The coronavirus pandemic’s devastating effect on the local dining scene hasn’t scared off two local restaurant owners. While many eateries are struggling to stave off permanent closure, Kasem Saengsawang and Zareen Khan have both expanded their small Bay Area chains, opening new outposts of Farmhouse Kitchen in Menlo Park and Zareen’s in Redwood City.
Farmhouse Kitchen
San Francisco Thai restaurant Farmhouse Kitchen has opened a glitzy new location in Menlo Park, offering limited indoor and outdoor dining, takeout and delivery.
Farmhouse Kitchen has revamped the 4,000-square-foot space at 1165 Merrill St., across from the Caltrain station, decking it out with opulent decorations (including handmade gold Thai chandeliers and flower wall), a private dining room, a lounge area with velvet chairs and a gleaming full bar. The restaurant opened barely a week after San Mateo County announced that indoor dining could resume at 25% capacity or with 100 people, whichever is fewer.
But the “new normal guidelines” for dining in at Farmhouse Kitchen include a health screening, temperature check, masks required when diners aren’t eating or drinking and parties of no more than six people with reservations capped at 90 minutes. The restaurant also charges a $3 “COVID-19 sanitation fee” per table.
Kasem Saengsawang, a native of Thailand, opened his first Farmhouse Kitchen in San Francisco in 2015. The restaurant was inspired by the food he ate and cooked growing up in Loei, a rural province in northeast Thailand, but he spent much of his adult years in Bangkok.
Saengsawang now runs five restaurants, including one in Portland, Oregon. He recently moved to Menlo Park so he plans to be a frequent presence at this location.
Saengsawang describes his cooking style as “contemporary.” The Farmhouse Kitchen Menlo Park menu spans Northern and Southern Thailand, including dishes like pineapple fried rice, lobster pad thai, 24-hour beef noodle soup and slow-braised short rib served with panang curry, a dish the menu says is “reminiscent” of the large childhood meals Saengsawang would cook in Thailand for his family.
Desserts include mango sticky rice, Thai tea crepe cake and the very Instagrammable “Thai vacation,” a halved coconut filled with sticky rice, coconut ice cream, coconut cream, peanuts and sesame, garnished with a brightly colored drink umbrella.
The Menlo Park restaurant also serves cocktails, beer and wine.
Farmhouse Kitchen is open Monday-Thursday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5-9 p.m., Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5-10 p.m., Saturday, noon to 10 p.m. and Sunday, noon to 9 p.m.
Zareen’s
Zareen’s, one of the Peninsula’s most popular Pakistani-Indian restaurants, has opened a new location at 2039 Broadway St. in downtown Redwood City.
This is owner Zareen Khan’s third restaurant, joining the original location in Mountain View and a second outpost in Palo Alto.
The Redwood City Zareen’s is open only in the evenings for takeout and delivery for now but will ramp up to full hours and both indoor and outdoor dining starting on Friday, Oct. 16.
The menu is the same as the other Zareen’s locations, with samosas, chicken tikka masala, garlic naan made to order in a clay oven, paratha wraps and other Pakistani and Indian fare. Khan said she may add more tandoori dishes later in the year.
During the coronavirus shutdown, Zareen’s also started selling frozen foods, including naan, samosas, biryani and chicken shami (patties made from slow-cooked chicken and lentils plus egg and herbs).
Khan said she was nervous to open a new restaurant in a new city during a pandemic but received an “outpouring of support” in the first few days of soft opening.
“I am grateful and humbled at the way Redwood City residents have welcomed me to their community,” she said. “I think we will be fine here.”
She said her restaurants were noticeably busy after Zareen’s was named to the San Francisco Chronicle’s annual Best 87 Restaurants list (previously known as the “Top 100” list) last month, one of only a handful of Peninsula eateries to earn the distinction.
Khan, a restaurant owner with a penchant for social justice and activism, is celebrating the restaurant opening by making a $12,000 charitable donation. She’s asking customers to rank their three favorite charities out of seven organizations the restaurant regularly supports, including Doctors Without Borders, the ACLU and National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). The three charities that receive the most votes will each receive a $4,000 donation. Khan will announce them on Oct. 16.
More information can be found at zareensrestaurant.com by clicking on the Redwood City link.
Email Elena Kadvany at ekadvany@paweekly.com
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