1100 N Mathilda Ave, Sunnyvale, CA
Items ordered:
- Kosho Jacuzzi Cocktail (Tito’s handmade vodka, cucumber yuzu kosho, yuzu, Fever Tree tonic)
- Hot Spring Spritz Cocktail (cucumber yuzu kosho, lime, pineapple, sparkling wine)
- Goat Empanadas (limey huacatay)
- Wood-fired Sprouted Cauliflower (limey huacatay, shio kombu crunch, mint)
- Wood-fired Eggplant (tahini, carrot hummus, tzatziki, pickles, pita)
We had a few hours off without the kids, so my wife and I finally tried out Valley Goat, coming from chef Stephanie Izard. We had dined at her original place, The Girl and the Goat, in Chicago a very long time ago (around 2011 or 2012). Of course, Stephanie is a very successful chef and the winner of an iconic and memorable Top Chef season.
We didn’t have a reservation, but we were able to get a table pretty quickly around 5 pm on a Saturday evening. The setting for the restaurant is very weird. It is right next to some Google Cloud offices, off of the 101. There is no retail presence here. There is only a hotel and this restaurant, as far as I can tell. Everything else near it is corporate office space. The waiter told us that their guests are primarily Google people (it’s probably a great place for a sales person to take a customer) and people staying at the hotel for Levi Stadium events.
The menu is kind of all over the place, but it seems to concentrate around South American and Asian flavors. We had originally planned a family dinner here, but after looking at the menu, decided it wouldn’t be kid-friendly enough. Now after we’ve eaten here, I’m certain that there is very little here that our kids would’ve been happy with.
We started with two cocktails because we originally sat at the bar. They were both very refreshing and not overly sweet. After we sat down, we started with the Goat empanadas as an appetizer. The empanadas were well made, with very good pastry. The filling was very typical flavors, not really standing out. Actually, the best part of the dish was the lime huacatey sauce, which was tangy, spicy, sweet, and kind of everything in between.
The rest of what we ordered was also mostly South American in flavors. The cauliflower was our favorite dish of the night. It had a very distinct smoky taste, along with the usual tangy, spicy, etc. flavor of the dressing. The eggplant was also good, but primarily for its sides. I particularly enjoyed the pickles and the carrot hummus.
What I really like was the menu in general was very vegetable forward. Our cauliflower was incredibly filling and had an interesting flavor that didn’t require a lot of meat or fat.
Maybe the one slight flaw with this place is that everything had BIG BIG flavors, without a lot of nuance. This might be a flaw of how we ordered, but everything seemed to be based off the same general blend of spices (in particular, a lot of lime). Compared with the other Top Chef restaurant that we recently visited (Brooke Williamson’s LA restaurant Playa Provisions), all the big flavors seemed to numb our taste buds. My conclusion is that this restaurant was worth trying, but probably not worth going back to, unless they add a whole bunch of new seasonal menu items.
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