because, really, i’m too tired after a night of climbing and am just recording this menu for memory’s sake.

beretta, mission district, san francisco, ca.

warm marinated cerignola olives with citrus
gnocchi with fresh porcini and guanciale
a bunch of pizzette:
+ margherita with burrata
+ prosciutto di parma, tomato, arugula & mozzarella
+ radicchio, escarole, robiola & pancetta tesa
+ baccala’, potato, panna, onions & capers
vanilla gelato affogato with barolo
nuestra paloma (tequila, elderflower, cointreau, grapefruit, bitters)

i glanced at the menu.

“this is my new favorite restaurant ever,” i declared.
“but you haven’t even tried it yet!”

i suppose this suggests something about the selection of food at beretta. it is definitely a place to go with a group of friends to indulge in a pizza each and a generous array of antipasti, because you will want to try everything. i surely plan to do so in the next… oh… month. fortnight. week.

i think there was some mention of a cocktail menu designed by someone from bourbon and branch, a wine list selected by someone from delfina, and pizzas devised by some other name-brand character, but who cares? my cocktail was impeccable, the olives were warm and buttery, the gnocchi was transcendental, and the pizzas left me adrift upon thin-crusted bliss, each of them flavorful and unique. the fact that they are open until 1 am (did you hear that, san francisco? NIGHT LIFE) made up for the service, or lack thereof.

i apologize for lackluster descriptions, but i think i’ve discovered happiness. find me at beretta if you want to discuss it.

(a hearty shout goes out to david giusti for suggesting this restaurant. you are also my new best friend.)

I am too lazy to write a proper flog post. Or spell correctly, apparently. But you may click below.

Love,
jo

Brown Sugar Kitchen, West Oakland, Oakland, CA.

“All of the Above,” aka:
Two eggs (over easy)
Green salad (sub for breakfast potatoes)
Acme wheat toast
Niman Ranch ham
& an espresso

I don’t know what it is about this place. Thoroughly agnostic as I am, I’m skeptical of any restaurant that proclaims its food has soul, much less new soul. Previously, I’d journeyed here for a pulled pork sandwich, and despite its West Oakland trappings, found the food as whitey-whitewashed as T-Rex BBQ, though with less gusto, far less satisfying macaroni and cheese and a dearth of whiskey. It was so uneventful (and me, so lazy) that I didn’t bother writing about it.

Service was tepid, aloof, and proceeded at its own pace, which is to say it was egregiously slow, given the dining room’s emptiness and my order’s simplicity. If you’re going to spend twenty minutes making toast and over easy eggs, at least have my espresso arrive sooner than halfway through the process. When the food did arrive, the eggs were SOLID and decidedly past medium. The salad was woefully overdressed, any crisp freshness smothered by strangely lumpy vinaigrette, as if someone tried to pull a fast one on “creamy balsamic” by incorporating something gelatinous. The espresso was the typical broad-appeal Blue Bottle shot: heavy mouthfeel, laden with crema, impossibly robust but lacking finesse, i.e., will happily take a gallon of milk but still taste the same.

Ironically, or perhaps appropriately, the meal was saved by one of the hallmarks of California cuisine: quality ingredients. The toast was perfect due to the inherent wondrousness of Acme bread; the lightly smoked, meaty but lean Niman Ranch ham was redemption from every serving of briny pressed meats I’d consumed in my youth. But what good is simplicity when you can’t even get my order right? Resigned to my fate, I constructed a fried egg and ham sandwich, which would have been cheaper (and cheesier) to order in the first place.

It was $12 with an adequate tip that they didn’t really deserve. Should’ve made the trek to 900 Grayson instead. I will give BSK another shot for the sake of chicken and waffles; I don’t know why I keep avoiding the restaurant’s signature dish. Lowering my expectations, perhaps?

P.S. – Delicious espresso can be found in Mountain View, of all places. Get thee to Dana Street Roastery and have a shot, preferably made from Yemen Moka (refined but not constrained, with layers upon layers of flavor), preferably pulled by the affable gentleman sporting the handlebar mustache, preferably in a delightfully dry macchiato.

Riva Cucina, West Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.

CAPESANTE GRATINATE (Herb and breadcrumb crusted fresh sea scallops baked in shell, organic mixed greens, lemon condimento)
INSALATA DI FARRO (Organic Italian barley, mizuna lettuce, shaved fennel, and blood orange segments, shaved Parmigiano, lemon condimento)
GNOCCHI ALL’AGNELLO (Potato dumplings with slowly braised lamb shank, diced vegetables, herbs, tomato and cabernet, pecorino Toscano)
SCALOPPE AI FUNGHI (Niman Ranch pork loin scaloppini with porcini and crimini mushrooms, mashed potato)
Glass of 2005 Falesco Vitiano

While full, I’m disappointed, and unfortunately, it’s $88 disappointed. I’m always on the lookout for Italinate restaurants in the East Bay because there are so few of excellent quality without a ridiculous wait. Lured by seafood, pasta, and seemingly reasonable prices (especially after a $18! pasta at Venezia), I dragged a friend out to West Berkeley in the pouring rain, hoping for a hidden gem. What we got instead was an unexceptional meal in a huge warehouse conversion that had the appearance of trendy coffee shop crossbred with a perplexingly upscale high school cafeteria, decorated by someone nursing an incoherent addiction to the Crate and Barrel outlet. Giant renaissance-modern light fixture in the corner, while the rest of us have to make do with the ambient sodium-vapor from outside? Floor-length maroon velvet curtains bisecting the dining room? A wall of photographs: portrait, landscape, random bookcase, portrait, landscape? I don’t understand!

My companion’s Insalata di Farro was an exercise in disjointness: while the mizuna had a lovely flavor, encountering overly thick “shavings” of fennel and large segments of tart blood orange were startling. “And there’s not enough farro,” he complained. The sea scallops in the Capesante Gratinate were fantastic: creamy-fresh and just barely baked until tender with a light dusting of breadcrumbs that enhanced but didn’t overpower their delicate sweetness. The mixed greens were less impressive, a standard combination of lettuces dressed with condimento with the overbearing taste of olives rather than lemon, which would have better suited the scallops.

Unfortunately, our main courses didn’t redeem the unevenness of the starters. The gnocchi all’agnello were rather firm and grainy, much like the vacuum-sealed gnocchi you can buy at any high-end grocery store. The sugo-style sauce, while benefiting from the richness of lamb, was one-dimensional, its “diced vegetables and herbs” invisible among salt and meat; I couldn’t shake the feeling that I could prepare this dish for half as much myself. My friend’s pork loin scaloppini and mashed potato tasted like… meat and potatoes. The straightforward, if boring, breaded pork was adequate but again lacked any specialness that comes from having someone else cook for you. The mushrooms provided the only source of distinct flavor. Unsurprisingly, my glass of wine tasted like an inexpensive Italian red blend, unremarkable and marked up far too much given the price for a bottle at my local BevMo.

Riva isn’t a destination restaurant by any means, but I might return again if I have an impatient hankering for bolognese. After all, the place was only about 25% full. I’d certainly head here before trying Venezia again.

(Recent history, for reference: the best use of mushrooms, the crimini demi-glace atop the hangar steak at Sauce; the best salad incorporating grain, the seared scallop/bacon/couscous/frisee perfection at the unstoppable Wood Tavern.)

Bagan, Park St., Alameda, CA.

Nan Gyi Dok (Burmese rice noodles with a mild chicken coconut curry sauce, eggs, split yellow pea, and fried onion)
Thai Iced Tea

Forgive me for being blunt, but I am immediately suspicious of any Asian restaurant with scores of non-Asian people queuing up to gush over it (ahem, Le Cheval). While I’ve tried it and liked it, Burma Superstar is no exception. Apparently, my local Burmese restaurant (r.i.p., Hinn Tha) has changed into the East Bay branch of the ’star, so I gave it a try.

Wary of the Thep Phanom-enon — where they oversalt everything in an otherwise finely nuanced cuisine and somehow garner undying praise from the American palate — I ordered Nan Gyi Dok. Given my current dissatisfaction with curries (thanks to the plethora of mediocre Thai and now even Indian restaurants in the area), I was pleasantly surprised. Overly salty or not, the fragrant curry was some of the best I’ve ever had, a complex melange of spices tempered by a perfect coconut milk overtone. I’m glad to know that someone realizes this: mild does not equal bland. Alongside the rice noodles, which were like a lighter, more slippery spaghetti, the accoutrements made each bite a novelty, complimented by the piquant sweetness of slivered raw onion, the savory sweetness of fried onion, or pungent cilantro, the crunch of those fried-wonton-skin-like strips satisfying against the creaminess of sliced hardboiled egg. The chicken is kind of an afterthought, compulsory protein used as an excuse to assemble the rest of the ingredients.

I miss Hinn Tha’s Burmese iced tea. If you’ll excuse the perfume analogies (I’ve been reading about them too much recently), Thai iced tea is far too sweet, floral, and feminine, while Burmese iced tea is robust, rich, and masculine. I prefer the latter.

A rather hefty $15 out of my pocket for lunch, and copious amounts of water drunk to ward off my impending hypertension, though it was nice to sit and stare out at the rain.

Flora, Uptown, Oakland, CA.

Chicken, mortadella, and pancetta tortellini in brodo
Salumi plate (shared)
Steelhead with bacon, green salsa, and pureed celery root
Flora Martini
Caramel pudding with sea salt, whipped cream, and a rosemary pine nut cookie (shared)

I’ve tried very hard to like Flora, with its impossibly high ceiling, shelves of liquor bathed in warm amber light, and nicely appointed art deco interior. I’ve tried so hard that I’ve eaten there three times before writing this. Each time my conclusion has remained unchanged: Flora is a beautiful space that fails to live up to its potential. To get a preview, you can peek at B’s musings, here. (I’m the “friend” quoted.) Granted, they haven’t been open very long, so perhaps all of our complaints should be taken as “opportunities for improvement” rather than condemnations.

What I do like about Flora: sauntering up to the nearly empty bar (on a weekday) and enjoying its expansiveness with a well-made Flora Martini, composed with Plymouth gin and a rinse of imported elderflower syrup. What I don’t like about Flora: the appalling inconsistency between bartenders (ask me which ones to order drinks from), the ambitious but mediocre food, the downright abysmal service.

Regardless, I sipped my martini. It was good, somewhere in between the first Flora Martini I’d ever had (fantastic) and the second (crap). And I waited. And waited. And waited… until, due to the server’s error, all of our courses arrived at the same time. Sigh. No, I know it is not too much to expect a bartender to know about proper timing for food; this is where Wood Tavern shines. He also didn’t know what was on the salumi plate — prosciutto (razor-thin salty porky goodness, but no better than anywhere else), soppressata (delicious and peppery, my favorite), and “other” — nor did he bother to ask the kitchen what “other” was! I suppose it didn’t matter; it was dried out and sliced too thickly, anyhow. I avoided the candied chiles and overly sour cornichons, although the accompanying drizzle of honey was a nice touch.

You know how Marco Polo stole noodles from the Chinese and brought pasta back to Italy? Imagine if he did that with your average Chinatown won ton soup: an Italianate version of savory meat stuffed into slightly tough outer skins in an adequate but unremarkable chicken broth. This was Flora’s tortellini in brodo. It was a pale spectre compared to the stuffed pasta in brodo at Incanto, which benefits from the ethereal lightness of their pasta and the unmatchable richness of duck brodo.

I’ve waxed poetic on steelhead, one of my favorite fishes, so it’s no surprise that I immediately ordered it as my entree. It was cooked a little more that I like (which is to say, barely), but acceptable. However, the “green salsa” was more akin to a garlicky cilantro-parsley pesto, overpowering the delicate steelhead flavor by leaps and bounds. A waste of fish — dump the “salsa” atop something straightforward like salmon, please, and leave steelhead to those who know how to handle it, like Sea Salt! Given all of that, do I even need to mention the strangely gummy celery root puree which flanked it like a lifeless lump?

I must say that dessert was my favorite course of all, though still a little perplexing. I didn’t really like the dueling creamy textures of whipped cream AND pudding, so I avoided the whipped cream altogether. The rosemary pine nut cookie was good and the pudding was silky smooth with a pleasing caramel flavor, but soon, I was getting bored.

“Wait, where’s the sea salt? They need to add more, or use larger granules. I don’t taste it at all.”

Then we realized — it was IN the whipped cream! Bizarre, though it convinced me not to leave the whipped cream untouched, which would have been utter tragedy.

I can’t remember how much I paid for two. I’ve probably forgotten on purpose because it far outpaced the quality of the food. Needless to say, I’ll probably stick to drinks if I return, keeping a careful eye on which bartenders are present.
–

P.S. – If you want the world’s most perfect, meticulously made, well-balanced martini (with commensurate pricing) and have a thick skin for pretentiousness, order one at Bourbon and Branch.

Restaurante Doña Tomás, Temescal, Oakland, CA.

Carnitas (with tortillas, salsa fresca, refritos, and green rice)
Sangrita y Tequila
Pay de Chocolate

Can a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Can a band from France (and marginally, Spain) substitute for music actually by Latin American artists in a Mexican restaurant (and does it matter)? Can phenomenal Mexican cuisine come from people named Schnetz and Savitsky? All questions that I don’t necessarily have the answers for as I contemplate the rest of my enormous carnitas platter over the mildly insipid Gipsy Kings.

At 5:15, I paced Temescal, grumbling at my own misfortune for the day, searching for culinary redemption. Noting that Pizzaiolo was closed for remodeling (they have since reopened), and not wanting Lanesplitters as consolation, I decided that a heaping plate of carnitas was the only solution.

Since they opened at 5:30, the restaurant was empty and I was swiftly placed at a table facing the kitchen, though obscured by the wall upon which they place steaming plates of food for delivery to the tables. I ordered food and drink at once. The food arrived almost instantly, before the tequila even appeared. Strange, but I suppose pork that has been stewing in its own, deliciously unkosher fat for hours doesn’t need much time before serving. Undeterred, I proceeded, expecting luscious melty-crisp gluttony.

The carnitas were browned to a perfect crisp. The meaty insides… were DRY! How is that possible? I’ve had Doña Tomás’ carnitas before, and they were heavenly! I could lessen the dryness by complementing it with refritos and salsa on a tortilla, but carnitas should be able to stand its own. I only finished half. That says much, regardless of massive serving size. And though I’d finished all the tortillas, couldn’t they have thrown a couple into my takeout box, or at least asked?

I drowned my frustration in alternating swallows of sangrita and tequila. Thankfully, the tequila selection for this combination at Doña Tomás is far better than the default at Fonda, and the sangrita is refreshing rather than cloying. I ordered chocolate pie, and it too was not as good as remembered. The graham cracker crust was more crumbly than tender, for which I had previously lauded them; the chocolate was more firm and cold than creamy with an odd medicinal flavor. The enormous dollop of whipped cream detracted more than it complemented. It tasted like it had been sliced yesterday and abruptly pulled out of the refrigerator before serving.

I left, utterly disappointed and $46 poorer. For that much, I’d rather have a hamburger dinner at Wood Tavern. To be fair, I reheated the leftover carnitas in a microwave later that night and they melted into a much moister, much greasier, much less crisp but far more delicious mess. I’ve had some delicious and well-presented meals at Doña Tomás; perhaps this was an anomaly.

–

And once more, with feeling!

Restaurante Doña Tomás, Temescal, Oakland, CA.

Tostadas de Coliflor
Ensalada César
Sopa de Pescado (spicy soup with halibut cheeks, chard, fennel, potato, and avocado, accompanied by green rice)
Sangrita y Tequila

I returned with company less than a week later. The restaurant was only about two-thirds full at 8pm, a far cry from my expectations. Is there something about the post-holidays that slows down restaurant business? On the other hand, Pizzaiolo was overflowing, but they’d also just reopened. Is this indicative of a decline in the quality of food, as suggested by my previous meal?

This time, instead of placing my bets on one dish, I decided on a different tactic and ordered a number of “small” things. Do note the quotations; despite my best dietary intentions, nothing here is small.

My companion and I shared the tostadas, crispy tortillas topped with roasted cauliflower tossed with raisins, and pine nuts in a very spicy crema-based sauce. While it was fairly tasty, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was eating a strangely creamy cauliflower trail mix — nothing quite pulled all of the elements together. The Mexican rendition of Caesar salad was a large plate of fresh, crisp romaine, well-dressed and topped with delicious croutons. (So far as I can tell, the only difference is that the dressing probably contains lime juice instead of lemon, and the cheese is cotija instead of parmesan.) The soup was excellent: large, tender-firm, flavorful halibut cheeks, sliced fennel bulb, potatoes and greens in a rich and wickedly spicy broth. I also stole a few bites of his carne asada with chimichurri — an excellent choice.

Redemption, for now. This time I was okay with forking over another $45.

The inimitably web-stalkable k7lim and I agreed to have tacos for lunch last week. Instead of dragging him to Tacubaya, as promised, I sprung a surprise on him and took him on a miniature taco-crawl!

Method

At each restaurant we ordered one carne asada and one pollo taco (traditional style — no beans, rice, or extra filler). We shared both, either by alternating-bite or divide-toppings-onto-single-tortilla method. Coincideintally, we also shared horchata at each place, a decent palate cleanser by any means. We sampled chips and salsa when presented with them. All tacos were in the $1.50 range except at Casa Latina, where they were $2 apiece.

Results

Round 1: Los Cantaros Taqueria, San Pablo Ave., Emeryville, CA.

We ordered two “Mexico City tacos” — they also have the blasphemously embellished taco-surrogates, so you have to specify. The tortillas were small, soft, and pliable. The carne asada was flavorful and sufficiently juicy; the chicken, however, was nothing special, lacking flavor until being doused with the (saucy) red salsa provided for the chips. The green sauce on both tacos was ample and slightly spicy. The radish and jalapeno were appreciated even though neither of us touched them.

(G says this restaurant is unrelated to the Los Cantaros restaurant on Grand Ave. in Oakland, but I’ve been unable to confirm.)

–

Round 2: Gallegos, San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, CA.

The chicken on the pollo taco was nicely shredded: a good sign, given our mutual dissatisfaction with the previous. It was moist and flavorful. The carne asada was tasty and had a good texture. We were pleased with both tacos, even though the quality of the individual ingredients (the steak, in particular) was generally less than that at Los Cantaros. Quite appropriately, everything was dripping grease: “This is the equivalent of a fairly good taco truck distilled into a shack,” I commented. (k7 agreed.) We finished our chips and (chunky) salsa in satisfied silence, occasionally quenching the fire with Gallego’s weak horchata-water.

–

Round 3: Mi Tierra Foods, San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, CA.

Mi Tierra is a well-stocked Mexican supermarket with a hot food counter in the back. The eating area consists of a couple of stools placed unceremoniously against a wall. Good enough for us. We noted an odd characteristic of both tacos: something about the flavor profile of both meats was reminiscent of Chinese food. The diced meat must have been diligently marinaded, possibly overnight, until the marinade permeated the entirety of the steak and chicken bits. While this sounds good in theory, in practice both were cooked slightly too long for their marination to save them. The carne asada taco was decent — overcooked marinated steak tends to crisp due to its fat content. The lean, tough chicken bits suffered from the practice, inspiring comparison to a bad ground chicken and soy sauce stir-fry.

–

Round 4: Casa Latina, San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, CA.

“We only use olive oil,” declared the chalkboard which listed the menu. We should have known — Casa Latina was easily the worst, yet most expensive, contestant of Part One. The tortillas were the size of my face. Both meats were rather flavorless and overdone, the chicken dry to the point where I couldn’t finish my portion of the taco. The hot sauce ladled over each taco didn’t help as it attempted to mask the meat’s blandness with its burnt and rabid spiciness. There were no chips and salsa offered to redeem the experience. At least the horchata had a good, cinnamon-y flavor that made up for its slight grittiness.

Summary of Part One

Best carne asada taco: Los Cantaros
Best pollo taco: Gallegos
Best overall experience: Los Cantaros

(I invite k7 to challenge any of the above if he is so inclined.)

Los Cantaros wins, just barely, due to the actual presence of atmosphere, the quality of their carne asada, and their ample selection of agua frescas. While both tacos at Gallegos were stellar (and greasy), seats at the shack’s counter did little to elevate it above more conveniently located taco trucks. I’d return to both, deciding which to patronize by means of how fat I’m feeling that day.

Unfortunately, we did not have the stomach capacity to include any tacos of the deliciously porky variety in this survey. We will be conducting more taco crawls in the future, so please contact me if you’d like to participate. The more, the merrier!

BONUS ROUND: Pan dulce challenge

My favorite pan dulce, from Casa Latina. Does anyone know what these damned things are called? They look confused whenever I ask when they will have the “cookies that look like croissants.” If you can provide the answer, I’ll give you… mad props. Or, better yet, I’ll buy you a taco.

Havana, Park St., Alameda, CA
(A quick, preliminary review.)

Cuban sandwich with boniato fries and garlic
Iced tea

I haven’t been having good luck with sandwiches recently. I thought this restaurant might change my luck, but I was mistaken. Never having lived in Cuba or on the eastern seaboard, I don’t fancy myself an expert on Cuban sandwiches, by any means. But is it that much of a stretch to except the flavor of a sandwich to reflect the vibrancy of its culture?

The restaurant had a pleasantly airy, open feel to it, its walls adorned with massive and impressive photographs that do nothing to quell my fascination with seeing Cuba in person. Vaguely Latin music emanated from the ceiling at the appropriate volume, varying in its appeal from enjoyable to appalling.

(An aside. Dear Bay Area Restaurants: Please remove Manu Chao and his keychain-explosion sound effects permanently from all musical rotation. It got old half a decade ago. Please and thank you.)

Service was absentminded and aloof, but I’m willing to be lenient since it is a new(ish) restaurant and these things tend to work themselves out. I consoled myself with bread reminiscent of dry ciabatta, strangely sliced double-wide. Regardless of grill time, my sandwich took far too long to arrive. When it did, it was accompanied by boniato fries instead of the plantains I’d ordered, but I was too impatient to argue. Plus, who can argue with sweet potato fries (even if their accompanying “guava chipotle sauce” tasted like nothing more than overly-sweet barbecue sauce)?

Anyway, onto the sandwich, itself. Pork should not be bland. Roast pork and ham, doubly so. The anemic pickle did nothing to distinguish itself from its relatives condemned to McDonald’s. The bread was quite good, simultaneously soft and toasty, but did nothing to pull the disparately textured yet indistinctly flavored elements of the sandwich together. The damned thing needed a healthy dose of mustard. But it was entirely edible, an inoffensive facsimile of its lofty prototypical ideal located somewhere in Miami.

$15 is a bit too much for a sandwich lunch, even if it’s purportedly Cuban. I may stop by for small plates and drinks sometime to give it another chance, but I’m not much of a mojito aficionado.

–

I will get to the taco crawl eventually. I promise.

900 Grayson, West Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.

“Breakfast” (Fresh Farm Eggs, Nueske’s Double Smoked Bacon, Idaho Hashed Browns, Toasted Acme Levain)
Donut holes
Coffee

My companion and I were both up early, discussing the possibility of phở for breakfast, when he mentioned 900 Grayson. I quickly convinced him that the prospect of coffee at 8 am was far better than that of coffee at 10 am. Regardless of hype, the restaurant was fairly empty on a Saturday morning at 8:30. The interior was warm, simple, comfortable, with well-considered decor that was Berkeley’s brand of upscale-quaint without being overly kitschy (I’m looking at you, Bette’s).

We started with the requisite donut holes, which are outsourced from elsewhere but are improved by reheating until warm and then serving in a sno-cone wrapper. Clever.

I ordered the “Breakfast,” a pretty standard combination which I thought would demonstrate the restaurant’s core competencies. It did: lovely, ungreasy, smoky-sweet bacon; a slow-crisped patty of real hash browns; slightly overcrisped but well-advertised Acme levain toast with wonderfully syrupy homemade blueberry jam. The only thing that didn’t floor me was the eggs, which simply tasted like… slow-cooked scrambled eggs. I’m not complaining; it just wasn’t exceptional.

“One of us has to order the Demon Lover,” he decreed. And so it was done. Delectable, delicately spiced fried chicken over a thin buttermilk waffle, covered in the best, creamiest, most delicious gravy ever created. I’m almost glad that I didn’t order it myself, given the spontaneous artery-clogging death it would have induced.

The staff is attentive and vigilant about refilling the coffee, which is also quite excellent. It is indeed hearty, down-home breakfast basics done the eccentric Berkeley way, but in this case, it works!

(Around $30 for two.)

–

Oliveto (Cafe), Rockridge, Oakland, CA.

Two poached farm eggs with toast and prosciutto cotto
Pot of earl gray tea

I wanted to like this place; I really did. I enjoyed sitting at my window table, surrounded by Rockridge’s finest, elegantly dressed, bookclub-attending middle-aged women, sipping pot after pot of tea while staring out at the strangely melancholy street. For such a well-appointed cafe, there was a sad lack of reading material; New York Times mobile was my only companion.

In memory of Caffe 817 (which still exists — I just don’t frequent it for breakfast as much), I ordered the classically Italian toast, eggs, and prosciutto triumvirate. The rather thick-cut prosciutto cotto (of the cooked, not cured variety) was reminiscent of unremarkable pastrami, lacking the fat, salt and spicy punch that make pastrami interesting. The eggs were poached slightly more than I prefer, disappointing me with their reluctant runniness. The star of the meal was actually the toast, which I can only assume is Acme levain (hey, Oliveto is borne of Chez Panisse alums as well, isn’t it?) slathered with butter and their deep amber, perfectly bittersweet house-made marmalade.

I will provide a comparison: while Caffe 817 has newspapers, odd characters, and an slightly larger menu (and horribly inconsistent espresso), Oliveto Cafe is a far more lovely and refined place to ruminate, provided that you bring your own reading material. Perhaps I may return for coffee and a pastry with a copy of the New Yorker, but Oliveto is ultimately too far out of my way for breakfast unless I have other reasons to be in Rockridge.

–

Given my apparent obsession with Chez Panisse alums’ toast and jam, maybe I should try Pizzaiolo’s morning offerings next. I don’t suppose any of you have been there?

(A one-line review of Pizzaiolo, just for kicks: pizza and pastas, fantastic; cocktails, forgettable; service, abominable.)