Matt "10^400" R.'s Profile

Oh, what we Americans lose with our solid rejection of the 2-hour midday lunch. Sure, we can maximize our productivity by stuffing some not-quite-stale leftovers in a Tupperware to be microwaved in some grease-encrusted appliance in the fluorescent-lit breakroom, and consuming this treat with plastic spoons in our cubicles. If your next-door cubemate excuses himself due to the toxic smell of stinky sauce and stale meat--oh well, that's the price of diligence.

Ah, but to split up your long, still-productive day with a real mid-day meal.  That's how one lives.  That's how one finds inspiration. It was my birthday. LaVal's wouldn't cut it. I needed a real two-hour lunch. Corso understood my needs.

They understood others' needs as well--all the two-tops were full at 12:45 on a Tuesday. Settling in at the bar was good enough.  They offered a pasta-of-the-day special (with salad and wine for $12) plus a substantial spread of primi and secondi. Although the meat and fish looked great, we decided to be American and stick with only pastas. The salad that came with the special was just perfect, the best greens with a precisely calibrated dressing, and although it was a dish for one, it split well. The pasta di giorno was exactly what I'd want from any small trattoria in central Italy--but with Californian ingredients. Firm pasta. Fresh sauce. The oily punch of anchovies. Our second pasta stepped it up a notch. A chewy orecchiette put down a nice foundation for a rich white wine and sausage broth, supporting a small stack of sweet Manila clams. Yahweh blew it big time when he laid down the dietary rules, because shellfish and pork are a match made in heaven. It was a fairly straightforward lunch, and not too expensive, but the overall formulation and presentation captured the best of Italy and California.

The wine list, particularly by the glass, is limited but interesting. The Montepulciano that can with the lunch special was a solid Italian red. But the Marche red on the by-the-glass list was unique and special, with a strong floral nose and great flavor.

Dessert was suitably decadent--big chocolate and caramel flavors befitting a birthday lunch. Ai ya. Luckily they could also lay down an authentic cafe macchiato to finish the meal. Service was very casual but also very friendly. When you sit at the bar you have to accept that you're part of the action, and will see the details of orders and expediting (so why did the cook want 16oz of brandy?). Perhaps it wasn't elegant, but there was no doubt that the "Hey, happy birthday, bro" I received on the way out was entirely genuine. Authenticity beats scripted service any day. I've seen the elegant side of these folks at Rivoli, and while that place is much more formal, they also have the good sense and good humor to know when to lighten up and roll with it: http://www.yelp.com/bi...

I was surprisingly productive for the rest of the day. Maybe I should do this more often. I need to come back for dinner.

Charlotte and the fine folks at Phat Matt's have finally realized their dream of a full-time restaurant!  I'll miss the Farmers' Market lunches, but I'm excited about access to the best pulled pork this side of the Blue Ridge being available six days a week.  It's still the same great meat with the same great sauces, fully rendered to tender goodness.

Don't miss the collard greens (perfectly cooked in a pile of pork fat) and the peach cobbler.

They still cater.  Damn.

I like watching professionals do exceptional work.  One way to see this is to have a snack or dinner at the bar at Sidebar, and ask for a glass of wine to go with the food. The suggestion might be pricey, but it'll always be excellent. Why? Watching other glasses of other wines go out, I noticed the bar staff pouring small samples of a lot of the stuff that was sent to the tables. There was tasting, discussion, evaluation. If you asked questions, you could find out what they thought.

What a nice place to have as a local.

So I recently learned about "re-entry."  You spend a significant amount of time in a different cultural environment and return home to find that things are different. You need some time to sort out the transition.

Eh, after two weeks living under the Italian sun, I really wanted a burger. Time to dive back in.

Adam's Burger delivered a straightforward cheeseburger. It's in the style of Giant or Ahn's, but with a surprising freshness you don't find at those places. The lettuce was cool and crisp. The tomatoes were red, not orange, and ripe and tasty. The meat was juicy. The mayo was light, thankfully. The service was friendly.

It's nothing fancy, but I just wanted a cheeseburger.

The drive-in of my dreams.

A rare warm night in Oakland. Too hot to cook. Not enough outdoor seating in the Town for all those exiled from un-airconditioned homes. We need more than truck tacos on the hood of the car, as good as those truck tacos are likely to be.

Mariscos la Costa. It's been years. Too long.

Pull into the parking lot under the old-school sign that you'd expect to say "1/4lb GIANT Burger," find a plastic picnic table, and order at the window.  Grab a few tacos. They are good. Then order lots of ceviche. On tostadas, or in a cocktail bowl, but try more than one. Both white fish and shrimp ceviches featured clean, fresh seafood, perfectly cured in the lime juice, with a gloriously hot and cool mix of spices. Absorb the warm night air. Listen to the music of the passing cars on International. Crunch a few bits of escabeche. Dig into the pile of acidified fish flesh. Sip your Coke. Go back for seconds.

I wish for more warm fall nights in Oakland.

Great location, well organized, affordable...but not "cheap."

There's nothing like spending two days hanging with 50,000 of your fellow Bay Area foodies.  Highlights?  Five different kinds of 'cue.  Kara's Cupcakes. Linden and Magnolia beers. 5e5 farinata. Hot links with cheese and jalapenos. Aguas frescas. Roasted peppers. Corn. Lemonade. Ginger beer. Olive oil. Lots and lots of filtered water.

The heat slowed everyone down on Saturday, but Sunday was a beautiful Oaklandish summer day, with a stiff cool breeze, sailboats cruising by, plenty of sun, and friendly folks from the neighborhood eating too much local food. The lines were long but the vendors were efficient, and the $5-or-less pricing kept it reasonable, even though they didn't have the (business) advantage of discount industrial pseudofood ingredients from the local Sam's Club. Good food costs money, but it's nice to see that good food can cost a little *less* money than you might expect based on restaurant menus.

I hope this becomes a regular event. Finally, a food festival that gets it right.

I travel a lot. I'm a scientist. This combination means I often end up in cool places, but traveling and meeting with colleagues who aren't at all into the food scene. I applaud them for realizing that you can order Dominos, sit in your room, do work, and still claim the full per-diem. I am not that kind of scientist. So I look for the best places to eat, sit at the bar, and see what they can do for solo traveler. Da Marco put together one of the finest solo dining experiences I've had in all of my travels.

So I sat at the bar, by myself. It's a small bar, more or less a place for drinks to be distributed, but I'd rather not huddle at a table. So I get to enjoy the sight of a busy restaurant in operation. Da Marco runs in Spanish and Italian, sometimes interchangeably. I tried to follow it all, watching wine fly out of the temperature-controlled cabinets, pizzas fly in and out of the wood-fired oven, and desserts materialize on the counter on their way to meet some lucky diner. I start a conversation with the man behind the bar (in English, due to my weak skills elsewhere), who I guess is also the sommelier, and start a great dinner.

I taste a few wines by the glass, leaning toward a dolcetto, but the pro steers me toward a "super Tuscan" that is actually lighter and more weather-appropriate. First course is a frisee salad with pears and taleggio. The greens and cheese are generous. The dressing is perfectly balanced. As an entree, I went with a braised lamb pasta. Homemade cut pasta, similar to Umbrian strangozzi, was bathed in warm rendered lamb bits. But here, a sauteed or stewed and shredded rapini was added to make the dish both healthier and deeper in flavor. It was great. Crusty bread lurked on a plate to the side, ready, if needed, to clean up the last of the sauce. Looking for a wine pairing for all this, the fine gentleman behind the bar directed me away from the dolcetto again and toward a nero d'Avolo, which was a perfect complement to the lamb.

Having skipped a secondi, I could handle dessert, and the warm chocolate ricotta was recommended and an obvious choice. Served with a cold coffee granita, the hot-coffee-cold-chocolate combo was turned inside out, with the mousse-like ricotta, covered in a darker chocolate crust and baked, running the show with help from a shot glass of granita and unsweeted whipped cream. Very nice. A small glass of passito appeared to complement dessert.,

Around this point, the chef and the pasty chef both came out to say hello, and the conversation turned to Italian travel, Mexican street food, and where one can find Texas cinghiale. There was also a comparison between passitio and recioto, which I had to cut short due to the need to 1) drive home and 2) be useful as a scientist tomorrow morning.

But such a damn good meal.  Not inexpensive, even after avoiding the pricey specials like the whole branzino al forno, but the food, service, and for a solo traveler, a comfortable place to sit and talk food, made it a great value.  

Grazie mille y muchisimas gracias, senors e signores.

Updated again 8/18/09. Still a wonderful dining experience. This time I started with a mezcal tasting paired with a nice glass of gazpacho. Then, an excellent salad. And finally, one of the best seafood plates I've had in ages.

In the last year or so, I've had some good octopus.  In Mexico City, and in New York at Batali's Babbo. They were very good. This stuff was great. The mariscos al ajillo piled an impressive stack of braised sea creatures before me. Shrimp (whole!), scallops, clams, mussels, lobster tail, and yes, octopus.  Everything was excellent, but the octopus was just spot on. Perfect texture, perfect flavor, it competed with the lobster as the king of the plate. When done wrong, our eight-legged friends can stink up the house, but not here. The whole chili garnish added gradual heat to the dish as I ate, making this impressive oceanic protein feast manageable.

The churros with Mexican hot chocolate are still awesome. Service was great for a solo traveler--I could sit at the bar and get everything I wanted, plus a little company. I must thank the folks on either side of me for entertainment, although I won't post the details of the overheard conversation here.

I look out my window and see the Lake every day. Since 2003, and visited quite a bit for a few years before that. Despite the occasional scent of low tide and stratified fresh-and-salt water biological zones, it's the gem of Oakland. Measure DD has been adding graded running paths, rebuilt piers, landscaped banks, and now, the Lake Chalet in the old boathouse.

It's beautiful.

I've been sailing by the old dock for years. It was always crusted in geeces (goose feces), and looked like it was rotting into oblivion. The boathouse seemed ready to sink into the Lake. But now it's rebuilt, redecorated, seismically improved, and open for business.  The Beach Chalet people from SF took charge, and they made something out of it.

The food is rich and slightly pricey, as to be expected considering the location and setup, but the Chalet folks seem to know what they're doing and put out a decent product and a decent experience.  Raw bar items were consistently good. Oysters were clean, fresh and sweet across varieties. Ceviche was great, if somewhat lettuce-heavy in the serving. Fried foods ranged from good--the tasty but not quite crispy calamari, to great--to the great, the creamy, rich brandade fishsticks. A hamhock and pea soup was warm and comforting. Shrimp spaghetti was tasty, although very mild in flavor. Duck breast was a standout. Crabcakes were not a good value--coin-sized after fillers (shocking enough that we had to say something) although they looked tasty enough.  The burger was substantial and well made. Desserts were decadent. The dishes vary in value. I'm not sure why some are more expensive than others, although everything was pretty good, some stuff was an excellent value while other items seemed pricey. The location and circumstances of the reconstruction explain some of this, but be aware.

The booze was great, and Oakland now has an excellent sunset drinks place.  The beer is standard Chalet homebrew, with a yeasty nose and serious flavor in 19oz glasses in the $6 range. Guest brews complemented the selection. Cocktails are expensive, but good--and creative. Others seemed happy with the champagne. I'll delve into the wine list next time.

The setting is just stunning. The bar seats either have a direct water view, or face a wall of mirrors that give a water view.  Warm wood, brushed metal, cool marble, dark tile--you feel good the moment you walk in. The outside dock has been cleaned up and restored, and there is outdoor seating (a barbeque and bar outside hint at the possibilities). If you walk all the way out, you're well into the lake, at a point that few people who haven't done Oakland sailing will ever see. The lights twinkle on the shore, the Parkway sign still lights up E. 18th, the Grand Lake sign glows brightly, and the houses on Adams Point and China Hill  present warm glowing windows to reflect upon the water. The gondoliers now use this dock as well, adding an extra dimension to the experience.

The service, despite a few opening-week kinks, kept things under control. When support staff couldn't keep up with utensils and napkins, the servers moved in to correct it. The guy managing our bar seats knew the menu up and down, respected the food, and has great beer and booze pairings to suggest for the various dishes. We were a bit of a tough bunch, with Yelpers, boozers, and foodies coming and going and ordering out of order, but the staff didn't flinch. On a later, quieter visit, the table service was casual but competent. The dockside service is somewhat mixed, but they only serve drinks at this point, so there's not much to evaluate. I do wonder why there is such a hard division between the dock and restaurant--the food, beer, and drinks are strictly segregated. If the dock runs out of a beer, there's no help from the restaurant a few feet away. Strange.

It's a good start, and I want to thank the Chalet folks for putting together a place that brings out the best in my 'hood. I'll be a regular to support the effort. Keep the bar and dock going and I'll be there on warm nights.

One downside: parking on Lakeside is tight, and most of the spaces beyond the lake shore use the old coin-operated meters...running until 8pm. Since I'd never have a pocket full of shrapnel handy, this can be a problem.

The atmosphere is a little like Ghetto Gourmet gone above-ground.  Or maybe like the house I'd like to buy around the corner. Or maybe it's a balance to Sidebar at the other end of the Grand Av.--one sleek and glossy, the other warm and rustic.

Both Sidebar and Grand Tavern offer streamlined menus, a wide range of drinks, and moderate prices. But Grand Tavern goes for simple comfort. There's a small dark bar by the front door, a dining room around a fireplace in the front of the old house, a lounge area in the middle, a backyard patio, and a new deck out front.. Lighting is dim, music is mild, and service is friendly, understated, slightly disorganized, but always eager.

The booze list lays out quite a wine adventure, with tons of stuff you've probably never tried but want to, just based on the name. The beers are heavily Belgian, as is usual in the mid-range Oakland bar scene, and are served in matched glassware. The cocktails look great, although they're sticking with the established $10 price point that may or may not be what sticks in this economy.

The food I tried on the first visit was pure gourmet comfort. The beef sandwich was a big gooey pile of tender meat, with some greens for garnish, but cheese as the true partner. It was served on the excellent Acme pain epi bread. The "social skin" fries filled the rest of the plate, giving you a good caloric bang for the buck. The fries are just great--like thick, undercooked potato chips covered in zesty seasoning. The pile seemed like too much, until I found that I had a stack of carbs and a full beer in front of me--too good to pass up.

The folks running the place seemed genuinely happy to see everyone who came through the door. The owner came by to say hello. The servers kept up without being intrusive, and everyone seemed to pitch in to keep things moving, although at one point there was some miscommunication about the bill as more than one party moved in to take care of things.

A fine addition to the neighborhood.

UPDATE: Come by on warm nights. The Chalet was a zoo, as it was 80F tonight at 10pm, but we found space at the back of Grand Tavern. A beautiful place to sit on a warm night--it was like being at a party hosted by a cool friend of a cool friend. You don't know the hosts all that well, but they're making you feel welcome anyway.