Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Chef Joey Lee prepares crêpe danielle's signature dish, the Saratoga crêpe, which consists of cheese, mushrooms, bacon and avocado.

Crêpes remain a popular way for wrapping a meal

By Suzanne Cristallo

Stuffed or glazed, flambéed or sauced, crêpes can be enjoyed on any occasion. Invented by the French originally as a dessert, the thin, delicate pancakes have become one of the most versatile of dishes. At crêpe danielle in Saratoga, customers have 23 choices of entrée crêpes made with either white, whole wheat or buckwheat flour, along with a full array of omelette and dessert selections.

Owner May King finds there is no protocol when it comes to what her customers choose at lunch, dinner or Sunday brunch. Children tend to gravitate to a few choices, however. "They love dessert crêpes and the ones stuffed with cheese," she says.

Crêpe danielle has been in Saratoga since about 1981. King bought it in 1989, diving into the business after 20 years in accounting; she gleaned food experience only from her years of cooking for her family.

While Chef Yan deftly flips orders on the crêpe-maker in full view of entering patrons, King serves as overseer of her five employees, fill-in cook, hostess and waitress.

"In a small business, you have to be and know everything," she says. How she learned it all was simply by doing and asking customers what they like. She finds the favorite dish to be the French onion soup with its thick cap of crunchy Swiss cheese.

She also recommends the croissant sandwiches and the coq au vin--chicken braised in wine and covered in a cream sauce, which is then rolled in a crêpe. Chicken, ham and cheese, bacon, lettuce and tomato and vegetarian sandwiches are also available, served with soup of the day.

King also serves the famous crêpes suzette. Invented by the Franco-American cook Henri Charpentier quite by accident during the composition--over an open fire--of a complicated cream sauce for his patron, Albert, Prince of Wales, the dish is a flaming spectacle usually prepared tableside. Drenched in a Gran Marnier cordial and flavored with sugar and orange peel, the crêpes are served immediately after flaming to preserve the delicate texture and taste.

There also are chocolate-banana-almond crêpes, lemon-sugar-cinnamon-butter crêpes and French vanilla ice cream crêpes with chocolate sauce. The house special entrée is the Saratoga crêpe: Swiss cheese, mushrooms, crunchy bacon and avocado. This is not a place for a diet.

King, 53, came to the San Jose area from Taiwan with her husband, Mark, and their two children in 1975. Mark's family is here, but the education of their children was also a compelling reason to relocate. Both children have earned degrees at Cal State Hayward and UC-Berkeley.

While May had earned an accounting degree in Taiwan, she continued accounting studies here, hoping to enhance the English she had learned in the process. "I was very scared," she says of her entry into a world with which she could not converse. It was later, when she was employed in an accounting firm, that she practiced and effectively learned the language she was introduced to in the classroom.

Crêpe danielle, 12100 Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, Saratoga. Open for lunch Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Dinner, Mon.-Thu., 5-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 5-10 p.m., Sun., 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Brunch served with champagne. 725-8554.

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