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.

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.

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.)

Cesar, Piedmont Ave., Oakland, CA

Endive and watercress salad with smoked trout and persimmon
Tocino de pato (house smoked duck breast, half portion)
Glass of 2005 Juan Gil jumilla
Grapefruit and campari sorbetes

It was good. They play great music (Stevie Wonder, with enough booty to the baseline to be recognizable over the crowd). What else can I say? I’m tired. Okay, okay… a quickie.

Right on the heels of the delicious maple roasted duck breast at Wood Tavern (which I’m too lazy to write about — let’s just say that they make damned good poultry), I had a light dinner at Cesar. Yes, “light.” Tummy’s been bothering me, but a girl’s gotta eat.

The salad: good components all around, with the trout imparting a nice smokiness to the creamy dressing. I liked everything separately, but somehow the sum of the whole was not greater than its parts.

The tocino de pato is a standard for me. Simple, barely-pink smoked duck with a tidy layer of fat. Solid, though a little mealier-textured than the last time I had it. We can’t all be perfect all the time.

The Juan Gil jumilla is one of my favorites. Dark, more complex than its vintage suggests, light/medium bodied enough to go with everything. Plus, I know it has a pretty, scripty-silver label! (Remind me to develop a wine vocabulary. )

The sorbetes were average and icy. I could barely tell the difference between the grapefruit and campari (chinotto, I assume, as it wasn’t the slightest bit alcoholic). However, the lovely bartender/server treated me to a bit of Chateau Roumieu Lacoste Sauternes (2003? 2004?). While I’m not a fan of dessert wine, it was a perfect compliment to the bitter citrus indistinctness.

$35 for a quick dinner, and it was an efficient and positive experience all around. Goodnight!

p.s. – The Woodford Manhattan at Wood Tavern is an absolute masterpiece. Spicy and smooth with a sweetness that doesn’t linger. I had two.

2007.11.05.

Dopo, Piedmont Ave., Oakland, CA

Cicerchie bean and kale soup
Tuna (crudo) with navel orange, meyer lemon, olives, and onion
Tagliatelle with porcini, pancetta, and gremolada
Glass of Cabernet/Sangiovese blend
Lemon ricotta zeppole
Macchiato
(and a sad lack of notebook. I didn’t do the usual and steal menus, either.)

I don’t NEED to order three courses and dessert, I thought to myself. But I seem to have developed this pattern. I perplexed the server when I listed my courses and then asked for a red wine suggestion. I probably should have gone with my usual Dolcetto but instead went for a poorly matched but tasty (and unfortunately unidentified) Cabernet/Sangiovese blend.

It was freezing (for the Bay Area, at least) when I stepped out and I was still shivering when I arrived, so I ordered soup. Simple, salty, heartily Italian, and fulfilling the greens quota, it suited its purpose. I stopped shivering enough to remove my coat and turn the pages of my novel without shaking. Wish I had received bread and butter, which never arrived.

Avid sashimi fan that I am, I’m still having difficulty in being convinced that Italian crudo is the best use of (tasty, tasty, rapidly depleting but oh-so-good) fanatically fresh seafood. I started on the tuna, frowned, and instead ate all the orange slices, which were overpowering everything. The velvety tuna, bittersweet meyer lemon rind, and salty olive nubs were a nice, clean but ultimately unimpressive dish. I’ve definitely had better crudo at Dopo (see the glorious salmon from a few months ago), and it’s disappointing that tuna was demoted to the level of intermediary palate cleanser that only lettuce deserves.

Then, almost as expected, I had a really long wait. Two chapters worth — even short, non-sequitur Murakami chapters — would be unacceptable anywhere else. It’s amazing how consistently slow the service is, nearly a year (?) after their expansion. But after long last, my tagliatelle arrived, and balance was restored in the world. THIS is why I come here. Fresh pasta, bashfully beginning to adhere to itself in spite of the nearly invisible cream sauce, interspersed with tender but toothsome porcini, dotted with pancetta, spiked with lemony gremolada. Simple, warm, and with a flavor profile that I can’t quite verbalize, but is distinctly Dopo.

“What are zeppole?” I asked.  She replied, “They’re like beignets, with lemon ricotta in the batter.” Who can go wrong with anything beignet-like? The batter was perfect and not quite sweet, the outside crispy and coated in powdered sugar. The macchiato was, well, a macchiato (courtesy of Ecco Caffe). This would be a perfect pair for breakfast if I were a glutton. Er, wait….

I got out of there for $65. They must have raised their prices a little, or perhaps I’m just becoming MORE gluttonous. O, Dopo, I’m glad you’re still delicious and slightly unkempt, imperfect but thankfully ever-present, like a frumpy ex-boyfriend whom you adore but still secretly smirk at for being single. Maybe I should go back tonight and get pizza.

2007.11.02.

Wood Tavern, Rockridge, Oakland, CA

The menu, reconstructed as best I can from memory and http://woodtavern.net/:
(There may be variations in the accoutrements as the menu is not quite up to date)

Crispy Pork Belly (soft boiled egg, frisee, something I’m missing, vinaigrette)
Chopped Romaine Salad (spinach, cucumbers, olives, feta cheese, vinaigrette)
Pan Roasted Half Chicken (fingerling potatoes, grilled radicchio, bread crumbs, lemon-rosemary jus)
Glass of Dolcetto d’Alba (Paolo Scavino, 2005)
Honey Panna Cotta (orange, nut brittle)
Espresso

I felt terribly over-hip walking into Wood Tavern in my (yes, sue me) $200 jeans with Murakami tucked under my arm, but so be it. I LOVE this place from the outset: high, wood-beamed ceilings; minimal, if vaguely gothic decor; wall of wine bottles; indistinct jazz, unintelligible over the infernal racket — perfect, comfortable white noise into which a solo diner can disappear at the cozy bar. And, yes, it is QUITE loud. I should ease up on the Dolcetto if I am to be coherent enough to taste the food, but its light simplicity makes it go down far too easily.

I receive possibly the warmest reception a lonely eater could get: confiding with the maitre d’; sipping a promptly fetched glass of wine; coyly cajoling the server who approached me into revealing his favorites, with a slant toward my presently cholesterol-laden food preferences.

“This is decadent,” he declares as he sets forth what you’d think was a modest morsel of pork belly. Well, the featherweight crispiness against warm belly fat had my Peking-duck-eating-Asian-ass exalting in the praises of epidermis (or maybe, crust), with just enough tart-vinegar frisee as a foil to appease my former-vegetarian inclinations. The meltingly creamy pork fat and granularly creamy, barely soft-boiled egg compliment each other in creamy ways I’d never creamily imagined.

Though adequate, I wish my bread and butter had a dish of salt to accompany it. My (also solo, novel-reading, happily-pork-belly-eating) neighbor fiddles with his iPhone.

The salad is blindingly green, with little color contrast from lettuce and cucumbers, but lemony fresh and brightened with oregano, a well-suited palate cleanser between my slabs of meat. Two olives grace the simple ceramic bowl as consolation for $8 of rabbit food. Aptly timed, properly seasoned, creamy-feta-garnished rabbit food.

A break, then ON TO MORE MEAT. I watch the man who serves me (that has a certain ring to it) muddling mint into what is most likely a mojito and I feel nothing but pity.

Soon after, he presents a quite large portion of chicken, dusted with a gloriously even coating of crumbs that would please even an obsessive-compulsive like me. Affronted by my last chicken experience (a smoked half at T-Rex, after which I sent the ample leftovers home with someone else), I am comforted when my first forkful falls gracefully from the carcass as if it were perforated. Reluctantly, in a guise of healthfulness, I work my way under the golden skin, almost a gratuitous gesture given the uniform moistness of the flesh. The jus, too bitterly bracing by itself, is well paired with the chicken’s mildness. The hearty greens and rosemary-imbued potatoes are unadventurous but appropriately traditional. I dismember the ill-fated bird with a surprising and thorough fervor usually reserved for cows.

The panna cotta is remarkably similar in description and quiveriness to the last panna cotta I’d ordered, but actually waxes more toward almond. Fine with me, though no cartoon apiary dances in circles about my head this time. The only misstep of the evening occurs when my espresso arrives and the demitasse burns my lip! Too hot, a crime in my opinion, and sadly requiring a sugarcube to ease the pain. (While I stall, an ever-attentive server asks if my espresso has perhaps gotten too cool and I would like another. I decline.) The espresso, courtesy of Cole Coffee, has a charcoaly but somehow not unpleasant flavor after the (almost unheard-of) sugarcube. Given a friend’s raves about Cole Coffee, I will give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe they pulled a bad shot. Redemption is still possible; try, try again.

After my tab is quietly placed in front of me, I immediately beckon the server. Smiles dismissively: “Just sign it!” I stare in disbelief.

I left a 50% tip.

Let’s just say that after the tip I still paid less than I did at A16, yet had considerably more fun. Maybe I SHOULD eat alone more often, though I’m beginning to feel much more conspicuous with paperbacks than with a camera. This is my new East Bay price/performance favorite, toppling the still-arguably-more-economical Dopo, IF you can manage to squeeze yourself in. Next time, remind me that this is a TAVERN and I should get the Woodford Reserve Manhattan.