Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Johnny Cheng, a waiter at Crêpe Danielle in Saratoga, prepares to serve white wine with a meal of crêpes.
Crêpe Danielle offers array of French gourmet cooking
By Suzanne Cristallo
The pizza parlor is gone, as is the tailor. So are the dry cleaners and beauty salon. "But Crêpe Danielle is still here!" exclaims May King, owner of the French crêperie in Saratoga in a small shopping center on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road. There have been many tenant changes in the past year, but the restaurant remains a fixture at the corner of Prospect Road.
Crêpe Danielle is still here, muses King, because the dinner, brunch and dessert crêpes it offers fill a cranny of need. "Our crêpes are not the street crêpes you can roll up like a hot dog and walk away with," she says.
She points to the popular entree crêpe, Coq Au Vin, a concoction of chicken and mushrooms in the Alsatian style, simmered in French white wine and served with a bechamel sauce--a basic white sauce of cream, butter and flour. It's topped with Swiss cheese and runs $7.75. The signature Crêpe Danielle cannot be copied, she says, because of its secret herb cheese that enhances the filling of sliced chicken breast and mushrooms.
Other customer favorites are the Normande at $8.50--scallops and shrimp in a St. Jacques sauce with sliced almonds and Swiss cheese, and the Crêpe Saratoga , with bacon, Swiss cheese, sliced avocado and mushrooms. An often ordered dessert crêpe is the classic Crêpe Suzette with ample butter, sugar, orange peel and Grand Marnier, the liqueur that is also poured over the French Kiss, stuffed with bananas and almonds. Both run $6.50 and may be embellished with a scoop of Dreyer's ice cream for $1.75 more.
With the recent spate of colder weather, King finds customers ordering lots of her French onion soup. They enter the garden-like setting with its booths of white lattice, anticipating the steaming soup with curls of onions and crunchy croutons.
"And the cheese--that's what makes ours so different," King says, describing the thick, chewy layer of Swiss draped over the bowl and baked until it has bubbled into a crust. "I've gone to other restaurants to try theirs, and all they put is one layer of cheese and then melt it," she adds.
The onion soup may accompany a croissant sandwich--either bacon, chicken or ham in the $7 range, or a salad--such as the Salad Danielle of lettuce, tomatoes, smoked ham, Swiss cheese and avocado.
On Sundays, brunch is served. In addition to the two-egg omelette crêpes stuffed with a variety of choices that are available everyday, the $12.95 brunch includes any entree crêpe, a croissant, a glass of champagne or a Mimosa and coffee
King, 56, has owned Crêpe Danielle since 1989. It was her first professional cooking endeavor and first business. Much learning has taken place in the ensuing years. For the would-be restaurateur, she offers some advice: "Know that it's a hard job. You have to know everything--how to wait tables, cook, run the cash register, bus tables, purchase, balance books, find and train the help and fill in for the ones who don't show. Don't expect a vacation and don't get sick. And especially, don't do it with small children."
King has a son, now an architect, and a daughter in human resources. King lives in Fremont with her husband, Mark, a recently retired electrical engineer. Her commute each way lasts up to an hour and a half. Since the restaurant is open seven days a week, her only mealtime free is lunch on Saturdays when the place is closed. That has become the King family time when the children come home to visit.
But the rewards are there. "I know so many customers by name," she says, reflecting on her years in the community. "They tell me about their lives, and they worry I won't be here."
Crêpe Danielle, 12100 Saratoga-Sunnyvale Rd., Saratoga. Open for lunch Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Dinner Mon.-Thurs. 5-9 p.m., Fri. and Sat. 5-10 p.m., Sun. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Call for reservations or special party arrangements. 408.725.8554.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
