Flavor Boulevard

Downtown Berkeley are these two-faced blocks between Shattuck Avenue and Fulton Street. Facing Shattuck, they are adorned with picturesque lamp posts, shops and pubs, neon signs casting shadows of hustling pedestrians and huddling homeless men. Facing Fulton, they quietly gaze at the lush green west end of campus through glass windows of modern apartments. The quiescence called for some gathering, and Gather burgeoned.

It gleams with efficiency and environmental awareness. All ingredients are bought from local farmers. Seats are made with used suede and leather belts, candle covers are rolled up wine menus, diners and waiters respect the intimate spacing between tables, and food was served within a few minutes of placing an order, but not without intricacy.

Starting with the vegan charcuterie:

Clockwise from top left:1. (Yellow, red, and purple) beet tartare on horseradish almond puree, topped with arugula flowers; 2.  Baby potato celeriac salad dressed with olive sauce, served on “marrow” bean puree; 3. Braised mushroom bruschetta on sunchoke puree, adorned with leek fondue; 4. Bread; 5. Roasted “graffiti” cauliflower on almond pepper puree and a vegan “aioli” touch; 6. Roasted purple haze carrots, pea tendrils, and Jerusalem artichokes on cashew ricotta.

Surely you can tell from the picture that 3 and 6 were my favorites. The cashew ricotta was best among the five bases. The cauliflower had an odd hint of Indian food, or Mexican according to Mudpie. The bread was airy, chewy, and crunchy. The finely chopped beet tartare was plain, refreshing and texturally amusing. The flowers were earthy like all flowers you ever chew.

As soon as we used up the last piece of bread to wipe clean those tasty purees, our large plate rushed to the table. They call it the seared fava leaf chickpea cake, one of the restaurant’s new and proud assemblies. We daintily shared two mushy, tofu-like wedges with hidden leaves, lots of vallarta beans, tender baby artichokes, and crunchy frisee bathed in caramelized funnel rosemary vinaigrette.

Then we washed it down with a scoop of saffron tangelo sorbet, a clever mix most resembling of citrus seeds or grape seeds. Doesn’t one scoop seem too few?

That might just have been my only complaint about Gather. Its careful measure in both the source and the product of taste makes it lovely and fashionable. Gather was gratifying. But was Gather amazing? It’s hard to strip meat off the meal, there’s something in the condensed texture of muscle and the fatty taste of skin that makes vegan dining similar to black and white food photography. Now, the aesthetically appeasing B&W photographs are regaining popularity.

Goodness quantified:
Vegan charcuterie (14.00) + braised lamb (12.00) + Chickpea cake (15.50) + saffron sorbet (3.00) + tax
= $48.84

Gather Restaurant in Berkeley
2200 Oxford St. (at the corner with Allston, where Fulton becomes Oxford)
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 809-0400

Gather is right across the street from Azerbaijan Cuisine.
Another vegan restaurant in the area: Herbivore the Earthly Grill

How far would you go out of your way for a meal? A fairly casual common meal? One that you can whip out at home in less than two hours? How long of a drive would be worth the stead of cooking? How scenic is the route? Sometimes it’s not so much the food that draws one back to a restaurant, given that the food is lovely of course. Sometimes it’s that craving for a bit of simple nature and not artifice, a bit of old fashion and not modernity, just a bit of the familiar unknown. The longer my family lives in the city, the more often we get those cravings. Almost every year now we would make a two-hour drive to the Heritage Village in Woodville for a bowl of chicken and dumpling. And it’s best on a cloudy day of January, when the young pine trees along Highway 190 are at their greenest and fuzziest.

We never learned the name of this restaurant. We know where it is, we call it “the chicken and dumpling place”, and that’s enough. But it’s not just chicken and dumpling. It’s an all-you-can-eat country style with fried chicken, mashed potato and gravy, some kind of greens, beans, and corn bread. The chicken and dumpling is the best though. It’s thick but not too creamy or buttery. The partially dissolved dumplings have this lovely chewy feel to distinguish themselves from shredded chicken bits. With the right amount of salt and pepper I’d imagine it’d still be great without the chicken.

When I first came to Pickett House in 2002, they were still serving sassafras tea. That’s just my good luck and mishaps at the same time: it is the best sweet tea I’ve ever had, and that was the last time I had it. They say they couldn’t find any more sassafras root in the area. I don’t care if it has safrole and can cause liver cancer, it tastes good. (Hey people are still drinking those bitter, vinegar-like liquids that kill both brain cells and liver cells, aren’t they?)

On the sweet side, they’re still serving peach cobbler, so remember not to stuff too much dumpling and fried chicken down your pipe and save room for dessert. But if you don’t, like us, it’s ok to roll out happily with a tummy of southern Santa Claus. Or linger around, take a glance at the old school oil lamp on the wooden piano near the cashier, or the circus posters – some are dated before 1952. Or laugh along with the joke at the other table, friendliness makes a good meal taste like home. Or come outside, breathe in that fresh, brisk, unadulterated air, and feel revitalized.

Address: Pickett House Restaurant (in Heritage Village)
Highway 190 W
Woodville, TX 75979

Lunch for three will set you back by $32 pre-tip. Driving eastward along the highway from US-59, we’re bound to miss the left turn into the Heritage Village and its kitchen. So when you see a church, a parking lot, a gas station and other signs of human occupation, make a U-turn.The exit to awesome chicken and dumpling will be on the right.

Can’t find Pickett House? Another 15 minutes down the road into downtown Woodville is Z’s Fillin Station with more choices for the southern cravings.

If you insist on staying home, here’s a recipe from Christy Jordan’s Southern Plate.

Being a blatant ruthless carnivore all year round, I know that going vegan one day of the year won’t help me redeem myself in hell, but I still follow my mom’s tradition on the first day of Tet. No cheese, no animal milk, no bone marrow, no lard, no skin, no fishy business. It’s the first day of the new spring, everybody deserves to live, so we believe it’s nice to spare the lives of yummy things that can move. Or at least we should try not to cause their deaths. That means I have to find a vegan restaurant in Berkeley. Mudpie was estatic. (Mudpie has been fighting to go to Herbivore down the block for months, and I’ve been “gently” suggesting other places all this time.) Mudpie went online and picked his order even before we got there: the Indonesian noodle salad with tamarind dressing (pictured above).

When we got there the place was packed to the roof. Lucky for us, we got the last free table, and some folks who came later had to wait for at least an hour to be seated. If you wonder how I knew how long the wait was, it’s because that’s also how long we had to wait for our food. I had nothing to do within that hour except looking at other customers and eavesdropping on their conversation. The table arrangement is quite efficient, everyone’s utensil is within everyone’s neighbor’s reach. We ordered a yerba mate tea to sip boredom away. The hot kind comes in three choices: organic (plain, no sugar, no milk), organic latte, and chai spice tea; the chilled bottle kind is flavored with either raspberry or mint. The plain kind wasn’t anything spectacular. It’s just commonplace bitter like any other unflavored tea. I don’t want to sound snotty, but yerba mate is just another overhyped foreign substance, worthy of seeking after only for its novelty and cultural value.

Moving on to the food. The Indonesian noodle salad was like a garden harvest. Cucumber slices, pineapple and orange cubes, a few streaks of bean sprouts, lettuce, cilantro, cabbage, onion, whole peanuts, carrots, all partied up in a spicy chili pepper tamarind sauce. It was sour and refreshing. The thin rice noodle got lost in the jungle. For a salad, it scored well. For an entree, it needed more warmth and more substance.

What the noodle salad didn’t have, the “curry-coconut udon noodle” had: warmth and substance. I don’t know why it’s not “coconut-curry,” and I don’t know why it’s called “udon noodle,” because this was not udon. Texture aside, the curry noodle didn’t have what the noodle salad had: flavor. It was coconuty, but a pinch of salt and a few tablespoons of sugar would be a nice boost. After all, vegan food doesn’t have to be unseasoned food.

It’s not clear to me why Herbivore has gained such popularity in the region. The two entrees we got did not make us oomph and aahh. Looking around at other tables, we saw many sandwiches, italians and happy faces, so was it just us not picking the right plates? Being on the verge of disappointment, I almost decided to leave without dessert, but Mudpie and a second thought made me grab the waitress to order a wedge of vegan pie with one scoop of ice cream. We heard that strawberry rhubarb was good, but since it was out, we opted for the olallieberry pie (just because of the name). According to Wikipedia, the olallieberry is half blackberry, a quarter raspberry, and a quarter dewberry. The pie filling was more tart than sweet, which is always nice. The crust was thick, dense, and plain enough to shelter us from a sugar flood.  The mudslide vegan ice cream swept me off my feet with its creamy texture, chocolaty sweetness, and sneaky coconut shavings. If anything, this awesome dessert assortment would draw me back to Herbivore.

Address: Herbivore the Earthly Grill
2451 Shattuck Avenue (the corner of Shattuck and Haste)
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 665-1675

Click for Herbivore’s Menu

An order of 1 curry tofu noodles, 1 Indonesian noodle salad, 1 yerba mate organic tea (plain), 1 vegan pie + a scoop of ice cream set us back by $30. Overall, a decent and healthy catch. But in all fairness, dessert aside, Herbivore is not in the least comparable with Garden Fresh in Mountain View.

Two hours north east of Kingwood is this town Woodville. So peaceful is the thirty-some-mile long hilly road from Livingston to it, a thin ribbon through the verdency. Every year mom and dad find it rewarding to make the drive to eat chicken and dumpling at a local restaurant there, when the wind turns cold and the sky is covered in mesmerizing gray. But this year the pilgrimage took a different turn. We missed the chicken dumpling by half an hour, and starvation is not easily appeased with only a tranquil landscape. We drove further to downtown Woodville, found Jack in the Box and Z’s Fillin Station. It was God’s will? We pulled into Z’s Fillin Station.

Long menu. The hostess waited patiently for our order, but exhaustion showed on her face. She was also the cook. The host, big and friendly like any countryman of Texas, eagerly checked on us and was happy when we cleaned our plates. A few men in cowboy boots swaggered in, nodded hi to us. This part of Texas is rural and secluded, but it’s nice precisely because of that. People here are home-folk like the land they’ve settled on. The food, too, is bawdy.

Philly cheese steak, crawfish poboy, and grilled catfish all came in good portions. A hearty meal with good grease and good salt, with black pepper and bell pepper, with half-boiled broccoli fighting an uphill battle against cheese and butter. But at the end, although the food was absolutely life-saving on that day and quite delectable in its earthy nature, it wasn’t the memory-trigger for me about this “filling station”. What did it were the painted wooden bird houses, the doorbell connected to an iron weight by a rope and a pulley, the collection of car plates from all over the States – some dated back to the time Texas needed only three letters to identify a vehicle. It’s the pure romance in the rust. This place preserves a part of time for those who will not change no matter how the world transforms.

Address: Z’s Fillin Station
307 N Magnolia
Woodville, TX 75979
409-283-5300

Price: Lunch for 3 – 36.64

And here it is, I finally got a chance to blog about the chicken and dumpling joint that we missed.

It was 7 PM in Houston. Cold winds crept up the rustling trees. We were in the mood for kolaches. No kolache store was opened. (I would be surprised if I could even find some right after noon, it’s usually sold out by 9 AM at any local Shipley Donuts.) Desperate as we were for something small and meaty, we pulled into this backyard parking lot on a dark little street of Montrose. The name is cute, but… “Go Horns”?!*

A few years ago I would have shy away from any place resembling a shady, fuming pub with TV screens blasting out a football game, hoards of muscles with beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, and a gigantic burger streaming cheese and lard in front of the mouth. That’s what Little Big’s looks like from the outside. But the patio was empty. And so were our tummies.

Inside, it was a tamed ambience with three or four rows of long tables and high stools. It has a TV, and football was on, but no attentive enthusiasts screaming at the screen or banging mugs on the table. There was little room between the door and the counter to stand looking at the overhead menu, but luckily we had an expert of the area with us to quickly order and moved out of the way. Everyone walking in here seemed to know exactly what they were hungry for. Not that there are much to choose from on the card.

This joint doesn’t have mayonnaise out for a squeeze. I was in great despair, considering the array of mustards on display. Although the special house sauce was white and good, I thought I felt a tidbit of jalapeno or something equally mordant; besides, it lacked the creamy consistency of mayo. My worries quickly diminished, though. It was instant love at first sight between me and the sliders – baby burgers that can fit snuggly in your cupped palm and come in herds of three. Each herd will set you back by 5.79, an addition of cheese constitutes another 69 cents. Who needs the busy shebang of tomato, lettuce, and those of vegetable origin that keep falling out embarrassingly every time you take a bite? The beef patty admits a layer of rich, juicy grilled onion, and the fried chicken breast was comfortable with a slice or two of pickles. (As Katie put it, Chick-fil-A knows their stuff.) But that was it. A slider epitomizes the way to eat a burger: if you want one, don’t let guilt cover it up with skimpy fresh bits of greens. There is no such thing as a tasty healthy burger, beside one that is only savoured by the eyes.

*Texas A&M was the only school I applied to, so I consider myself a pure bred Aggie.

Before you say hey dummy foreigner, learn how to spell, no, I did not come up with “potatoe”. Potatoe Patch did. And I think it’s pretty cute.
These days it’s been hard to find wholesome meat within walking distance and spending measure (for a frugal grad student). The best one can afford around Berkeley is little slivers of chicken in a *huge* bundle of pad thai, or minced pork in cheap dim sum. I can’t help but posting about this now to ease the carnivore’s mind.

I would flat out say that this is our most-frequently-visited American restaurant. Great food. Good price. Excellent service. A serving here would freak out the health-conscious, nitpicking nimble diner, but who cares. We’re here for the hearty, generous embrace of baked potatoes in melting cheese and sour cream, of thick gravy, of sizzling steak, of tingling barbecue sauce, of a full rack of ribs so tender it falls of the bone.

Forget fork and knife. Ribs are sweeter and better with fingers, and so is a philly cheese, that which should be called philly meat not philly cheese. Gooey, mushroomy, beefy. Good fries, too.

But forget all that. Potatoe Patch is home of throw’d rolls. The best rolls I have ever had. It’s crusty outside, fluffy inside, the dough is so gently sweet. It’s warm. A guy goes around with a tray of freshly baked rolls, you raise you hand, and he throws it to you, sometimes from across the room. And you know it’s a good catch. I would go on TV and do a commercial for this even if they only pay me with unlimited fresh rolls. If it’s not a very busy time for the roll thrower, he’d be happy to throw you as many as you want, make sure you stock up on them. We do every time we come here. Makes perfect breakfast piece for the morrows.

I should be fair and say that they also have great muffins, which usually aren’t throw’d. But nothing, I repeat, nothing, beats the rolls. Even the meat.

Each serving of philly cheese or sirloin steak sets you back by roughly 9 dollars. A full rack of ribs costs 17.95. Total (including tax): $38.59

Address: The Potatoe Patch #1
2504 FM 1960 East
Houston, TX 77073
281-443-3530