Flavor Boulevard

One very cold Saturday afternoon in Oakland.

Darren: Normally I don’t like fruit flavored stuff, like watermelon candies you know?
Mai: Yeah, like cherry candies…
Darren: But this mango ice cream is really good!
Mai: It is! I like the green tea the most though, it’s so refreshing. What about you, Kristen?
Kristen: I usually don’t like strawberry flavors, but this strawberry one is so good…

Good thing we each had a different favorite.

When the girl took up our empty sushi plates and asked if we wanted dessert, we were already stuffed, which is a given every time Kristen and I go out together. But we asked the girl what’s on anyway, and she listed, if I remember correctly in my post-food stupor, “tempura ice cream, green tea ice cream, red bean ice cream, green tea cheesecake, seven flavors of mochi ice cream, which includes mango, vanilla, strawberry, green tea, red bean, coffee and chocolate”. We looked at each other for two seconds then at her.

– Can we have the seven flavors, please?
– You want all seven?!
*Looks exchanged*
– Uh… it’s not a thing of seven mochis?
– Well we can make a platter of that too. You want that?
– Yes please. *sheepish grin*

Never turn down ice cream.

Zero complaints on the tempura and the rolls too, they’re Americanized of course and we didn’t do any nigiri nor any of us Japanese. But if you’re American, happen to be near the intersection of Piedmont and Echo in Oakland while hungry for sushi, Shimizu is a sure bet.

Address: Shimizu Japanese Cuisine
4290 Piedmont Avenue
Oakland, CA 94611
(510) 653-7672
shimizucuisine.com

Volcano Scallop ($7.95) – Battered and deep fried scallops with sweet soy sauce

Mom posed a question and I can’t conjure up any adequate answer for her: why does Korean fried chicken only appear in holes in the wall?

Not just a simple hole-in-the-wall thing in a busy strip mall, it has to either stand alone in an empty lot or sit at a shady street corner with iron folding doors and a few rowdy-looking guys smoking outside. Granted that those guys look Korean and the signs are in Korean, which confirms the authenticity of the place, and these are Korean drinking establishments after all. But does it have to be so shady? I want to walk down the street and eat fried chicken late at night sometimes…

The fried chicken bits with green onions at Kang Tong Degi (강통 돼지, which should be pronounced |Kang Tong Twe Jee|) might be good enough to risk it though. Frankly there’s less chicken on that plate than fried batter and green onion, but since when did fried chicken become so refreshing? A squeeze of lemon makes all the difference.

Thanks to Kristen’s mom, we three shared 8 dishes that covered tofu, seafood, chicken, pork and beef, one of them was a portion for two; the guy’s look of concern was funny, he even asked if we were sure. (We had plenty of leftovers of course. Nothing beats eating with moms. ;-)) Although “twe jee” (돼지) means pig or pork, this shack has good but not the best pork dishes. Kwen chan thah, their haemul soondubu (해물 순두부, soft tofu soup with seafood) and haemul pajeon (해물 파전, seafood onion pancake) are top of the game.

The wallpaper and the table arrangement are just too cute.

Address: Kang Tong Degi (강통 돼지)
3702 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 658-2998

Soft tofu soup with shrimp, squid and clam. It looks fierce but tastes just slightly spiky. It was a good warm-up.

Banchan (side dishes). The only place I’ve seen that serves little crunchy shrimps. Yum yum.

Kimchi fried rice. In a moment of joy I dropped my camera head first onto the sunny-side-up, breaking the yolk and clouding my lens. Hence the dreamy look.

A guy waved a bottle in front of me. “Nesquik?”, he asked. I shook my head no thanks. Five seconds after he walked away, I realized my stupidity. I missed a free bottle of Nesquik! I don’t remember drinking Nesquik for the past 15 years, or ever, but I know what it tastes like, and I like chocolate. Why did I say no?!

Because I live in Berkeley. One thing Berkeley trains you very well for is saying no. Each time you walk pass a homeless man or woman, whether he or she asks for spare change or curses you off or shouts “nice dress”, you silently say no. Each time an activist steps up to you and says “Hi how’s it going? Would you have a minute to talk about …?” and you can barely tell what it’s about because he or she squeezes those two sentences in the hundredth of a second you lift your foot, you say no, usually with a smile because you feel bad. So you prepare this automatic respond when a stranger sticks something under your nose: No thank you. And you end up missing the free Nesquik.

But Berkeley also makes you nicer. And it’s not because the hippies convince you about world peace or anything. First it’s because you travel by bus. The bus always comes late, and not everyone sitting next to you has showered in the past 30 days, so you learn patience. Second, it’s because, as the saying goes, “it’s Berkeley, you can do anything“, and people, including you, wouldn’t bat an eye, so you learn acceptance. Then there’s the protests (boy do Berkeley students love protests, although those never yield any result beside some kid ending up behind a police car). I could list a dozen other reasons. But mostly, it’s because you see everybody from every corner of the world. My first encounters with the Serbian, Iranian, Bosnian, Tibetan, Korean, Japanese, Eritrean, Ethiopian people, and the smell of marijuana all happened in Berkeley. And those encounters (except the marijuana) quickly became friendships.

So I used to get a little uneasy, and I’m ashamed to admit this because I know it’s mean, when I saw Chinese people selling Vietnamese food. Here’s what I think: they don’t make it right, so they shouldn’t call it Vietnamese food. (I’m disturbed when Vietnamese people sell bad Vietnamese food too, because that’s disrespecting your own people.) And I avoided Vietnamese restaurants owned by Chinese. But when I strolled all over Oakland Chinatown last week, there were some occasional raindrops, the sky was grey, it was getting cold, and I just visited the Japanese Buddhist Church for the O-bon festival. All of those things put me in an exceptionally good mood. Although I set out to find Vietnamese snacks, it quickly became clear that I wasn’t going to find any, so when I walked by a window sign of “banh mi, bun bo Hue, banh canh” and a list of other Vietnamese staples, I caved.

Five minutes later, I ordered a cơm tấm (broken rice) with grilled pork “for here”. The lady pointed me to Table 2 (Let’s refer to her as Lady 2 from now on, many ladies worked at this joint). I put down my bags.

Then she exchanged a couple of words including “xiè xiè” to a couple sitting at Table 4. Yep. It’s Chinese people selling Vietnamese food.

Well, that’s okay, I diverted my gaze to the TV, Lady 2 also made herself a bowl of noodle soup and watched a Vietnamese movie while eating. It was hard to hear the TV because the following things happened during the course of my dinner: a customer dashed out into the street while Lady 2 shouting after him in Vietnamese to tell him to run slower, Table 4 chatted loudly in Chinese upon his return, Vietnamese customers coming in to buy banh mi and cha lua to go (the only dine-in people were Chinese and me), and as I scooped up the few last spoons of rice, a fight broke out outside, which caused Lady 2 and everyone else rushing to the street. I had to stop Lady 2 to pay, her eyes still directed a yearning gaze door-ward.

When I told my mom about the fight, she suggested against going back to such place, who knows when the fight will take place in the restaurant. I see her point, but I think I’d risk it. The com tam, and that includes the grilled pork, the broken rice, the nuoc mam and the pickled carrots and daikons floating in it, was beyond perfect. 🙂

Price: $6.75
Address: Ba-Lê Deli, Coffee, Restaurant
812 Franklin St (between 8th and 9th St.)
Oakland, CA
(510) 465-3522

Ever since the steamed duck at Shanghai Dumpling King, I’ve been haunted by the juiciness of a duck done right.

When my friend Kristen and I walked down Piedmont looking for dinner, we passed several doors but like shopping for clothes, as Kristen pointed out, none “jumped out” to us. There was one sign that we read “Pork Avenue” and crossed the street all excited for, but it was “Park Avenue“. On the way was also the curiously crowded Fenton Creamery, to me their selections aren’t that interesting. When the street started to look devoid of both restaurants and humans and hope had dwindled from a tteok in tteok bokki to a strand of angel hair, we found Bay Wolf. The duck liver flan and roasted duck with polenta sold us.

Bay Wolf specializes in duck. Their menu changes weekly but they always have two duck dishes, one appetizer and one entree. Both sing. Even the polenta was good, must be that honey-lavender gastrique that we had to wipe clean with bread after we ate the duck leg to the bone. 😉

After dessert, some unknown force compelled me into the washroom, where I saw the Pinot & Double Duck Dinner dated September 17, 18, 19, 2002. Every dish was a duck dish: duck prosciutto with curly cress, grilled duck neck sausage with caramelized onion, duck lasagna Bolognese; even dessert: Espresso duck egg pot de crème.

So I did what I’ve never done (because I’m a foreigner and still feel nervous talking on the phone in English): I called the restaurant three days after my meal, thanking them, and asking if Bay Wolf will have another Double Duck Dinner like that in the future. Mark your calendar, pals, September 16-18 this year.

Address: Bay Wolf
3853 Piedmont Avenue
Oakland, CA 94611
(510) 655-6004
www.baywolf.com

Dinner for 2: $77.76

Duck liver flan with grilled Acme bread, pickled onion, cornichon and olives ($8.50). The pate is smooth and rich. The pickles add just the right zing.

Grilled prosciutto-wrapped apricots with ancho cress and parmesan ($9.50). The apricots were a bit too tart, another two layers of proscitto would have balanced it out.

Slow-cooked lamb shoulder with vegetable tian and red wine reduction ($23). The tian consists of zucchini, tomato and eggplant. The lamb was a little stringy.

Liberty Ranch duck with polenta, rapini and honey-lavender gastrique ($24). A truly flawless delight.

Seasonal sorbet: chocolate-coconut, ambrosia white melon, and watermelon-mint ($6.50). The two melon scoops have a faint taste of melon seeds. Combining all three in one bite is the way to go.

Thick sweet & spicy sauce. Soft chewy sticks of sticky rice. This is one heckuva tteok bokki. I can see myself going here for a tteok bokki takeout on movie weekends, and it’s only $7.

Address: Crunch
2144 Center St
Berkeley, CA 94704
(Downtown Berkeley)
(510) 704-1101

This place used to be a sushi joint. I ate there once. I’m glad it has changed into something much better.
Also, Crunch gave me a humongous plate of kimchi pork fried rice that was just three spoons above my limit and not enough to take home. What should I do? Cut down or increase my limit?

Beef bibimbap ($8)- julienned cucumber, carrots, bean sprouts, egg, lettuce and sauteed beef to be mixed with rice

Kimchi fried rice with pork ($8).

The waiter brought out a kettle of tea, but Nancy Togami waved him back, asking for just plain hot water. Carefully, she used her thermometer to check the water temperature. One hundred and eighty degree Fahrenheit, too cool to steep the Baochong and Phoenix Honey that she brought. But Nancy brought her own water too, which measured close to 200 degrees, so we used her water instead. I’ve never brought my own tea to a restaurant, but it makes sense: people bring their own wine to restaurants, and when you have good teas, there’s no reason to refrain from pairing them with good food. The dim sum at Shanghai Dumpling King proved to be perfect experiment material.

Without Nancy, I probably would never have known of this hole in the wall way out on the west side of San Fran, and probably too lazy to get here because it’s not 2 blocks away from the BART and I’d doubt the dim sum would be worth anything farther than that. Now, dim sum are good. You have to really suck as a cook to make ground meat in a piece of dough taste bad (it happens, though), and I crave potstickers and xiao long bao at least once every other night, but the gap between the potsticker in my head and the potsticker in my mouth always ended up bigger than my head, so I can’t comprehend it. There’s some kind of epiphany reaction I want to get from eating dim sum that I’ve never gotten. But I think today came really, really close. Because of a duck and two teas.

The duck set the mood. We stood in front of the restaurant before it opened, so they had to rush setting up things to let us in. We were the first customers of a Sunday. Few minutes after we placed our order, the guy strode out asking if we would like some duck, the kitchen just finished steaming one. Yes, of course, we said. Out came small chunks of legs and thighs in a simple white bowl with a sprig of coriander, the meat still pink, the skin moist in a sunglow shade. It’s not chewing gum and it doesn’t fall apart like cornmeal, it has all the right tenderness, the right juiciness, the right saltiness. I couldn’t pry any information from the waiter except that it’s steamed. But they must’ve put something in the water.

The Hung Zhou crab and pork dumpling (Hung Zhou xie ruo xiao long bao) and the Shanghai soup dumpling (Shang Hai xiao long bao) both contain half a spoon’s worth of broth. They’re the juiciest xiao long bao I’ve found anywhere, and the Hung Zhou xie ruo ones are packed with enough savory sweetness on their own that they don’t need the vinegar and soy dipping sauce.

We got too absorbed in the xiao long bao that we didn’t pair any tea until the seafood and tofu eggdrop soup and the Tian Jing go bu li bao (steamed wheat dumpling with pork, mushroom and rice noodle inside) came. One one hand, Baochong, a light Taiwanese oolong, accentuates the chive in the bao, and the bao intensifies the Baochong’s floral note, so the pair just blooms in your mouth.

On the other, Phoenix Honey is a stronger oolong with a roasty profile and a sweetness of lychee, which complements the soothing eggdrop soup.

The spicy pork dumpling (xian shui jiao) kicked us in the throat, although we asked for “not too spicy”, but Baochong can sooth the spark away. The pan fried chive and pork dumpling (jiu cai xian bing) and Baochong made another floral pair, similar to their steamed smaller brothers. Phoenix Honey brought forth the nuttiness of fresh-but-need-more-salt peashoots.

Soon we figured out the rules: lighter tea with more flavorful dumplings, darker tea with milder ones. The sesame mochi in hot water (zhi ma tang yuan) is bland outside and intensely sweet inside, so neither tea had a noticeable effect on it, but the Phoenix Honey added a nice roasty finish that spotlighted the nuttiness of sesame.

The restaurant before 10:30. Half an hour later we got people sitting back-to-back with us and a line spewing out of the door.

After eating here, I regained faith in dim sum. I can look pass the obnoxious name. The duck helped. And the teas helped a bunch. Infusion after infusion, they kept their flavors and washed clean the dumplings’ grease, which was surprisingly scarce to begin with. Nancy was worried that the restaurant might not like us brewing our own tea. But we were seated by the window, our table filled with bamboo baskets, I was aiming my camera at all kinds of angles, Ken helped me rearranging the plates for the pictures, and Nancy was drawing in the aroma of a fresh cup. Old Chinese ladies walking on the streets kept stopping to look at our table with unhidden interest. I think we made a good window display. At the end, before politely asking us to leave the table for another group waiting, our waiter commented with much pleasantry: “You guys drink tea!”

Address: Shanghai Dumpling King
3319 Balboa Street
San Francisco, CA 94121‎
(415) 387-2088

Big lunch for three: ~ $62
This post also appears on Tea & Mai.

Is it miso season? (Miso has a season?) Berkeley Bowl puts out about 10 different kinds of miso in their “international” aisle, and Nojo advertises a seasonal 5-course miso omakase menu on Black Board Eats. Usually the Black Board Eats emails go straight into the trash, which I kinda feel bad about because I signed up for their newsletter after all, but thank goodness I did read it that morning. That night I got the code, called my friend, and we went to Nojo.

We were seated at the counter, but not the one facing the chefs, that would have been nice, this was a small counter facing the wall near the door. The wall looks pretty cool but we felt kinda weird at first, what with the other customers crowding the tables and here the three of us facing a wall next to a middle-aged man. We felt outcast. But Nojo doesn’t take reservation for party under 6, only a phone call an hour before you arrive to put your name on the waiting list, guess I should have called more than an hour earlier, what was I thinking following the rules? But the servers, inked and all, are really nice, the water was clear and sweet, the sunflowers smelled good, and the middle-aged man left minutes after we sat down.

And the food.

Cucumber salad with shichimi and nori. Shichimi is a chili pepper mix with (supposedly) 6 other spices, but they sprinkled just enough to give the cold thing a kick, not spicy. There’s more shichimi on the counter for the duller tongues people who like spicy food.

Miso Omakase Course 1: a simple salad of Little Gem lettuce and cauliflower with shiromiso (white miso) dressing. The pickled red onion was the real little gem.

Miso Omakase Course 2: miso soup with oyster mushroom and butternut squash. Hearty. San Francisco gets cold at night, so this helps.

Fried eggplant with akamiso (red miso) and peanut sauce, topped with julienned leek. Eggplants have never been my favorite fruit and will never be even if I go vegan, but this miso eggplant was better than the grilled pork jowl and the garlic-barley miso butter chicken (Miso Omakase Course 3), both of which tip-toed on the salty side.

Tempura tree oyster mushroom, squash blossom and lemon, to be dipped in a zesty ponzu mayonnaise.

We didn’t expect a fried thing when we ordered the rice balls with tare and nori, but the surprise was welcome.

If I was skeptical about anything in the Miso Omakase menu, it was the shiromiso-glazed trout. But its sweet creamy sauce blew my doubt away, the rice ball was great for sweeping up every last drop.

Miso Omakase Course 5: buckwheat & beer crepe, a drizzle of ginger-muscovado syrup, blueberry compote on top and shiromiso ice cream. We thought muscovado was a cross between muscat the grape and avocado (weird, I know, but possible, right?), but we asked, it’s a brown sugar.

And of course, kurogoma (black sesame) ice cream with roasted strawberries on a bed of “peanut thunder crackers”, which is like peanut brittle and caramel popcorn intertwined, multiplied the goodness by 85.

You know how people can just tell that something’s good when they see it, for no reason at all? That’s how it was with Nojo for me. Every izakaya in the Bay has the same kind of yakitori on the stick, the same expensive price, the same raves on Yelp, and I don’t know why I wanted to go to Nojo, but now I’m recommending it to everyone I talk to. Was it the kikubari exuding from the friendly staff, inked and all and warmly smiling as they strode between tables? Was it the simple but flawless food? But I didn’t know any of that before I came.

Somewhere in me, I just knew. Miso is in.

Address: Nojo (which means “farm” in Japanese)
231 Franklin St.
San Francisco, CA
(415) 896-4587

Dinner for three: $99.82

Put me next to a pig foot and I turn into a total nut case. But boy, these chunkies, sweet, salty, chewy, just a little spicy… I cleaned the bones until they were white.

A feeble attempt at including some starch to our lunch: ground beef and pork coins covered in batter and fried.

Dessert: ho tteok (호떡) – chewy sweet pancake with some kind of syrup or melted brown sugar filling, and the best part? They’re not too sweet!

Ready-to-go lunch for two: ~$15
Address: Koreana Plaza
2370 Telegraph Avenue
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 986-1234

Few Berkeley residents, minus the homeless people (I think), haven’t at least heard of Grégoire. Everyone I’ve talked to has eaten here, even my freshman students. Technically I also have, but only for desserts. Somehow the menu on the days that I looked never struck lightnings on me. I might have been looking on the wrong days. Then I stopped treking this part of town for over 6 months, minus a trip to Imperial Tea Court that turned out somewhat disappointing, which shot me back to Fourth Street. When the whole tea business got serious, I kinda started eating to subsist more than to eat. I stopped actively hunting for special things. I don’t think of restaurants anymore. Chinese fried rice has been a staple for the last 7 days, with intermissions of frozen pizza and ramen. That reminds me, Berkeley Bowl no longer carries Sapporo Ichiban, and I’m mad. Of course, if delicious-sounding food just rolls up to me, I’d take it. Like today, we’re close to Grégoire, and Grégoire (finally) has something that caught my eye.

My lunch gleaming on the grill.

Stephen’s marinated grilled house-made seitan with apricot compote & arugula on grilled wheat bread ($7). Guess I’m attracted to savories with fruits.

The best part is, this month’s menu will be changed tomorrow. Today’s the last day of June. My seitan sandwich and I were destined for each other today.

Address: Grégoire
2109 Cedar Street
Berkeley, CA
(510) 883-1893

After four months at Teance on 4th Street and one morning at Imperial Tea Court on Shattuck, the stupid demanding tea snob novice in me revealed herself. I’m far from being the perfect judge on what constitutes a good tea house, but I know the basics. With that, I wouldn’t recommend Imperial to anyone who seriously wants to learn about tea. Click on the image if you want to know my reasons.