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.)

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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.

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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.)

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.