Dinner Group: When and Where Shall We Eat in March?

All right, ladies and gentlemen! Does anyone have any suggestions of places where we could eat dinner together in March? The only requirements are:

1) They have to accept reservations.

2) They're preferably locally-owned. Big chains just aren't as much fun, and Social Wave always leans toward supporting the "little guys".

Also, does anyone have a suggestion of a date? Usually, we meet on Thursdays, which is the night of the week that seems to attract the most people. I'm NOT free on March 20 - other than that, every other Thursday is available.

We could try Royal Taj again. Or a Persian restaurant. I haven't been to the one on Hamilton at Darryl, but I have been to Yas on Saratoga and it's good. Anything but fish is fine with me!

Oooh, that Persian suggestion just reminded me that I've really wanted to try the Afghani House in Sunnyvale! Mary and I had some killer Afghani food in Santa Cruz a couple of years ago and have been dying to find some Afghan restaurants closer to us.

I haven't been to the Menara (www.menara41.com) in a long time. It's a fun place where they have exotic dishes and you eat with your hands (warm wash towels supplied). They have belly dances on weekends, but oddly enough I don't care too much about that. They list themselves as Morrocan food.

This post has been edited by Bhaney on Feb 29 2008, 04:28 PM

Wow! This is great! It looks like we have enough suggestions to keep us busy for a while. Please continue to add more!

I'm just going to sum up what we have so far and include web addresses so everyone can check them out online:

Royal Taj (Indian)
1350 Camden Avenue, Campbell

Negeen Restaurant (Persian)
801 W. Hamilton Ave., Campbell

Yas Restaurant (Persian)
1138 Saratoga Ave, San Jose

Afghani House (Afghani)
1103 E El Camino Real, Sunnyvale

Menara House (Moroccan)
41 East Gish Road, San Jose


The only one that looks like it might be a bit too pricey is Menara - everything else seems to have range of dishes at various prices, enabling more of our members to attend.

Some question has been raised about the spiciness of some of these types of foods. I'm thinking particularly Afghani and Persian. Can anyone comment?

And please keep those suggestions of other restaurants coming!!!!

The afghani and persian food I have had wasn't spicy in the least. But I'm no expert. Persian kabobs with rice is a common dish and it's barely seasoned. The food might be slightly different for someone who has never had it but the flavors aren't strong and I don't remember any "heat." There might be some spicy dishes I haven't tried. I have known some people not to like afghani and persian food but they were people who like a very limited range of foods. For example an order of eggplant at a persian restaurant will arrive as an appetizer dip, so if someone orders it expecting eggplant parmesan, they may have a problem with it. But it's not spicy or strangely flavored.

Indian and ethiopean food, on the other hand, can be problematic for the uninitiated and unadventurous, even though they are my favorite.

Miki and I would like to cast Yas as our first choice and Afgani House as #2.

Larry & Miki

Well, let's get together soon, somewhere.

Marie, you are absolutely right!! I'm really sorry, everybody. I totally dropped the ball on this one. I've had a lot going on in my life this month. I'll get something on the calendar pronto. Unfortunately, I think we're now looking at April.