Andy "The Breakfast Whisperer" M.'s Profile

Either tastes change or things have improved over the years. Despite my initial somewhat negative experiences, I kept finding myself back at Rudy's - partly because of the location, and partly because of the ambiance - and suddenly I realized that I had somehow started liking it.

Yes, it does get crazy busy at times (come early and you're fine), and the vibe is pretty hipster/faux-badass (oh well), but the food - especially breakfast - is totally solid. Fantastic hash browns done right every time, great French toast, quality bacon, lots of creative options you don't see elsewhere, and fast, pleasantly sassy service. It's not gourmet, but it's diner+ and often just what I'm looking for on a weekend morning (especially when I don't want the slow as molasses wait at Brown Sugar Kitchen).

Bring your appetite - these folks specialize in making you waddle out the door feeling like you need to loosen your belt.

If anything, they may go a bit too far down this road for my taste. I like generous portions, but The Alameda, which seems to be a favorite, takes this to the extreme: mushrooms, ham, roasted tomatoes, and Swiss cheese, stuffed between two pieces of French toast, topped with two eggs over-easy and Hollandaise sauce. Oh, and don't forget the balsamic reduction. You need a team of Olympic wrestlers to take this thing down in a single meal, and it's unfortunately reminiscent of the SNL Taco Town skit.

When I return - and I will - I'll focus on ordering something a bit lighter than, say, the pigs in a blanket, and maybe I'll be less overwhelmed and able to enjoy it a bit more.

Miette has been teasing me for months looking almost open in their new Oakland location, so I was really happy to find today that their doors are finally open. Even better, they had exactly what I was looking for - their ridiculously delicious cupcakes. They're a bit small for $3.25, but they're so moist and delicious I can't possibly complain. The gingerbread with cream cheese icing is about as good as it gets, although the chocolate with strawberry butter cream might even be a bit better (how can you choose?).

They're still in the setup phase and not everything seems to be in place yet, but as long as they have a steady supply of cupcakes they'll be keeping me happy.

I just stumbled across Subrosa today, and I'm really glad I did - one of the best cappuccinos I've had in quite a while.

I'm loving the artisan coffee explosion that's gripped the Bay Area recently, but, truth be told, half the places out there serving coffee made with fancy beans simply don't know what to do with them to make an excellent cup of coffee. When I order a cappuccino, I don't want a cup of under-roasted bean tea that tastes mostly of scalded milk, thank you very much.

SubRosa gave me just what I want, not timid at all but not a roasty sledgehammer either. The barista was really nice and I liked their quirky plant/bottle collection. I'll definitely be back for more - I hope other people do too, as it's honestly a bit hidden and I would never have seen it had I not been walking by on an errand.

Just last week I was in NY staring somewhat angrily at a half-eaten Shake Shack burger wondering what pact with the burger devil they had made to make it so damn tasty. I can't make them that good, and I don't know anywhere in the Bay Area that makes them that good - so what's a Bay Area boy to do other than pine for the next trip to the Big Apple?

As chance would have it, I just discovered TrueBurger, a burger joint obviously inspired by Shake Shack (complete with similar menu lingo and the clever cheese-stuffed mushroom burger) and doing it's best to reproduce the flavor and experience here in the East Bay.

I gotta say, they get pretty damn close in many regards, most importantly the burger itself which has the same super-seasoned, cheesy-creamy-garlicky-drippy can't-get-it-in-your-mouth-fast-enough yumminess of the NY original. Hats off to them for getting it so close. It is a bit pricier than the Shack, but the burgers are also larger, so I can't complain.

There's really not much bad to say, maybe just a few things they could improve for my personal taste:
1) The much lauded shakes here I found just okay - the coffee shake was weakly flavored, so I'd probably stick with vanilla and chocolate
2) The egg bun wasn't eggy as far as I could discern, and a bit cakey. Not bad, but it didn't have any real personality.
3) Magically create a large outdoor patio. I know, I know, pure fantasy, not really helpful, but a guy can dream, right?

I'm a little torn on how to review Brown Sugar - overall I'm a fan, but there are pluses and minuses to almost everything here and your experience will largely depend on when you go and how hungry you are when you arrive.

First and foremost, the food is good. Really good. But the portions are small and the prices are generally a bit too high.

The people are really friendly and the place is really a charmer in many ways, but you have to bring your patience as you're often in for a wait even if you get seated right away.

The waffle is clearly the house specialty and is much talked up here on Yelp and elsewhere, and my oh my it's a delicious and peculiar thing. But they aren't very filling, they're not cheap, and they're in such demand that you will often have to wait patiently for your not so filling waffle to arrive.

The best advice is this: go early on a weekday. You'll get seated right away, and the waffle will be yours in short order.

Things you should know before you go:
- Is it cold outside? It'll be cold inside too. Bring a sweater. Good god it's cold in there.
- There's some sort of odd waffle shortage that they should have sorted out by now, perhaps by getting another waffle maker or 6, but they haven't. Either choose to be patient or don't order it and get some other tasty thing. And if you do get a waffle, get something else on the side like an egg or bacon as they're really light and not very filling.
- Don't come intent on having beignets during the week - they only exist Friday-Sunday.
- A bunch of reviews have mentioned the ooBlay ottleBay Coffee - they actually serve Roast Coffee Co., just FYI.

Finding a good biscuit around the Bay Area is no easy feat. Lois the Pie Queen has good biscuits, Blackberry Bistro has even better biscuits, Aunt Mary's biscuits are heart-stoppingly buttery bits of perfection. I didn't want to share. Back off.

I could just stop right here - they could have served me a bowl of gravel and I'd probably give them 5 stars simply because of the biscuits. But everything else was juts as good: southern bubble and squeak (a funny concept, but delicious and authentic b&s), long-cooked spicy greens, a delicious chard scramble, creamy golden grits, malted waffles, rich coffee. This is some serious happy breakfast food.

There was only one minus: really tempting brunch specials that only get served after 10 and I was there at 9. The fact that I couldn't get them made me only want them more. So now I have to go again to try the specials - oh darn, twist my arm.

I had just left Chop Bar with my Yucatan Chicken sandwich to go, when I see Jerry Brown crossing the street towards World Ground, presumably for lunch. "Hey," I think to myself, "there's Jerry Brown off to get a sandwich. I wonder what type of sandwich Jerry Brown eats."

I would have followed him into World Ground just to see what he was going to order, but (a) that would have been kinda weird, and (b) I was holding a frickin' Yucatan Chicken sandwich that demanded to be eaten quickly. The Yucatan Chicken is my current favorite East Bay sandwich, even beating Bakesale Betty's fried chicken, the Sierra Deli banh mi, and Brazil Fresh Squeeze Cafe's tri-tip, and it's best when hot, so getting down to eating it trumps the occasional ex-governor sandwich order recon mission.

Back at work, nerd that I am, I tweet to the world that I just saw @JerryBrown2010 walking to get a sandwich. Minutes later the man himself responds - it turns out he had the pepper turkey sandwich at World Ground. Not bad, Jerry, but you were one Yucatan Chicken sandwich away from a locked-in vote. So the question remains, what type of sandwich does Gavin prefer?

Piedmont Ave. has been in need of a good coffee shop for a long time. There are plenty of places to get coffee, but none of them make a particularly good espresso. Now that Trieste has moved in, that's changed.

I like the feel of the place - they did a nice job with the ambiance, and I like the back patio seating on warm days. There are more food options than I expected, but I'd wager that this will get pared down over time if the demand isn't there - for their sake, I hope it is, but I'm just happy to have a nice place to get a good cappuccino, chill out and read a book and I don't really need the panini.

Trieste is by far the most comfortable cafe on the street, and I'm happy to see open, attracting some attention, and making some good espresso.

A brunch review only - I haven't been for dinner, but after my brunch experience I highly doubt I'll be back:

Camino is expensive, pretentious, and the food is simply not that tasty. I went with some friends that really love the brunch here, but unfortunately I didn't get it at all and I left in a pretty bad mood. I adore breakfast: it's my happy food. This breakfast made me really unhappy.

The pricing here is hilarious. A "basket of grilled bread" is $3, which at first blush sounds a bit expensive, but when it arrives with 3 small pieces of partly burnt Acme bread ($1 a slice), it's like a culinary slap in the face. Everything else follows suit, from the 3 doughnut holes for $6 to the two unaccompanied eggs for $5 and the $10 French toast.

I love rustic food, but it was taken to such an unnecessary extreme here that it became pretentious and felt like an unwelcome lecture in every bite. The salad was weedy and unbalanced, the homemade sausage was piggy, still pink inside and tough to stomach, the coffee was hand ground with an old crank machine but oddly bland, the oven baked eggs were ugly and unadorned. It's food that you are supposed to appreciate on a philosophical level, but sadly had no redeeming flavor or appearance to back it up. This was especially sad given the price tag.

The fact that everyone in the kitchen was rail-thin is telling: they're clearly not sampling their own food, but they need to as it was all underseasoned or overly strong in unpleasant ways. The oven baked eggs with herbs and cream sounded good on paper, but the final product had no seasoning, no flavor, and had a gloppy curdled consistency. This appears to be a standard on the menu, but needs to be seriously rethought.

On the plus side, the cappuccino was very pretty, I liked the look of the place and the salvaged tables and chairs, and the front of the house staff was friendly and seemed competent. Clearly there are people that appreciate what Camino's doing, but while I understand the concept, the execution left a heck of a lot to be desired. Maybe brunch isn't their strength?