daily demands of a full service restaurant," Ringo said.
Ringo's mother opened her restaurant at 320 University Ave. in 2010, soon thereafter
laying claim to the space next door (322 University) as well.
Ringo said his mother will take a "one-year sabbatical" with plans to turn her experience running a restaurant in Palo Alto into a film about the local industry. (Ringo himself is a screenwriter, and said imparting some of his professional knowledge to his mother for her own project has been a part of her healing process.)
After her husband's death, Tam also became a vegetarian, and hopes to reopen a vegetarian restaurant in Palo Alto "when the time feels right," Ringo said.
