Gilroy Bowl

I forgot to mention in my previous post that the Garlic Shoppe guy had asked if we liked Loco Mocos. Bert said he did, but I'm not really into them. The reason he asked was because there was a little place in downtown Gilroy owned by Japanese Americans from Hawaii. I forget if they were 3rd or 4th generation. In any case, our interest was piqued...

He said the name of the restaurant was Scotty's and it was located within Gilroy Bowl, a bowling alley.

We didn't really explore much of downtown. We just wanted to park and get out of the heat. We noticed a lot of shops in the downtown main drag were shuttered. Kinda sad to see. Some used to be antique stores. Take a look at this sign. I like how "international" it is on Weds-Saturdays.

Old School wood paneling...

More specials...

You can see (an outdated version) of their menu here:

Very electic here, as you can see from the lunch specials...

This place looks like it hasn't changed since 1968 (the year they opened). Time warp city here. And I mean that in a good way.  Just look at that green pleather on the chairs! And way in the back is the actual bowling alley. It seemed most of the people here were locals. The waitresses here were super nice and seemed to know many of the patrons in the room. They treated us like we were family, that's really the feeling I had here.

I think the older Japanese lady was the owner (or maybe Scotty's wife?)...

My salad (iceberg, croutons, beets, and ranch dressing on the side). Blah.

Although Bert does like Loco Moco's, he did not order one. Instead, he had a turkey and bacon sandwich which he enjoyed. Nice thick pieces of bacon. I just love the Japanese plate on which this was served.

This was a side order for me, the Portuguese sausage. I didn't know I'd get two big pieces. Liked the score and grillmarks. Loved the snap on the sausages too. Good flavor.

I ordered the Oahu Style scrambled eggs which were supposed to come with pork chashu, green onions, and kamaboko (fish cake). The waitress was apologetic as she explained they were out of kamaboko but could they substitute it with Spam instead? Spam?  You don't have to twist my arm lady. So Spam it was! Spam with pork chashu and the Portuguese sausage was meat overload for me. Plus the white rice (which I'd been trying to avoid for the past few months). As you might have gathered, this was way too much food for me (it ended up being breakfast a few days later)...

TC had a hamburger, but instead of regular buns, they used bread.  Her fries were supposed to be garlic fries but they tasted like the regular kind. I think they forgot. Loved her plate (same as Bert's)!

Our trio of plates. I really liked the pork chashu in my eggs. Too bad they were out of kamaboko. It would have provided a textural contrast as well as flavor contrast.  I ended up with Pork, pork, and more pork!

Here's the bowling alley which is located beyond the back wall of Scotty's near the bathrooms.

Looks like we'll be missing this event...

I'm glad we stopped by Scotty's. The food was solid and filling. The service was friendly and "motherly". Best of all, no tourists, just locals.

Yelp links:
Scotty's
and and the bowling alley

and a short blurb on some guy's blog (scroll down to Nov 2, 2007) - where he describes the menu as the "strangest we have ever seen".

Official website of Scotty's/Gilroy Bowl

It was time to move on and keep driving south...