Evvia -- sister to Kokkari in San Francisco -- is one of our favorite of the favorites down here. Evvia serves wonderfully classic Greek fare along with dishes they describe as "local interpretations of many traditional Hellenic favorites." Because of a minor kitchen fire, Evvia had to close for a few weeks this fall and my husband and I were clutching our stomachs in fear that they would never reopen. Lucky for us and for Palo Alto, they did.

For us, It's all about the octopus. I mean, I suppose you COULD order the succulent lamb chops, or the piping hot gigantes beans with herbed feta, or even the eggplant and artichoke saganaki with the huge drift of Greek yogurt that needs to be spread over everything I eat for the rest of my life. But really, Evvia is all about the octopus.

On the menu, it's listed as "Octapadaki tou Yiorgou" and described as "traditional grilled octopus with lemon, oregano, and olive oil." Like the best things in life, this dish is simple. No foam, no gelees, no essences of boiled-down essences. All it takes is four ingredients -- five, really, if you count the wood fire grill needed to edge the chopped cephalopod with charred, smoky goodness -- for that dish to wend its tentacled way into my hungry, waking moments.

Though normally quite generous with one another when it comes to food, my husband and I now have to put in a double order, because where Evvia's octopus is concerned, we're way too greedy to share a single.

Of course, as much as we'd like to, diner can not live on octopus alone, and we do have other standard favorites at Evvia. The gigantes beans are the legume equivalent of a hot bath. Simmered in a rich marinara sauce with molten feta and oregano oil, Evvia's beans keep me from missing my favorite wood-baked beans at Nopa. They're definitely a must-order for us. When tomatoes are in season the Horiatiki salad is another winner. Crisp and refreshing with shavings of sweet purple onion, dusky olives, cucumber chunks, and salty squares of feta, it's the best classic Greek salad I've ever had.

For me, eating Greek almost always means that the meal is incomplete without lamb of some sort. Evvia's simple lamb chops are perfectly cooked and served with a lemon half and crackly, roasted potatoes. They're lovely. I've also become very fond of the loukanika -- plump lengths of mesquite-grilled lamb sausage -- which beg to be dragged through their cucumber-yogurt side sauce.

In a way, it's unfortunate that we have such firm favorites, because while Evvia has so many other things I'd like to try, I'm not willing to sacrifice one of our usuals to do so. Maybe some day we'll have a large enough party that we'll have to order more food and then I'll finally get to try the moussaka with yogurt béchamel. Or the braised goat with tomatoes and orzo. Oooh, or the egg-lemon soup!

You now, it was really quite stupid of me to write this post on an empty stomach because I'm putting all my dinner plans back in the fridge, and we're getting Evvia in.

Evvia Estiatorio
420 Emerson Street (at Lytton)
Palo Alto, CA 94301
(650)326-0983

Hours
Monday-Thurday: 11:30am-2:00pm (lunch)
Monday-Thursday: 5:30pm-10:00pm (dinner)
Friday: 5:30pm-11:00pm (dinner)
Saturday: 5:00pm-11:00pm (dinner)
Sunday: 5:00pm-9:00pm (dinner)

Shokolaat Lobster Salad Sandwich. Photo courtesy Kitchen Gadget Girl

The first thing you see when you walk into this self-described modern bistro are the sparkling cases stuffed with rich piles of handmade chocolates and pastries. That decadent display alone would be enough to draw one back to Shokolaat, but I was after quite another attraction: a meatloaf sandwich.

I've been to Shokolaat only for lunch (truth be told, I find their lunch menu far more interesting than their dinner offerings) and I have yet to be disappointed. Last spring, I had a mushroom soup drizzled with mint oil that was incredibly satisfying without being overly rich. That soup was good, very good, wonderfully good, but the salad I paired with it was great.

There's was nothing particularly interesting about the salad in question -- if I recall correctly, it was just greens and herbs -- but the greens were fresh and springy and the vinaigrette was neither too heavy nor too sweet. Fresh salad greens seem so simple, but I've met way too many salads that are ruined by limp lettuces and bad vinaigrette and, for me, there's nothing so disappointing as a bad salad. It's surprising how many restaurants can get it wrong.

But oy, that meatloaf sandwich! I'm a meatloaf lover. I love it hot and fresh with a steaming baked potato that has the perfect salt: butter: sour cream: minced scallion ratio. I love it cold the next morning, noon, or night. However, until Shokolaat showed me the way, I never loved it on a sandwich.

Served open-faced on two pieces of hearty bread coated with thin slices of oven-melted cheese, the spicy meat mixture has a tender, succulent crumb, full of flavor and comfort. Sigh. I get a big silly smile on my face just thinking about it.

Oh, and a word on that cheese addition, because of course I have decided cheese opinions. I don't add cheese to the meatloaf sandwiches I now make at home, but Shokolaat's sandwich has just the right amount to give flavor and texture but not so much that it puts this fairly elegant sandwich in grinder territory. I loathe it when cheese takes over any dish except fondue, but Shokolaat strikes the perfect balance.

Unfortunately, I found out that the meatloaf sandwich rotates out with other sandwiches they like to offer. "We have a really good hamburger right now!" the Shokolaat guy insisted when I called to ask about the meatloaf sandwich. Hey, I'll try it, but there are bunches of places in Palo Alto and Menlo Park to get good hamburgers. The same can hardly be said of an awesome meatloaf sandwich.

Shokolaat Pizzetta. Photo courtesy Kitchen Gadget Girl

Other highlights I discovered are two tasty pizzettas with pretty good crusts, macaroni and cheese topped with brioche crumbs and served in an impossibly adorable, personal-sized Le Creuset Dutch oven, and a lobster salad sandwich with avocado and Meyer lemon vinaigrette on a fresh, buttery croissant. The menu calls the lobster sandwich the "Neighborhood Favorite" and notes that they tried to take this particular item off but people, like, rioted or something, so they learned their lesson and there it stays.

Maybe I need to start a riot to bring the meatloaf sandwich back sooner...

Shokolaat
516 University Ave (at Cowper)
Palo Alto, CA 94301
650.289.0719

Hours:
Lunch: Monday-Friday 11:30am-2:00pm
Brunch: Saturday-Sunday 11:30am-2:00pm
Dinner: Monday-Saturday 5:30pm-9:00pm; Sunday 5:30pm-8:30pm

People -- mostly those city folk types -- tend to think that living in the suburbs is dull, pedestrian, and conformist. My friend, the stuff I've already seen around this leafy neighborhood...well, it wouldn't exactly curl your hair, but it could raise some over-groomed eyebrows. Like, the morning I found a pair of red satin pajama bottoms draped over the perfectly trimmed Japanese box hedge. I spent an inordinate amount of time Rear Window-ing it, just waiting to catch someone in the act of retrieval. Sadly, I never did discover which of my neighbors lost their saucy britches, but I certainly look at them all in a brand new light.

Another belief about the suburbs I've been thrilled to disprove is that it's all bad food. It's true that after five years of living in a city so stuffed with fabulous food finds as San Francisco, moving to the suburbs might have seemed like committing gastronomic suicide. However, this was something I refused to accept. Of course, I might be doing a lot more cooking at home -- a sure money and waist saver -- but I was still committed to finding good eats in our new neighborhood.

So, over the next few weeks, I plan to bring you those findings, and let me assure you, they are delicious. Starting us off today, I wish you "pizza long life" and give you Howie's Artisan Pizza in Palo Alto's Town and Country Village. (Erm, any fellow Trekkies out there?)

For the past year, it has been my fondest desire to find pizza on the Peninsula that made up for the loss of my favorites in the city. Piccino, Pizzetta 211, and Pizzeria Delfina set the curve for me in terms of crust and inventive toppings, and it was going to be really hard to, uh, top them.

Even before we walked in to pick up what will be our first of many, many orders to come, I was pretty convinced the people at Howie's Artisan Pizza already knew me. Yeah, hi, I'm the annoying chick who's been bugging you FOR MONTHS about when you're opening? Yeah...sorry about that. Well, as of November 17th Howie's is finally open in Palo Alto's Town and Country Village!

Of course, nothing would do except to rush right out and get two sample pizzas -- fresh from the wood brick oven -- in oder to render snap judgements on this long-anticipated place. We tried the Wild Mushrooms pizza (sage, pecorino, mozzarella, and tomato) and the Pancetta and Egg pizza (house made pancetta, eggs, arugula, shaved parmesan, and olio santo). I was especially interested to try the pancetta and egg since one of my all-time favorites at Pizzetta 211 is the pizza that always, always has a Rosie's Farm egg cracked and baked right on top along with seasonal toppings.

Possibly due to the understandable confusion and chaos surrounding a grand opening, the egg pie wasn't as advertised on the website menu. No arugula in sight. Instead, we got a pie with cracked egg, caramelized onions, pancetta, some kind of cheese, and red pepper flakes. It was delicious. It's a bit rich to have often, but it was damn good. I would still like to see Howie's do an egg pie that lightens itself up a bit with the advertised arugula one of these days, but given the empty pizza box, I'm clearly not complaining.

As a consequence of adoring Piccino's stellar white funghi pizza, I was a bit leery of a mushroom pizza that had a red sauce base. Well, I love being proven wrong when it comes to food skepticism, because that pizza was nothing short of awesome. It wasn't too heavy with cheese, which is good because, as a topping, mushrooms can drag down all but the thickest crusts all on their own. The red sauce I was so skeptical of was that kind of red sauce that proves a pizza place is serious about their craft. A pizza place that doesn't understand the importance of a sublime red sauce is as pointless as one that doesn't understand the vital importance of a good crust.

Howie's understands both these points.

As soon as I saw the browned and bubbled up crust, I was instantly reminded of Kim's Apizza Scholls photos. Judging only with my eyes, I knew this was going to be a good crust. Unless we're talking about Chicago-style deep-dish, which I almost never do since I'm not a big fan of the thick and heavy, pizza crusts should be a silent partner in the pizza making. It should be thin, yet able to stand up to the toppings. Chewy, yet not bready or overly filling. Crispy, but not shard-hard. It's a tall order.

Since we weren't eating in, we did what we always do with take-out pizza: slide pieces on our pizza stone in a preheated 500° oven for 1-2 minutes to undo what potential sog set in during the drive home. Perfection. This crust met and exceeded all my expectations and while I hope Howie's get more inventive with seasonal toppings, I can state that we've finally found our local pizza joint on the Peninsula.

UPDATE: Before this went to press, we couldn't resist trying two more pizzas. We sampled the Hobbs' pepperoni pizza and added black olives to it. The pepperoni was delicious, but I wish they didn't use canned olives. Their tinny, over-brined flavor tends to overpower everything. We also tried the sausage pizza with broccoli rabe (pictured above). This was stellar. The house made fennel sausage is from Berkshire pork and was incredible. We're definitely getting that one again.

Howie's Artisan Pizza
Town and Country Village
855 El Camino Real
Palo Alto, CA 94301-2326
650.32.PIZZA (650.327.4992)

Hours
Sunday-Saturday: 11:30am-9:30pm

Thank god for crappy hospital food.

Seriously, as much as I respect and liked my caretakers at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, their food was not all they advertised.

Big surprise, right? Thankfully, my husband was ready and willing to bring back food from any place I wanted. He even would have driven up to San Francisco to bring me Piccino or Nopalito. Lucky for us and for our future stomachs that he didn't have to go nearly so far.

Just down the street from the hospital is Tootsie's. Tucked in the historic Stanford Barn, which served as the Stanford winery until 1893, Tootsie's is a little Italian jewel of an eatery that offers high-end coffees and espresso, sandwiches, fresh salads, and breakfasts. Jen Maiser alerted me to Tootsie's existence soon after we moved down here, and we'd been intending to go ever since.

In a bow to the location's history, Shannon and Rocco Scordella named their place for university namesake Leland Stanford Junior's dog (did you follow that?) and opened the red bricked restaurant six months ago. Both Scordellas have worked in fine dining in New York, and Chef Rocco, who originally hails from Puglia and Bologna, Italy, was brought to New York by Mario Batali to work at Del Posto.

Unfortunately, we kept wanting to go for dinner, which they don't serve -- though Shannon did tell us on a recent visit that they might move to small plates and an enoteca-type setting -- so most of our half-hearted efforts were thwarted until I was in the hospital with a days-old baby. Mathra called me from Tootsie's to read off their menu -- I had my laptop in the hospital (of course!) but their website doesn't seem to be operational -- and he didn't get past, "fried chicken sandwich."

Man. That sandwich. That SANDWICH! That sandwich isn't just a sandwich. It's a crispy-succulent soul reviver, topped with endive-caper slaw and snugged between two halves of a crusty bun. After getting only two hours of sleep in the 48 hours that followed Henry's birth, that sandwich saved my sanity and kept me from going all Yellow Wallpaper in the maternity ward.

I've been home from the hospital for two weeks, and I've had that sandwich -- along with the accompanying homemade oregano potato chips -- five times. If that sandwich was the only thing they served, I still would think Tootsie's was worth it. However, good thing for everyone else (who have enough sense to take me at my word and run, don't walk, to Tootsie's), they also have a brilliant agrumi salad with butter lettuce, radish, celery, grapefruit segments, and shaved fennel; and a white bean, fennel, and flaked tuna salad with the springiest, most pristine arugula outside of Chez Panisse's crisper.

A very recent trip had us trying a brand new menu item: octopus and farro salad with celery and carrots, a divine dish that Rocco told us was his mother's recipe from Puglia. On the same trip, we sampled an Italian sausage and roasted pepper sandwich on a thick bun that was slabbed over with broccoli pesto and light touches of mustard; both were delicious dishes I hope I see often on the menu.

For breakfast, I will clog my arteries as frequently as I can with their poached egg on thick toast. Sound prosaic? What if I tell you that the poached egg is topped with celery, olives, and a drizzle of olive oil?

Some day I plan to try their crêpe-esque ricotta pancakes with strawberries, but I'm having a hard time tearing myself away from that poached egg. I also had a bite of their veal-pork burger with olives and oregano ground right into the meat and slathered with caramelized onions and mozzarella cheese. I wonder if anyone will believe me when I say that the shoestring potatoes Tootsie's serves with that burger are better than those found at Zuni Cafe?

Tootsie's at the Stanford Barn
700 Quarry Road
Palo Alto, CA 94304
(650) 566-8445