Los Altos Grill, Los Altos

Los Altos Grill
Wood-fired rotisserie grill with terrific steaks and chicken--and cornbread.
(image from www.lovetoeatandtravel.com)

Formerly Bandera's, this restaurant changed its name back in around 2004 to "Los Altos Grill." We'd liked Bandera's and were pleased to see that the menu remained pretty much the same.

The big drawback to this place is the crowds. If you try to go at any time when other people might be thinking about eating out, you'll wait for your table. There's not much waiting space inside, if the weather is chilly or wet; of course, this is California, so odds are you can just hang out near the entrance outside. The good news is that the interior is very nice, the restaurant quiet enough to permit conversation, and the waitstaff very helpful, once you are seated. The booths are nice and roomy, with nice views of the bar in the center of the restaurant (TVs if you're inclined to watch sports) and the kitchen in the back. There's a lot of stained and polished wood inside, and the wood-fired cooking is highlighted by flickering firelight from the ovens. When we went, they also had the pork chops roasting on a spit out front.

We always get the jalapeno cornbread here. It's a little dry, but ask for honey with it and it's perfect--maybe the second-best cornbread in the Bay Area (after Armadillo Willy's, strangely enough). It comes in a skillet and is about a four-person portion, though three of us managed to finish it off on this occasion.

Our waiter very enthusiastically talked us through the specials and the menu, answering all our questions happily and making recommendations whenever we asked. It's hard to go wrong with steak as a main course. They make it tender and tasty, and Mark's filet was served with a side of thick-cut tomatoes topped with basil and blue cheese that worked really well (even for someone unenthusiastic about tomatoes). We also sampled the pork chops, a special for that evening, which were amazingly tender and flavorful, one of the better chops I can remember having had. The side of red cabbage that came with them was a great complement. I had the halibut, the fresh fish of the day, which came "simply grilled" with little seasoning and a side of delicious brussels sprouts, lightly grilled themselves with compound butter. It was good, but I think I would have liked a little more seasoning.

We let the waiter talk us into a dessert of Oreo ice cream sandwiches, two large chocolate cookie sandwiches of cookies 'n' cream ice cream topped with whipped cream and surrounded with chocolate sauce and espresso shavings. Even though we were fairly full from dinner, the temptation was too much, and we ended up finishing it easily.

The Los Altos Grill, under whatever name, remains one of our standby restaurants, but we prefer to go on off-hours, when the experience of eating isn't preceded by half an hour to forty-five minutes of waiting.

Dick's Last Resort, San Diego

Dick's Last Resort
Bar food, rude waitstaff, fun atmosphere

If you're looking for a quiet place to have a business lunch, you'll want to avoid Dick's Last Resort. If you don't mind bickering with the waitstaff and getting napkins thrown at you while you eat some pretty good bar food, it's the place to be.

"You can't kill a man born to hang," the legend reads under the sketch of a surly looking man, presumably the eponymous Dick, that makes up the logo of Dick's Last Resort. You might be greeted by a scrawled chalk mark on the floor, if you enter via the Fourth Street side. The patio and host are on Fifth Street, where this time the host asked us if we wanted inside or outside. "Whatever," we said. "Well," he replied, "then sit somewhere," and turned away to the next customers.

At the next table, once we did sit down, a boy engaged in a prolonged paper-throwing battle with another boy further down the table, his father encouraging him all the while. His waitress made a large dunce cap out of paper and yanked it down onto his head at one point, to his squeals of delight. She was much more surly than our waiter, who just sat down at the empty spot at our table and scribbled down our order.

The sandwiches and fries are the things to get at Dick's, though the recent addition of huge salads is a welcome one (even if they only provide the illusion of health, being full of cheese and slathered with dressing). The Big Pig, a pulled pork sandwich with slaw, is well worth getting (might be worth asking for extra sauce if you like your barbecue saucy, though). Their chicken breast sandwiches are good as well. And of course, the fried food is hard to find fault with. Haven't tried the burgers, but they're something of a signature item there, so I can't imagine they're not as good as the rest of the fare.

Dick's is a tradition for us--we've now gone every year for the past seven or eight or something. It's just a fun place to have lunch, and the food is consistently good, if not spectacular. Bring your appetite and your sense of humor, and you won't regret it.

(Note: there's a Dick's coming to Las Vegas. We'll have to try that one out for New Year's.)

Empire Tap Room, Palo Alto

Empire Grill & Tap Room
California cuisine, moderately priced

Two of the places we visit most often in Palo Alto are Buca di Beppo and Gordon Biersch, across from each other on Emerson between Hamilton and Forest. Next to Buca's is a little place called the Empire Tap Room, which we'd often said "we should try" and never did. A while ago, we tried it and liked it, so when we had a friend in town, we went again and were not disappointed.

Inside, it looks like an upscale bar. The patio was crowded, so we opted for the table inside right away rather than the 20-30 minute wait to sit outside. I've since read glowing reviews of the patio--will have to give it a try for next time. But the inside itself is not too bad, though our table seemed to be a favored stopping point for some gnats, maybe residents of the large plant next to us. The staff were all friendly and helpful, and the tables neat and clean.

The food, overall, was excellent. They brought some fresh bread, with oil and balsamic vinegar upon request. Service was a little slow, probably because the outside patio was so crowded, but it was nothing that bothered us much. Our companion ordered the New York steak (sorry, I'm awful about remembering steak types--it was flank or strip) and we split the halibut special (accepting the $2 split plate charge), topped with red pepper puree and accompanied by roasted potatoes. Both dishes included assorted vegetables julienne, and we ordered the parmesan roasted asparagus on the side.

The steak was (I understand) good. The halibut was delicious, tender but firm with good flavor. The red pepper puree was okay, but didn't really add much to the fish from my perspective. The potatoes were excellent, not too soft and really flavorful, and the roasted asparagus was really good, hot and crunchy and tasty. We also ordered their french fries, which were very good, crispy and well-seasoned, though the homemade ketchup tasted a bit too much like spaghetti sauce and the aioli, though tasty, was a little runny. We ate comfortably and weren't too full when the meal was done. For a place called a "tap room," the Empire has a good selection of wines, which were consumed without complaint and seemed to go well with the meal (I had a Diet Coke myself, which was also good).

It's a little pricey, but the food is good, the service is good, and if you want to sit outside, there are few places with as large a patio. If you just want good brew pub food, it's hard to beat Gordon Biersch across the street, and I think eight times out of ten we'd go back there rather than return to Empire.

The Loft Bar and Bistro

We'd set out to lunch on Memorial Day and found our original destination closed, so we wandered around San Jose and happened upon The Loft, a very vertical restaurant with a small bar on the ground floor and a couple tables on the sidewalk, a larger loft space upstairs, and a rooftop patio. The loft space, where the seven of us ate, was beautiful, large and well lit, and that does a lot for a dining experience.

Mark and I shared the grilled chicken sandwich and the pear and blue cheese salad. Both were quite good, the grilled chicken thin and flavorful with onions and sun-dried tomatoes and a mayo that contributed a nice light flavor to the sandwich. The bread had a good consistency and the cheese even worked well, I think because the other flavors were so light, even the onion (many times I find cheese on a sandwich just adds fat while the flavor gets lost in a strongly-flavored sandwich). We had to try the fries, and here they were nice and thin, with good flavor, but not quite crisp enough for our tastes. The salad came with a little too much sherry vinaigrette, but the dressing's flavor was good, and the candied pecans and blue cheese went well with the crisp, sweet pear slices.

Service was good overall, the complimentary bread served with a balsamic dressing that we sopped up quickly and refreshed without our asking. Other dishes ordered were the French dip, the tri-tip steak, and the panko-crusted chicken, all of which were quite satisfactory.

We'd definitely come back. Though it was a little pricey, it wasn't any more so than Gordon Biersch, which is just down the street, and the ambience is definitely nicer even if the menu is a little more restricted.