Even better is “Sev Batata Puri” ($5.99 for seven), a fantastic but unassuming South Indian selection from the appetizer menu. Aangan’s rendition of dahi puri (by far the most memorable snack of my trip to Lucknow, India), the dish starts with sev puri – crisp, hollowed rounds of fry bread resembling paper-thin pastry puffs. The irregular rounds are stuffed with potato, chickpea and light ribbons of tamarind chutney. The entire plate of puri are then dressed in raita, garnished with fresh cilantro, dusted with ground spices and sprinkled with extremely light sev. Taken cold, these one-pop precursors to curries and flat breads simultaneously serve the roles of refreshment and kindling for any appetite.

Hamro Aangan Indo-Nepalese Cuisine
856 San Pablo Ave.
Albany, CA 94706
510.524.2220

Floridians can get surly when it comes to Key Lime Pie. I don’t blame them when bakeries across California serve too-sweet lime pies colored green and label them “Key” on menus. I’ve never tried the real thing, but breakfasts at Lois the Pie Queen have got me thinking:

Maybe the best key lime pie in California has no lime at all, key or otherwise. Maybe the closest thing we’ve got is a tart, sweet, slice of graham-crusted refreshment at a little North Oakland soul food diner. And maybe there’s an Oakland native living in Florida right now, wishing real key lime pies were a little closer to Lois’s lemon icebox.

Lois the Pie Queen
851 60th St.
Oakland, CA 94609
510.658.5616

A Guide to American Barbecue Sauce Styles

Regional Barbecue Sauces Available by Mail-Order

The Best Barbecue Pork Ribs in Manhattan

Oh, and sandwiches!

A Sandwich a Day: Charles’ Grilled Cheese at Jodie’s in Albany, CA

A Sandwich a Day: The Piggly Wiggly at Chef Edwards’ in Oakland, CA ]]> http://theeatenpath.com/index.php/2011/05/27/guide-to-regional-barbecue-sauce-best-bbq-pork-ribs-in-nyc-serious-eats-when-pigs-fly/feed/ 0 http://theeatenpath.com/index.php/2011/03/25/lois-san-francisco-pho-ao-sen-oakland-ca/ http://theeatenpath.com/index.php/2011/03/25/lois-san-francisco-pho-ao-sen-oakland-ca/#comments Fri, 25 Mar 2011 04:40:09 +0000 Zach Mann http://theeatenpath.com/index.php/?p=9707
I have mixed feelings about D.I.Y. dining.

Some of my favorite meals involve hot pots or tabletop charcoal barbecuing, and I once spent over half of my lunches in a year at the same salad bar, exploring all the possible varieties of the turkey breast sandwich.

On the other hand, I’ve been eating pho for nearly a decade and I still haven’t mastered the art of doctoring the broth. It seems like every time I find a new pho joint, one of the tableside condiments is missing, or some new paste is present, and I have to learn how to find the balance in my broth all over again.

Some Vietnamese dishes have a habit of arriving at the table in pieces, leaving me to wonder if there are instructions. Even at my most culinarily ambitious, I always feel like I’ve left too much of the accoutrement behind at the end of my meal, and I get reminded of the time the waiter at a shabu joint berated me for not using enough of the steak’s accompanying leafery.

Bihn introduced me to his regular pho haunt in the Sunset, a small restaurant on Irving called Loi’s with a relatively generic description and high volume of lunch traffic. Aside from having some of the cheapest bowls of pho in the city, Loi’s is special for its inclusion of certain Northern Vietnamese dishes. As I’m relatively clueless beyond the first page of Vietnamese restaurant menus, I followed my friend’s cue and ordered the bun cha hanoi.

A bowl of meat arrived with a plate of greens and noodles and a second, empty bowl. Instructions not included.

Bun cha hanoi is vermicelli rice noodles with grilled pork in the Hanoi style. Traditionally the dish is served family-style, a tabletop Vietnamese noodle bar for creative eaters. In my limited experience with the dish, I’ve come to realize that every place with bun cha hanoi on the menu will probably serve it differently, but the principle components of the dish will always be present in one form or another: lettuce, vermicelli, and pork in nuoc mam cham.

At Loi’s, the pork is served both in grilled and meatball form. Together with pickled carrots and daikon, the meat soaks in the nuoc mam cham, adopting the salty/sweet combination of fish sauce, lime juice, garlic, chiles and sugar. Alone, this mixture and assorted meat is too much for one palate, but with noodles, mint, cilantro and a liberal amount of jalapenos and vinegar, a balance can be obtained, if you have what it takes to find it.

A faded box with barred-up windows at the gateway to East Oakland, Pho Ao Sen is one of many worthy pho destinations on International Blvd. While even some westside lovers of Vietnamese food will make the trip to the east side of Lake Meritt for Pho Ao Sen’s pho bo or bun bo hue, it was the existence of bun cha hanoi on the menu that tempted me across the Bay Bridge.

Unlike Loi’s, Pho Ao Sen does not offer pickled jalapenos and red vinegar at the table, and when the bun cha hanoi arrived in front me, I was again at a loss. On one plate arrived the same thin vermicelli, lettuce, mint and cilantro, but the bowl of nuoc mam cham contained stacked pork patties instead of grilled slices and meatballs. These disks of mashed meat, unlike Loi’s meatballs, did not soak in the fish sauce around it, and even at their centers the patties retained a delicious, juicy crisp.

If there is a correct way to assemble and consume bun cha hanoi, then I don’t know it – but even in my misguided efforts to come up with the perfect bite of pork and vermicelli, every mistake tasted plenty delicious anyway. Some people use the lettuce as a wrap for their noodles and meat, as plausible a code of construction as any. I’ve found evidence online to support a more mash-and-mix method to the madness, a theory backed by Tony Bourdain.

But bun cha hanoi comes to the table de-constructed for a reason. There are no instructions except the way mom used to make it. Barring Vietnamese parents, experimentation is encouraged – at least by me, because I’ve found even blind luck is D.I.Y. delicious.

Then cut that table in half length-wise, and on the side where nobody is sitting, add a kitchen. Now it’s a diner counter.

Even if everyone at that counter is a stranger eating alone, they are sharing a meal at the same table, with each other, and with the restaurant’s employees working in front of them. In a weird way, for the span of one meal, each is part of the others’ lives just as if they were relatives at Thanksgiving dinner.

My favorite breakfast spot during my years in Berkeley was little more than a breakfast counter. Makris Cafe on University Ave isn’t the most popular place around campus, but as someone who enjoys dining alone, I visited frequently – with notepad or newspaper in hand – for some eggs, coffee and uninterested company.

Makris had a staff of two and a half. Han, the husband, manned the griddle, too busy to ever turn around. His wife, who dealt with the customers, spoke each order in his ear as their ‘tween daughter, on the busiest days, helped out by refilling coffees and learning how to use the outdated cash register. As husband, wife and daughter work hard to keep the business afloat, the financial needs of a family working two feet from their patrons are part of the process as well.

On one hand, it’s a bit unnerving, like standing outside of their home window as a cloaked voyeur. On the other hand, I believe that meals have more value when there’s a connection between chef, server and customer, even if that relationship is based only on proximity. It cuts out the middleman and becomes a barter between a hungry stranger and a family business that needs patronage. The awareness of that exchange adds a certain honesty to each bite, and it’s that stripped-down style of dining that made Makris my go-to fried egg dispenser in college.

In other words, I love breakfast counters. That’s why, upon stepping inside Art’s Cafe, a restaurant consisting of only one long breakfast counter, I instantly liked what I saw. It didn’t hurt that Art’s is also run by a Korean family.

A tiny storefront sandwiched between bigger buildings on the pedestrian-thick Irving Blvd, Art’s Cafe is easily passed by unnoticed. During weekdays, the long counter waits mostly empty for the occasional walk-in. On weekends, a line gathers out front waiting for the rare vacant stool. Each patron is greeted by the woman, offered coffee and left to examine the myriad postcards beneath the counter glass, gifts from Art’s many fans and a testament to the value of a friendly place to eat. The meal is accompanied by the smell of hot bacon grease, heat from the kitchen, and the percussion of spatulas and frying pans.

The main difference between Makris Cafe and Art’s Cafe is that the latter is more successful, and the primary reason for that is its food. While Han knew how to fry an egg, the menu at Art’s has more to offer, and an efficient kitchen keeps the customer turnover high. Despite the tiny space, success has allowed Art’s to hire additional kitchen help and buy better equipment. More rice cookers. Bigger toasters. Cleaner griddles. A website. Makris may have Art’s beat on the Dickensian scoreboard, but when comparing quality, my five dollars are better spent on Art’s corned beef hash.

The black sheep of Art’s menu are the hash brown sandwiches, which are basically quesadillas made with hash browns instead of tortillas. Like the corned beef hash, Art’s hash browns are an ultra-thin and surprisingly uniform version of what I would normally expect, which works perfectly as the casing to your choice of filling. Even if these novelties don’t add up to anything more than the sums of their parts, they’re priced to move.

Asian influences on the breakfast menu come in the form of white rice and teriyaki. The latter of which features in one of Art’s more popular dishes, the Samurai Omelet. On the lunch menu, next to burgers and melts, folks can choose from some griddle-Korean food as well.

Everything I’ve tried at Art’s thus far has rated at a solid B, decent food made as well as possible with a limited kitchen and cheap ingredients. Art’s deserves every bit of the success displayed in postcard form – if not for the food, than for being an above-average, mom-and-pop breakfast counter.

Those postcards weren’t sent from all over the world to Art’s for the food, after all. They were sent to the people on the other side of the halved Thanksgiving table, because when it comes to breakfast over the counter, “family” might not be a strong enough a word.

If so, you’ve had the privilege of tasting one of America’s finest burgers. If not, you’ll get your answer below the fold.

This is the last of the point-and-eat posts from my holiday in California. I’ve saved what are probably my three favorite meals of the two weeks I spent on the west coast for the end of this series, and – to no one’s surprise, I hope – the ranking of all three has as much to do with people, place and memory as with the food I ate.

Mitsuru Cafe – Little Tokyo, Downtown L.A.

While I was in the boundaries of Los Angeles, I was recruited to review downtown LA’s Nickel Diner for a magazine pitch. While that meal was mostly boring, it did give Boykji and me a chance to stroll through the downtown area on a sunny day. We walked through the neon sign wonderland known as Grand Central Market, peeked inside the Blade Runner set known as the Bradbury Building, and navigated our way through the plazas of Little Tokyo, where we stumbled a cross a long line of eaters awaiting their chance to enter a small Japanese cafe.

Mitsuru, as it turns out, is known for its imagawayaki, a kind of red bean hotcake that customers can watch the pastry chef make as they queue up for a turn at the counter. Agreeing that the mention of red bean is reason enough to form up single file, we fell in and fixed our eyes on the windowpane. Working with the deliberation of a grand jury, the unadorned chef filled a hot casting griddle with batter, spooned homemade red bean filling over the cakes as they rose, then, using his fingers as a barometer, flipped one half atop the other to form a seal as the baking process completed.

One long line and $1.25 per piece later, we were handed our imagawayaki in thin paper bags. While these pastries don’t reach the textural highs of the glutinous, black sesame-dotted yakimochi at Cafe Zaiya in New York, they’re still well worth the wait. The crust of each cake, hot and steaming off the griddle, was nicely crisped, while the insides were fluffy. The homemade filling was thankfully not too sweet, and nothing about the pastry tasted artificial or augmented in the slightest. We sat down on a nearby bench and ate with our hands, breaking simple sweet bread amongst our fellow Angelenos.

The Apple Pan – West L.A.
Later that day, we returned to Boykji’s hometown of west Los Angeles, where mother Boyk took us out for dinner at The Apple Pan. I may have eaten at In-N-Out four times during the two weeks I spent in California, but none of those burgers beat out what I still think is the best burger in Los Angeles and possibly my favorite burger in the country.

Part of The Apple Pan’s unique quality (which, as emblazoned on the neon sign posted outside its unassuming building, will last forever) is its presence. Whenever I gripe about diners not really being diners and joints not really being joints, the first image to back up my curmudgeonly mind is the counter at The Apple Pan. There is no form of restaurant seating more elegant: When you walk through the double doors of this institution of eating, you must decide whether to step to the left or to the right. Once you’ve chosen your side of the room, you wait for an open spot at the counter. You receive no ticket and you wait for no waiters; just mind your manners and you’ll get a chance to sit down.

Once you’ve taken your seat – slightly uncomfortable since 1947 – a stately, white-haired buck, clad in white and crowned with folded paper, asks for your order. He’s flanked by years of brick, wood and stainless steel. Line cooks bustle about behind him, freshly grilled patties shifting between their hands and mile-high stacks of iceberg lettuce and pre-sliced cheese towering on one side of the assembly table. He’s one of the friendliest guys you’ll ever meet, but if you try to order before your lady, he will, without hesitation, put you in your place.

A pile of fries, well done if you ask, show up first. Wedged into cardboard, they’re stark, simple and absolutely perfect. As you take your first crunchy bite, the man throws down a cardboard plate, flips over his bottle of Heinz and – in a manner that can only be defined as “not fucking around” – heaps a serving of catsup beside it. He then sets out a wire frame with a tiny, conical paper cup, into which he drops a scoop of ice before handing you a soft drink. The flawless motion of it all makes me wish that Ray Croc had never sucked all the soul out of routine.

Once you’ve had your chance to munch on a few fries and take a sip of your soda, your choice of two burgers hits the counter. The only difference between them is in condiment – the hickory burger is dressed with a tangy barbecue sauce, while the steak burger is dressed with a sweet, red pickle relish. I prefer the taste and texture of relish on my patty, but both burgers are created equal.

Aside from the distinction of sauce, a hamburger at the Apple Pan is as simple as simple may be: loosely packed ground beef grilled medium well, a sizeable wad of iceberg, pickles and mayo on a deeply browned-edge bun. Beef here knows nothing of the heavily stuffed, thickly crusted, medium rare patties that dominate palates of the future. Instead, they offer an endlessly juicy hamburger experience. I have never had a juicier burger (that’s juicy, not bloody or greasy) than I have at the Apple Pan. It’s the template of taste for all hamburgers in fast food (White Castles exempt from all things definitional, of course), and it still holds the title after over half a century of business.

Making your way through a burger and fries here would be enough to land this place on your list of best burger joints in the world. What cements its spot is the next question asked: “Are you going to have pie tonight?”

The only acceptable answer is yes. The only right answer is banana cream. The Apple Pan’s banana cream pulls rank with Lois’ lemon icebox as the best pie of my lifetime. It’s the kind of pie that shows you things you thought pie could never accomplish. Yes, banana can be refreshing. Yes, pastry crust can stay flaky under multiple layers of banana, pudding and whipped cream. Yes, you will dream for months about your next chance to part with six bucks for a slice of pie – banana pie, of all things. Yes, you can have another slice.

Once you’ve polished off the last bits of whipped cream and crust crumb, you pay your tab and let someone else have his turn at the counter. The moment you step out through those swinging doors, you’re back in the twenty-first century, walking along Pico in the shadow of one of L.A.’s biggest shopping malls. This is the kind of dining experience that makes it extremely easy to see through the plastered-on rustics of pretty much every old-timey-themed restaurant I come across. Just as flash is no substitute for flavor, atmosphere is no substitute for history; the Apple Pan operates on both of these principles with a wink in its eye, not a tongue in its cheek.

Shanghai Restaurant – Chinatown, Downtown Oakland
When Oakland’s Shanghai opened a luxurious second branch in the crotch of student territory in Berkeley, it was doomed to the worst kind of failure: failure by ignorance. The restaurant had one or two years of glory, attracting diners from all around the Bay Area but remaining anathema to the undergraduate body, who would sooner gush over its mediocre-with-brunch neighbor, Cafe Durant, than sit down for a meal of xiaolongbao and sticky rice. Then, it closed up shop, content with the bounds of its original hole in the wall on Webster.

When I returned to Shanghai, it was business as usual – cramped space, dingy walls, ramshackle tables and an attitude ranging somewhere between indifferent and confused. Perfect for my last night in the East Bay.

Every meal at Shanghai starts off with xiaolongbao. These soup dumplings are the perfect mirror to the rest of Shanghai’s food – not something I would refer to as “refined” and too thick-skinned for me to stand up and call them the best XLB I’ll ever have, but very tasty all the same.

Another standby, Shanghai’s double fried noodles – chow mein style noodles, half tender, half crispy – rides the crest of comfort food. The meat gravy ladled atop is unobtrusive enough to ward off the aura of junk, and the varied textures of meat, pepper, leek and two kinds of noodles is ceaseless fun.

While not nearly as varied, Shanghai’s savory rice cakes (I think it’s niangao) – dressed in green, mixed with pork and doused in a similar gravy – also make for a comforting bite. Sauteed green beans are nicely charred.

This fellow was tasty, but I don’t remember anything in particular about him. Strange that I feel somewhat squeamish around cooked embodied shellfish but can’t resist taking close-up photos of a whole fried fish.

Salted pork with bean sheets is one of Shanghai’s hidden aces and definitely the surprise standout of the evening. The pork on this dish is extremely tender, juicy and savory in the simplest sense. The bean sheets in question are actually flat, wide noodles cut from tofu sheets; the imprinted surface and clean, dense texture are really nice upgrades from a comparably shaped egg or rice noodle.

Easily superior to Shanghai’s xialongbao are Shanghai’s shengjianbao, bite-sized buns filled with the same savory pork filling, then browned from beneath and sprinkled with sesame seeds and green onion. No visit to Webster St. is complete without a handful of these.

I could say the same thing about the restaurant’s red bean pancake, a Christmas card-shaped slap to the cheeks of red bean buns all over town. Made with rice flour and fried until it attains the union of chewy, crisp and greasy, this is the perfect end to a meal composed almost entirely of items off the dim sum menu. And while it might have tasted even better on a warm bench in downtown L.A., it wouldn’t have been as satisfying outside the dank confines of Shanghai.

I’ll see you again next year, California!

I’ll be the first to defend the city of angels against straw man haters, but when it comes to feeling at home, everything that gives me the will to open my eyes in the morning was born, raised and eaten in the Bay Area.

Chef Edwards’ BBQ – Downtown Oakland

Chef Edwards’ is my favorite barbecue joint in California. Zach, who introduced me to this pork smoking, sauce conquering, chittlin loving pit master, will have more to say about this at a future juncture – mostly because all I’m truly qualified to speak to is his hallmark menu item: The Piggly Wiggly sandwich.

The first time I had a Piggly Wiggly, Chef Edwards’ was a single counter hole in the wall on a dead block of downtown Oakland, one block from what is possibly the greatest Greyhound sign in the country. For four bucks and change I was handed a styrofoam container wrapped around a small sandwich bun. Between the pudgy slices of soft, processed white bread were thick slices of expertly smoked pork – the kind of barbecue that requires no sauce, but truly sings when smothered in John Edwards’ thick, spicy-sweet red and layered with his tangy, neon yellow vinegar slaw. Only in this memory can I say with pride that a sandwich birthed my taste buds.

As development dollars continued to trickle downtown, the good chef decided to invest in grander digs. When he resumed operations across the street from his old storefront, I returned for a Piggly Wiggly. It was served on a diner plate, and the bun had been replaced with uncharacteristic but delicious hunks of ciabatta. Every time I’ve sat down since for a Piggly Wiggly, its composition has changed to something less reminiscent of that moment of smoky clarity in 2005. Slices of pork crumbled into the more popular form of chopped pork, and size began to overtake flavor. When the chef’s sandwich hit my table last week, it could no longer be eaten by hand.

So: the Piggly Wiggly has proven itself mortal. This certainly doesn’t mean that Chef Edwards has lost his way – he does, after all, still serve the sandwich, engorged as it is, for $5.50 and allows no substitutions for that heavenly yellow slaw. As much as I wish for certain things to stay the same, I’d be a damn fool to turn my snout at what is still much more a signature than it is a trademark – my real problem is that a sandwich this weighty leaves no room for an order of beef ribs.

Jodie’s – Albany


No trip to the East Bay is worth putting on pants for unless it involves breakfast at Jodie’s, which, as my friends recently pointed out, is the closest thing we’ll get to our own Monk’s Restaurant (but with far more bacon). Boykji and I split a full plate of Something Different, and I ordered a Rookie special (two eggs country scrambled, bacon, two pancakes, English muffin and coffee) to round things out. Jodie, reveling in the weekend crowd, was as lively as ever, bustling to and fro with plates and silver as his son Charles commanded the kitchen.

Gioia Pizzeria – North Berkeley
There was no time for a pizza pub crawl this go around, but I’d been meaning to check out Gioia for years, so after a stint at Local 123 (where Flying Goat Coffee gives new context to the word “citrus”) we swung by for a couple slices.

Gioia and Pie in the Sky, still my favorite slice stop in Berkeley, both have a skilled finger on the pulse of the gourmet slice – not quite New York, not quite California and definitely not neopolitan, but affordable and altogether tasteful. While the crust of Gioia’s slice lacked complexity, it maintained a nice crisp all the way to the tip. The sauce here was distinctly tangy but sightly lacking in proportion to cheese, which – to be expected – was just bit heavier than it should have been. The quality and execution of toppings, which is make-or-break for this type of pizza, was superb – roasted mushrooms, parsley, spinach and garlic played point in a way that speaks well for the state of pizza in the Bay Area.

A simple Russian lunch at Zolushka/Cinderella, revolving around overpriced solyanka, fresh black bread, house-made kvas, and baked cabbage piroshki, was the meal I’d been looking forward to most in San Francisco. Unfortunately, the ghost of renovations past and Orthodox holidays present combined forces to present me with (yes):

ZOLUSHKA FAIL – Inner Richmond, San Francisco

Fortunately, not all was lost.

The bakery portion of the restaurant was still up and running, shipping fresh loaves of black bread all over the Bay Area.

Each of us purchased a loaf of the best bread I’ve ever had outside of Russia for $3.25. In the cosmic category of “things that don’t fuck around,” Zolushka’s black bread has Galactus eating soiled chunks of shitty asteroid for breakfast. The crust seems hermetically sealed, shining with a sustaining crunch. The inside of the loaf, however, is a savory Slavic handshake between hearty and fluffy. Entire eras have patiently outlasted history thanks to bread like this. Tragically, bread like this starts to go bad in less than twelve hours, so if you ever find yourself in possession of a loaf, freeze it before the crust goes soft and the insides dry out.

Being stranded in the Richmond is a far more bountiful conundrum than being stranded in a Las Vegas strip mall. We decisively walked up to Clement St. and made our way over to another restaurant I’d been meaning to visit for years:

Burma Superstar – Inner Richmond, San Francisco
Burma Superstar may not refer to John Rambo, but it is a massive hit with many a Bay Area eater, including two food bloggers I know and love. Spices! and Spices!2 were both tempting barriers to Burmese entry, but after suffering Lotus of Siam Fail, an upping of the Southeast ante took precedence over any “Bandit Style” nostalgia.

Our table, seven strong, started off with vegetarian samusa soup, an exemplary bowl of subdued spices simmering in a deep brown South Asian curry. Chunks of fried samosa and other smatterings of legume and grain granted just the right level of heartiness for a soup meant to prime the appetite. The platha, a layered and fried paratha-like pancake, was a bit of a rip-off at $3, but it was admittedly a glory to consume.

Eyes darted quickly to the lettuce cups, which threw tiny cubes of pork, pickled radish, carrots, water chestnuts and spices into the frying pan to emerge as a hot, crunchy, crispy, juicy, savory stuffing for fresh leaves of romaine. Tea leaf salad, the herald of the appetizer menu, handily one-upped the lettuce cups with a rainbow of citrus, garlic, and of course tea, the brute forces of which were forced to play nice by crisp lettuce leaves and the inclusion of peanuts.

Pea shoots “stir fried with wine and garlic” + “staff favorite” = Yes! I question the sanity of anyone who sees pea shoots on a menu and doesn’t order them. Flanking that vegetable was the Vegetable Curry Deluxe, a somewhat tangy, tomato-infused red curry mix of everything good under the sun (though not everything included was seasonal). I don’t know much about Burmese cuisine, but like most of the dishes we tried at Burma Superstar, this one was a nicely understated kaleidoscope of ingredients that found all the right intersections of flavor.

Fiery tofu with lamb exemplified the subtle “sweet heat” connection in many B-S*’s dishes that really makes me reconsider the volcano-blasting of a good Thai meal. This dish was also a highlight because it treated bean curd as a partner to, not substitute for or distraction from, meat. Thick slices of dark bean curd, interspersed with shreds of slightly chewy, slightly crunchy, well done lamb – unlike my love life – proved that a lack of game can indeed yield victory. Stir fried with crisp string beans, bell pepper slices and some well roasted red chiles, the combo wasn’t fiery, but it was the superstar of my day.

Braised pork belly with mustard greens: Beautifully conceived, immaculately executed, but in the end only delicious by default. I know this outcome to be inevitable, yet I can never say no to a new offering of pork belly. Our final choice, bun tay kauswer, was more joyful: A cousin of Thailand’s khao soi, this dish tosses soft flour noodles with a short order of different textures (in this case, split yellow pea, cabbage, eggs, fried onions and something that I swear was wonton) in a creamier-than-thou coconut curry. Rich but still noticeably light, these noodles were almost a palate cleanser after the hot and heavy stylings of our other entrees.

After lunch, we stood up. I think.

Then, we walked one block over to:

Green Apple Books – Inner Richmond – San Francisco, CA

This is one way in which I love San Francisco.

Dinner on my last night in Oakland merits its own post, so I’ll end this one with one way in which I love Berkeley.

Acme Bar – Berkeley, CA
After leaving the City, Tabak and I hung a left to Acme, an establishment that might be all dives to all people. I took the opportunity to reunite myself with a pint of Death and Taxes.

Nothing short of a man on the prowl, Nate got acquainted with a Sunday special called the Meatshake: a double-to-triple strength bloody mary, mixed with no shortage of brine and spice and topped off with pickled green beans, pickled olives, a pearl onion, and one slice of carne asada.

The shot of High Life on the side is more emblem than irony – live it up, not down, my friends.

My photo of Jodie’s grits is now part of an iPhone app called “Kiss My Grits!”
Icon representation is one small step for man, but one large step for man-grits relations.

Many thanks to Ben of Tesly for requesting permission and attributing accordingly on the app page.

Between the two upper crusts of Berkeley stands the Gourmet Ghetto, the foundation of Berkeley’s reputation for delicious food in every form. Anchored by Alice Waters’ universally acclaimed Chez Panisse, the world’s first Peet’s Coffee and a collection of other culinary offshoots and institutions, this is where organic, locally grown ingredients are granted full license to gratify the taste buds of hundreds on a daily basis.

The Gourmet Ghetto’s flag bearer is a takeaway counter called Gregoire. Exemplifying Berkeley’s legacy of the daily gourmet, Chef Gregoire Jacquet’s impeccable cubbyhole in the wall offers diners aristocratic Franco-Californian meals at equalizing Berkeley prices. The menu changes every month, adjusting to Gregoire’s mood and the season’s bounty. Dishes are made from scratch, cooked to order and handed off to customers through the kitchen window. At an average cost of $7, lunch at Gregoire is surely the best value in the Gourmet Ghetto and possibly all of Berkeley.

Gregoire’s constantly shifting menu items can be stunning in their simplicity and attention to detail. Spinach salad with baked salmon and homemade croutons. Curried ground lamb on toasted ciabatta with sour cream and cucumbers. Fresh mozzarella and tomato, sandwiched by soft French bread then wrapped in prosciutto. Tomato and onion braised chicken on a fresh baguette. Filet mignon with soft greens and sinus-battering peppercorn mustard on sourdough. Hearty pancetta, yellow tomato and crisp iceberg on focaccia (ie: the world’s best BLT). And the sandwich that will never escape my duty roster of drunken “best meal” stories: roasted duck breast with watercress and citrus marmelade on pantofolina. Every lunch entree is served with a miniature side of antipasti, couscous or some other tasty primer for the day’s offerings. The entire meal is packaged into an adorable octagonal takeaway box and coupled with silver tinted plastic utensils.

Laying the bedrock for this rotating cast of dishes is its most famous menu item: a $4 box of eight deep fried mashed potato puffs. If his roasted leg of lamb is enough to warrant the infrequent visit, Gregoire’s potato puffs demand absolute loyalty. Each golf ball sized scoop of fluffy, buttery, wondrously crispy pureed potato is more than enough to birth a repeat customer, turning the special occasion into little more than Friday afternoon and vice versa. This is the brilliance of Berkeley’s edible personality, what I’ll miss most during my tenure on the east coast, and what I’ll come home to when I eventually carve out my own cubbyhole in the East Bay. Bon soir, regret- à demain!

Gregoire
2109 Cedar Street
Berkeley, CA 94709
510.883.1893

Lucky House is far from the top choice of curry craving Berkeleyans. South Berkeley’s weekly Thai Temple brunch, showcased above, remains the city’s perennial favorite, and with good cause. The diversity of home-cooked dishes, the laid-back atmosphere and the warmth of a community meal are hallmarks of Berkeley’s affordable gourmet legacy. Other local favorites include Albany’s Ruen Pair, lauded for its homegrown atomic spices, Telegraph Ave’s Racha Cafe, home of the campus area’s best BBQ chicken, and late-night destination Thai Noodle, the only restaurant in town that cooks up khao soi past midnight. In fact, all of the Bay Area is a bit of a Thai food mecca, each restaurant offering a consistently satisfying meal at a reasonable price.

Knowing this, why do I always set aside a meal for Lucky House? Foremost is the fact that, like most of my favorite restaurants, Lucky House makes exceedingly little effort to actually be a restaurant. As one frustrated Yelper has commented, the chairs at Lucky House are stackable, the tables possibly lifted from an ailing middle school. Service is usually quick and painless, sometimes quietly oblivious, and in very special instances hilariously confrontational (sadly, I don’t think that mustachioed waiter still has his job). The haughty tribunal of Top Chef may settle for no less than perfection, but having spent three years of my life as a parking attendant I can appreciate a little slack with my service.

Behind the counter, things are much more serious, if no less transparent. Anyone who’s used Lucky House’s restroom has noticed that in six years the restaurant hasn’t changed its head cook, a middle aged Thai woman who, for all I know, lives in that kitchen. The floors are typically spotless, an assortment of fresh ingredients and cooking tools are neatly tucked into refrigerators, boxes and drawers and the cooks rarely work on more than three dishes at a time.

The dishes, of course, are what ultimately earn my carefully allotted feeding time. Critical consensus hovers over anything with seafood, and even my shellfish-averse self is inclined to agree. Any Lucky House offering from the sea is sure to be cooked to just the right level while retaining its freshness. The quality and quantity of Lucky House’s vegetables are also key. Nowhere to be found are the skimpy garden scraps casually tossed into the the soup at other Thai restaurants; Lucky House’s vegetables always have an affirming snap and a fresh flavor that is placed front and center with the protein in most entrees.

The salmon red curry exemplifies both of these strengths, starting with a generous portion of tender, almost flaky salmon, pairing the meat with a hearty portion of green beans, broccoli, basil and bamboo and steeping it all in a rich, deeply burning red curry sauce that- if requested- does not forsake spice for coconut milk. Another standout is the pad ke mao. A greasy, bland tragedy at many Thai restaurants, the egg noodles here are prepared with a bright rub of Thai spices and peppers, fried quickly and cleanly and served without the added shotgun blast of random heat-inducing toxins that lesser eateries call flavor. Instead, a hint of fish sauce balances the heat with a touch of sweet and sour. The spice level of dishes at Lucky House can be inconsistent, but that’s to be expected from a place so unconcerned with accolade.

My favorite dish at Lucky House is the beef stew noodle soup, a kind of Thai pho that hits all the right notes. It starts with a sweet, meaty and intoxicating beef broth, infused with garlic and ginger for a hint of spice that barely registers on the lips. Chunks of beef that have been stewing for hours bless the soup with a tender, greasy base while springier mixed meatballs float at the top of the bowl. A generous portion of rice stick noodles comprises the soft body of the soup, complemented by a more textured complement of fresh, lush bok choy and bean sprouts. A reserved dash of green onions and cilantro atop the mix, followed by a sprinkle of freshly minced and grilled garlic, bring the deep flavors of the broth into relief and make for a beautifully rendered $5.50 at lunchtime. I’ve been hearing that this dish in particular is suffering in the decline of Lucky House, but I can’t bring myself to believe it until I’m at their table with the noodles wrapped around my chopsticks.

It may not be as charming as the Thai Temple or as impeccable as Gregoire, but like these Berkeley monuments, Lucky House is a rank-and-file member of the city’s daily gourmet. Maybe it’s the “daily” part of the equation that has me so thoroughly convinced that this restaurant is not in a state of decline. That being the case, my next return to the East Bay will decide who wins in the battle between sense and sentiment. Either way, I’ll celebrate the victor with sticky rice and mango.

Lucky House Thai
2140 University Ave
Berkeley, CA 94704
510.841.8900