Dental Implants Near Mountain View, CA

These places prove that there’s a lot more to Mountain View’s dining scene than whatever’s on the menu at the Googleplex.

When you imagine dining in Mountain View, you’re probably more likely to think of company-sponsored catering at one of the many start-ups and tech institutions than of the town’s restaurants. But spend some time strolling around downtown Mountain View and you’ll quickly realize there’s more to the food scene than the Googleplex Café. Whether you’re looking for a place to impress would-be investors, your new favorite noodle spot, or the perfect happy hour to unwind from a long day of deciphering Slack emojis, our guide to Mountain View’s best restaurants has something you’ll love.

Unrated: This is a restaurant we want to re-visit before rating, or it’s a coffee shop, bar, or dessert shop. We only rate spots where you can eat a full meal.

THE SPOTS

Restaurants in Mountain View tend toward the casual side, but Chez TJ is an exception. This old-school, French-inspired, prix-fixe-only spot that’s housed in a cozy Victorian cottage is ideal for extra-special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, or the conclusion of a successful round of seed funding. Choose between the chef’s tasting menu (seven courses, $225 per person) and the lighter chef’s garden menu (four courses, $140 per person), and you can also add on the optional sommelier-curated wine pairings. Expect beautifully plated courses that evolve seasonally, like warm, housemade bread paired with a special spread like herb-laced butter or whipped ricotta, all served at a pleasant and leisurely pace.

The next time you’re fantasizing about calling in sick to work and impulsively booking tickets to Mexico, head to Vive Sol instead, where the decor and vibe will make you feel like you’re on vacation, even if only for the length of your meal. Here, you’ll find modern Pueblan dishes—a fusion of foods of the indigenous people of Puebla, Mexico and the French “haut cuisine” that influenced it during France’s occupation. The burritos, quesadillas, and enchiladas—our favorite is the enchiladas de mole that’s bathed in a richly spiced, cocoa-enhanced sauce—are worth your time and money, along with dishes where the French accent is a little more pronounced, like the excellent champinoñes con chile seco—mushrooms sautéed in a creamy Burgundy sauce and served with chiles and bay shrimp.

The tapas at Cascal are top-notch any day of the week, but we love going on the weekends when the live latin music turns dinner at this colorful, eclectically decorated Spanish spot into a full-on party. Start with drinks (the “guavarita” with fresh guava puree, tequila, lime, and agave is refreshing and fruity), then go for the mojo-marinated Cuban pork. If you're dining with a group, don’t skip the paella Cascal, topped with a mountain of chicken, pork, sausage, and shellfish. Gluten-free dishes are clearly marked and comprise much of the menu, so it’s an ideal spot for wheat-averse folks.

You’re liable to encounter a line when you stop into the Mountain View location of Zareen’s, a tiny halal Indian-Pakistani spot in an unassuming strip mall near the Google campus. Don’t worry—this location is carry-out only, and the automated ordering system and efficient kitchen team mean food comes out fast, even when it’s busy. Get the flaky paratha, an order of the velvety tarka daal with yellow lentils and caramelized onions (it appears simple but trust us, you won’t be able to stop eating it), and either the hearty madras chicken curry or the creamy paneer tikka masala. For a less traditional but equally satisfying alternative, get the charcoal-grilled tandoori chicken burger with green and tamarind chutneys. It’ll have you rethinking everything you thought you knew about what belongs on a bun.

Even though it’s one of the busiest spots in town, Doppio Zero always feels cozy and intimate, mostly thanks to the warmly lit dining room and the crackling fire in the open kitchen’s wood-burning pizza oven. The restaurant may be best known for its gorgeously charred, blistered Neapolitan pizzas, but don’t overlook the crispy fried artichokes, tender housemade gnocchi in eggplant sauce, or braised wild boar over fresh fettuccine. When the weather is nice, grab a table out front and pretend you’re dining al fresco on a piazza in Naples.

When it comes to sushi, all we really want is high-quality fish prepared expertly and served without too much fanfare. Fortunately for us (and all sushi lovers within driving distance of Mountain View), this is precisely what Sushi Tomi offers. The menu is short, but it’s still packed with standouts, from excellent nigiri, rolls, sashimi, and chirashi, to comforting bowls of udon. At lunchtime, take advantage of the $20 bento box or $22 sushi/sashimi deal for generous portions.

The exclamation in Eureka!’s name is a good representation of the fun injected into every element of the dining experience there. Stop in for their very well-priced “Hoppy Hour” and get a massive handle of beer for just $5.50, along with an order of giant fried mac and cheese balls. At dinner, get the Dorito-crusted fried shishito peppers (they’ll temporarily stain your fingers, but it’s worth it), then move on to one of the deliciously unique burgers, like the Fresno fig burger, with fig jam, bacon, and melted goat cheese. If you don’t eat meat (or you just really like vegetables), you’ll appreciate the bright purple crispy veggie beet burger, topped with lemony arugula.

The first thing you’ll notice when you peruse the menu at Pho Tran Vu is the sheer volume of choices. With 10 kinds of rolls, 10 different chicken soups, and a whopping 19 kinds of beef soup to choose from, it might be hard to know what to get. A quick glance around the restaurant’s small, stylishly decorated dining room—and a whiff of the fragrant steam wafting from the bowls on each table—and it’ll be clear you can’t go wrong here. We like to start with the grilled shrimp and mango spring rolls, then move on to the gorgeously rich oxtail beef noodle soup, the savory seafood curry soup, or the comforting chicken congee.

When it comes to brunch and lunch, it’s hard to beat the dim sum cart experience. Mere moments after you sit down at Fu Lam Mum, hot tea and a seemingly endless flow of delectable little snacks are wheeled directly to your table. Depending on when you stop in during the brunch/lunch rush without a reservation, you might have to wait a little while, though usually not for more than a few minutes as seating is ample and the staff is very efficient. Make sure to grab at least one plate of the har gow that are bursting with juicy shrimp, as well as the cilantro and scallion roll, which appears to contain an entire garden of fresh herbs. For dessert, go for the classic sesame balls. Fu Lam Mum’s are super crispy on the outside, with a sweet, nutty red bean paste center—the perfect conclusion to your meal.

It’s hard to find a better date night spot in Mountain View than Scratch. Think romantic dark wood, lots of hanging lights, and an enormous, well-appointed bar. Star dishes include the perfectly cooked pan-seared sea scallops with a smoky jalapeño sweet potato puree and the impossibly crispy fried chicken. If daytime dates are more your thing, stop into Scratch’s weekend brunch and get the fluffy lemon ricotta pancakes. Go ahead and order them “for the table,” but we doubt you’ll want to actually share. For something more casual and a little less expensive, meet your special someone during Scratch’s Happy Hour (from 4-6pm on weekdays) and get the fried chicken sandwich and a beer for just $16, or a grilled angus cheeseburger for $10.

The artfully decorated dining room at Mugizo is reason enough to stop into the Mountain View location of this small udon chain. You’ll dine among clay sculptures built into the exposed brick wall, a gorgeous upside-down garden suspended above the group table, and too many oversized Edison bulbs to count. Carbonara fans will want to try the unique mentai cream sauce udon, which combines cod roe and parmesan cheese for an indulgent, pleasantly funky noodle experience. Pork belly lovers should get the tonkatsu udon deluxe, which comes topped with both kurobuta chashu and pork kakuni. The tempura offerings are extensive (our favorites are the pumpkin and corn), and if you’re dining with udon-loving youth, they can have a mini udon and two pieces of tempura for just $9.50.

For all the fun of cooking without having to prep, clean up, or even get up from your seat, head to 3 Kingdoms Hot Pot—especially if you like your hot pot on the spicy side. We’re not sure if the bright red tables are an homage to their signature spicy hot pot base, but they certainly set the mood for the capsaicin that awaits you if you order it. There are lots of add-in choices, but our picks are the beautifully marbled, thinly sliced rolls of beef toro, the green, purple, and yellow hot pot noodles, and giant head-on prawns.

Even if you enter the Parisian-style bakery Maison Alyzee fully intending to order a light lunch, resisting the breathtakingly gorgeous sweets in the bakery case is going to be a tall order. Our recommendation is to lean into it and get a macaron or two (our favorites are the passion fruit and lavender flavors), a vanilla mille feuille, and an almost-burnt-but-in-a-good-way canelé. Lovers of chocolate (and drama) should get a triple chocolate croissant. Chocolate-laminated dough is wrapped around a generous portion of Valhrona chocolate, baked until golden, and then the whole thing gets dipped in—you guessed it—more Valhrona.

While it’s true that the Mountain View location of Chaat Bhavan would be a perfect place to take your favorite vegetarian and/or gluten-free dining companions, that’s hardly the biggest reason to go. This Indian restaurant has expertly prepared chaat, a comprehensive list of fresh breads (our favorites are the puffy deep-fried spinach poori and the thyme-chili naan), and delicious curries. It’s a casual restaurant, but the space is quite vibrant, with white tablecloths on every table and wall sculptures lit with multicolored LED lights. The menu is big, so if you can’t make up your mind, opt for one of the thalis, which includes bread, rice, dal, vegetables, dessert, and a beverage.

A massive office building at The Village at San Antonio Center is on track to getting built, following a yearslong delay after the developer put the project on hold during the pandemic to reassess its feasibility.

The Mountain View City Council unanimously approved the 7-story commercial development at the corner of San Antonio Road and California Street on Tuesday evening, cementing a long-anticipated plan to build out the western half of the San Antonio Center.

“I think the project has great merit, and I will be supporting it,” said Council member Lucas Ramirez – a sentiment shared by the rest of the council at the May 27 meeting.

But council members also expressed concern that the community might not reap the full benefit of a complex land deal that allows the developer to build at a much greater density than typically allowed for the site in exchange for financing a new school in the area.

About five years ago, the Los Altos School District purchased land at the San Antonio Center to build a future campus. At the time, the district set up a process that would allow it to sell square footage or “transfer development rights” to third parties to use elsewhere, as a way to help defray the construction costs for a “10th school site.”

The biggest taker was Merlone Geier, a real estate company that has spent more than a decade redeveloping the San Antonio Center into a major commercial hub. In 2019, Merlone Geier agreed to purchase 150,000 square feet of development rights from the school district for nearly $20 million in exchange for being allowed to build at a density around five times greater than what would normally be allowed at the site.

To put it in perspective, the nearly 1-acre site used to house the Milk Pail Market and another low-density commercial building.

When the development was initially pitched to the council several years ago, it was met with very little enthusiasm. Council members at the time expressed dismay about the proposed density, height and style of the project, which they said did not fit in with their vision for the area.

Now after some major revisions, the City Council is on board with the development. At more than 180,000 square feet, the project is still massive in scale but not nearly as imposing as before, according to the council report.

“The applicant completely redesigned the project to address council direction for a more distinctive curvilinear design with a high-quality pedestrian environment and gateway presence,” said Deputy Zoning Administrator Rebecca Shapiro who introduced the plans at the May 27 meeting.

The 7-story building is mainly for office use at nearly 170,000 square feet. The project also includes ground-floor retail and a three-level underground garage, in addition to a shared parking plan at San Antonio Center.

Council members praised the developer’s responsiveness to concerns about the massing of the building as well as its plans to widen sidewalks and create more public-serving spaces.

But they expressed some skepticism that the community benefit would materialize – not because of any lack of commitment from the developer, but because of complications with the Los Altos School District.

“The community benefit that is most closely associated with this project is the delivery of a neighborhood-serving school in the San Antonio area. And unfortunately, there is, I would say, uncertainty about whether that particular community benefit is likely to be delivered,” Ramirez said.

Council member Alison Hicks expressed similar concerns, noting that the city might need “to make some tweaks to make sure that we do get the community benefit.”

The City Council supported a motion to explore other ways to “effectuate the project without Merlone Geier’s purchase of TDR square footage from LASD, in the event the city and LASD cannot reach agreement on a new funding and joint use agreement.”

For its part, Merlone Geier has asked for an extended development agreement that would lengthen the entitlement period to seven years.

The uncertainty of the office market slowed down the project several years ago, said David Geiser, managing director at Merlone Geier Partners. “One of the reasons we didn’t bring the project forward is knowing that we’d have a limited amount of time to develop,” Geiser said. “We thought it prudent to have additional time,” he added.

The developer has agreed to pay the city an additional $500,000 for this extension, which the City Council approved.

“I’m very happy to see this project move forward with this final parcel of land to really complete the whole system,” said Council member Emily Ann Ramos, expressing support for the project. “I’m excited to roll this forward. Let’s get this done,” she said.

This story originally appeared in the Mountain View Voice. Emily Margaretten joined the Mountain View Voice in 2023 as a reporter covering City Hall.

Bay Area residents who emailed their officials in the past few years may be surprised to learn their correspondence could train a company’s AI for future use.

Mountain View-based company GovernmentGPT filed 90 California Public Records Act requests with multiple cities across the Bay Area for emails from residents addressed to mayors, councilmembers and city clerks from 2020 to 2023. The goal is to create an artificial intelligence tool that can easily summarize a resident’s thoughts based on public comments. AI experts have raised concerns about privacy, consent and ethics when training an AI with this data.

San José Spotlight found requests sent to San Jose, Santa Clara, Mountain View and Milpitas in late 2023 and early 2024. Three cities received a short request asking for documents, while Milpitas received a 10-page request.

Rich Tran, former Milpitas mayor and part of the GovernmentGPT team, is helping spearhead one of the company’s projects, CivicVoice, which documents and summarizes public comment at meetings.

Tran did not respond to requests for comment.

GovernmentGPT CEO and founder Raj Abhyanker, a patent lawyer, told San José Spotlight the company specializes in civic AI and would be providing a service by making public participation easier.

He said they wanted to record residents’ feelings during the COVID-19 pandemic and learn what issues were at the top of people’s minds, adding they aren’t planning to seek records outside the pandemic timeframe.

Abhyanker said the company has a handful of other AI tools, such as CivicVoice. All of these tools are meant to make government work more efficient.

“Cities operate very hatefully, bureaucratically and inefficiently with bloated budgets, and they need major reform and overhaul of how they operate,” Abhyanker told San José Spotlight. “They need less layers between citizens and decision making.”

Abhyanker wrote in his request to Milpitas the goal is to create a “ChatGPT-like AI interface” to identify the most pressing issues for residents and streamline municipal operations.

Ahmed Banafa, an engineering professor at San Jose State University and expert on AI technologies, said he lives in Milpitas and was shocked that any of his communications with the city could have been used to train an AI model. Banafa wants to know if his emails are being used, especially if the company plans to make money from the AI.

“It’s freedom of information, not freedom of selling my data, not monetizing my data, that’s never been the case,” Banafa told San José Spotlight.

Abhyanker wrote in the records request the company plans to send this to every city in the state. But he told San José Spotlight the company doesn’t plan to sell the data.

Banafa added only using emails limits the amount of insight an AI model can glean because it overlooks public comments at meetings, from phone calls and online.

“I’m surprised the cities are sitting on this and not making a fuss about this. We have attorneys at the cities, we have counsels, they can question that,” Banafa said. “I’m a citizen of Milpitas, I’ve been here for 30 years, and I don’t want this to happen to my emails or my communications with the city.”

Santa Clara Councilmember Kevin Park, who has worked as an engineer in multiple AI companies for the past decade, said the proposition could be dangerous and likely inaccurate, as it would be easy to taint the training data. It would also take a lot of effort to clean the data due to the sheer number of topics governments deal with.

Park also said the lack of AI regulation means there is little to no repercussion if the product causes harm.

“If making a critical mistake is more than a hand slap, then people will be careful, but right now, what happens if AI is incorrect?” Park told San José Spotlight. “The short answer is this is a new territory, we really don’t have regulations around that.”

Not only are there a lack of regulations, but there are ethical issues with training an AI on emails from residents. Brian Green, director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics in Santa Clara University, said the company is exploiting the residents who wrote the emails and the city employees who had to manually redact the private information.

He added these types of AIs need lots of data to train off of, so it’s possible that the company is intending to sell the data rather than build the AI tool itself.

Green said this situation is likely outside the scope of the California Public Records Act and federal Freedom of Information Act, as the writers of those laws didn’t conceive of public records being used in this way.

“That’s not what those emails were intended for in the first place,” Green told San José Spotlight. “These are legally accessible but that doesn’t mean they should have access to them.”

This story was written by B. Sakura Cannestra for San Jose Spotlight. The original version of this article can be viewed here.

GMI Cloud deepens existing Silicon Valley roots, prioritizing collaboration with leading AI innovators

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- GMI Cloud, a fast-rising provider of GPU-as-a-Service infrastructure purpose-built for AI, today is proud to announce it has moved its headquarters from San Jose, CA to Mountain View, CA to provide more open space for its growing team and the local growing AI native startup community. From hackathons, meetups, technology industry events and more, the closer proximity to top universities and colleges will help GMI Cloud continue to foster the rapid growth of AI throughout Silicon Valley and on a global level.

The new office comes amid strong momentum for GMI Cloud. Since its funding announcement last year, the company has grown exponentially in customers and partnerships, increasing AI development all over the world. However, GMI Cloud has been a global company since day one, with data centers in Taiwan, Malaysia, Mexico, and the U.S. Its global data center network makes it uniquely able to provide flexible, cost-effective computing solutions without the disruption of geopolitical changes. Customers can scale their AI capabilities without unexpected cost surprises. This new office signifies its commitment to AI innovators in Silicon Valley and beyond.

"Bringing GMI Cloud to Mountain View allows for employees to enjoy what the local community has to offer while keeping us in the epicenter of Silicon Valley," said Alex Yeh, CEO of GMI Cloud. "We are accelerating quickly and we find it incredibly valuable to have the right home base to host our partners, customers, and employees."

For more information about GMI Cloud and hiring opportunities, visit www.gmicloud.ai.

About GMI CloudGMI Cloud is a global company that delivers full-stack, U.S.-based GPU infrastructure and enterprise-grade inference services built to scale AI products. Whether training foundation models or deploying real-time agents, GMI gives teams full control of performance, costs, and launch velocity. With on-demand and reserved GPU clusters for all workloads and projects, GMI helps AI teams build without limits. GMI Cloud is based in Mountain View, CA.

SOURCE GMI Cloud

With the devastating Los Angeles blazes still fresh in memory, cities across the Bay Area region are developing plans to lower the climate-heating emissions that are fanning the flames.

But a dangerous new bill now threatens this progress. AB 306, while purporting to address the fallout from this year’s fires, could actually increase the risk of future fires and pause local progress to address other climate disasters.

This week the provisions of AB 306 were put on the fast track for approval as state leaders shifted the contents of the bill into a budget trailer bill — a process that will make it eligible for approval by midnight Monday.

While some narrow exceptions were added, the measure would still ban most local governments from adopting stronger building codes that promote energy efficiency until 2031. This severely limits improvements for six years — even as climate disasters intensify and technology advances — and circumvents local control and the normal legislative process in the state Senate.

We know firsthand how much of a mistake this would be. In San Jose and Palo Alto, we proved that smart building codes are one of our state’s best tools for increasing climate resilience, cutting pollution, lowering energy bills and protecting public health.

In 2019 the San Jose and Palo Alto city councils approved codes that cut development costs by going all-in on electrification, while cutting back on expensive and often unnecessary gas hookups. This — combined with additional incentives for solar panels and electric vehicle chargers in San Jose and for home appliances in Palo Alto — is creating cleaner air and reducing emissions, all without breaking the bank.

Thousands of Palo Alto and San Jose residents now enjoy lower energy costs and healthier air quality, thanks to their all-electric homes.

Across the state, cities have followed the lead of San Jose and Palo Alto, by crafting building codes that are tailored to each community’s needs. Local challenges, such as sea level rise, housing shortages, or wildfire risks are often best addressed with locally-crafted solutions.

The proposed measure in the budget trailer bill puts this progress at risk.

Proponents claim it will help fire victims rebuild affordably. The evidence says otherwise. Multiple studies have confirmed that there is “no clear correlation between energy code updates and rising housing prices.”

If anything, pausing code updates would worsen California’s affordability crisis. New energy standards have saved Californians more than $100 billion in utility costs over the past 50 years, and the next update is expected to save another $4.8 billion.

Cities we represent and others across California deserve to benefit from these proven savings, but now they risk getting stuck with outdated, energy-wasting appliances.

Energy-efficient homes aren’t just cheaper to live in — they are also cheaper to build. As we saw from our successes in our cities, building with efficient electric appliances can save up to $10,000 per unit by eliminating the need for gas line infrastructure.

The building code pause would also pause this commonsense progress, taking control away from local cities without making housing any more affordable.

Here’s the cruel irony: this “wildfire recovery” option could make future fires worse. By blocking local clean energy policies that reduce climate-warming pollution and stripping communities of the flexibility to update codes based on advances in technology, the proposed change leaves us more vulnerable to the next disaster.

Lawmakers should be empowering communities to be agile in response to new technologies and to explore localized solutions that promote efficiency and affordability. Cutting pollution and facilitating housing construction can co-exist.