Hoyt Nelson

In the next few issues, I will talk about restaurants – mostly in the South Bay area. I’ve been “collecting” restaurants and sending short reviews to friends for over 50 years. My wife and I always have our antennae open for new, interesting places and when confronted with choices between an old favorite and a new place that looks interesting, we usually go to the new place. We usually like ethnic places and rarely pay more than $20 for a meal. It’s a moving target to find good places since new places are always popping up, old ones close and places frequently change. We usually get tips from friends and usually check out reviews from YELP and prefer places with at least 25 reviews.

Because we live in the South Bay, most places are within reach of our area, although we have a section of special places out of range of this area. You may not like all the same places as we do because of differences in your tastes, the particular dish, whether it’s lunch or dinner, the day of the week, etc. When in doubt, I suggest you learn more before choosing by reading YELP reviews. (The ratings are YELP’s ($ and *). Also, feel free to contact me for more details (and to tell us about your favorite places). Even we, sometimes find disappointments in places at which we have had good meals in the past.

Because my listing usually changes every month, I get sick of re-issuing issues all the time. So now, I am in the process of transferring my review to Google Drive. If you save the link to it, you will always be up to date. My drive location will also include notes on my travels, Bay Area hikes, my personal recipes, and a few of my favorite puzzles. I’m having a few problems since Google does things a little differently than Microsoft. By the next issue of our newsletter, I should have things straightened out. In the future, I hope to add more details on each restaurant, but until then, you will just have to ask me for more details. If there is enough interest in a particular restaurant, we might even organize a trip to it.

Here is this month’s restaurant:

Crepes Bistro
Enough with the preliminaries. One of our latest finds is Crepes Bistro (4.5 *. $$, Gluten-Free, Vegan, 57 Washington St., San Jose, where Washington changes to Bascom, 408-260-6885). It’s just off the Bascom exit from 880 going S. The crepes ($13 – $15.75) are more than large enough for 2 people so I suggest splitting a savory crepe for dinner and splitting a sweet crepe for desert. The crepes are true buckwheat, about 14X 16 and unusually thick at about ¼. Soups, salads, bagels, breakfast items, acai, deserts and drinks are also available. The place is fairly small and nicely decorated with tasteful photos. We enjoyed our first meal there and I look forward to the next.