The Top 100 Restaurant on Santa Cruz Avenue That Quietly Became Something Else

In March, the San Francisco Chronicle published its list of the 100 best restaurants in the Bay Area for 2026. It included three Menlo Park restaurants. Two are expensive, reservation-driven dining rooms. The third was Mrs Khan at 712 Santa Cruz Avenue, the only one of the three the Chronicle rated at a single dollar sign.

Mrs Khan closed in September without an announcement. On October 14, the same room reopened as Dragon General, a Chinese restaurant with a long menu and a beer and wine list, as The Almanac reported on October 23. The new restaurant is open and already serving dinner. What changed is the shape of the town's critically ranked dining. The two Top 100 restaurants still open are both fine dining.

Three Rankings, Three Price Tags

Here is how the Chronicle's 2026 list placed Menlo Park, with the price tier it gave each one:

Two of the three sat about a block apart on Santa Cruz Avenue. Mrs Khan had been on the Chronicle's list before. It was No. 78 in 2025, and the paper's critic called it "the reigning Uyghur restaurant in the Bay Area," located in what the list called "the sleepy suburb of Menlo Park." The Chronicle also ranked its chicken korma No. 9 among its favorite Bay Area dishes of 2023. That dish was a big platter of hand-pulled noodles, peppers and browned chicken, and the 2026 list described it as "the kind of food you'd eat in preparation for a snowstorm."

When the room reopened as Dragon General, Menlo Park kept its two $$$ entries and lost the one that cost little.

Why the Inexpensive One Was the One to Go

Mrs Khan arrived as part of a wave of openings. Sisters Almira and Kalbi Tursungjan leased 712 Santa Cruz Avenue after it had sat empty following the closure of Juban Yakiniku, a Japanese barbecue restaurant. The Almanac covered the opening in December 2022, when Mrs Khan was in its soft-opening phase. According to the Chronicle's 2023 review, the name "Khan" is a Central Asian honorific. Neither sister has that surname.

Kalbi Tursungjan told The Almanac she could not find a chef who could cook authentic Uyghur dishes. Hand-pulled laghman depends on that skill. The restaurant could not replace it with a different hire and stay a Uyghur restaurant.

The high-end restaurants that arrived around the same time came with established teams. A May 2025 Chronicle report on Menlo Park's restaurant growth listed the reasons operators gave for choosing the town. They pointed to affluent diners in an underserved market, less competition than in the cities, a small-town feel, parking, and new talent replacing retiring owners. Mayor Drew Combs credited investment at Springline and Stanford's mixed-use projects with bringing in new business. Eylan is the third restaurant from chef Srijith Gopinathan and restaurateur Ayesha Thapar, after Ettan and Copra. Yeobo, Darling comes from Meichih and Michael Kim, whose Michelin-starred tasting menu restaurant Maum in Palo Alto closed in 2020. Mrs Khan was built around one cuisine that few Peninsula kitchens cook.

There was also a licensing reason. Mrs Khan did not serve alcohol, because Uyghurs don't drink it, and chef-partner Minjun Li told The Almanac that getting a beer and wine license was one of the reasons for changing the concept.

What 712 Santa Cruz Serves Now

Dragon General is Li's restaurant. He has about 25 years of cooking experience, starting in China at 16, and has worked at Chinese chains including Ziguangyuan and Daiyali. He moved to the Bay Area about six years ago. He is from Dongbei in Northeast China, though he spent most of his career in Beijing. The menu covers those two regions plus Shanghai, Hunan and Sichuan, and it has a Chinese American section.

Prices reported by The Almanac:

• Crispy sweet and sour pork, the signature Dongbei dish, in the same $18 to $24 range as the crispy eggplant with garlic and chili and the sweet and sour pork ribs
• Peking duck, whole or half, $48 to $88, served with ginger, sauce and cucumber, plus either salt and pepper duck carcass or duck soup
• Housemade dim sum, including soup dumplings, potstickers and shrimp siu mai at $15
• Sichuan dry pot squid, $28, alongside snakehead fish and yellow croaker
• Hunan-style stir-fried cured pork with pressed tofu, $22
• Walnut shrimp and Kung Pao chicken in the Chinese American section

At most of these prices, Dragon General costs more than the $ tier Mrs Khan held, but far less than the two $$$ rooms on the list. The room has changed too. The purple exterior wall is now a natural wood tone, the flower wall at the entrance is gone, and the artwork has been replaced. Li told The Almanac he wanted a "more zen, relaxed feeling."

As of The Almanac's October 23 report, Dragon General was in a soft opening with 12% off and no grand opening date. It is open Wednesday through Monday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 to 9 p.m. Soft-opening offers usually end, so check with the restaurant before counting on the discount.

Where the Laghman Went

Nobody in Menlo Park is cooking Mrs Khan's food right now. The Almanac reported that Kusan Bazaar in Mountain View is now the only Uyghur restaurant on the Peninsula. It is at 634 N. San Antonio Road, in a former Jersey Mike's, and soft-opened at the end of June 2025, according to the Mountain View Voice. At opening, its featured dishes included pilaf sets with braised beef, lamb rib or lamb shank, lamb and chicken kebabs, noodle soup and housemade yogurt drinks. The Kusan Bazaar website still lists the San Antonio Road location with daily hours and online ordering, under the name "Kusan Collective."

Some Uyghur food may come back to Santa Cruz Avenue eventually. Li told The Almanac that customers have been asking for Uyghur dishes. He said he is open to adding some once he cuts the menu down.

The Two That Remain, and What It Takes to Get a Table

Both Top 100 restaurants still open in Menlo Park take some planning.

Yeobo, Darling opened in June 2025, according to the Chronicle's review. The critic praised the chilled perilla somyun, the sweet-and-sour tilefish and the spicy soft tofu with seafood, and also called the prices expensive. The restaurant's reservations page says bookings are online only and open 30 days ahead at midnight. The Michelin Guide added it in March 2026, and after the June awards it stayed at the recommended level.

Eylan opened January 15, 2025, at The Villa Menlo Park in Stanford's Middle Plaza development. The Chronicle's review highlighted the wood-fired whole sea bream with kitchadi, the cured hamachi with sesame-leaf pakora and the lamb seekh kebab. Eylan kept its Bib Gourmand at Michelin's June ceremony. As Palo Alto Online reported, it and Pausa are the only Bib Gourmand restaurants on the Peninsula. The same round of awards removed Camper, another Menlo Park restaurant, from the guide. Eylan's website is taking bookings for a Diwali dinner on Saturday, November 7.

Both are special-occasion restaurants. Mrs Khan had the town's third Top 100 spot and was the one you could walk into for a $ lunch after an errand on Santa Cruz Avenue. The room still serves noodles and dumplings at lunch, now as a Chinese menu at somewhat higher prices.

If you have been following how downtown Menlo Park's storefronts change hands, whether you own property on Santa Cruz Avenue or are weighing a home within walking distance of it, Luxuriant Realty would be glad to walk you through it street by street. Elevate Your Lifestyle. Request a Personalized Consultation.