King's Fish House

Three floors of Italian everything: fresh pasta counters, gelato, pizza, and kids' cooking classes - a food-hall format where everyone picks their own dinner and nobody compromises.

The soup-dumpling spectacle: kids watch dumplings being folded through the kitchen window, then demolish them. Kidsbayarea's Westfield Valley Fair family pick.

Fast-casual sandwiches built for picky and adventurous eaters alike, on Santana Row where kids can run the plaza after - kids eat free on Tuesdays.

A Victorian mansion of stairs to nowhere and doors that open onto walls, with house tours ($25-40) and a garden tour that works with a stroller. The house tour is all narrow stairs - better for ages 6+ and kids who like spooky.

A San Jose icon since 1966: order at the window, eat at picnic tables under a giant San Jose mural. The banana shakes get even falafel skeptics through the meal.

A free, flat, five-acre rose garden with thousands of bushes, best April through June. Flat paved paths make it stroller-easy; kids treat it like a maze.