Where to Eat

So where do you go when you get hungry while you're out about on public transit. Here's a few places we've liked, or at least gone to more than once.

• Peet's Coffee has set up shop in a lot of great transit-watching locations, such as the Ferry Building, Market between Church and Castro (watch the F line), and across the street from CalTrain in Redwood City. There are also Peets's easy walks from the Belmont and San Mateo CalTrain stations.
• The Old Spaghetti Factory in San Jose is really only ho-hum, but it's near Diridon station and if you have some time to kill (say, for example, you're getting on a bus to L.A. at the nearby Greyhound station and it doesn't leave til 11 P.M.) downtown San Jose doesn't give you many other choices. Plus they have an old Birney streetcar inside the restaurant.
• Mitchell's Ice Cream is just fantastic. I mean, I've seen lines out the door on rainy nights. If you want to try something exotic, get ube (which is bright purple), but really, even their vanilla is pretty damn good. It's about a block from the Muni's J Church.
• Top Dog Hot Dogs is yummy and a block from downtown Berkely BART.
• Fremont Wienerschnitzel; hey, Wienerschnitzels are getting hard to find these days. This one is half a block from the Fremont Centerville Amtrak/ACE station, which has a coffee shop with outdoor seating, which also happens to be closed on weekends, making it a pretty good place to eat a hot dog and watch trains.
• Food court, Hillsdale Mall; acros El Camino from Hillsdale CalTrain (walk north from the station, past TGI Friday's, enter the mall through Sears--just crossing El Camino the most direct and obvious way kinda sucks. I recommend the hybrid Chinese/Cajun place (not kidding here).
• Popeye's Chicken, 22nd & Mission, two blocks from 24th St. BART. I never actually made it to this one, and now I'm on a diet. Argh! Go and eat a biscuit for me.
• Franklin St. Cafe at Redwood City CalTrain, right by the tracks.
• Downtown San Mateo has lots of good eats within an easy walk from CalTrain. North Beach Pizza and Pizza My Heart are pretty good, but we seem to keep going back to Mr. Pizza Man.
• Cafe Maison coffee stand at Mountain View CalTrain; many times I haven't gotten enough breakfast and picked up a croissant and a hard boiled egg for $2.00. At lunchtime the hotdogs are ok too.
• Crêpes Café at Menlo Park CalTrain. The crêps are yummy, both savory and sweet, and the coffee's good; plus they have free wi-fi, and it's close enough to the station that you can sit on the deck until you hear the crossing bells, and still run over in plenty of time to catch your train (going southbound, anyway).
• Cramer's Bagels; Silicon Valley is full of these Bagelwich places, usually run by Vietnamese immigrants. This one is particularly good, and happens to be in a strip mall across the street from the Santa Clara CalTrain station--where you might happen to find yourself hungry and with time to kill, if, for example, you just flew in at SJC on a weekend, when trains run hourly (take the VTA's #10 bus, which is free, from the airport to the station). Be warned the bagels are big; as I write this, I am fighting off a case of the post-lunch drowsies from eating there.
• Indulge Asia Buffet, across the street from Belmont CalTrain. "A lot of commuter trains and SamTrans bus traffic in this corner! Makes for an enjoyable scenary while getting a bite to eat!" -- George G.
• Yumi Yogurt across the bus circle and parking lot from Sequoia Station, Redwood City. The low calorie/carb/fat flavors are yummy and good for you!
• MiMe's Cafe in downtown Redwood City. Actually part of a culinary arts training program for young people--who are really nice and make, imho, the best lunch in Redwood City. Sometimes you get free dessert, too!

So what are your favorites? Leave a comment and let us know!

A satisfied Mitchell's customer enjoying a cone of ube ice cream.