CUGINIS, SOLANO AVE.

We're not exactly new residents to the Bay Area - we have lived here for almost 2 years now. We have our favorite places that we like to eat at, but what I like is that there are still a lot of restaurants for us to explore. So on one random evening when I totally didn't feel like cooking, we decided to check out Cugini on Solano Ave. Now, we'd driven or walked by this place a number of times (it's down the street from Kitty's vet) and what appealed to me is that they had a wood burning oven.

So to start off with, I had a salad - just a simple mixed green salad. I thought it was fresh and pretty tasty. Plus it wasn't too expensive.

Meanwhile, I think I got a pasta for my entree, but now I don't remember what it was and apparently I didn't take photos of it. So given that I've forgotten it, I can conclude that it was fine, but not memorable.

Meanwhile, Tom ordered a pizza.

I did try a slice of his pizza. But again, it was fine, and not that memorable.

I can see why people would eat here. It's moderately price, the food is fine and if you live nearby it's really convenient to just walk here. I don't think we'd go out of our way to eat here again - there are plenty of other options that we enjoy more on Solano Ave., but I truly have no strong opinions about this place - it's just fine.

TARA'S ORGANIC ICE CREAM

Wow. This is shocking, but it looks like I may actually be finishing up the posts that I had uploaded in April. And, I still have a ton of photos to upload and post about, especially from our recent trip to Seattle. It'll just have to wait until after we move into our new house this weekend. But onto the post.

A few months ago (actually, right after we got engaged as I recall), we had brunch and ice cream with a big group of our friends. We started off with brunch at the Thai Temple, and afterwards we headed down to Tara's Organic Ice Cream. I had heard about Tara's before, but none of us had ever tried it. Turns out it's just a few blocks from Wood Tavern.

So when we walked in, the place was totally empty, with only one employee to help us. I think she was pretty surprised when the giant group of us all walked in together and started staring at the case:

The case was set up like a gelato case (but of course, they were serving ice cream).

There were some interesting flavors, but I'm a traditionalist when it comes to dessert, especially if I'm trying a new place. I went with chocolate, in a sesame seed waffle cone.

What I really liked was that sesame seed cone. The ice cream was pretty good, not as intensely chocolatey as I normally like, but tasty, but that cone was really the best part. It was almost like those waffle cookies that you can get at Japanese grocery stores.

Here's Tom's allspice ice cream. He liked it, though I was not a fan.

Overall we had a fun experience here. I wouldn't say it's worth going out there just for ice cream (it's not like Sketch), but if I'm in the neighborhood and don't want to pay for dessert at Wood Tavern, I certainly wouldn't mind stopping by here for a quick cone.

SMALL BITES

Here's a collection of small bites that I didn't feel needed their own individual posts.

The first was a visit to a new cafe that's opened near our home called Cafe St. Honore. We had walked and driven by it several times, and I noticed that it served breakfast, so one morning we decided to go check it out. Armed with a newspaper, we were hoping to find a cute French style cafe, hopefully serving some nice homemade pastries and baguettes.

We did find a cute cafe, though the very white interior feels a bit sterile. Unfortunately, we didn't find anything homemade. I don't think the place has a kitchen, and it was very clear to me that they had purchased all their pastries (basically croissants and chocolate croissants) premade by someone else. The "breakfast menu" was quite short - it was basically a selection of the aforementioned pastries and a few baguette selections. Tom ended up getting a baguette with butter and coffee. Since I'm currently off the coffee, I got a baguette with poached eggs. Here it is below:

Yeah, I know. It's not pretty. I confirmed that they didn't have a kitchen when I saw our server cooking the poacked eggs in a pot on a hot plate behind the counter. It ended up being pretty overcooked. The baguette was really the worst part - it was leaden, so dense, not airy at all and none of the crunchy outside. I had Tom finish it off for me. And it made me sad knowing that Cafe Fanny was just a few blocks down the street. (We also wondered why they didn't just buy their baguettes from Acme Breads since it's located next door to Cafe Fanny.)

I'm not saying this place was horrible. The service was very friendly. It's open late and they offer free wi-fi. However, it isn't the place for breakfast, nor for baguettes.

Next up was our visit to the Asian Pearl Restaurant located inside the Pacific East Mall. We have visited most of the restaurants at the Pacific East Mall, but this is one of the largest one that we had not yet visted. One of the reasons we hadn't visited was because this place is really more well known for its dim sum, but since they start later in the morning, (I think around 10:30) we've eaten breakfast by then.

So one evening we couldn't decide where we wanted to have dinner at the Pacific East Mall and decided to give Asian Peal a try. It's a much larger, nicer restaurant than the rest of the places at the mall. (it actually had tablecloths). Because it's a large restaurant, it looked pretty empty when we entered, though there were other people eating there.

We ended up ordering three dishes (though only 2 are pictured). Tom got his usual salt and pepper shrimp and we got a cold tofu salad.

I liked the tofu salad, and the salt and pepper shrimp were pretty good. The dish that I ordered that isn't pictured is a clay pot with chicken and tofu. It was actually pretty awful. The sauce was really gloopy and not too flavorful. I ended up eating the tofu in the pot and left the rest there.

However, the food wasn't our issue here. It was really the service. They took forever to allow us to order and after they delivered the food, they basically ignored us. Though we asked for our check, they never brought it, and Tom finally went up to the front to pay (which he also had to wait to do.) Tom ended up leaving a tiny tip, which is really unusual for him, but that just shows how bad we thought this place was.

The funny thing is that Tom ended up going back there the next day for dim sum with his friends. But I don't think we'll be returning there again.

Bite #3, Superbowl Sunday. For Superbowl, we spent the afternoon at my friend, Kim's, house. We all made stuff and kind did a weird combination of foods for Superbowl. Starting in back, you'll see a bowl of hummus with veggies. Next is homemade nacho cheese with tortilla chips, I made my own homemade chicken pate (so much easier and cheaper than you could ever imagine, and totally tasty) with cheese from Cowgirl Creamery, Tom insisted on getting KFC, Kim also made some small snacks, including Totino's pizza rolls, and these chicken patties with cheese that were fried. Not surprisingly, we all stuffed ourselves. And we even watched a bit of the actual game.

And the very last bite - pizza at Cheeseboard. I actually have had Cheeseboard pizza before, but I've never actually had it at Cheeseboard - they have some pretty weird hours, so I've never really made it there while they're open (or I refuse to wait in the long line). Lately though, I've had Tuesdays off from work, and since we were able to snag a parking space right in front, we decided to drop in to get a couple slices and visited next door to get some cheese.

I will admit that the pizza is much better out of a pizza oven than a regular over. I still don't think that Cheeseboard pizza is as amazing as people claim, but I will say, the experience it having it there is much better than having it elsewhere. I'm sure we'll be back again soon.

VIETNAMESE IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD

We haven't found a truly great Vietnamese restaurant around us. There are some pretty good ones - we sometimes visit the one in the Pacific East Mall for pho, but nothing that has been truly amazing. While driving over to kickboxing a couple of times, I had noticed a pho restaurant called Pho Hoa in a strip mall in Richmond - the neighborhood north of us. It's not really the safest neighborhood, nor one that we visit often, but the restaurant we saw always seemed like it was packed with Asians. So one evening we finally decided to check it out.

We decided to go to dinner early, since I was being a little paranoid and wanted to eat while it was still light out. This meant that we were basically the first people to show up at the restaurant (though we were quickly followed by a few other people). Since this was our first time visiting the restaurant, I decided to get a few simple things.

The first thing we started off with were fish cakes.
There were okay. They weren't my favorite fishcakes that I'd ever had, since they weren't crispy and had a more oily flavor. Maybe because we arrived there early, the oil still hadn't heated up fully. (when you fry at a lower temperature, whatever you're frying will absorb more oil and end up soggy rather than crispy).

Then a order my usual - a bowl of chicken pho.
It was actually a very good bowl of pho. And the side additions it came with were very fresh and tasty. I must say, that's it was probably the best bowl of pho that I've had in the East Bay. However, I must warn that the service here is high lacking, and they aren't exactly nice. I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to visit this restaurant again. Though it was good, it wasn't truly amazing enough for me to go there rather than the Pacific East Mall. So I'll continue looking for some really great Vietnamese here in the East Bay.

ZAKI KABOB HOUSE

Ok, as stated in my previous post, I have a bit of a backlog of restaurants to work through, so the Ecuador posts will have to wait a bit. I've learned that some of the best restaurant recommendations come from friends, and this has certainly been true of our friends Paul and Armando. They've lived in the East Bay for quite sometime, and have been very helpful in introducing us to some of our favorite restaurants like Sabuy Sabuy and Vanessa's. This was also true of Zaki Kabob House, a restaurant located just 3 blocks from their home, and one that I had never even noticed.

The first time we went to Zaki, we had tried to go on a Monday, but the restaurant ended up being closed. So we went back a different night. Our friends had given us some suggested dishes to order. First I started off with an order of the hummus.I gotta say, their hummus is pretty damn awesome. It's really smooth and I think they put a ton of tahini in it, but it's also really tasty.

I ended up getting the half chicken for dinner.And it was delicious. It's covered in spices and roasted until it falls off the bone. The rice it comes with is also very tasty. It's obviously a large portion, and I didn't end up finishing the whole thing. Best of all, it's a great deal - I think it's around $8.

Meanwhile, Tom ordered a lamb burger, which our friends had also suggested. It was contained lots of different herbs, and I think he liked it quite a bit. The only problem was that it was so juicy, it kinda fell apart, and was impossible to set down.One of the best things that Tom discovered was this mint lemonade. It's like a whole lemon pureed with a ton of mint and ice and it's soooooo tasty. We totally loved it.

Since this post is a bit delayed, I've actually been to Zaki quite a few times. Like 5 times in a span of 3 weeks - which is when I stoppped going, I kinda OD-ed on it. I've learned that the rotisserie chicken is much better when you have it there. By the time you get it home, it's less juicy (though still yummy). Also, I've learned that you should order the chicken kabobs - I found them quite dry the time I ordered them. As for the service, it's super friendly since it's run by a family, but it can also be kinda slow and sometimes spotty. They make up for it with the super friendliness, though. Also, though the offer a few vegan and veggie options, I think the meat dishes tend to be the more outstanding items on the menu. I took my vegetarian cousin, and she liked it a lot, but I'm not sure my other vegetarian friends liked it as much.

At any rate, I think it's a great place, and it's definitely become one of our regular eat out spots. I hope the restaurant does well. I always like to see small family owned business succeed - especially when they're serving great food.

BUI, SOLANO AVE

Though Tom and I have our favorite places to eat in our area, we do like to try new places. And so on one evening we ventured out to Bui, a local Vietnamese restaurant on Solano Ave, since we couldn't decide on where else we wanted to eat. Now, we had avoided this place for a little while, mainly because the sign outside indicated that it was a "Contemporary Vietnamese" restaurant and I prefer hole in the wall, authentic (and cheap) Vietnamese food.

When we entered the restaurant, it was about a third full, and I noticed that there wasn't a lot of staff on the floor. We were seated right away and presented with menus. As I suspected, (along with the white table cloths on the tables) this place specializes in more French influenced Vietnamese cuisine. So though I was just craving a bowl of noodles, that wasn't really what the offered here.

Tom and I ended up ordering a few appetizers to share. Here's my summer spring roll below. You can tell from the photo that it's a little dry looking (clearly made a while in advance), but it was pretty good.

I also ordered these garlic basil chicken wings. They reminded me a lot of the ones we always get at Sabuy Sabuy, and though they weren't bad, the ones at Sabuy Sabuy are better.

As our meal progressed, the dining room started getting fuller and fuller - to the point that nearly every seat was taken. It was clear that the restaurant had not expected this as they had a single server and a single runner for the ENTIRE restaurant. Now, I can fully understand that for restaurants in this economy, it's prudent not to have too much waitstaff, especially on a Thursday night when you don't expect to be busy (and haven't been in the past). But I think it's also important to have people on call, just in this type of situation.

After our entrees were cleared, we were mistakenly handed our check by the waiter. We notified the runner, but it took another 10 minutes to flag down the waiter to convey the mistake. Meanwhile, the table to our left were regulars, who were surprised at how busy the restaurant was, and the table to the right were newcomers who were rightfully annoyed that it took 20 minutes just to get their drinks.

We were eventually given our entrees. (by this point I had forgotten to take pictures). Tom got a seafood stew, that I found was way too salty, but the thought it was pretty good. And I did get wish for a bowl of noodles with shrimp. It was pretty nice, but I could've gotten the same thing for half the price elsewhere (though not on Solano Ave.)

Our overall dining experience wasn't totally negative. The waitstaff was just way too busy and I felt sorry for them. I was truly more annoyed at the owners who were clearly ill prepared. I don't think we'll be going back to Bui, though. The food was fine, but I truly do enjoy less fancy Vietnamese food at the much lower prices.

OLIVETO, ROCKRIDGE

Since my little sister, Cathy, was in town with her boyfriend, Ben, we decided to head out to dinner at a place we hadn't tried before. We ended up in Rockridge, which is a really nice area in North Oakland, filled with shops, and on that day, a street festival that was winding down when we arrived. We headed over to a restaurant called Oliveto, which is a pretty famous restaurant in the East Bay. The upstairs area is the fancy party, but they also have a small cafe downstairs, specializing in small plates and pizzas.

The cafe is pretty cozy, but they had quite a few seats available and we were seated immediately. After perusing the menu, we decided to order a few small plates. Tom, Cathy and Ben ordered pizzas, while I ordered a chicken brochette.

Here's a photo of one of the small plate: a salad of octopus and beans. Normally Tom loves octopus, but he also hates celery, so he was so so on this.

And then there was my chicken. On the menu it was $15, so I was expecting something more substantial than a single skewer of chicken. Now, it was really tasty, with lemon zest and grilled bread sandwiched between the chicken pieces, but for $15, I should've gotten at least 3 of these.

Not surprisingly, I ended up being pretty hungry. I stole some pizza from Tom, but even then I was hungry. So post dinner, we check out Ici, a very famous ice cream place also in Rockridge. There was a line out the door, but I gotta say, it wasn't worth it. I just like gelato much more then ice cream. At least it filled me up, though.

So even though the food (what I had of it) at Oliveto was pretty good, the price are just too high for the portion sizes. I wouldn't mind going back if someone else were paying. Actually, Ben paid, but I mean more like my parents, but I'd just prefer to go somewhere where I don't walk out hungry.

VEGAN/VEGETARIAN SUSHI? ONLY IN BERKELEY

There's a very popular Vegan/Vegetarian Japanese restaurant in Berkeley called Cha-ya that I've wanted to try for quite some time. However, the place is tiny and since it's located in Berkeley, it's also packed most of the time. We'd tried going there once, but the line was too long, and on other occasions, the restaurant's been packed.

So we were pretty surprised one evening while we were headed to a different restaurant that there were seats available at Cha-ya. We decided to take advantage and ducked in to sit at the sushi bar. Now, I knew that Cha-ya was expensive since I'd seen their menu previously, but it was really quite surprising how expensive it was considering that there was no fish involved at all. Many people assume that just because it's vegetarian, food will be cheaper, but I've founded that that is often not the case, especially up here in the Bay Area. Basically, the prices at Cha-ya were the same as if you'd gone to a nice sushi restaurant (and maybe a little higher, too).

At any rate, since the place was kinda pricey, I had to do some strategic ordering. I started off with a special. It's a tofu roll with corn that's wrapped in seaweed and deep fried. It served with a side of dipping sauce:

As you can see, they have very nice presentation here, and the tofu roll wasn't too bad. Meanwhile, Tom ordered a bowl of agadedashi tofu. (deep fried tofu in broth). It was quite good, and I ended up liking it more than my own tofu dish.

Then we each had plates of sushi. Here's mine. You can see that there's one cucumber roll, and then 3 pieces of nigiri - one with seaweed, the other topped with mushroom and the third with eggplant. Again, the presentation was really nice.

However, the sushi itself was pretty terrible. Or not so much the sushi, but the sushi rice. It was tough and underflavored and really not tasty at all. I soon discovered why. While watching the chef prepare sushi for another customer, I watched him take out a large plastic bag filled with rice. He then walked over to a microwave, nuked it, and used that for the sushi. This place charged so much money, and they didn't even make their rice fresh. That was just appalling.

Additionally, we didn't really start off the meal on a great note. We were basically ignored by the waitress for like 10 minutes, during which I was very tempted to just walk right out. Our dinner ended up costing $40, which is much more than we usually spend on a sushi dinner, and in the words of Sue Min, "It cost the same as regular sushi and there was no fish? Why bother?" and I'd have to agree with her.

SAUSAGES AND FRITES

As many of you know, Tom and I have plans to adopt an additional kitty and one day a dog. Not right away - we're gonna wait until we have more room, first, but that didn't stop us from attending the annual SPCA Adopt-a-thon at Jack London Square in Oakland. It was our first time to Jack London Square and there was a lot going on that Sunday. We saw plenty of cute puppies and kitties and there was a also a farmer's market to walk around.

Earlier in the week, I had read of review of a place serving sausage and frites right in the area called O'My Dawg, so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be quite a small shop, and after perusing the menu, I realized that there weren't any non-pork or beef options. That's a little unusual for the Bay Area - even the little hot dog cart a block from work serves turkey dogs, and they only have 5 things on the menu. I think this place will figure it our pretty soon, and add either turkey or veggie dogs. At any rate, this meant that I'd be eating just frites. That wasn't a bad option though. Here they are below.

They were definitely skinnier than the traditional Belgian frites that I've had, but they weren't bad. And I like the slightly smokey and spicy aioli that it was served with.

Meanwhile, Tom had two different type of sausages. I don't remember which ones, but he actually liked them quite a lot - enough to say that he'd want to go back again in the future. (and he tends to be pretty picky about his hot dogs). As for me, the setting was nice, and the owners were very friendly, but I think I'll wait to go back when they've got a turkey dog on the menu.

BREAKFAST IN BERKELEY

As many of you know, Tom and I are early risers, so we enjoy going out for breakfast. After living here for over a year now, we certainly have our favorite places, but we're always looking for new ones to try, too. We've recently found two places to add to our regular roster of breakfast favorites. The first is a coffeeshop called Jimmy Bean's. We've often driven by this place and I'd heard good things about it, but we hadn't taken the time to visit it, so one morning we finally headed over to Berkeley to check it out.

Jimmy Bean's is owned by a family that owns several restaurants in Berkeley. Unfortunately, I haven't really loved the other restaurants that we've visited (T-Rex BBQ and Fonda), so I was a little skeptical about Jimmy Beans. On the other hand, it is pretty hard to screw up breakfast. When we arrived, the place was pretty empty, so it was easy to find a table quickly. We first ordered out breakfast at the cashier, helped ourselves to coffee and were given a number to put on our table.

This place is much more casual and has an unfinished look to it that their other restaurants lack. After picking a table and flipping through the paper a bit, our breakfast arrived. I had ordered a breakfast burrito, which chicken sausage, eggs and cheese.

As you can see, it was served with a side of 3 dipping sauces, and the green one, the cilantro pesto, made the whole thing worth eating. The breakfast burrito was good, but with that cilantro pesto, it was truly amazing. Meanwhile, Tom ordered corned beef hash.

He found the hash to be pretty good, and even liked it more than the hash he'd had at 900 Grayson. Breakfast ending up being very enjoyable - the only thing that wasn't was the price. This place definitely cost more than our usual breakfast places, so I think we'll visit it only when we have guests in town.

Another breakfast place that we've frequented lately is Berkeley Bagels. It's been known to have the best NY style bagels in the Bay Area. We finally checked this place out while dog sitting for a friend - they just live a few blocks from the store. Here's the bagel case:

And here's the bagel I ordered:

Though the coffee there isn't great, I do enjoy their bagels. I normally get a toasted Asiago bagel with light butter. We did try their whole wheat bagels, but they use real wheat, and it came out too heavy and chewy. It might not be as healthy, but I'll stick with their normal bagels. As for being as good as NY? Not quite, but since I don't eat bagels that often, I'm happy to have theirs.

GETA SUSHI, PIEDMONT

In our continuing quest to find good, cheap sushi in the Bay Area, we recently headed over to an area that we haven't visited before - Piedmont. Piedmont is one of the up and coming neighborhoods in North Oakland, filled with a strip of cute shops and restaurants. My co-worker who lives in the area was the one who suggested Geta, since she enjoys going there for quick, cheap sushi.

So we headed over there one evening and found the place pretty quickly. It's actually not too far from work, by kind of a schlep from where we live, so I'm not sure how often we'll be visiting Geta. When we arrived, we found a very small restaurant, with only about 5 tables and 4 seats at a bar. It was so small that there was a little line outside, and we ended up joining the line and waiting to get it. Luckily it was a pretty warm night, and the line moved quickly, so we only waited about 10 minutes before we were seated at a table for two.

My co-worker wasn't kidding about the low prices. Everything was incredibly cheap, with nothing on the menu over $12. Below is the sashimi plate that Tom ordered:

It was very pretty and a decent portion. He said the fish was ok. Not the freshest stuff in the world, but not terrible, either. I ordered a cucumber salad:

Along with some rolls (behind my rolls is some spicy chicken that Tom also ordered).

I had ordered a lobster roll, because it was only $6.50 and also a veggie roll. Overall, it wasn't too bad, and certainly worth the very low prices. I ended up liking this place more than Manpuku, though Tom felt that they were about equal. And I thought that they were making pretty good stuff, considering the very tight space that they were working out of. I wouldn't mind going back again in the future.

After dinner, we decided to explore Piedmont a little bit. We walked down the streets and discovered all types of cute shops and places to eat. I think we'll certainly have to go back in the future and explore more of the food options there. If only it weren't so far away....

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.

T-REX BBQ, BERKELEY

A few weeks ago Huong was once again visiting the Bay Area. (I swear I see her more often than I see my parents). At any rate, knowing what a meat lover she is, I chose a bbq restaurant that seems to be a local favorite - a place called T-Rex BBQ. I knew it was sort of a fancy bbq restaurant and not all that cheap, but felt it was worth checking out.

Located on a corner in West Berkeley, I'd driven by T-Rex plenty of times before, but had never really noticed it. When we entered, we found a really slick, beautiful room with high a lot of open space (it was two floors), big windows and lots of wood accents. Though the place seemed pretty full, they were able to find a table for us right away.

As we waited for Huong to arrived, I ordered a basket of homemade bbq chips and Tom got a ginger beer. Meanwhile, we perused the menu. Rather than ordering an entree, I decided to get an appetizer and a couple of sides so I'd get a try a number of different things. At some point Huong arrived, our orders were taken and we waited for our food to arrive. (We never got those bbq chips - the waitress forgot about them and I can only hope that we weren't charged for them).

As I said, I got a number of different things to eat. I started off with some chicken mushroom spring rolls.

They were allright. The filling wasn't all that flavorful and I found the dipping sauce to be too vinegary.

Meanwhile, the rest of our food come out all at once, shortly after we'd ordered. I love corn bread, so ordered a side of cornbread with maple butter. Here it is below:

What I hadn't expected was that the cornbread would actually be soaked in maple butter. I would've preferred it on the side so I could spread it on myself, but this version of it made it really more like a dessert. I only had a small nibble of it. Finally, I ordered a side of mac and cheese:

It was allright. Kinda runny, very heavy. I had a few bites of it and that was enough.

Overall, our experience at T-Rex was very much like many of our experiences at restaurants in Berkeley - namely, what's all the hype about? My experience was a bit better than Tom's. He said the sauce for his ribs tasted more like a spicy marinara sauce than BBQ sauce. I guess we just really prefer our hole in the walls and more authentic restaurants. All these fancy versions of whatever just aren't doing it for us.

JAC'S ASIAN BISTRO

We have a small strip mall just 2 blocks from our home. It's a little sketchy, with an "adult video" store, a strange massage parlor and a pizza place that never appear to be open - but it's also the home to our favorite bahn mi shop (Bah Le). So when a restaurant, Jac's Asian Bistro, opened there a few months ago, I was rather skeptical about it. Every time we drove by, Tom would jokingly say that he wanted to try it, so one evening I finally caved and we walked over for dinner.

The place was very minimally decorated, but it was nice to see some other Asians dining there. As we were seated, we were handed some massive menus, that went on for pages and seemed to have anything imaginable on it (including some dishes involving hot dogs.) We ended up ordering a few dishes to share (including several off the menu where all the dishes were $5.99 and under).

Before our food arrived we were given a couple of bowls of house soup, which wasn't too bad.

Then our dishes started to arrive. Tom had ordered a chili-garlic fish dish. And considering it was off that $5.99 menu, it was pretty good.

Next, my dish arrived. I had gotten a seafood chow-fun with XO sauce. It wasn't off the cheap eats menu, but it was only $7.99 and it was a pretty big portion.

Lastly Tom ordered this dish with mushrooms and bok choy, also off the $5.99 menu and it was surprisingly good. The bok choy was fresh, as were the mushrooms, and best of all, it was really cheap!

Overall, the dinner at Zac's was pretty decent. It certainly wasn't the healthiest or best Chinese food around, but for the price and quantity, we'd happily go back.

JAPANESE FOOD IN EL CERRITO

As many of you know, we're still searching for a good Japanese restaurant near where we live. We'd heard of a Japanese sushi place near our home called Yusan Sushi, so we wanted to check it out. Unfortunately when we arrived, we found the restaurant closed, with a pretty cryptic note on the door. It said "Reopening Soon", but was dated three days earlier. As we stood outdoors contemplating whether or not the restaurant would open that night, we noticed another restaurant next door called Yokohama Restaurant. Given that we didn't have many other restaurants nearby to choose from, we decided to check it out.

When we entered the restaurant, it was pretty empty, but it was cute, with your stereotypical Japanese restaurant decorations. We were seated right away and after putting in our orders, we were given a few freebies, a little plate of cold soba noodles along with some pickles.

They weren't too bad, and I was pretty suprised that they gave us these freebies in the first place. With my dinner, I also got a salad, which was pretty average.

For dinner, I ordered a combination- chicken on chicken. Well, it was more that I got to pick from a list of foods, so I chose chicken karage (which was done as chicken wings) and chicken teriyaki. Here it is below:

As you can see, the portions are pretty generous, and it wasn't too bad either. Tom and I decided that it certainly wasn't the best Japanese food that we've ever had (nor the cheapest, we spent about $15-18/ea for dinner), but it was better than some of the places we had tried previously (and certainly better then Katana-ya, where our cousin likes to visit frequently). I don't think we'll be back any time soon, we'll continue to visit LA for truly great Japanese food, but if we're ever in the mood, we'd certainly go back to Yokohama.

FUDDRUCKER'S

That's damn right people, I'm doing a post about Fuddrucker's. Most of you know that above all, I want to know that when I pay for a meal, it has to be worth it. That means if I pay $5 for a meal, I know that I'm not going to get a whole lot for my money, and that's ok with me. I'll still enjoy my food. And if I'm paying $100 for a meal, then I'm going to expect more- better food and exceptional service. When I don't enjoy a meal iis when I pay $50, and end up getting food and service that was worth $10. So yes, I may love going to fancy restaurants, but I also like KFC fried chicken and biscuits.

So it was my co-worker Kim's birthday and she loves Fuddrucker's. A little while ago, we'd gotten some coupons for Fuddrucker's in the mail, and I handed them off to her, but she wanted to use them, so a group of us headed out for burgers.

So I'd been to Fuddrucker's as a kid, but it's been at least 15 years since my list trip, and I was actually pleasantly suprised by the settings. It was pretty early on a week night, so there weren't any screaming kids, big families, etc. It was really tame, the place was impeccably clean and they even refilled the BBQ sauce pump right away when I complained that it was empty. (more on that later).

But first, a photo of my soda (I got the Orange Crush for Tom and took it home with me) and the large roll of paper towels that they provide for each table:

One reason why my friend loves Fuddrucker's is for the free pump cheese. Actually, if you're unfamiliar with the chain, the whole idea is that they make a burger for you, and then there's this whole toppings bar when you can add all the free toppings that you want- tomatoes, onions, lettuce, pickles, mustard, ketchup, bbq sauce, and for my friend, the glorious pump cheese, served warm and in two different flavors (plain or jalapeno). Behold the pump cheese:

Let me just say, this whole trip was worth it, just to see my co-worker order a Kobe beef burger, with bacon, and then dump orange pump cheese all over it. And yes, she finished the whole thing (though she felt kinda sick afterwards).

I was a little more tame and ordered chicken breast with grilled mushrooms and cheese. As you can see below, I topped it with tomatoes, onions, pickles, lettuce and bbq sauce:

And I gotta say, it wasn't that bad. The mushrooms were kinda dry and overly peppered, but apart from that, I'd totally rather pay like $6 for a burger here, than $10 for a burger at Barney's. I think it's got something to do with that all you can eat toppings bar- just makes it feel like you've got so much more control. So overall, I enjoyed by meal at Fuddrucker's and I truly wasn't expecting to. Maybe one day I'll go back and take Tom- just as long as he promises to avoid the pump cheese.