Local Blogs
By 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...
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.
Stanford Shopping Center announced this week a slew of new stores and restaurants slated to open in the spring of 2016 as part of a massive redevelopment at the popular, upscale Palo Alto mall.True Food Kitchen: True Food Kitchen is a health-forward restaurant chain with a diverse menu friendly to vegans, vegetarians and gluten-free diners alike - though "you don't have to be a die-hard Yogi to dine" there, the restaurant's website quips. Think kale salad, gluten-free tacos, spaghetti squash casserole, butternut squash pizza (the dough is made in-house with spelt and flax seed), turkey burger and more.
Carnivores/non kale-salad lovers: Don't despair. Items like braised short rib, teriyaki rice bowl and a bison burger will save you.
A rendering of a renovated entrance into the Stanford Shopping Center from El Camino Real, with new restaurant True Food Kitchen in the back left. Courtesy Simon Property Group.
Other True Food Kitchen locations serve lunch and dinner as well as brunch, plus cocktails, wine and beer. The Stanford outpost - which clocks in at 7, 000 square feet - will be the chain's first Bay Area location.
Tender Greens: Tender Greens is a farm-to-table chain (yes, those two words can go together) that serves salads, sandwiches, main dishes, soups, desserts and daily specials all made with ingredients "fresh picked daily, " primarily from one farm, Tender Greens investor Scarborough Farms in Oxnard, according to the restaurant's website. The menu varies from location to location, but includes "big plates" like grilled steak, chipotle-barbecue chicken and herb-brushed albacore (which can also be served on sandwiches or salads); "big salads" like a Chinese chicken, tuna nicoise and salami and kale; soups and sides.
Stanford Shopping Center is an upscale open air shopping mall located on El Camino Real at Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, California. It is on the campus of Stanford University although the university only owns the land and not the actual buildings or stores. Also...
