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.

A TRIP TO THE MISSION

So like my businesses, the company I work for has seen a slow down due to the economy. This meant that for a few weeks, I was only working 4 days a week (and I had it good). However, I also sought to take advantage of my 3 day weekends, and on a very sunny Tuesday, I headed over to the Mission to join some friends for Mexican food.

Now, I have been to the Mission before, but not since we had moved to the Bay Area. It's kind of a funny thing, to go from our neighborhood in El Cerrito and take the BART 40 minutes to a part of San Francisco that is so different from where we live - it's almost like visiting another country.

Once I met up with my friends, we headed over to El Farolito for lunch. There are a lot of Mexican restaurants to choose from in the Mission - El Farolito just happened to be the one my friends liked. And there are several locations in the Mission. We ended up at one a little farther from the BART station, but it was much bigger. The inside wasn't anything special - we're talking picnic tables and plastic benches, but there were a lot of people inside.

Since I had never been here, I decided to order a couple of different things to try. What I didn't realize was that I'd end up waaaayyy over ordering. First we all got a basket of chips and we got to pick different types of salsa to go with it.

And here's my meal. So on the left there are two chicken tacos and on the right, there's a chicken tostada. See, I could've just ordered either the tacos or the tostadas and been totally fine ordering just one.

However, both were very tasty. I think I liked the tacos more than the tostada just because the tostada was loaded down with too many toppings. The tacos were packed with yummy grilled chicken, and were more simple, but equally messy. I'd imagine that if we had Mexican food like this anywhere near us, we'd be going once a week.

After we finished lunch, we checked ou a new ice cream place just a few doors down called Humphry Slocombe (yes, it's quite a name).

This place makes its ice cream from scratch in small batches, and they change the flavors pretty frequently. They're known for crazy flavors like fois gras, and my friend ordered a beet hibiscus sorbet (which she liked a lot)

However, when it comes to dessert and ice cream, I'm pretty traditional, so I went for their most conservative flavors - a cup with Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee and Chocolate.
I found the ice cream to be well made and tasty. However, it's not the best ice cream I've had since we've been out here - I still like Bi-Rite and Sketch more.

I had a great time in the Mission, and I just need to get my lazy butt to go out there more often. I definitely have to take Tom, though, to prove that there really is good Mexican food in the Bay Area.

CAN YOU GUESS WHAT THIS IS??

Every once in a while, I will actually read the local paper and get a food tip. That's how we ended up at the all you can eat sushi place in Berkeley, and it's also how I heard about a Turkish restaurant in Berkeley. Now Tom and I had just been talking about how we missed Family Restaurant in Brookline, with it's casual atmosphere and giant plates of tasty, cheap food, we really hadn't found anything like it around our new home, so we were quick to try out our new find, Turkish Kitchen.

Unfortunately, everyone else had also heard of Turkish Kitchen (at least 2 people I'd talked to at work had planned on checking it out), so even though we arrive a little after 6 on a Friday night, the place was packed and not a seat was free. Actually, it looks like the place has been here for a while, and with its key location right near the Berkeley campus and it's low prices, it's a popular place for students. Luckily, the tables turned pretty quickly, so we only waited about 10 minutes before we were seated. The staffed seemed friendly, but really overwhlemed by their new found popularity and it looked as though they were just struggling to keep up.

Tom and I decided to start with a shared hummus, which was actually quite good.

Tom then ordered a dish that had been recommended in the review I'd read. It's basically chicken, wrapped in a lavash bred and topped with a special sauce. Unfortunately, they give him the lamb version, rather than the chicken one that he'd ordered. But it was so busy, he didn't bother to return it, and just ate it. He actually enjoyed it, except for the special sauce that they'd put on top.

Meanwhile, I had a really great chicken kabob platter. The pieces of chicken were cooked perfectly and were totally tender and flavorful. I enjoyed it a lot.

Overall, I thought out meal was pretty great, though in the future, I think we'll be ordering take out, rather than battling the crowds. After dinner, it was still pretty early, so I thought we'd visit a childhood favorite, Foster's Freeze. Foster's Freeeze is a lot like Dairy Queen and famous for it's dipped ice cream cones. I hadn't had one in like 15 years, so I wanted to give it another try. I thought it was kinda funny that they had these display models of what the ice cream should look like. They even had little diagrams one wall pointing out the shapes of the ice cream, which was kinda funny when you see what my cone ended up looking like. So I ordered a chocolate ice cream dipped in chocolate...

But when the guy handed it to me, this is what it looked like....

I made Tom hold it while I took a pic, but I was laughing so hard it was kinda difficult. Anyhoo, the chocolate on the exterior of the cone wasn't so great. There was so much cocoa butter in it to make it harden instantly that it was just waxy, though the interior ice cream was pretty decent. Next time, I'll order it without the chocolate shell.

GELATO MILANO

I've been secretly lamenting the fact that there are very few non- chain ice cream places to visit since I've moved out to Northern CA. All we have near us is a Coldstone and a Baskin Robbins. But I think the problem is that the little artisan ice cream places are all located in Berkeley and you gotta make an effort to find one.

I was having dinner near the Berkeley campus with my parents and aunt and uncle and they wanted to get dessert. So I suggested gelato. I was planning on taking them to Cafe Naia, but then I noticed another gelato place a block away from Naia and headed there instead.

The other place, Gelato Milano, was tiny and spartan. It looked as if they'd just moved in, cause the walls were white, there were just 2 white gelato cases and a couple of seats. Here are some pics of the gelato in the cases:

I don't think they had strawberry gelato, so I got pink grapefruit and chocolate instead. It was certainly creamier than the gelato at Cafe Naia, and I thought it was pretty good.

I'm now on the search for a few more local ice cream places. There's Sketch on 4th street and I'm hoping that today, if I feel up to it, I can try another place called Ici.

A QUICK TRIP TO LA LA LAND

Last week Tom and I made a quick trip down to LA so we could pick up all the boxes that we had shipped back to my parents' house. Of course for me, any opportunity to go back to LA is an opportunity to fill my bell and make me happy.

Since we landed in the morning, our first stop of the day was breakfast. We decided to go to the Literati Cafe, which is close to my parents' office. I'm pretty sure I've written about the cafe here before, since I seem to make a trip there every time I'm back at home, but food there remind me just why I love being back in CA.

Here's my breakfast sandwich and it's extra special for two reasons:

As you can see, it's got avocado. AND I got have it with turkey bacon. It was yummy and fresh and very filling. I enjoyed in immensely. Meanwhile, Tom ordered this massive breakfast quesadilla.

He also enjoyed it, and amazingly enough, actually finished off the whole thing (which he would regret doing 15 minutes later). Sigh.

After breakfast, we went to my favorite local farmer's market. We didn't stay too long though, because as you all know, there were some wildfires last week and it wasn't too pleasant staying outdoors. Also, it was over 95F, so we ended up going home and resting.

For dinner that evening, we met my parents and the rest of the family at Nanbankan, a local Japanese restaurant that specializes in roboto grilling. We got pretty lost getting there, since the traffic was quite heavy, and the exterior of the restaurant was under construction, so we couldn't find it. By the time we made our way there, my om had already ordered for everyone, which was totally fine with me.

They start you off with some raw veggies that you dip into a homemade miso dressing, which is quite good.

And here's a list of a few of the dishes we had. All were quite good and I really enjoyed eating there. Here's a chicken meatball:

Here's some chicken thigh meat:
These are grilled rice balls. The ones in back are a house specialty and have seaweed and seasonings mixed in.
Chicken wings (my favorite)
Chicken skin:
I'm not quite sure what this is, but it is a part of a chicken:
Chicken gizzards (another one of my favorites)
Mini zucchinis:
Shishamo (aka smelt)- This was Tom's favorite dish of the night.
Agedashi tofu:

Like I said, everything was super tasty and we were all stuffed when we left the restaurant.

After dinner, we went to Katie and Dustin's house, so Tom could meet their new kitty. My friend Raj, and his wife, Naina, were also there watching Game 1 of the World Series. (of course, by now you all know that my team won. Go Sox!). By the end of the fifth inning, the Sox were up 13-1, so we thought it was a good time to get some gelato.

A new place had opened just a few block from Katie's house in downtown Culver City, so we walked over there. It was pretty packed when we arrived, but they were quite obliging in putting a couple tables together for us so we could sit down. Here's a pic of the gelato case.As you can see, they were running low on just about everything. It'd been a warm day, so they unexpectedly sold out of almost every flavor.

I ended up ordering strawberry and pink lemon.
The strawberry was pretty good, though not my favorite. I preferred the pink lemon, but I enjoyed both and if I had a gelato place like this near me, I would certainly be going more often.

This place was more of a restaurant, though, and they served other desserts. Both Tom and Katie ordered the tiramisu, served in this little chocolate cupThe tiramisu was surprisingly good- not all mascarpone like many tiramisus tend to be. The chocolate cup, however, wasn't very yummy, though Tom still managed to finish his off.

It was getting late and we had a long drive back to the Bay Area the next day. So after we finished off dessert, we said good bye to my friends and headed home.

A DAY IN BERKELEY

As I type this, I'm watching the Sox on the verge of winning the World Series. (maybe) This entire series has made me miss Boston, but to make myself feel a little better, I'll remind you of why I live in the Bay Area.

As you know, now that I'm working again, I don't have "normal" days off. My days off are now on Wednesday and Thursdays, and with Tom having Saturday and Sundays off, we never get to spend a full day together. But we do spend our half days together. So one Thursday, we decided to meet my old college friend, Eileen, for lunch in Berkeley. However, since we weren't having lunch until 1, and we get up pretty early, we decided to get a snack at our local Vietnamese sandwich shop, Bah Le (just 3 block from home).

I love going here to get a quick lunch to take to work. I don't know what it is about Vietnamese sandwiches that makes them so great, maybe the pickled veggies, the crunchy cucumber, spicy jalapenos or soft, crunchy roll, I guess the combination of it all makes them extra yummy. Plus at $2.50, it's always an excellent deal. Tom and I are both fans of the bbq chicken sandwich, which is what you see below.

A couple of hours after our snack, we headed out to downtown Berkeley we went looking for Cafe Panini, a small sandwich shop tucked away in a courtyard. You wouldn't know from the outside that it's there, but since we had looked up the information on their website, it wasn't too hard to find. It was a beautiful sunny day and there was a bunch of outdoor seating, so we grabbed a table outside.

I decided to order a soup and half sandwich combo. To be honest, I'm really not sure what I ordered anymore (this was two weeks ago), but I do remember that the soup was pretty good, and the sandwich was kinda small. (though also good and made with very fresh ingredients). Also, when they say panini, what they really mean is a toasted sandwich, since when I think of panini, I'm thinking of something placed on a panini press and squished flat.

Meanwhile, here's Tom's sandwich. It was a pork loin sandwich and he thought it was ok. Again, it was surprisingly small, so he was still hungry afterwards. Luckily, Eileen is more familiar with Berkeley and suggested that we visit a gelato shop afterwards. (I guess it's common knowledge that I love gelato).

Here are some shots of the gelato case. They all looked very good and they were quite willing to give out samples. However, I ordered my usual- chocolate and strawberry.

I thought the flavors were quite good and I enjoyed the chocolate quite a lot. After lunch, Tom and I decided to head up to North Berkeley for their weekly farmer's market. Ever Thursday, the farmer's market in North Berkeley feature only organic farmers. And we already have our favorite stalls at the farmer's market.

We're big fans of pretzel man who makes these German style pretzels, but better.
We also like getting bites at Flacos, the vegan, vegetarian Mexican stall. Here's tom standing next to the sign. Yeah, it doesn't sound very good, but it really is. You can hardly notice that the taquitos are filled with tempeh rather than chicken. Ahhh, the miracles of frying. And here are some more pics from the market. Overall, it's great to spend an afternoon sitting the sun and enjoying some yummy snacks. I guess this California living isn't so bad afterall.

MY LAST POST AS A RESIDENT OF BOSTON

My last post from Boston is dedicated to my favorite eating buddy, Leah. (Sorry Tom, Leah’s favorite food of the year so far was not Brooklyn pizza.) I’m actually typing this from the airport while waiting for my plane to depart. FYI- Logan does have wifi, but you gotta pay $7.95 for a day pass, which is why I’m typing this on Word.

Leah and I have had some great meals together over the past few years, whether it’s been an ice cream cake for four (which was consumed by the two of us- hey it was hot out!) or French fries and mac and cheese at ES. And though we’ll be having many meals again in the future, it’ll be a lot harder now that there’s a continent between us.

So before I left Boston, Leah insisted that I try Picco, the pizza place in the South End.

She loves the pizza there, and though I’d wanted to go for some time, somehow, I never made my way over there. (I’m much more likely to have brunch than dinner in the South End.) Finally, early on a summer evening, we headed over there. When we arrived, they had the outdoor seating set up, and since it was pretty early, we had our pick of seats. We peeked inside, and I was immediately captivated by a large black chalk board listing all the homemade ice creams that were available. We chose to sit outside, and looked over the menu, but as the sun started to set, it really started cooling down, and we retreated inside. (The waitress didn’t seem too thrilled, since she’d already taken our orders, but whatever).

And on the subject of service, when we arrived, it seemed rather confusing and lacksadiscal. The restaurant wasn’t busy, but it was hard to be sure who was going to seat us, who was going to take our order, etc., and not one of the staff members really stepped up- Leah had to ask someone if we could sit outside. Leah said this was basically normal for Picco, so don’t be too surprised if the staff members are inattentive.

Ok, but onto the fun stuff- the pizza. Leah always orders the veggie pizza here. She also got a Caesar salad because she loves that the lay white anchovies on top of the salad. The Caesar actually did look pretty good, but I wanted to save room for the ice cream, so I ordered a pizza margherita and I also ordered Tom a steak and cheese pizza to go. (He was working at home and couldn’t join us.)

We’d moved inside, and the restaurant was empty, but slowly starting to fill up (it’d be mostly full by the time we left). Here’s a shot of the interior- lots of red and polished wood.

It’s actually smaller than you’d expect, but that’s another reason why it gets so crowded later on. Another waiter had taken over indoors and we were served our pizzas. Here’s mine:

And here’s Leah’s:

And the verdict: It was actually quite excellent pizza. The crust was well charred and the interesting thing was that it was almost like eating bread. The crust was similar to a bread from Clear Flour- with its texture, crackle and the large bubbles inside. I really enjoyed my pizza, and I think it’s far better than anything else we’ve got in Boston.

I also tried a slice of Leah’s pizza and I was surprised by the fact that I really enjoyed that, also. I didn’t think I would since among other things, the veggie toppings included eggplant and fennel, neither or which I like, but it worked and I would actually order this pizza in the future. As we ate, the restaurant started to fill up, and the staff seemed to snap to attention and started being much more speedy than before.

After pizza, it was time for some ice cream. I had been staring at the big black board for quite some time, so I’d decided I’d be getting 3 scoops. I got chocolate, caramel and espresso. Meanwhile, Leah also got three scoops, but they were the polar opposites. She got peach, peanut butter fudge and I currently forget the other flavor. Oh, and the came with free sprinkles. I got chocolate, and Leah got rainbow.

The ice cream is all excellent, but it’s grown up ice cream. The flavors are so deep and intense that it’s hard to eat a lot of it. It’s like really good dark chocolate, you can eat a square and be happy, rather than eating the whole thing. The espresso was my favorite, and the chocolate had the lovely nuances of whatever chocolate they had used (as in, it didn’t just taste like chocolate, you could get other flavors from it). I managed to finish a few spoonfuls of each, but was done for the night.

Meanwhile, maybe because of the table switch, they had forgotten my pizza to go. The waiter rushed over and offered a discount, but we didn’t feel like waiting for it- I just gave Tom the slices I had left (which he quickly polished off when I got home). I was really glad I tried Picco, but I was even happier with the company. It’ll be hard to find another eating buddy like Leah, who will agree to eat McDonald’s chicken nuggets because there’s a buy one get one free deal or someone just as enthusiastic about fried chicken. I guess I’ll just have to scope out some places to take her out West- like Betsy’s Bakehouse, with its fried chicken sandwich and spicy coleslaw.

As for the rest of you, I’ll soon be adding posts about my dining adventures from the East Bay. I hope you’ll all come out and visit us, so we can have some more great meals in CA.

GROM

Well, we had made it to New York. After a tiring drive down, we had some NY pizza for dinner and finally retired for the evening. My sister did bring me some lovely treats from LA. Mainly some fresh cherries! (They're in season in CA right now) And they were delicious. I started eating them as soon as I got them. The next day dawned sunny and very very warm. It was time to head out for some eats and a tour of NY. I had planned on heading up to Soho to check out Caffe Falai and picking up my anchovies from Despana, but we got a late start. So we decided to grab a quick breakfast and head up town. My sister and her bf, Ben, had not been to Central Park, and I thought it'd be a good time to check out Grom on the UWS.

There was a street festival in full swing when we arrived, but luckily, most New Yorkers had left for the holiday weekend. So when we showed up at Grom, the line wasn't very long.

Despite this, it was a bit of a wait because the employees didn't seem to have a system down yet (I guess it has only been open for a month).

So if you don't know what Grom is, it's an Italian gelato shop that's just opened its first location in the U.S. Both the NYTimes and mostly, Ed Levine, wrote a praising reviews of the place, so I had to check it out. I knew about the astronomical prices ($4.25 for a small) and the long lines, but I love gelato so much that I hoped it'd be worth the trouble.

We all ended up getting mediums, and for 4 people, it came out to be $24! (with tax). Here are the medium size cups. (And yes, the medium size is what we'd call a "small" at any other store). I ordered extra noir chocolate, ruby red grapefruit and cappuccino. Tom just got the grapefruit (a sorbetto, rather than a gelato)

And here's the almond granita that my little sis ordered.

So was it worth it? The ultimate verdict: not really. The gelato wasn't any more amazing than gelato I've had in Italy, but more than that, it wasn't so much more amazing than gelato I've had in the U.S.; most recently at Mozza and at Il laboratio del gelato and Capogiro. I mean, the gelatos were very good, and I really enjoyed the mellow, creamy flavor of the cappuccino, but at these prices, I'll go elsewhere. My sister's granita ended up being watery and too sweet. It tasted a lot like the almond jelly dessert that you get at dim sum. So if you happen to be up on the UWS, I'd suggest a trip, but to make a special trip out there? Don't bother.

We walked off our gelatos with a long walk through Central Park...all the way to the Nintendo Flagship store at Rockefeller Center where Tom had his favorite moment of the trip, buying himself a Wii. (Actually, my sister and her bf also bought consoles). After dropping them off at the hotel, we were ready for some lunch at the Red Hook Ballfields.