By Elena Kadvany
E-mail Elena Kadvany
About this blog: 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 jo...
(More)About this blog: 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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Longtime Menlo Park restaurant Flea St. Cafe recently transformed a small outdoor deck into an "Oysterette," serving a new menu of raw oysters, avocado toast, cocktails and other items.
Flea St. opened the Oysterette in late July, owner Jesse Cool said.
"We thought, 'How about making the deck different than 37-year-old, venerable Flea Street?'" she said.
The new Oysterette outside Flea St. Cafe on Alameda de las Pulgas in Menlo Park. Photo courtesy Flea St. Cafe.
The idea is "light, bright, casual, with the same food core values" as Flea St., where Cool has been
espousing farm-to-table cooking since she opened in 1980.
Chef Charlie Parker said he and Cool wanted to offer "something a little bit more fun and inviting," with a more casual, "playful" and completely different menu (plus louder music) than at Flea St.
There is, of course, a changing selection of West and East coast oysters, served on the shell with a cucumber salsa hot sauce and lime, and other raw seafood dishes. There's also avocado toast with smoked trout and giardiniera (a relish of Italian pickled vegetables); Serrano ham served with burrata and melon; and Old Bay potato chips. For dessert, there's an ice cream sandwich — strawberry ice cream between two pistachio and brown butter cookies.
Oysters and other dishes at the Oysterette. Photo courtesy Flea St. Cafe.
Avocado toast served at Flea St.'s new Oysterette. Photo courtesy Flea St. Cafe.
The Oysterette serves wine, beer and cocktails, like a nectarine and basil margarita or blackberries and bourbon with mint shrub.
View the menu
here.
The Oysterette is open Wednesday-Saturday from 4:30 p.m. to closing. Flea St. is located at 3607 Alameda de las Pulgas in Menlo Park.
