A Weekend with Friends

I am at the Cypress Hotel in Cupertino this time. This boutique hotel sports warm colors, leopard prints and feline stripes.

The chilly weather when I arrived here on Friday was very different from the rainy but warm weather I left behind at Houston, and the bright sunshine of Utah earlier in the week.

I had lunch at Park Place, the restaurant downstairs. I intially ordered crab & clam chowder soup and herb-crusted salmon. After a few minutes the waiter came up to tell me that chowder was no longer available. So I chose minestrone soup instead. A few minutes later he again returned to tell that salmon wasn't available either, and so I had to make do with the Halibut. But all's well that ends well: the Halibut turned out quite good, and they surprised me by serving me free desserts and not charging me for the meal!

Since I had a weekend here (which is unusual), I had the time to catch up with a bunch of old friends.

On Saturday, I went out to breakfast with a friend, who used to be my boss in an earlier job, and now runs a Silicon Valley startup. Over eggs scrambled with smoked salmon and bell peppers, Sanjeev and I chatted about his new venture and his previous one.

Incidentally, the place we visited called Hobees, is known as one of the best breakfast places in the Valley. Make sure you try their blueberry coffee cake, if you visit. Hobees looks very ordinary at the first glance, but they have some interesting breakfast options and is frequented by everybody who is somebody in the Silicon Valley, or so they tell me!

In the evening, I went out with another friend and ex-colleague who I was meeting after seven years. We spent some time catching up on our jobs, family and everything else over tea and snacks at his home.

And today, I had a great lunch with two other friends and their spouses. They picked me up from my hotel and we drove down to Santana Row in San Jose. It was a bright, sunny afternoon and the promenade was filled with people liesurely eating and drinking in the many sidewalk cafes.

We first got into a Mexican restaurant but then changed our mind and moved to a nearby Mediterranean restaurant called Thea named after a Greek goddess. This Zagat rated restaurant served food with Greek and Turkish influence; you can read a good review here. I had ordered the Moussaka, a cassarole of eggplant, lamb, beef and bechamel sauce. It was excellent but heavy; I couldn't finish it. My friends loved the Felafel.

The outdoor seating, great food and at least three very talkative people! As you can imagine time flew very quickly. Anuya, Akhikesh, Devesh, Shraddha, thanks for coming!