San Jose’s Blue Door relaunches as Mextizo
After four years of featuring a Greek menu in an upscale setting that evoked the Mediterranean, the Blue Door restaurant in West San Jose has been transformed yet again.
Now it’s Mextizo Restaurant & Cantina, with a menu created by a Bay Area chef raised in the Mexican state of Veracruz.
Owners Sylvia and Peter Foundas say the concept makes more sense for this 8,000-square-foot space at Westgate Center that for years was home to a Chevy’s.
“It’s a better fit for the neighborhood,” Sylvia said, and the COVID-19 shutdown provided the weeks necessary for a major renovation. “It was the perfect time to switch.”
The Foundas family has deep roots in the restaurant business. They own the iconic Pinecrest Diner in San Francisco’s theater district. In Daly City, the family took over the former Lyons on John Daly Boulevard years ago and turned that into their Boulevard Cafe.
Executive chef Everardo Andrade also brings a deep résumé to Mextizo, having cooked at Reposado in Palo Alto and Olla Cocina in San Jose before joining the Blue Door team.
A Mexican-focused menu is “his dream,” Sylvia said. “He’s had these recipes in his head for years.”
For brunch, think habanero carnitas, a pork belly hash, or salmon sopes. The appetizers lineup is strong on seafood, with Coctel de la Veracruzana, Calamar Frito and Aguachile Verde with ahi tuna among the dozen offerings. Taco fillings range from carne asada to duck confit to octopus. For entrees, Andrade has created such dishes as Cazuela de Marisco, a seafood medley served with black rice, and Costillas en Adobo, short rib in a mole adobo.
Mextizo is open for patio dining, along with takeout and delivery. Weekday hours are 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. (until 10 on Friday); on
weekends the restaurant opens at 9 a.m. and serves until 10 p.m. Saturday and 9 p.m. Sunday.
TETAILS >> 1502 Saratoga Ave., San Jose. 408-866-4176; www. mextizocantina.com
Gourmet Puff offers Nigerian fried pastries in the Bay Area
Puff-puffs are slightly sweet fried balls of dough originally from Nigeria. They are denser than doughnuts, less chewy than mochi, and, thanks to Chidera Anyanwu, now available in the Bay Area.
Anyanwu is the brains behind Gourmet Puff, a pickup-and-delivery-only puff-puff bakery she recently launched in her Oakland home kitchen, which is licensed for a cottage food operation. Anyanwu, who is a trademark and advertising lawyer, grew up as a child in Owerri eating puff-puffs.
When she was 6, she and her family moved to the United States, where her mother continued making puff-puffs and other Nigerian delicacies for Chidera and her four siblings as a way to keep them connected to their culture, Anyanwu first told Berkeleyside’s Nosh.
After years of perfecting her own puff-puffs — lighter than her mother’s, she says, but still made with just flour, yeast, water, sugar, salt and oil for frying — for friends and parties, Anyanwu and her husband, Bayo, a tech engineer, decided to launch Gourmet Puff in April.
“COVID-19 gave us more time to be more serious about the business when shutdowns happened in March,” she says via email.
Anyanwu’s menu features six-piece puff-puffs that come in house special plain ($6), powdered sugar ($9), cinnamon sugar ($9) and Nutella ($9). She offers a 12-piece Puff Party ($15), 18-piece Puff Party ($24) and plans to add savory versions too.
Since launching just two months ago, the Anyanwus have done their own deliveries within the East Bay for a $3 fee. But they plan to add delivery via Doordash and Grubhub by the end of June. For more information, including pickup hours, go to gourmetpuff.co.
Sino restaurant calls it quits at Santana Row in San Jose
After 15 years, the upscale dim sum and cocktail lounge Sino has shut down permanently at Santana Row, the victim of business uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Yeo restaurant group, headed by Chris and Kelly Yeo and their sons Julian and Andrew, combined the closing news with an upbeat announcement: Sino’s sister restaurant, Straits, will still feature its modern Singaporean cuisine at the San Jose center and is pivoting to outdoor dining.
Of the shutdown, the family said: “This was by no means an easy decision for us as we only planned to close for two weeks, but as weeks turned into months, more and more we began to feel the pain of uncertainty looming. These very uncertainties are the primary driver behind our decision not to reopen.”
The decision leaves the Yeo Group with one restaurant, the popular Straits, the family’s signature concept. Straits, which has been offering takeout and delivery, has opened its patio for outdoor dining and cocktails, in accordance with the new Santa Clara County guidelines. Hours are noon to 9 p.m. Sunday-thursday and noon to 11 p.m. Friday-saturday. No reservations are being accepted at this time.
TETAILS >> 333 Santana Row, San Jose. 408-246-6320; www.straits restaurants.com