something- Indian, Telegraph, Ave

Meh, I can't remember the name of this Indian place either, and will have to correct it once we drive by to our next stop (which is Pakistani - yay for a new ethnicity to taste on the project).

As we get closer to campus, I have a theory that we're going to begin to find cheaper food which, regrettably, may mean that we're also finding sub-par food - drunk college kids aren't as picky as crabby 30-something internet executives, after all.

So far, this theory seems to be holding. After having Meh Sushi, we then went for Meh Indian food.

I will state for the record that we're kinda split on the Meh Indian. Partner in Chow liked this place better than I did, and admittedly the ingredients seemed fresher than a lot of other Indian food I've had. Somehow, though, the preparation just seemed... American. Like someone was trying to make Indian food taste good for Gringo taste buds, from the strangely fluffy Naan to the mildly spiced Dal. Hmm.

What we ordered: Dal, Sag Paneer, Garlic Naan, Regular Naan, Baklava, Lamb Something
Service: friendly Mom 'n Pop - we got Pop (and he gave us a free Baklava)
Atmo: citified hangout - stools at high tables, an upstairs, order at the counter, open kitchen
Crowd: Cal students, the neighborhood
Spent: Around $30
Overall rating: 3 sporks

As stated, this food just somehow fell flat (except the Naan, which was the opposite of flat due to its inexplicable puffiness), and left me feeling as though I ate Americanized Indian food. The naan had the consistency of pizza dough, and although the sag paneer had fresher spinach than I usually see, it somehow lacked a true Indian flavor.

The lamb was loved by PIC, who overall thought this place was a great find for someone on a budget and/or someone close by looking for cheap, decent Indian grub.

This place is indeed cheap and fast, and better than eating at Subway or something. Even so I wasn't a huge fan of this place, - and it apparently wasn't a fan of mine either. I almost never have an upset stomach after dinner, but for whatever reason this place led to some unpleasant after-effects later. Since we both ate all dishes and PIC didn't have a food hangover, it may have been something I ate earlier in the day. (Um... toast?)

Bright spot: the baklava was great. In fact, the baklava was the best we've had so far, and we've had it a few times at various Ethiopian haunts.

That being said, I wouldn't risk eating there again due to The Evening Thereafter. And even if I were feeling risk-taking, I'd probably just go elsewhere.

-something-Sushi, Telegraph

OK, 'tis true - I can't remember the freaking name of this sushi place, and I'll correct it when we drive by it again. It's on Telegraph somewhere between the Drunken Boat and Fondue Fred's.

Anyway, not remembering the name is in this place's favor. It's not very good. Cheap, but not good. It doesn't look good from the outside, and the atmo didn't surprise.

What we ordered: various rolls, teriyaki chicken
Service: fine
Atmo: somehow this place left me with the impression that I was in the Japanese version of Applebee's
Crowd: the 'hood - lots of Cal students
Spent: Around $30
Overall rating: 1.5 sporks

Honestly, there's not much to say here but "Meh." Don't bother. I've had fresher fish, more interesting rolls with less sauce, and better atmo in other sushi joints. If you want cheap sushi, the place in San Leandro's Pelton Plaza is way better.

Tai San - 2811 Telegraph Avenue

We decided to order takeout from Tai San, which was a fortuitous pre-determined decision given my general phobia of (1) bad lighting and (2) carpets in restaurants.

The staff here is really, really nice. The guy on the phone was even really nice. And there was a big table of well-heeled Chinese people inside having a relaxed, leisurely meal, so we figured that the food probably didn't suck.

Turns out it didn't suck. Partner in Chow has gone down on record as saying this is the best Chinese we've encountered on Telegraph, and better than our go-to delivery place (Yang Chow).


What we ordered: mu shu tofu/vegetables (they'll add the tofu for you, either fried or sauteed), hot 'n sour soup, vegetable fried rice, broccoli beef
Service: really friendly and super fast
Atmo: Bad early 90's Chinese buffet
Crowd: Hard to say - there was only the one table of well-heeled Chinese people. It was about 8 on a Tuesday.
Spent: around $28.00
Overall rating: 3.5 sporks

One big bonus of Tai San is that it's freaking cheap. We spent less than $30 on 4 menu items - nice.

Another bonus was the Hot 'n Sour soup, which P.I.C. claims is the best we've had so far in Oakland/Berkeley. I liked it, but I do wish it had been a little hotter to balance the sourness. Sour it was; hot, meh. Next time I'll ask them to make it spicier.

I am not a fan of overcooked, fried or overly rich food - one of the reasons I don't eat Chinese food often, as it tends to be covered in stuff and full of scary meat and hard to taste the main ingredients individually - so Tai San was a pleasant surprise for me. The mu shu tasted fresh and the vegetables were nice and crunchy, even the cabbage. I hate getting soggy cabbage in my mu shu and ate a lot more of this than I normally do.

The broccoli beef was pretty standard Chinese take-out broccoli beef. The beef was that strange fluffy Chinese food beef, and I didn't eat it. PIC liked it, though the standouts were definitely the soup and the mu shu.

The veggie fried rice was also pretty clean-tasting - not a whole lot of oil, not greasy. If you like greasy fried rice that's really been fried, you won't like this. If you prefer fluffier, cleaner rice that's only been lightly fried and flavored, you'll like it. I liked it.

Overall, I'd get take-out from here again. But until they rid themselves of the carpet and swap out the fluorescents and pink vinyl chairs, this is a take-out only place for me.

Ethiopia - 2955 Telegraph Avenue

We really wanted to like this place, but that wasn't in the cards.

Somehow, walking into a restaurant that's almost empty just makes me want to like it even more and so I was determined to look past the fact that the menus were sticky, the partition at our table almost fell on Partner in Chow and was just sort of ghetto-rigged together, and the table was kinda sticky too. This place shall therefore forever be known as "That Sticky Place," and that's just never a good thing for a restaurant. Unless you're a Saltwater Taffy restaurant or something.

The only other table was full of 8 fresh-back-to-school Cal students, which meant that we got to listen to inane college chatter while we waited. And waited. And waited. And this is when That Sticky Place lost its Mom 'n Pop appeal.

We were seated immediately, but it took about 15 minutes to even get water. I'd actually started a Countdown to Meltdown by the time we finally got service, meaning that about 10 minutes in I gave Parnter in Chow an ultimatum: if we didn't get service in 5 minutes or less, we were leaving. And I timed it (thank you, retro gold Timex, for your stopwatch capabilities).

The waitress made it to our table with literally 5 seconds to spare.

So: this didn't start out well at all, but we both love Ethiopian food and I decided to just let it go and enjoy the food - there was one server and it seemed like she was overwhelmed by the large-ish table of college kids, and Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurants in general don't seem to be hallmarked by speedy service.

The waitress assured us that the vegetarian combo for one wasn't enough food for the two of us. Being somewhat familiar with the strange, hunger-defying aspects of injera I was hesitant to believe her, but since she worked there and all we went ahead and ordered basically the entire vegetarian menu.

One bright spot here: you can take a number of dishes and combine them as you'd like for your entree.

What we ordered: vegetarian sambussa, every vegetarian thing on the menu
Service: friendly, but a bit disorganized and very sloooooow
Atmo: sticky - this just doesn't seem like the cleanest place around, and lots of things have seen better days. We do like having the partition between us and other Ethiopian-fan diners, but since ours was wonky and we were facing The Back Side of it (I thought partitions were decorated on both sides, but ours wasn't) it didn't help out too much. It just made me feel like we were forgotten behind a semi-invisible wall that might fall down on PIC's head.

Crowd: What crowd?
Spent: around $25.00
Overall rating: 2 sporks

The sambussa came first. This is a lot like a samosa in Indian food; this one was filled with lentils (I think). The flavor on these was very good and very concentrated, and this would end up being the bright spot of the meal. I'm generally avoid fried food, but I enjoyed the one I ate.

The first thing we noted when the veggie platter came is that we could have easily ordered for one and added a side. Oh, well. The second thing is that the injera was really... dense. And kind of dry. And extra sour. This injera:regular injera was like baguette:sourdough rye. It was the oddest injera we've ever encountered, and while I tried to shelve my preconceived notions of injera I just couldn't quite get over its dryness. On the plus side, there was a LOT of it - and the dogs enjoyed every leftover morsel later on. (They therefore give this place 5 paws up for providing enough food that they got tasty leftovers.)

The food itself was also a bit different than other similar places we've tried, in that everything was just really intensely flavored. Generally this is a good thing; here, the flavors were so concentrated that it became a little much.

With so many other options for Ethiopian food (Cafe Colucci is right down the street), this restaurant is in last place of all the Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurants on Telegraph. Sorry, Sticky Place. Maybe we'll try again someday. Or not.

Le Bateau Ivre Cafe - 2629 Telegraph Ave

The Drunken Boat is at this point the furthest we've gone on our project, and we were excited to be so close to campus - if a little afraid of a French place that's probably been around for 30 years, with a sign boasting brunch, lunch and dinner - could they really do all three well?

We went in after 9 for dinner and were pleasantly surprised by the atmo. This apparently used to be a house and reminded me of being in Europe somehow, and since Partner in Chow and I both love classical music we enjoyed the soundtrack. We sat in the restaurant side, which is apparently different than the Cafe side.

We were seated right away and had no issues with service, but of course we went in pretty late and there were only a couple other tables. Our waiter was super nice and really attentive, and though the Yelp folks are noting some incredibly bad service (which I myself have zero patience for) we had a great experience here.

What we ordered: crabcakes, lobster bisque, cheese baked in a pastry thing (this is named something en croute or some such), red trout spread with bread, Chimay (bonus points for having Chimay on the menu)
Service: attentive, friendly
Atmo: sparse but Euro-friendly - tablecloths, but it's in an old house and it feels like it.
Crowd: old-School Berkeley - this seems like a place that kids who grow up in Berkeley frequented with their parents or grandparents, and then bring their kids to when they grow up.
Spent: around $50.00
Overall rating: 4 sporks

We really enjoyed Le Bateau Ivre, though we didn't order an entree. I'm a person who enjoys doing Appetizer Explosion rather than meals, and this menu made that possible. Also, this place was really reasonably priced - the crabcake plate had 2 huge cakes on there with big chunks of crab and fennel over salad, and they were like $9. These were the single best plate of crabcakes I've had in California, ever. They may be the best crabcakes I've ever had period, and I've eaten them in D.C. and Maryland and in various other places where crabcakes are supposed to be great.

The reason they were so good was threefold: (1) The crab was extremely fresh, (2) The crab was the star of the show and in big lumps, (3) I love fennel, and it paired well with the crab. These were rustic, homestyle crabcakes that fell apart when you put a fork in them. Fine by me - that just means there's a shit-ton of crab in there.

The smoked red trout spread was really salty and trout-y. It was a little intensely flavored for me (kinda just too fishy), but smoked fish in general is just a little fishy for me, and I knew that going in so I'm hesitant to fault the spread. We lucked out and got super fresh bread straight out of the oven (mmm) so we used that rather than the toasties that came with it.

The lobster bisque tasted like LOBSTER. Big capital letters. This was not your watered-or-creamed-down version that tastes like generic cream base with a hint of lobster; this tasted more like a lobster than lobster meat. Impressive.

So the bisque was freaking delicious, but right on the cusp of being more like a sauce than a soup. PIC has bad memories of the generally well-loved Martini House due to them over-concentrating their flavors and serving soups that tasted like sauces, but this one was just soup-y enough to pass with her.

Brie baked in pastry: hard not to enjoy this calorie explosion, if you're into that sort of thing. PIC is most definitely into that sort of thing and enjoyed this quite a lot.

Overall, the food here has concentrated flavor and good-sized portions for what you're paying, at least on the appetizer menu. The plates were overflowing with salad, etc and could have easily been much larger plates.

I really like eating in restaurants that have been around for a long time, the same way I enjoy living in Victorians and buying mid-century furniture. We didn't know what we were in the mood for that night, so finding an old-school Berkeley institution that happened to serve quality French food for reasonable prices was a nice surprise. We sat in the front window and had a nice cozy late supper, listening to classical music and enjoying a strong Belgian beer. That's just good eats.

We'll be back. I'm interested in trying brunch on the patio, as brunch outside is a hard thing to find in Oakland.

Doña Tomás - 5004 Telegraph Ave

Our project was horribly stalled for several months due to a variety of circumstances, including a bizarrely busy summer packed with travel and a studied avoidance of the next place on our list - a mediocre pizza joint followed by a fried fish joint.

We'd already had our fill of disgusting fried fish at Louisiana Fish & Chips, and even thinking about this place just made us wince. So sorry, other fish place - LFC ruined us.

After realizing that we'd put the project on hold for waaaay too long because we were both so unmotivated to eat crappy food, we broke our own rule and skipped those two places that were the barrier between us and Doña Tomás. And so it is that we finally got to Doña Tomás, which my Parter in Chow has enjoyed on a previous occasion and I've been to so many times I've lost count.

In a nutshell: we both love Doña Tomás. They have awesome drinks and absolutely the best carnitas you will ever have, hands down. And I own the cookbook, so paying $4 for camote (sweet potatoes) isn't something I absolutely have to do. But oh, they're just so good at the actual restaurant. And you can get them for like a buck cheaper at their sister taqueria Tacubaya, which is also awesome but nowhere near Telegraph Avenue and, therefore, a review for another time.

Reviews on Yelp will complain about the pricing. I don't mind the pricing much - sure, I wish it was cheaper. I also wish that the Patriot Act never happened and that the San Mateo bridge didn't have a backup every freaking day. But their ingredients are mostly organic and locally sourced, and I doubt their rent is cheap in spite of the occasional Lady of the Night that might liven up the "transitional" Temescal neighborhood in the evening hours.

My guess is that so many people have experience with Mexican street food and taquerias that the concept of fancy, expensive Mexican food annoys them. They feel entitled to a burrito the size of a hubcap for $3. This however is Oaxacan food, and it's high-end dining at that. So stop complaining and realize that the crappy pizza from the place we skipped isn't Dopo or Pizzaiolo either. And if you really want to save money, just skip the drinks. (But that'd be a shame, because there's no crappy tequila and the lime juice is fresh.)

What we've ordered: carnitas (amazing), carne asada (great), various fish dishes, margaritas, tequila lemonade (PIC's favorite), chile rellenos with various fillings, pozole (great), halibut cheeks (awesome)
Other things on the plate: camote, vegetable pudding (these are always delicious), beans, rice, grilled corn (mmm)
Service: local hipsters, mostly nice but occasionally hurried
Atmo: Sparse, vaguely Mexican hacienda - wood floors, rough-hewn chairs and tables in the front room. Bar is painted all red but is just as loud and smells like a Jamba Juice due to all the fresh squeezing of citrus. Back patio is awesome in the summer.
Crowd: the hills come down and the 'hood comes in - it's laid back, loud and diverse
Spent: generally spend around $80+ with 2 people, including drinks
Overall rating: 4.5 silver sporks

With all the gushing you'd think the big DT would get 5 sporks. But occasionally, there's something ordered that's just kinda blah. It's usually an appetizer, but still - $12 for blah feels like a bummer. Most recently it was a pumpkin quesadilla with goat cheese - something about the goat cheese and the squash just didn't work. The short ribs were also just OK, and kinda small. However, the other appetizer (recommended by the waitress) was unexpectedly fantastic. I don't even remember what it was, but damn - it was good.

The big standouts on the menu for me: carnitas, camote, whatever vegetable pudding they're making. That last one is filled with butter and cream and is most decidedly not good for you, but it is just delicious.

The pozole is fantastic, and especially so if you're sick. Mmm.

One thing to try: a $15 shot of Paradiso. Yes, it's really $15. No, you don't shoot it. You sip it after a meal the way you'd sip a fine port or brandy. And yes - it's worth it. A friend calls this stuff "liquid heroin," and if you're celebrating it's worth trying once.

The back patio in the summer is great, though I once saw a rat the size of the burritos people expect for $3 climbing up the wall of ivy. Since rats are all over Oakland and live in ivy and trees, this didn't bother me too much. He kept to himself and didn't run over to steal my food, which made me happy.

So, to sum up: eat here. Be prepared to spend more than you've ever spent on Mexican food unless you've eaten at Rick Bayless' restaurants. And enjoy.

New Big Daddy's Chinese - 3700 Telegraph Ave

New Big Daddy's is an interesting, fluorescent-lit cafeteria-feeling takeout Chinese hole-in-the-wall.

Good Chinese food is hard to find, so we had low expectations of this place and figured it was just a proverbial notch in the Telegraph belt.

And it was. EXCEPT for one big happy surprise, and that was the "dry fry ribs" which are, I believe, actually called "dry fried ribs." I don't remember, but the first is more fun to say.

I don't know what animal spawned these ribs, but they taste vaguely like Kentucky Fried Chicken - oddly, in a good way. (This is the second establishment in this project to offer us something that tasted like KFC - odd.) They're bizarrely tasty, and the Partner in Chow ate so many that we feared that she might contract a coronary of some kind.

It seems that the dry fried ribs are in fact the specialty here, as they're called out on the menu, on the wall, and some neighborhood dudes pulled up in a hoopdie and rolled in clamoring about dry fried ribs. They were loud and boisterous, and they really wanted some ribs. On the plus side, they didn't ask me for money.


We had two standout dishes from New Big Daddy's: the ribs and the green beans with chicken. Both were unique to this establishment, and both were bizarrely good.

What we ordered: Dry fried ribs, Hot and Sour Soup, Spicy Green Beans with Chicken, Mu Shu Pork, Broccoli Beef and steamed rice. (This is way too much food for 2 people, but for the purposes of a review and PIC's taste for leftover Chinese we splurged).
Atmo: fluorescent Chinese takeout
Crowd: the 'hood
Spent: About $30
Dry fry rib rating: 5 sporks (though we don't have a baseline)
Chicken and green bean rating: 4 sporks
Everything else: 2.5 sporks
Atmo: 1.5 sporks
Overall rating: 3 sporks

The Broccoli Beef had slightly too much fish sauce, but it was still pretty good. I fear weird fluffy Chinese food beef, and this beef wasn't the usual weird rubbery/fluffy beef. It was thin and still slightly scary for me; PIC didn't mind it.

The Hot 'n Sour Soup was OK; thinner than usual, and nothing to write home about. This is one thing I order nearly every time I eat Chinese food, and this one was forgettable.

So: go for the ribs or the green beans, or don't bother.

Amazonas Pizza - 2427 Telegraph - 10.11.07

OK, we've been awful about posting. I'm going to make a Spring resolution to catch up with my trusty notebook so we can actually get up-to-date.

Amazonas Pizza:

The decor is lacking here. I'd recommend takeout, unless fluorescent lights and linoleum tables staffed with possibly homeless people is your thing.

We ordered our pizza and were told that it'd be a 20 minute wait. This was a bummer until we realized that the Adult Superstore is across the street!

Not being one for porn (truly), I was torn: spend 20 minutes waiting for pizza watching the random passersby, or browse porn titles? Once the second dirty homeless-looking guy came in and asked us if we were exchange students, I decided that porn was looking better.

Favorite titles: "Depraved & Shaved" was the runner-up. "My Hairy Creampie 3," though, was the hands-down winner. I also appreciated the many "special interest" sections, from Indian to MILF. These people really want to please the niche clientele.

Oh, and I learned a new word: jerkoff box. Sweet. (I guess they have these in the back.)

Anyway, the pizza was your average very cheesy, not-super-thin-but-not-thick-either-crusted type that you might find at Round Table. It wasn't great, it wasn't awful. It was a little too cheesy for me, but my PIC (Partner in Chow) liked it just fine.

What we ordered: Vegetarian pizza
Service: friendly, not the quickest (since they have to make the pizza)
Atmo: fluorescent linoleum
Crowd: I'm not sure if the homeless-looking guys counted as customers, but they were in there.
Spent: $20.24
Food rating: 3 sporks
Atmo rating: 1.5 sporks
Overall rating: 2.5 sporks

Overall, with Lanesplitter down the street we give Amazonas a 3 for the food and a 2 for the atmo.

Lam-Toro - 2432 Telegraph Ave - 10.4.07

We were really intrigued when we realized that our next stop was a new West African restaurant on Telegraph.

My intrigue partially stemmed from the fact that I for some reason thought this was a sushi place. But when we walked in and saw a massive party of African folks (in full regalia - it was a birthday celebration) and the groovy dreadlocked waiter and realized that African music was playing, my uncanny grasp of the obvious led me to realize that Lam-Toro was not Japanese for Something-Fatty Tuna...

So, in we went to experience this new Telegraph haunt. I hear that it's recently been besieged by neighborhood hipsters who go in to drink and hang out after 10 or so, but the Mama Buzz crowd doesn't bother me. I have a Hulk Hogan t-shirt and Vans and I'm not afraid to wear either. (Both are recommended if you actually want service at Mama Buzz...)

But this isn't a Mama Buzz review, because it's not open for dinner (we tried) and we therefore skipped it. We may go back at some point and review it for breakfast (we've eaten there before). I will digress further to note that $10 punk rock haircut night on the first Sunday of the month at Mama Buzz kept me in cheap haircuts for several months, but I'm not sure if they're still doing that - it's under new ownership.

Anyway, back to Lam-Toro.

What we ordered: Roasted chicken with couscous, Lamb with rice, groovy ginger drinks (non-alcoholic)
Service: amazingly friendly and relaxed - our waiter was fantastic
Atmo: festive, fun and really loud (due to the aforementioned African b-day celebration)
Crowd: local African natives and their friends
Spent: $40.00
Overall rating: 3.5 sporks (an extra half spork for service and Atmo)

The best thing about this place may be the service. Our waiter was super nice, explained everything and genuinely wanted us to enjoy ourselves. He apologized for the noise level of the party (this place is small), but we liked the party and had fun watching them dance around the restaurant and clap/sing.

He also told us that our next visit was on the house, because we ordered a special that had been exhausted by the party. We didn't have the heart to tell him that we're working our way down Telegraph and that it may be a damn long time before we return...

The food was interesting, but the meat was a bit dry. The lamb in particular was really dry, and not being familiar with African food we're not sure if this is an African preparation or whether it was just overcooked. We'll probably become more familiar with African food as we work our way down Telegraph.

The chicken was a big hunk o'chicken with bones and all, and somehow this roasted chicken tasted - I swear - like KFC. I suppose it was something about the spice rub, but this chicken was legitimately good and the KFC hints (without all the fat) made it that much better. I'd eat this chicken again; we wouldn't however eat the lamb again.

Like Off the Hook, the food tasted and looked like someone's native grandmother was in the back making dinner for friends. I like this kind of "real" food, so we enjoyed that aspect of the meal.

Though the food wasn't spectacular we really enjoyed ourselves at Lam-Toro. We'd probably go back for a drink and to try a special. As soon as my Hulk Hogan T is out of the wash...

Giant Burger - 2150 Telegraph Ave - 9.6.07

The project begins!

A trip to Telegraph and Broadway led us to The Bear Cafe as the most Oakland-pegged eating destination, but unfortunately this place was closed. Was it a gay bar for hairy men? Did it serve bear? We'll never know.

The next stop: Giant Burger. Now, I know we were going to avoid fast food, but Giant Burger is a bit of an institution and I'd never eaten at one, so we decided to give it a try.

As someone prone to eating organic whenever possible, I was slightly afeared of filling myself with what was most assuredly factory-farmed beef. However, in the interest of this project we'd already decided that our general adherence to sustainable produce and meat would have to be compromised.

So Giant Burger it was.

What we ordered: 1 bacon cheeseburger, 1 cheeseburger, large fries, chocolate shake
What we got: 2 cheeseburgers (oops - they forgot the bacon), enough fries for the whole block, chocolate shake
Service: distracted (our gal was on her cellphone arguing with someone)
Atmo: transient, industrial and automotive (it's a 50's style burger joint with a window and a parking lot - this is food to go)
Spent: $12.17
Overall rating: 3.5 sporks

Review:

Giant Burger surprised us both by being pretty darn good. This is the kind of burger you expect at a beach bbq - white buns, good lettuce, smoky flavor. While I wouldn't call the burgers "giant," the insane amount of fries that our gal poured into the bag (perhaps she was compensating for yelling at someone on her phone while she was taking my order?) was most certainly giant.

The fries turned out to be quite tasty. I'm guessing they're frozen, but they're a lot better than In 'n Out's weird soggy/squeaky fries. They're bigger than McD's fries, and mealier inside. They did need some salt to reach their true fry potential. No potato skin on these bad boys - just pure spudsy goodness.

The shake was insanely good, and I'd go back just for a chocolate shake.

Clearly this wasn't the healthiest meal in the world, but with a name like Giant Burger we weren't expecting to feel virtuous. So go ahead and order that shake, because the burger/fry/shake trifecta is really the best way to experience any burger joint.

All in all, Giant Burger is a good cheap way to get your burger on.