Downtown Mountain View typically has 25 different cuisines in its 4-block restaurant drag, ranging from greasy spoon Chinese to Michelin star (depending on who's chef at TJ's that year.) You can get better Korean or Indian down on El Camino, and there are some other cuisines you have to look around for, and it can be worth driving to Milpitas for some kinds of Chinese. (And sure, Nolan Bushnell had to open his own restaurant just to get one he thought was good enough, but that was the 80s and just because he built Chuck E. Cheese didn't mean he was going to eat there.)
And yeah, if the traffic isn't bad, it's because the economy is, but it's still better than LA or NYC. And unfortunately the trains really only work for going to the city, not coming from the city down here to work.