Menlo Park’s Flea Street Cafe–a mixed review

I always wanted to try Flea Street Cafe in Menlo Park. The owner, JZ Cool, had built a series of restaurants, including the Cool Cafe at one of my favorite museums in the Bay Area, the Cantor Center at Stanford with a beautiful outdoor Rodin sculpture garden, and JZCoolEatery in downtown Menlo Park.

With my boyfriend last Friday night, we decided to go to Flea Street. Once we stepped inside, the decor felt quite homey, and service quite fast and good. We were excited to see a variety of local and organic food, and Vivek ordered a heirloom tomato fettucine (see picture) while I tried the corn seasonal soup, baby lettuce salad, and red beat harley farms goat cheese ravioli.

Out of all of these, my red beat harley farms ravioli was the most original, beautifully presented and tasty. Unfortunately, the local baby lettuce salad was quite horrible. I definitely could have made a better salad at home. Inside the salad were leaves that reminded me of weeds, the least tasty and dry lettuce leaves I have tasted in awhile. In fact, it tasted like it came out of bag. Vivek’s fettucine was so-so, but felt like it wasn’t worth the price at $19. I also felt like they did not have a lot of vegetarian entree options, which made me opt for a series of appetizers.

I think I’d go back for lunch or brunch, but not back for dinner. Of note are special farmer dinner series where you can meet the local farm workers and eat their fresh produce. Otherwise, it was a mixed review–Greens Restaurant in SF makes salads that are definitely better than this. Located on 3607 Alameda de las Pulgas, Menlo Park.