John "strannik" S.'s Profile

Mountain Mikes is a chain, so you can expect some similarities to other branches.  I won't waste any time on the pizza at this branch, because the treatment of customers is awful.

I have gone more than once with a party of folks WELL before their posted closing time, only to be told that they are closing early and either I couldn't order, or would have to get the order to go.  The last time this happened, we came at 8:30 when the posted closing time was 10:00PM! I never see more than one other customer in the place (usually empty). The employees are either pulling a fast one on an inattentive owner, or the owner is using this branch for money laundering - there is no other explanation for why they would work so hard to drive customers away.  The salad bar is usually decrepit or was put away even earlier than the early closing time. The pizza and the service are much better at other branches. I won't return to this one, despite the convenient location.

This is for approximately 1996-2006

I was lucky enough to have Bean There as my local coffeehouse for about 10 years when I lived on Duboce Park. I couldn't tell you how many hours I spent there, telcommuting and coding during the dot com days, writing hundreds of pages, meeting with friends or just hanging out. It is a lovely sunny neighborhood cafe, with the requisite rotating art on the walls, bulletin/shelf space with many bizarre flyers, hip retro music CDs playing in the background (staff picked), a nice selection of pastries, food and local characters. When the weather was nice, the row of outdoor tables on either side was the place to be and watch the world go by. Of course the revolution has come to this part of San Francisco, so the staff have been known to enjoy being slackers. I have also seen them being efficient, but this is not a place to come for industrial-grade assembly-line "tar for bucks" efficiency.

I liked the cappuccinos made Italian style, bagels with peanut butter, meal-filled croissants and pots of tea. I don't remember everything I had there! The atmosphere is the main impression that I am left with, something that only a few San Francisco Cafes manage to acquire with the patina of age.  This place was important enough at the time that I now look on it as a phase of my life, and not just a Cafe.

(see my caffe's page at strannik dot com / square / node / 9)

This review is only for 1 meal of tacos, and a medium horchata (agua fresca form of cinnamon rice pudding drink).

I had carne asada and al pastor tacos, which were the best I've had without going up to the mission or to a less gringo dominated neighborhood. The salsa bar has a very nice selection of fresh salsas, all looking quite good (I tried the house salsa which was a red with the heat turned down a bit). The chips (flour tortilla based) were crispy, tasty, thick and slightly translucent (I hate dried out chips with no oil). The horchata was as good as any.

The tacos arrived with perfectly grilled corn tortillas, and abundant fresh cilantro and onions.  The Al Pastor was as good as I have had it anywhere.  The carne asada was cut thicker than normal, letting you know that it is real steak, nicely charred on the outside, and cut into squares.  I added salsa from the abundant bar and lime juice from the available limes at the salsa bar - bliss!

The place is small with tasteful upscale decor.

I was in Pittsburgh for a conference, and wishing I had been in Philly instead, for a cheese-steak.  I had had a "Pittsburgh" cheese-steak, which was not the same. I decided to risk the cheese-steak in this place, which was at least conveniently located. I've had a better cheese-steak, but this one was in the top 10, and definitely scratched the itch.  This is definitely low-brow cuisine, so don't expect the top quality anything, let alone atmosphere, but you can get a basic grade of comfort food that might just make it for a reasonable price.  And if you are in the hotel next door, it can't be beat for convenience.

This review reflects a visit I made to the Caffe Tazza in 1985.  It might just be a bit dated.  For one thing, I'm not sure that they are even in the same place.  I spent a week in Taos, and spent a fair amount of that in the Tazza.  There were poetry/fiction readings, one-woman performance pieces and other performances.  I had my first Torani Soda there.  I decided to become a writer while there. Larry, the owner, was a transplant from North Beach, and he added a North Beach style to the place, which made me feel right at home. For one brief period of life I spent many happy hours there in the midst of summer rain storms and cloud-shaped sun beams under the Sangre De Cristo Mountains, looking at adobe walls, I can't tell you what they serve anymore ( a decent cappucino and torani sodas are all I remember). But for some reason, I felt more connected to the earth and more alive with possibilities in the Tazza than almost anywhere else on earth.  Your mileage may vary, but go have a coffee if you are in town.

A GHOST STORY

The windy road through the desert that used to be route 66 was dark and dusty as I pulled into Oatman, which could only be described as a ghost town with occupants. It was too dark to go on. I could either go back to Kingman, forward through hundreds of miles of desert, or stay here.  There was only one hotel, and the rates looked good, so I decided to stop.  I walked into the lobby.  It really looked like a piece of the Old West.  Everyone was apparently in the bar, and nobody in the lobby.  I walked into the bar.

"Can I help you?", said the bartender - a lively young lady.

"I'd like to get a room", I said.

"Go upstairs and pick one out and then tell me the number".

I went up the staircase which entered the second floor through the middle, a balcony hall with rooms circling the staircase. I had just spent a couple of weeks in the solitude of a monastery, and I was feeling a bit more sensitive to certain spiritual phenomena than usual. As I ascended the staircase, the hair on the back of my neck started to stand.  I walked into a room, which looked pleasant enough.  Ugh. I felt as if I had just walked into a dark cloud...a really icky presence that made my skin crawl.

I went into another room....the same icky cloud....and another.

I found one room that felt OK.  The bed was unmade, and there was a rag in the sink, but I didn't care.  I went back down and repeated the number.

"Can't have it", the bartender said, "housecleaning didn't show up today, and it isn't made up. Go pick another one."

I went back up and repeated the search.  The front corner felt icky, but there was a cross on the wall, which I decided would serve for making my choice. This turned out to be the room next to "Oatie" the ghost.

I went back downstairs and gave her the number and asked "how many
of your rooms are haunted?"

"All of em" she said.

I hadn't eaten, and nothing else in town seemed to be open, so I hauled my bag upstairs and then went back down to the bar, where I ordered a drink and some nachos. The TV was playing country music videos, and I got to set and chat with the bartender, the manager and a local that frequently stayed overnight, so he could enjoy the bar worry free.

I learned from the conversation that the hotel was haunted, primarily by Oatie, associated with an old guy who had died in the Hotel, but that there was also a woman who was much darker and more horrifying.  The local said that he had also seen a few children, who he thought might have been some of the "tommyknockers" that had gotten buried alive in the mines. At one point, these children had tried to lead him down a hallway that he had never seen before, and he felt that had the manager not woken him at that moment, that he would have died. He also thought that the woman in question was Carole Lombard, who had been there for her honeymoon with Clark Gable, and had died in the plane crash while Gable was at the hotel. The manager, an older lady started crying at this point, and also related that she had seen the piano downstairs playing by itself, which she identified as her boyfriend who had also died at the hotel.

Apparently the hotel is a major site for ghost hunters of all kinds, who have even produced photographs of the "ghosts". The local ended the chat, by saying that he didn't think the ghosts were anything to worry about, and I wasn't going to be one of those wimps who run out of the hotel in the middle of the night screaming, was I?

The bar closed, and I went upstairs to my room.  After settling in, I lay back and tried to sleep.  The wind blew out in the street, and the big wooden sign which was right outside my window rocked back and forth with a "creak...creak". Air currents, it would seem, moved in strange ways.  The door to the room shook all night, occasionally with a big BANG, as if someone were pounding it from the other side. I turned the light back on and read.  I turned it off and attempted to sleep again.  At one point, under the moonlight, it appeared as if the door handle were turning on its own. I was on edge for most of the night, finally falling asleep.  I had to get up and walk down the darkened hall twice during the night to use the restroom. That event was made for a horror movie!
When I woke up, at about 8:30AM the next morning, sunlight was streaming in the window, and yet it felt and seemed as if the light were darkened somehow. I decided that I would not luxuriate by sleeping in, but would get out of there.

I packed up and felt a sense of relief going down the stairs. I stopped in to the restaurant (part of the hotel), and had a breakfast of Navajo fry bread with maple syrup and jam. I saw the piano that had played by itself, filling the manger with sorrow instead of fear.

As I turned to load the car and head across the desert, I felt a presence looking at me through the window of the room I had stayed in.

"Well, at least the humans were friendly". A great place if you don't mind spooks.

I'm always afraid that too many people will discover this great spot, and there will never be any tables left!  I'm a big fan of coffeehouses that are right on the beach.  There is one in San Francisco where I used to live, Mr. Toots in Capitola, and this one.  This is a little place with good beverages, a little wood burning stove/fireplace inside, and a big deck with an ocean view in front.  What more could I say?  They also have a nice selection of used books for sale, and I found some treasures.  I once spent a couple of days camping down the path at the state beach, and I walked up and down the bay every day - this was always a stop.  I could spend hours writing here.  So if you read this, and it becomes your new favorite spot, you have to save me a chair!

I lived in San Francisco for 12 years and had access to the best Chinese food outside of Hong Kong.  When I moved back to the Campbell area, I was inconsolable as I could not find a place that was good enough to scratch the itch. I found myself trekking to Saratoga to a place called Chef Wong when I wanted tasty Cantonese food.

To my great delight, Chef Wong moved to my neighborhood in its current incarnation as Winchester Chef. I have had parties at the old location, and I have been to the new location a couple of times now both for lunch and dinner. The lunch specials are what you expect for a lunch special in a local Chinese place in terms of price and what is served (soup, salad, entree with choice of rice etc.), but the portions are very decent and every bite is delicious. Every person I have taken there has been enthusiastic about the food.  The standard dishes you expect to find in any American Chinese Restaurant are all at the top of their game (Kung Pao _____, etc.), and the Chef can surprise you.  My friends and I like the Schezwan string beans, Kung Pao anything, salt and pepper squid, the Won Ton soup, tender greens, walnut prawns - in short, any standard Cantonese or Hunan/Schezwan item common in California.

For a choir party once had, I asked the chef to provide food for X number of people and asked to "just surprise us" - a good way to get out of a food rut.  I can't recall all of the dishes now, but WOW - good stuff. I have also had them cater an event and got rave reviews from the attendees.

So go measure them by your favorite dishes, and then branch out - I have yet to be disappointed.

I've been hanging out at Caffe Trieste for over 20 years - it was the first, and still one of the best coffeehouses on the West Coast. The greatest downside of moving back to San Jose (from San Francisco), was losing easy access to my favorite alternative livingroom. This was compounded by fact that my favorite downtown SJ Caffes all closed (The Phoenix Caffe, Fred's Roasting Co. and Cafe Matisse), with the continuous soul removal of Downtown SJ.

The presence of the Trieste in Downtown SJ, will literally give me a reason to go downtown again. Caffe Trieste is the polar opposite of a chain store - each one develops a unique personality while still reflecting the Italian/Bohemian/Literary component of the original. Good coffee, lovely snacks, and a great atmosphere - I will probably turn it into a regular office!

(see my caffe's page at strannik dot com / square / node / 9)

UPDATE:
The San Jose Caffe Trieste has been open for a bit now, and I have already spent many happy hours there. There have been many good music events, and lots of just good times sitting and writing as well. It is really nice to get that good Canoli without having to drive all the way up to the city!  The place will be even better when it has the patina of age, which it will no doubt acquire - go down for 1st Friday Art Walk - a hot time to go.

I used to be regular there from 1985 until the late 90's, so my thoughts might be less than current.  This was a real international place where I met lots of interesting people from around the world. The dancers from the studio upstaris used to come down on Saturday nights and dance on the tables. Tea comes by the pot, and the lavender tea is the best! More recently, you could find middle eastern specialities. This was a real bohemian hangout for while at least. I liked the beat-up antique sewing machine base turned table in the window - I studied many a happy hour there, and made many friends. Don Ramcharan - if you are out there - email strannik at strannik dot com!