SanJose Mercury News, CA
March 4 2005
A classic diner experience
SARA’S SERVES UP HEARTY BREAKFASTS AND CHEESE STEAKS
By Aleta Watson
Mercury News
Every neighborhood needs a breakfast place like Sara’s Kitchen, a
cheery, homey diner where the waitress calls you “Sweetie” and the
owner remembers your face.
Walk through the door of the converted drive-in and you’re greeted
like family with a smile and friendly salutation. Maria, the
nurturing waitress, offers steaming hot coffee as soon as you sit
down.
Diners come as much for the welcoming atmosphere as for the food,
which is honest, abundant and freshly prepared, although not
particularly distinguished. The simple menu runs to coffee shop
standards: omelets and two-egg specials at breakfast, burgers and
sandwiches at lunch. There aren’t many choices if you’re watching
your cholesterol.
Sara and Manny Manion opened the diner 12 years ago as a lunch place.
But people from the neighborhood began asking for eggs.
“My customers, they literally told me I’ve got to have breakfast,”
Sara Manion says with a laugh. “I have so many seniors come in here.
It became their kitchen, their second home.”
With its crisp blue and white paint job, the 50-seat restaurant
stands out in a neighborhood of modest bungalows and impressive
Victorians in the old quad area near Santa Clara University.
The narrow, low-ceilinged dining room was built as an A&W Drive-in in
1956. Today it’s a bright and airy place with blue vinyl banquettes,
checked tablecloths and a profusion of artificial flowers and plants.
A big-screen TV at one end runs constantly to keep single diners
company.
As the sign in the window indicates, breakfast is the big meal here.
The restaurant opens at 7 a.m. Tuesdays through Sundays to help
regulars get an early start on the day.
Eggs take center stage. Omelets are huge, three-egg productions
served with toast and with hash browns nicely crisped about the edges
but a little too soft in the center. Omelets come in 14 variations,
from a simple cheese ($7) to asparagus and bacon ($9.95).
The specials ($5.75-9.95) offer two eggs cooked any style with a
choice of accompaniments worthy of a butcher’s case — chicken-fried
steak, country sausage, ham, Italian sausage, linguica, turkey and
the classic bacon. My companion’s “over easy” eggs were properly
cooked with runny yolks and solid whites. Her bacon was still a bit
chewy — just the way she ordered it.
We shared a short stack of fluffy but ordinary pancakes ($3.95) and I
opted for the linguica scramble with home fries ($7.95). This was not
a dish for light eaters. The blue and white platter was almost
overflowing with big chunks of potato, well-browned but
under-seasoned, and a mildly spicy scramble, punched up with slices
of linguica and grilled onions and peppers under a blanket of cheddar
cheese. Puddles of grease gathered here and there.
A nice surprise was the decent Ahmad English No. 1 tea — with a hint
of bergamot — served in an elegant glass cup with boiling hot water.
I’ve become so accustomed to horrible tea in restaurants that I’m
delighted to get something drinkable.
Breakfast and lunch are served until 2:30 or 3 p.m. every day but
Monday. The diner closes for a couple of hours on weekdays and then
reopens at 4:30 p.m. for an early dinner. Although Sara’s offers
daily specials such as lamb shanks or teriyaki chicken with soup or
salad, the highlight of lunch and dinner is the cheese steak
sandwiches.
The diner had been a cheese steak stand when the Manions took it
over. Sara Manion, who’s from Armenia but is part Italian, kept the
sandwiches on the menu. “It’s really an Italian sandwich,” she
says, noting that Philadelphia’s cheese steaks trace their roots to
Italy.
She makes them with toasted hoagie rolls from Wilson’s Bakery. The
best are piled high with tender shavings of sirloin and crowned with
melted provolone and grilled onions. Mushrooms and three varieties of
grilled bell peppers add savor and zip to Sara’s Special ($6.50).
Don’t make the mistake of ordering your sandwich with the spongy,
unappetizing chunks of over-processed chicken breast. The teriyaki
version was cloying as well.
A cheese steak sandwich needs the texture of beef. If you’re trying
to cut down on fat, you shouldn’t be eating at Sara’s Kitchen anyway.
Sara’s Kitchen
1595 Franklin St., at Lincoln, Santa Clara.
(408) 247-7272
**
The Dish: The welcome is warm and the staff treats you like family at
this cheerful, homey diner known for its breakfasts and cheese steak
sandwiches.
Price range: Breakfast $3.95-9.95. Lunch and dinner $4.95-12.95.
Details: Beer and wine.
Pluses: Huge breakfasts and excellent Sara’s Special cheese steak
sandwich.
Minuses: Unappetizing cheese steak sandwich prepared with
over-processed chicken.
Hours: 7 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 4:30-8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays. 7 a.m.-3
p.m. Saturdays-Sundays.
Restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously. The Mercury News pays
for all meals.