Flavor Boulevard

This is Vietnamese clay pot rice at Saigon Express. The pot comes sizzling hot, and after 5-10 minutes, we have a nice rice crust at the bottom, while the top is flavored with the sauce from the meat and vegetable. I wish there were more rice just because the sauce is so good, but I already get quite full with this portion every time.

The closest resemblance I can think of is the Korean dolsot bibimbap. In this Vietnamese case, there’s no kimchi, no gochujang, you don’t have to add anything to the already well seasoned toppings. I like this completeness of the rice bowl, as they say about the donburi (watch this Shokugeki no Soma episode for the donburi reference – ignore the sexy stuff, though, just focus on the food).

It’s amazing how much a restaurant can change over the years, or how much dining with a companion can change your perception of the restaurant (did they even have this clay pot rice back then?). I was not so impressed before. This time, it’s a change for the *much* better.

Side details: the hosts are nice, welcoming aunt-like ladies, who are more than willing to customize your order (cut the broccoli, not too much carrots, etc.). Each bowl costs around $9.

Address: Saigon Express
2045 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley, CA 94704
They close on Sunday (T__T)

This little shop opens sometime last winter, it looked unassuming then, but now it is packed every time I come, so I think it’s safe to assume that it’s packed almost everyday if not always.

People on the East Bay think of The Ramen Shop when they think of ramen, simply because until now there has been no other shop that really specializes in ramen. There’s ramen at sushi places, izakaya places, and some random places that should have nothing to do with ramen. Hence, the consistently ridiculous 2-plus-hour wait at The Ramen Shop. Now, let’s do a check-and-compare list between Kaze and The Ramen Shop (TRS):

1. Taste: Kaze/TRS = 8/10. TRS is 10 only for comparison purposes between the two, not because it is the best I’ve ever had in my life (there are many better, just not in the area). Kaze is 8 because on certain days it comes close to TRS, on other days the soy-sauced egg is a little too soy-saucy, but it has the right creamy gooeyness of soft-boiled eggs, the chashu is meaty (it sounds obvious but not enough places get this right), and the tonkotsu soup is rich and satisfying.

2. Location: Kaze/TRS = 10/5. I’m biased. I live in Berkeley, Kaze is in Berkeley, TRS is a 30-minute bus ride away plus the time to wait for the bus, which is indefinite.

3. Wait time to be seated: Kaze/TRS = 10/1. Kaze is busy too, and it’s half the size of TRS, but it doesn’t have the bar and the hipsters lingering after dessert without thinking of other customers in line (a table of 4 at TRS, sitting right next to the people in line, was taking their sweet time after coffee). Naturally, the wait at Kaze is 15 minutes at most.

4. Cost: Kaze: 8.99 for normal ramen (shio, shoyu, miso, tonkotsu), 9.99 for black garlic oil ramen (basically a spicy tonkotsu ramen). TRS: 16.5 if you want veggie ramen, 17.5 for ramen with meat. TRS, thank you for adding stuff like innovation and atmosphere to the ramen, we wouldn’t know what to do without them.

5. Atmosphere: who cares about atmosphere when you eat ramen?!

It is not to say that I don’t like TRS. It’s a great place, and they use sustainably grown ingredients. But with Kaze’s opening, my ramen craving is satisfied for so much less time and effort.

Address: Kaze Ramen
1956 Shattuck Ave (2 minute walk north from downtown Berkeley)
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 883-1388

In less than a month since its opening, everybody I know on 4th Street has been to Iyasare, from the regular shoppers to the shop owners, and everybody praises it. The restaurant, operated by former Yoshi’s executive chef Shotaro Kamio, replaces the equally cute and also Japanese O Chame. The two restaurants have different concepts, of course, and experiencing both in the same space – reminiscing on O Chame’s menu and atmosphere while savoring Iyasare’s – was like tasting the fleeting grandeur of ukiyo-e aesthetics in the most delicious way possible.

A beautiful arrangement: ikura (salmon roe), ankimo (monkfish liver), hotate (scallop, the white thing that is barely visible next to razor-thin slices of radish), mackerel (silvery grey, also almost invisible under the radish), and 4 beautiful sweet lobes of uni (sea urchin roe, on the maple leaf) ($22). The ankimo has a thick and dried rind, its flavors were a tad salty and smokey for my taste.(*) The uni was extra-creamy but a little too soft. The ikura was some lovely bubbles.

You can order a side of sushi rice with the sashimi. Or just sushi rice. Actually, I ate every single last grain of rice in that bowl, and I’d be happy to skip the sashimi.

Apple seaweed salad with fennel, pickled daikon and carrots, shaved bonito, citrus brown rice vinaigrette with fresh bits of blood orange, and two silken tofu cubes ($9). Nothing to complain here.

Wagyu beef tataki ($13), slightly seared; the best way to eat them, we found, is:
1. Place a tuft of green stringy stuff (julienned wasabi leaves, wasabi sprout, chicory, whatever leafy things) and a sliver of crispy garlic on a slice of beef,
2. Daintily use your chopsticks to roll the beef to enclose the greens and the tangerine bits,
3. Still using the chopsticks, turn the beef roll 2 times around to soak in the ponzu (the brown sauce).
4. Stuff it in your mouth (if you manage to keep it together this far). Delicious.

It was a Wednesday night, Iyasare was pretty peaceful and devoid of people, but only until about 7. Then, everybody in town poured in, the waitresses started to lose track of things, brought us things we didn’t order and simply couldn’t see us anymore.

Miso-glazed Maple Leaf duck confit ($20). Embarassingly, we thought the “Maple Leaf” was part of the dish (but no, it’s the name of the duck farm). In our defense, the maple leaf in the sashimi plate led us astray. 😛

I wasn’t too thrilled by the Tokyo turnip, the green beans and the gobo (burdock) in this dish. A length-wise-cut gobo would have been crunchier, and the turnip was cooked a hair too long. On the bright side, very rarely does a duck dish go wrong, and when it’s glazed with miso like this? Heavenly.

The BEST of the night: gyutan (grilled beef tongue) ($17). Well, I always love beef tongue, so I’m biased. Maybe the duck was better. But this beef tongue dish was perfect as a whole, from the quick-pickled cucumber to the trio of miso (the black akamiso had the deepest, richest flavor among the three). When you cut into a slice of gyutan, you could feel through your knife how tender it was. I even ate a fourth of the grilled lemon (under the right piles of gyutan).

We skipped desserts.

Address: Iyasare
1830 Fourth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 845-8100

FOODNOTE:
(*) For comparison, B-dama’s ankimo is still the champion on the East Bay, and Musashi’s ankimo is surprisingly satisfactory for its price mark.

A more comprehensive “map” of what we shared is on Ponga.

Technically four shots total, not one, but it’s not a meal, and it’s just a quick shout-out to what Kristen called “the best dessert she’s had” (“in a while”, I think?).

We first went to Revival a year and a half ago. Just like that time, we re-confirm this time that Revival excels at food jellies/sorbet/basically anything fruit and sweet.

The best dessert in Kristen’s opinion – Baked Alaska. (My heart died the day I knew Ippuku stopped serving black sesame ice cream, and I refuse to get attached to any other dessert.) The baked alaska is a layered ice cream and sponge cake (or whatever you can layer) in a meringue shell. In Revival’s case, from top down, it’s huckleberry sorbet, lemon-thyme ice cream and almond shortbread. If this is not Refreshing, nothing is. (Well, Ippuku’s black sesame ice cream was.)

Chocolate Tres Leches Cake with ginger sabayon, quince sorbet and ginger-chocolate crémeaux. Now it’s up to you to decide which on the plate is which. I have no idea. (We suspect the fruit slices are poached pear/quince, and the crispy looking things are ginger, but sabayon is a sauce)

It’s a pretty drink with a pretty-sounding name: Cotillion, like the French fluffy merry dance in the 18th century. Square One botanical vodka, Dolin Blanc vermouth, St. Germain elderflower liqueur, and creme de violette. Smell fantastically flowery but is actually quite strong – I can still see Kristen, Alice and Kendra cringing at every sip. 😀

Address: Revival Bar & Kitchen
2102 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 549-9950
Dessert for four: $8 per dessert, $10 for the Cotillion. A great chat with the friendly chefs if you’re sitting at the kitchen counter (or whatever it’s called).

UPDATE (2 days later)

The black sesame ice cream was too mealy and not cold enough, it tasted more like mooncake filling than ice cream. But the persimmon sorbet was perfect. (Again, Revival has a way with fruits 😉 )

Through words of mouth (from a kid that comes to my office hour, to be precise), I learned that the ramen burger is here in Berkeley. Hah, you don’t have to be in LA or NY or SF to eat this (relatively) new craze(*). Mashable has a guide to make it yourself, but why go through the trouble when you can buy it?

Unlike all other hypes that turn out to be various degrees of meh (in no order, truffles, caviar, foie gras, Cheeseboard, M.Y. China, Fentons, et cetera), the ramen burger is delicious. I gorged it down, completely defeated. Farewell, my hype-bashing days.

So Oishi in Berkeley dishes out 3 types of ramen burgers ($9 each): pulled pork (with wasabi mayo), grilled chicken (with ginger miso sauce), and the usual beef patty (with teriyaki sauce). (You can ask them to swap the sauce.) We had enough sense to avoid the chicken burger (who wouldn’t?!), and were split between pork and beef. Both types contain sauteed mushroom and come with “Japanese fries” (katsuobushi and Japanese mayo). Both sides finished with complete satisfaction.

They give you fork and knife, too, because unless you’re very skilled (or just take mousy bites), the burger will fall apart sooner or later and you get a sort of yakisoba with meat. Still delicious, just harder to eat by hand.

A personal plus: So Oishi sprouted from the same spot that used to house my old favorite (albeit barely average) Berkel Berkel.
A not-so-personal minus: they claim to be “the very first authentic Japanese ramen soup, ramen bun burger and sushi burrito restaurant… in Berkeley, CA”. Well if you want to be authentic, make sure you can spell. “Oishii” (おいしい、which means “delicious”) has two i’s, not one.

Good fries, though!

Address: So Oishi
2428 Telegraph Ave (next to Thai Noodle 2 and across the street from Rasputin Music)
Berkeley, CA
(510) 644-8278

Foodnote: (*) Keizo Shimamoto first invented it in NY late July – it’s been that long already?!

The luxury of cold noodles on colder days. Everything was perfect, from the taste of wasabi in the noodle dipping sauce to the tail end of those shrimps. So perfect that I couldn’t properly focus my camera phone.

Too bad Chef Koichi Ishii only makes the soba on Friday and Saturday from 11 am to 1 pm.

Pictured: Ten zaru soba (soba with tempura shrimps and vegetables) – $18. More details on what’s in the picture are here.

For dessert, we had soba tofu (tofu made from buckwheat instead of soy) with white sesame and kinako (roasted soybean flour), drenched in melted brown sugar. (^_^)

Mai has written quite favorably about Musashi in a past post but I have to write about a particular dish that has been about the best thing I’ve eaten in a restaurant lately.

 

That dish would be the chirashi sushi ($20) listed under the donburi menu items. This is by far the freshest, tastiest, and best-valued chirashi bowl that I have ever eaten. A win-win-win!

The bowl generously comes with at least 2 slices (some fish came with 3 or 4 slices) of tuna (two different types that were raw and one type that was slightly seared), salmon, mackerel, hamachi, raw scallops, octopus, shrimp (not pictured since the chef forgot to put it in the bowl but gave us the order on the side), a glorious piece of uni, squid-wrapped cucumber, tamago, and a dollop of salmon roe. All of this came on top of a huge mound of sushi rice, which was perfectly cooked. I would definitely recommend sharing, as this is way too big of a dish for one person to eat alone. Each piece of fish was so fresh that it was hard for me to pick one that I liked over the others. However, the true standout of the bowl for me would definitely be the uni. So rich, so creamy, and it just melts in your mouth with just the slightest hint of the ocean. This is the perfect example of how fresh uni should taste like and besides, how often is it that a chirashi bowl actually gives you a big fresh piece of uni?

For only $20, this is a dish that is well-worth the piece. I recommend getting one to share with someone else in order to make room for all of the other yummy dishes that Mai already covered in-depth. This is by far the best chirashi bowl I have ever had and the next time that I crave sashimi, I’ll head over to Musashi!

Berkeley is known for many things.

The protests, the hippies, the arts, homeless people, the diversity and the acceptance of that diversity (you can literally see every type of people and every type of activity in this city, and anyone who has actually lived here would stop seeing them as different types of people, just as people).

Berkeley also has the best public university in America, and actually the only public university that ranks above the Ivy league schools in many disciplines. (Public universities usually suffer in rankings not because of the students’ quality or the teaching quality, but because of the professor-to-student ratio, which is lower than those of private schools. Why? Ask the government about funding for public schools.) UC Berkeley was the reason I came to Berkeley, and for a while I hardly thought of the city as anything but the school. For a while, the academic life was my only life, and what I had planned for was a straight path into academia (and never out of it). But things change, and on some days, I feel lost. This is when I find that the city of Berkeley is more than the university it contains. That it has people who want to make change, who actually do it, who are willing to teach others how to do it, and some that are all three. Perhaps even more importantly, it hosts the environments where I can meet those people.

The dinner event that HUB Bay Area organized last week is one of those environments. Originally, I was hesitant to go, the official name of the event is “Innovate Berkeley: Sustainable Economic Development – East Bay Social Innovation Dinner”, and its list of participants include CEOs and founders of companies, architects, scientists, people who have not only ideas but the experience of doing something pertaining to the economy, and what do I put in the register box? “Student”. I was hesitant because I didn’t have anything to bring to the table. In the end, I went.

The evening began with some beer drinking and mingling. The ice breaker is a casual handshake and “what brings you here?”, followed by “why not, right? there’s free drinks!” with a chuckle. (I don’t drink, so I chuckled along with my glass of water.) Arriving on the earlier side would make it easier to get into groups, and you would get more time to talk to people, so you get to know more people before breaking up into tables for dinner. (Guess who arrived late?) The dinner is accompanied by a presentation. This time, it was an incredibly inspiring and engaging talk by Dr. Mike North about innovations, how they can be born and how they can be useful. After the talk, everyone moved around again, some grabbed desserts, most started or restarted discussions about ideas, careers, business, community developments. Serious topics. By the end of those conversations, business cards were exchanged.

Although I didn’t have anything to bring to the table, it was alright to be on the receiving end, at least this time. I learned from Barbara Hanna about computer vision, from Mike North and Jaki Levy about engineers and entrepreneurs that get together on the weekends to build communication systems for communities in Gambia, or foot brace for children in Nicaragua. Their projects connect professionals of different fields and materialize their ideas together. I listened in on a conversation among a landscape architect, a software architect and an environmental study post-grad, the topics ranged from business management to insurance policies on buildings. There were artists too, not just tech people and businessmen, and there were talks of practical art projects. The age difference was hardly any barrier: the accomplished people in their 60s were generous, and the start-up owners in their 20s and 30s were confident.

Those conversations, the people and the dinner as a whole represent Berkeley as a city, where every idea is welcome, and everyone is open to new ideas. But unlike the usual social events, these people weren’t playing nice. If you’re wrong, they tell you that you’re wrong, and they explain. Isn’t that how innovations come about, and how Berkeley is a hub for innovations?

Over the course of three hours, I felt completely intimidated, but also motivated. My line of work is one of the farthest way you can remove yourself from humanity, both spatially and chronologically. (I study light that came from outer space 30-40 million years ago. For comparison, homo sapiens appeared about 0.5 million years ago. The folks who study dinosaurs at least still stay on earth). You can imagine the impact I make in people’s lives today: it’s non-existent. The knowledge I have about solving human world problems? Also non-existent. How can I fix that? Where do I fit in this innovative crowd? I haven’t figured it out. So I’ll keep thrusting myself into this type of event until I figure it out.

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I’ve published a less personal version of this post on the Daily Cal, not as an abuse of my editorial power (although it may appear so 😉 ), but because I believe that there are other students who would like to know about this type of event.

Logistics: HUB Berkeley Innovation Dinner is a monthly event organized by HUB Bay Area. The dinner is hosted at HUB Berkeley, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704. Early Bird tickets cost $31.74 each.

For a while I knew nothing about Japanese food, then within less than one year, I’ve found three places in Berkeley to satisfy my Japanese cravings. To get yakitori, guaranteed quality and to impress friends, I go to Ippuku. For a homey meal at affordable price and convenient distance, I swing by Musashi. For sushi and croquette, Sushi California tops the list.

Its name is generic and its location rather hidden, had Kristen not shared a Berkeleyside review on my Facebook wall some time ago, I would never have noticed Sushi California, much less tried (I tend to stay away from generic names because they often imply generic food). Then Kristen totally forgot about the place. One day I asked her “wanna try Sushi California?”
– What’s that?
– The place you posted on my wall…
– …

The biggest reason that I remembered Sushi California before going there was this line in Anna Mindess’ review: “Chef Arakaki admits that he used to offer other Okinawan classics like goya champura (sautéed bitter melon) but they did not sell well.” I love bitter melon, and even more than that, I love ethnic restaurants that try to offer regional specialties, which often go unnoticed by foreign customers and are eventually taken off the menu. (This is why it’s so hard to find decent traditional food in America, regardless of what cuisine you’re looking for.) So, in some way, I liked Sushi California even before I went. I didn’t hope to see bitter melon there now, but what was there was more than enough to keep me coming back.

Finally, the PERFECT korokke. The size, the crunchiness, the moistness, the taste are all perfect. My love for these rivals Kristen’s love for Gregoire’s potato puffs, and that girl would sell you for Gregoire’s potato puffs if she could. 😉

On Friday, the homey atmosphere is warmed up with live music: first a guitar, then a cello accompaniment later into the night. I like to sit at the bar to watch the chefs slicing and shaping their sushi, and to see which dishes get ordered. The chefs were so focused that I dared not interrupt, and I was happily immersed in such atmosphere anyway. Sushi California was first opened in 1986. Chef Arakaki told Mindess that originally he intended to expand it into a chain of restaurants, but it didn’t happen. I’m glad it didn’t happen. Chains can never feel the same, and Berkeley would have lost its most memorable sushi joint.

Address: Sushi California
2033 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 548-0703

Let me first get this off my chest: I hate restaurants with low lighting (e.g., Burma Superstar and Bistro Liaison), red lights (e.g., Thanh Long and Mission Chinese), and yellow lights (Gather). Why can’t we have nice white neon lights? I don’t go there to film romantic dinner scenes or deal drugs under the table. I go there to eat food, I want to be able to see the true colors of what I’m eating, and I want to take good pictures of them. Is that really too much to ask?

Okay. On to the next business. A lot of people ask me what my favorite restaurant in Berkeley is. I can’t answer that. It’s like asking me who’s my favorite friend. But if you ask me where I would take someone out to dinner, I have a few cards to deal depending on what that person likes. If they like grilled meat and interesting food, I recommend Ippuku. If they’re vegetarian, I take them to Gather.

That said, unlike the consistently good Ippuku, Gather gives me ups and downs. My first experience with Gather in March 2010 was lovely (minus the terrible lighting). Subsequent visits were unmemorable, except for an oversized French toast that was way too sweet to finish even half. Just as I started to think meh another one bites the dust, Gather wows me with a few incredible dishes to prompt a write-up. That, and I think I should at least try to have some colored pictures of its food to complement my black-and-white review last time.

The seaweed that was paired with the fennel was of the Sargassum type, where a bite into the champagne-grape-like bubbles releases a burst of seashore flavor that did not belong. The purees are balanced and exceptional, with a floral hint of high-quality olive oil.

That reminds me, at Gather, bread and olive oil is available only upon request; of course, we requested, not just once but twice. The first time, our waiter brought us 4 slices, we finished it in a jiffy, the second time, he brought 8 slices. 😀 He was also incredibly patient when I asked “what gives the green color?”, “which one is the nukazuke?” and a dozen other questions. You know, the typical annoying foodie behavior.

This dish has everything I like: kampachi, squid ink, seaweed, citrus. The sea lettuce is mild and crunchy, the fish chewy, the squid ink, olive oil and lemon juice engage the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom in a harmonious dance in circle.

The design is a rocky shore with seaweed, fish and foam, I get that. But just because the plate depicts the sea, it doesn’t mean it should taste like the sea. The potato is too salty. The seaweed, once again, needs more prep work to tone down the seaside taste. But the lingcod filet was perfectly pan-fried, crispy on the outside and moist inside.

Of course, we wouldn’t go without desserts, and the desserts at Gather show a great deal of restraint: not too sweet, not too chocolatey to overwhelm the cardamom scent, not too tart either. I like that kind of balance. That night, my friend and I were most drawn by the sea lettuce smoked kampachi and the lingcod precisely because of their balance. Although Gather’s execution of seaweed left much to be desired, the “vegan charcuterie” also remained a reliable inspiration.

Address: Gather
2200 Oxford Street
Berkeley CA 94704
(510) 809-0400
www.gatherrestaurant.com