A HODGE PODGE OF BITES

All of the things we ate below aren't worth their own posts (not that they weren't good, but most were snacks), so I've combined it all into a mini hodge podge post. The first one I'll start off with is pizza at Arizmendi. There are a lot of co-ops in Berkeley. We like going to this one co-op cheese store and bought our bikes at a co-op bike shop. It's a big thing here in the Bay Area. Another well known co-op is a bakery called Arizmendi. Much like Cheese Board Pizza, Arizmendi makes a single type of veggie pizza every day. They even have a pizza calendar on their website. The day we went, we go to try the Roasted Carrots, Arugula, Roasted Garlic, Three Cheese, Cherry-Balsamic Vinaigrette pizza.

I figured with so many ingredients that there'd be no way to tell the difference between each one. But this pizza proved me wrong. Here's a pic of the pizza:

It's kinda hard to see the carrots, which were shredded pretty thinly, but you could really taste the vinegar and cheeses. I thought the pizza was actually very nice. My only complaint was the fact that the crust was very very chewy. But I wouldn't mind going back to try a few other types of pizza.

Next up, the Solano Avenue Stroll. The Solano Ave Stroll is this neighborhood event that takes place once a year. There are tons of people who go and vendors setup their booths all along Solano Ave. Tom really didn't want to go. He hates crowds. But I love food booths. So I forced him to go along. As walked along the crowded streets, we soon realized that the food vendors weren't concentrated in one area - they'd been spread out between all the other vendors. This kinda sucked, because you can't check out all the booths at once and decide what you want. After seeing about 3 food booths, we ran into us with stuff that actually interested us AND the line was pretty short.

So below you'll see what we got:

Ok, at the bottom of the pic, you can see a corn dog. But the great thing about living in northern CA is that they offered turkey or veggie dogs. We both opted for the turkey. Since the batter was homemade, you could actually see the cornmeal in the batter and it was pretty tasty (too bad they were so busy they couldn't refill the ketchup.)

At the top of the pic is something less identifiable and rather strange - it's garlic fries topped with crab aioli (the white stuff) and crab (the pink stuff). Ok ok , it sounds strange, and I wasn't going to order it, but Tom wanted to try it. And to be honest, it wasn't that bad. Those garlic fries were really the best part - probably some of the best garlic fries we've had here. Tom felt that there was too much aioli (he was right) and really wasn't a fan of it period. But overall, I found this to be surprisingly good. Too bad we were so stuffed that we were too full to try stuff from the other stalls.

And finally, a cheap Thai restaurant on the Berkeley campus called Tuk Tuk Thai. We had dropped my car off at the repair shop and decided to stop here for lunch. They had pretty cheap lunch specials, which ended up not being all that bad. Here's my tom yum soup below:

And my chicken with basil and noodles. It came with a summer roll on the side. The food was decent enough, and the generous portion meant that I was able to take the left overs home. Overall, not a bad meal.

And that's my list of bites in the East Bay.

GOING VEGETARIAN IN SANTA CRUZ

On our last day in Santa Cruz, we just had time for breakfast. My sister and her boyfriend had a long drive ahead of them, so not too much time to hang out. We decided to go to check out a local restaurant called the Saturn Cafe. I had checked out the menu briefly while at the beachhouse, and saw that they were well known for their burgers and late night scene.

It looks a little funky from the outside:

And is even funkier on the inside: (I'm pointing out their lighting here)

So apparently I hadn't looked at the menu close enough, because what we soon figured out was that this place was a vegetarian restaurant. And apparently what they're famous for our their veggies burgers. Since it was just for breakfast, it's kinda easy to go without meat. I just ordered chocolate chip pancakes:

And what can I say, they were pretty good. Just pancakes. Meanwhile, Tom was a little more adventureous and ordered something with "fakin' bacon" ie. bacon looking stuff made out of tofu. To be honest, it didn't taste that bad. The texture was just kinda strange. And he compared them to Bacos (which are also vegetarian).

The breakfast at Saturn was pretty decent. I enjoyed the funky decor and wouldn't mind going back to try out those famous veggie burgers.

EATING LOCALLY IN SANTA CRUZ

Day 2 in Santa Cruz was filled with activity. We were very lucky that the beachhouse was located just blocks from a large farmer's market. So on Sunday morning, we headed over there for breakfast, and to pick up food for dinner (we had decided to do some grilling that evening).

We arrived at the market right as it opened, so not all the vendors had setup. We did a quick circle around the market to check out what was available and what we should have for breakfast.

We bought a few cups of coffee, along with bread and cheese. The nice thing about this market is that they setup tables where you can actually sit and enjoy your purchases.

I bought a head of "elephant garlic", basically I huge garlic clove, for grilling that evening.

We ultimately decided that for breakfast, we'd eat crepes. We got 2 salty crepes:

and I got my favorite nutella and strawberry crepe:
They actually came out pretty excellent. The only bummer was the wait. It took about 20 minutes before our crepes were ready, but we just munched on some of our purchases and I perused some of the stalls. We ended up buying a ton of stuff at the farmer's market, and took all our supplies home before we headed out for the day.

Our second stop of the day was a visit to Bonny Doon winery - located in the hills, about 20 minutes from where we were staying. It's a located in a totally scenic area. Because I was the designated driver and Tom doesn't drink, we left my sister and her boyfriend to check out the tasting room while we wandered the grounds. That day, they just happened to have a caterer doing bbq on site, so Tom and I felt it was a good opportunity to get a snack. Here's the cute mini bbq that they were using: Tom ended up ordering a pulled pork sandwich:
We were surprised that they put the coleslaw on top on the sandwich, rather than to the side. Tom thought it was ok, I thought it was kinda small for the $8 they charged. Meanwhile, I got some chicken wings: I liked the fact that they were juicy and kinda had these burnt crispy parts. They were pretty good, and not nearly as expensive as Tom's sandwich.

After driving down the mountain, we spent some additional time in downtown Santa Cruz, bought some more supplies for dinner and just hung out at the beach house. We eventually started preparing to do our grilling for dinner. We had gotten a huge number of veggies at the morning farmer's market. Here's Tom cooking them on the grill (you can also see some of the sausages we bought downtown): And we ended up with quite a spread (and this doesn't even show everything we made): The food turned out super delicious, and we got to eat it outdoors. It was a really a great day for eating locally and cooking for ourselves. And after stuffing our cheeks, we rested a bit before relaxing in the hot tub - the best way to finish off a truly fun day.

BETTY'S BURGER'S AND THE SANTA CRUZ BEACH BOARDWALK

After my sister and boyfriend arrived in Santa Cruz, we played a round of pool. (yes, along with beautiful views, the beach house came with its own pool table). I suck at pool. Luckily, everyone was ready to go for dinner. Earlier in the day when we drive over to downtown Santa Cruz, we'd passed by a burger restaurant called Betty Burgers. I noticed it just by the smell coming off the place. So we decided to head over there for dinner.

When we arrived at the place, it was already pretty packed with family, locals and a whole lot of children (it was Labor Day Weekend after all). The place is pretty small, but is decorated with cute 1950s decor and they have a good amount of seating outside. I had Tom place our order while I went outside to stake out a table and chairs.

After we placed our orders, we waited for quite a long time. The place was packed, and they made their burgers to order. Still, after waiting about 15-20 minutes, we finally went in to check on our order. We were told it'd be out shortly and it was. Here's a photo of Tom's burger:

It was a 1/2 pound patty, and as you can see, he got it with all the toppings. I think he said it was ok, but not as good as the burgers at Al's Big Burger. Meanwhile, we got a basket of sweet potato fries to share:

I was a big fan of these fries. They were skinnier than the normal sweet potato fries, which make them cook up extra crispy, and I do love crispy fries. It was served with a side of their secret sauce, which I really didn't find all that special, and the fries were pretty great on their own.

Meanwhile, I was still so full from lunch that I got a kid size order of chicken tenders:

And what can I say, they were chicken tenders. Nothing super special, but not bad, either. I was only disappointed that they had only one type of dipping sauce - ranch.

After dinner, it was off to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. (we see ads for this on ALL THE TIME). I gotta say, it was located in a seedier part of town (if you could say that Santa Cruz has a seedy part of town) and the attractions themselves were a little run down and unseemly. But we still had a good time playing skee ball (when the machine wasn't ripping us off) , video games and just walking around.

To top off the day, Tom decided that he needed to try a deep fried twinkie (though I encouraged him not to):As you can see, it came on a stick, drenched in powdered sugar and chocolate sauce. I didn't try it, but made him let me look at the inside when he bit into it - the creamy interior had basically disintegrated during the frying process. He ended up throwing most of it out, because had been pre-fried and had been sitting there for a little while before it'd been served (not tasty for any type of fried food).

So we had a great first day in Santa Cruz. Did a little bit of relaxing and a little bit of sightseeing, with plenty more sightseeing coming up.

WEEKEND IN SANTA CRUZ, DAY 1

Many of you may know that I haven't really taken any time off since starting my job a year ago. This is due to a number of reasons. First, I run the retail store, so it's pretty much open all the time. Second, we haven't done a lot of traveling - just some weekend trips within CA, that hasn't required me to take days off. Third, I kinda am a work-a-holic. Not so much like my co-worker who works 24/7, but things need to get done and I will work on my days off. I don't know, after owning my own business where I just worked all the time for over 2 years (and you business owners know what I'm talking about), even having 2 days off a week still seems like a luxury, and I haven't even taken advantage of any of my paid vacation days (which I seem to be saving up like it's a precious treasure). But above all else, I need the money.

But all people need a break, and just get away from it all. So even though Slow Food Nation was in town for Labor Day weekend, I skipped all the festivities to spend a quiet weekend in Santa Cruz with Tom, my sister and her boyfriend. We even got to stay there for free, by borrowing the awesome beach house of my aforementioned co-worker.

Tom and I got down to Santa Cruz in the late afternoon. After dropping our stuff off at the house, we decided to grab some lunch and check out the downtown area. I'd read some reviews of NYTimes, and we decided to go to a restaurant called Taqueria Vallarta, well known for its large potions and low prices.

Tom and I both ordered fish tacos. Here they are below. As you can see, they were pretty loaded with stuff. Unlike the fish tacos we're accustomed to, they didn't fry their fish here, but cooked it up in a sort of sauce. It was actually surprisingly tasty and a little spicy. I didn't end up eating most of my, because a had to work through my other jumbo taco.

Now I had ordered two tacos cause I was pretty hungry and I had never expected the tacos to be so large. But I was wrong. I could've just ordered one and been fine. For my second taco, I had ordered a grilled chicken taco, but I ordered it as a special, meaning it came with shredded cabbage, lettuce and more importantly guacamole.

As you can see, it was enormous. And I wasn'te ven able to finish it. We found the tacos at Taqueria Vallarta better than average - and much better than some of the "Mexican" food that we've tried up here in the Bay Area. Wish we had a place like this closer to home.

After lunch, we relaxed at the house while waiting for my little sister to arrive. This meant that I fell asleep in the hammock in the front yard, while Tom did a little work and surfed the internet. But please enjoy the lovely views from the beach directly across the street from the house:

BURMA SUPERSTAR, SAN FRANCISCO

After the baseball game, we decided to take advantage of the fact that we were in SF and had a friend visiting by having dinner at Burma Superstar in the Inner Richmond. Now Burma Superstar is one of these super famous SF restaurants that everyone talks about and tells you you have to go to. If you get there anytime after 5:30, you'll have to wait to get in. Luckily, by the time the game ended, we were able to get over to the restaurant a little before 6. There was already a crowd waiting to get in, so we dropped Tom off to put our names down while we circled around for parking.

I'm still get accustomed to SF and all the neighborhoods there, so I was quite surprised to find this super famous restaurant located in the midst of a working class Asian neighborhood. Really, it wasn't super nice, and it was surrounded by typical Chinese shops - we even grabbed boba drinks three doors down while we waited for our table to be ready. But this just proves that ppl in the Bay Area will go almost anywhere for great food. We waited about 30 minutes before we got in, to a pretty small, cramped, kinda loud restaurant.

To be honest, the space wouldn't have been so cramped if they had chosen to use slightly smaller tables, but whatever. At least we were seated. We were ignored a little bit at first, (just due to how busy this place was), but that was alleviated when our super nice and cheery waitress came to take our order. Since we'd spent a while outside, we had perused the menu and decided on what we'd be ordering. We shared a number of dishes. I started off by ordering one of their famous tea life salads which was a : Salad prepared with imported Burmese tea leaves, tomatoes, lettuce, dried shrimp (or vegetarian), fried garlic, sesame seeds, peanuts, and split yellow peas. Here's what it looks like when they've mixed it all up for you.

Ok, I'm kinda lame, but for some reason when I heard tea leaf salad I had imagine fresh tea leaves (like on this episode of Bizarre Eats when Andrew Zimmern visited Taiwan). Of course, this is pretty preposterous to have fresh tea since they all grow in Asia and would be oxidized before they even shipped to the U.S. (I didn't think this through until later). At any rate, I really enjoyed this salad. Tom didn't really like it, but I liked all the different flavors and textures. And the tea leaves added this delicate almost soapy (but not unpleasant) character to it all. It was my favorite dish of the entire meal.

Ok. Onto the other stuff. This was a dish of stir fried chicken breast with tofu, string beans, red bell peppers, and basil in our five spice sweet heat sauce.

It was pretty good. I liked the dried tofu. Oh, this is also where they screwed up. Apparently this also came in a beef version, which they gave to us initially. Luckily, I hadn't eaten any of the beef before they figured it out and gave us the correct plate with chicken. So we got a free plate of food out of it.

This is a plate of honestly I don't remember. I think it involved chicken, tomatoes, onions and green beans (but that's what I'm identifying from the photo).

And lastly we got a plate of Garlic Chili Shrimp: Wok tossed shrimp in our garlicky infused oil, and topped with toasted garlic.

Overall our dinner at Burma Superstar was pretty good. We hadn't had Burmese food before, and it's this interesting mix of South Asian, Chinese and Indian influences. However, I don't think Tom thought it was all the great, and it certainly wasn't amazing enough for us to make the trip out there, look for parking and wait. And it wasn't all that inexpensive, either. We did find out that they have a location in Alameda, which is at least on our side of the bay, but I again, I don't think it's worth all the effort. We could probably be just as satisified with a cheap Chinese restaurant.

A VISIT TO THE BALLPARK

As most of you know, Tom and I are both fans of AL Teams. (Yankees for him - Boo! and Red Sox for me - Yeah!). Unfortunately, this means that we have to go to McAfee Stadium in Oakland to watch out teams play - which is basically a stadium located in the middle of the Oakland ghetto. We've been to 3 games there this season, and that's been quite enough. (During our last game there, we sat in seats right next to the concourse where someone had vomitted . It smelled like that the entire game). It's too bad that we are not really fans of NL teams, or else we'd get to watch games at the beautiful AT&T Park.

We'd planned to go to a game at AT&T Park just to experience it, and one day we got lucky and got offered corporate tickets to a game (by one of the vendors I work with). It was a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon - perfect weather for a game. We got to the ballpark a little late, but that was ok, because we were able to visit the concessions pretty easily. So the recommended food at AT&T Park are the crabcake sandwiches, but they were located on the other side of the ballpark. We just wanted to grab some food and get to our seats.

There were a lot of food choices for us. (Oh and btw, the concourse has the most flat screen TV's that I've ever seen in one place). Tom decided to stop at a gourmet hot dog place. He was super hungry, so he ended up getting two types of hot dogs. The first was a "Coney Island Dog":

which was basically a chili cheese dog. I have no idea what made it "Coney Island". He thought it was pretty good, and liked it more than his second dog the "San Francisco Dog":

Again, I have no idea what made this "San Francisco". It had sauerkraut, a pickle and thouand island dressing. As you can see, they were both quite large and required a fork. He actually would've just preferred some regular hot dogs, since these were kinda hard to eat.

Meanwhile, I wasn't having the best of luck finding food. We wanted to get to our seats, so I finally just ordered some chicken wings, garlic fries and a soda. Amazingly enough, it came out to be just under $20. (yikes!)

The nice thing is is that they give you your choice of dipping sauces. (Unlike many places where they just make you use mustard and ketchup). The garlic fries were ok, certainly better than the mealy pices of cardboard that I'd had at McAfee. I enjoy the chicken strips at Fenway Park more though. They have a different breading that's studded with black pepper that I just like more.

We had a really fun afternoon at the ballpark. We had the best seats we'd ever had at a ballpark (though we were surrounded by families and little kids) and the home team one. Even though my team almost never plays at this park, I look foward to going back and seeing more games there.