San Jose Greek Festival 2014 Next Week (FREE ADMISSION)

The annual Greek Festival is taking place next week from Friday, May 30th to Sunday, June 1st at Saint Nicholas Church in San Jose's Rose Garden neighborhood. This is one of if not the largest ethnic festival in San Jose, and is definitely worth checking out. Just about all of the food is completely home made, and they have the best lokoumades anywhere in the Bay Area (fried doughnut holes drenched in honey and covered in walnuts and cinnamon). They will also be serving lamb chops from Evvia/Kokkari restaurants--the best Greek places I know of around here. Of course, in addition to awesome food you will also have music, dancing, a kids area, and contests.

You can print out the last image below for free admission and there should be plenty of free parking in the general area with shuttles to take you to the festival. For more information, please visit the San Jose Greek Festival Facebook page.

Paper Plane Review on the San Jose Food Blog

I'm embarrassed to say that I have yet to check out Paper Plane. My day job has made it next to impossible to catch up on all of the great restaurants that have opened over the last few months.

Paper Plane is brought to you by the proprietors behind Original Gravity, the first craft-beer oriented pub in Downtown San Jose. Check out the great review for this establishment over at the San Jose Food Blog!

Wednesday Wishlist: Cool Steps

The San Jose art scene is really moving in the right direction, especially Downtown with various projects to turn boring objects into works of art. Examples include Downtown Doors, the wrapped utility boxes, yarn bombing, painted benches, and several that are in the works such as the "art crosswalks" and LED lit underpasses. Japantown is also doing a great job with their murals. However, there is always more that we can do.

I ran across a site with amazing painted staircases from all over the world. There are quite a few areas where we could do something like this. Immediately the steps leading up to the San Jose Museum of Art and "The Stairs" at Communication Hill come to mind. Where else could we add art to stairs in San Jose like the photos below?

While we are on the topic of new canvases for art, I would like to bring up an old post about simple, "interactive" art that I ran across in Israel. Here is the link.

Source: Bored Panda

Sake San Jose - This Thursday @ Japantown

The 9th Annual Sake San Jose will take place from 5:30pm to 8:30pm this Thursday in San Jose's Japantown (Jackson between 3rd and 7th). Not only will you get a chance to sample many different Sake's across Japantown, but this entire event is a fundraiser for the Yu-ai Kai Senior Service organization, so you will be drinking for a good cause! All of the details are below:

Yu-Ai Kai’s 9th Annual Sake San Jose event will be held on Thursday, May 22, 2014 from 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM. Join the hundreds of sake tasters as they embark upon the streets of historic Japantown San Jose (on Jackson Street, between 3rd and 7th Streets) for one of the most anticipated fundraisers of the year.

This year’s opening ceremony will again feature our guests of honor in a ceremonial sake cask breaking (Kagami-wari) and a toast of Kanpai! Approximately 25 Japantown businesses will host a pouring station, where Yu-Ai Kai volunteers will offer samples of sake made both in Japan and the U.S.

Early Bird tickets are $40 when purchased by May 18th; $50 after May 18. There is also a VIP ticket for $60 which includes admission, a Horitaka design Year of the Horse T-shirt, and express check-in line at Registration.

Returning again this year will be celebrities participating at various pouring stations. So don’t be surprised if you see a familiar face. Check the News and Update Section as they are confirmed.

WHEN:	May 22, 2014 5:30pm-8:30pm
WHERE:	Japantown San Jose On Jackson Street Between 3rd and 7th Streets
TICKETS:	BUY NOW!

St. James Park Food Trucks!

I think we can all agree that there is a lot of work to be done to restore St. James Park, perhaps the park with the most history in all of San Jose. With several new development projects happening on the periphery of the park, we need to do everything we can to change this from an encampment for the homeless to one of Downtown's key attractions.

Ryan Sebastian, the proprietor behind Treatbot, Moveable Feast, and the San Jose Taco Festival of Innovation, is planning to bring lunch-time food trucks to St. James Park as soon as June. Instead of a regular weekly food truck event, he is envisioning something a bit different. He is trying to get a Food Truck "pod" in the park that would feature lunch trucks daily. I think this would go a long way to reducing the non-homeless to homeless ration in the park and improving the quality of the community there, especially in combination with other improvements being discussed like a music pavilion. I wish him the best of luck!

Oh and while we are on the topic of parks, check out this great article in Think Bigger San Jose about improving Plaza de Cesar Chavez.

Source: SVBJ

Recent Downtown San Jose Video

The video below is a collage of footage from Downtown San Jose taken in March of this year. It highlights many of the key areas Downtown and includes some nice construction shots.

Source: "jawz" from SkyscraperCity

 

Saturday Stats: Silicon Valley has More Billionaires than SF

There are a whopping 56 billionaires that are living in the Bay Area. What surprised me is that there are more living in Silicon Valley as opposed to San Francisco. Most of the 34 billionaires in Silicon Valley live in Woodside, Palo Alto, and Atherton.

Other interesting tidbits. Seven new billionaires were minted last year in the Bay Area (two from Facebook), Larry Ellison is the richest person in Silicon Valley and fifth in the world with a new worth of $48 billion, and just about all of the Bay Area's billionaires made their money in tech.

Combined, Silicon Valley's billionaires are worth $301 billion, which makes up 62% of the net worth of all the billionaires in California. Another way to say that is of all the extreme wealth in the state, 62% of it is in Silicon Valley. Now let's hope some of these billionaires share their wealth in the local area and help improve our communities!

Source: SVBJ

Asian Fusion Restaurant Replacing P.F. Chang's Location Downtown

There is so much restaurant news Downtown that I'm having a hard time keeping up! Perhaps the biggest news in the past month is that the flagship 7,100 SQFT space at the corner of San Fernando and Second Street that was occupied by PF Chang's has already been leased. The turnaround time here was dramatically faster than replacing E&O Trading Company... another key restaurant that disappeared years ago whose space is now filled by Nemea (a big improvement in my opinion).

M Lounge Bar and Restaurant is the name of the upscale Asian fusion restaurant going into 98 S. Second Street and filling a key corner in Downtown San Jose. Ashwini Kumar is the restaurateur and is already known for Madhuban Indian, which is located in San Jose (50 Skyport Drive) and Sunnyvale (544 Lawrence Expressway). M Lounge will be a mix of Malaysian, Singaporean, Thai, and Indian cuisine. Clocking in a 260 seats, it will also be one of the largest restaurants Downtown.

M Lounge has signed a 5-year lease, so expect them to be around for quite a while. The target opening date is August, but that might be a little optimistic. I can't wait to try this place out!

Source: SVBJ