Tasso’s restaurant returns to San Jose
Tasso Perakis and his family are back with their Greek breed of hospitality, “filoxenia,” and their signature lamb shank.
Twenty-five years after leaving their restaurant perched at the corner of Meridian Avenue and Willow Street in San Jose’s Willow Glen, they have returned with Tasso’s Restaurant and Bar.
“We’re getting back to our roots,” son Kostas Perakis said.
The sleek new restaurant is one of the new breed of transit-village establishments in Silicon Valley. It’s tucked underneath the Fruitdale Station Apartments on Fruitdale Avenue between Meridian and Southwest Expressway.
Here, Tasso, wife Maria and Kostas will specialize in the Greek, American and Italian specialties for which they’d become known in San Jose and at their 1927 Gilroy farm-house-turned-restaurant, Tasso’s Old House.
Tasso’s Famous Lamb Shank tops the menu, along with moussaka, Athenian prawns, Greek chicken, avgolemono soup and, for dessert, house-made baklava and loukoumades, the Greekstyle “beignets” typically found during festival season.
Italian entrees include stuffed veal involtini, short rib ravioli with Calabrian sauce and chicken Marsala; the tiramisu is housemade. Classic versions of steaks—think file twith sauce and pepper corn crusted New York—dominate the American dinner offerings. Full lunch and breakfast/brunch menus are also offered.
The cocktail bar is lined with spirits, including ouzo, plus the new breed of Greek wines.
Tasso’s will be open daily at 1530 Southwest Expressway, although the restaurant fronts Fruitdale Avenue. Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, until 10 Thursday-Friday. On weekends they’ll start brunch and breakfast at 8 a.m. and serve all the way through until 10 p.m. Saturday, 9 on Sunday. Details: 408-283-2040; www.tassosrestaurantandbar.com.
Walnut Creek’s Taste & Toast features 40 restaurants, shops
Stroll, sample and sip your way through downtown Walnut Creek on May 9 — and local schools will benefit.
The third annual Taste & Toast to Education benefit will run from 5 to 8 p.m. that day, with local restaurants and merchants opening their doors to attendees.
Participants offering samples or promotional deals will include 1515 Restaurant, Buckhorn Grill, Cafe Leonidas, Calicraft Brewing, California Pizza Kitchen, Corner’s Tavern, Cream, Extreme Pizza, Gott’s Roadside, Havana, Il Fornaio, Lemonade, Lokanta, MoMo’s, Nespresso, Pomegranate, Sauced BBQ, Siam Fine Thai Cuisine, Skipolini’s, Stanford’s, T4 & Poke, Teleferic Barcelona, Tender Greens, Tomatina’s, True Food Kitchen, Urban Remedy, Vineyard Vines, Vitality Bowls and others.
To join the foodie stroll, purchase a booklet in advance for $40 or the day of the event for $50. For online sales and details, go to the Walnut Creek Education Foundation website, wcefk12.org.
Ozumo expanding to San Jose’s Santana Row
The Japanese restaurant Ozumo, noted for adding an inventive element to San Francisco’s dining scene and for helping revitalize Uptown Oakland, will bring its hip vibe and menu to
San Jose’s Santana Row.
The enterprise will open in early May in a sleek space near the Hotel Valencia and offer an Ozumo first: An outdoor Japanese beer garden.
Founder-owner Jeremy Umland launched Ozumo San Francisco on The Embarcadero in 2001 with a combined sushi bar, robata grill and sake lounge. Not many years
later his Ozumo Oakland blazed a decade-long trail in Uptown, helping fuel a restaurant renaissance in that neighborhood.
A couple of years ago, he set his sights on the South Bay. He’s taken over the former Blowfish Sushi space and undertaken a major renovation that moved the entrance to the front sidewalk.
He’s calling this location a “modern-day izakaya where drinking and eating areas are blended into one” in a more casual fashion.
The kitchen of chef Salvador Alvarez, who trained under master sushi chef Katsuya Uechi in Los Angeles, will feature such dishes as gindara (black cod); chilled somen noodles with uni; and shio koji-marinated chicken.
Japanese craft beers and the country’s big three (Sapporo, Kirin and Asahi) will reign in the atrium-style beer garden. The indoor lounge will showcase sake and Japanese whiskey. And mixologist Rob Floyd has created a bar program
that includes an only-at-Santana-Row cocktail, the Mono Cham Martini, made with Grey Goose vodka and Japanese baby peaches.
DETAILS » Ozumo will be open from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, until 9:30 Sunday and until 11 Friday-Saturday,
with late-night hours in the lounge and beer garden (11:30 p.m. most days and 1 a.m. Friday-Saturday). www.ozumosantanarow.com.