Flavor Boulevard

This post is for the Vietnamese expats in particular and anyone who thinks of the avocado as a fruit (to be eaten as a fruit, not a vegetable). In America, people tend to think of avocado in guacamole terms or as a meat substitute in sandwiches. If you think avocado for dessert is weird, shall we talk about your pumpkin pie? 😉

Ever since the day I saw the option of “avocado smoothie” at UCafe, I’ve had 3-5 avocado smoothies every week. Drinking each smoothie with boba was like looking through old photographs and reliving the beautiful days. The avocado is healthy, but that’s not why I like it. It’s the best option when I’m too tired to chew, want something mildly sweet and cold, and when the weather is too hot for meat and carbs. It replenishes my soul and keeps me alive through the summer humidity that accumulates in my tin-roof office building. I regret that I had not eaten more avocados in Vietnam, where the fruit is as big as my whole hand from wrist to middle finger tip and as luscious as molten chocolate cake.

I love the avocado smoothie at UCafe, but after a while it proves too expensive: a regular 12-oz cup, which costs nearly $4, contains only half an avocado. Berkeley Bowl sells palm-sized avocados (which they label as “extra-large”) for $1.69 each. So I bought a blender to make my own smoothie.

This is probably the first and only time I use my blender because cleaning a blender is not my favorite activity, and because I prefer smashed avocado than blended avocado (the ice dilutes the taste). Still, who knows when the blender might be handy again.

Recipe for avocado smoothie: (1 serving)
– 8 cubes of ice
– 1 large avocado
– 2 teaspoons of sugar
Blend and serve.

None of the secondi struck our fancy, but we did order a substantial number of dishes. So substantial that instead of ordering by the names, I curled my index finger and thumb into a square bracket and pointed on the menu “we’ll take these four and these four, and the potato, and the asparagus please.”

That was 10 out of 25 “dishes” on the menu, if olives and salads could count as dishes at all.

Three years ago, I had a bite of pork belly sandwich from Corso. I remember nothing of it, except that it was memorably good. I vowed to come back, but my cravings are always either rice noodle or pancakes (although every time I get pancakes, their texture is gravely disappointing), so for these three years, the vow stayed as a vow and didn’t happen. I kept hearing from multiple sources near and far about how good Corso was, though, so my confidence for this Italian restaurant increased. When I picked Corso for dinner last Friday, I didn’t expect the restaurant to wow us, but I felt confident that the meal would be solid and comforting, that we would be well fed by the end.

The high note: the server replaced our plates and utensils after each course, yay for a clean platform to taste new dishes.

The low note: how low would you like to hear?

In general, this Asian does not have paramount hope for Italian food (to me, Italian food is pasta and cheese, both of which I find to be comforting yet boring), but there’s a reason Italian food is comfort food: assuming that you start from boiling dried pasta and that you have any sense of taste at all, it’s easy to cook an edible plate of pasta. Not perfect, but edible. Guess what, the tagliatelle al sugo at Corso was NOT even edible: it was pungent, muddy and in dire need of more tomato sauce and minced carrots. Each of us took one single bite, then a drink of water and that was it. The plate looked untouched when the server later cleaned up the table.

As far as bad restaurant experiences go, Corso had set a new record the moment they managed to screw up pasta and ground meat.

Were we well fed by the end? Well, we were fed up for sure. Why am I not trying to be nice with this review? Because I decided on this restaurant for dinner. I feel responsible when my friends couldn’t enjoy the meal, thus a positive review would be akin to lame excuses to sugar coat my poor decision. In fact, Corso left such a disappointing taste that it doesn’t even deserve a longer title in this post.

Bonus story: the table next to us ordered the butter-roasted chicken. The lady, who appeared to be in her 70s, looked over when our pastas had just arrived and said to her husband, who was signing the bill, “Look, they got the tagliatelle and the cavatelli. It looks good”. So I turned around, smiled with her and asked how was her chicken. She said it was laden with so much butter and cooked perfectly. I replied “It looked ah-may-zing.” (Chicken breasts never excite me, but I figured the situation called for a diplomatic comment.) In hindsight, did we just order the wrong dishes? Nah, it’s much harder to make white meat succulent than to make pasta edible. But I’m glad that at least one customer was happy with her meal.

The APPETIZERS (antipasti)

Marinated carrots – $5
Tasty level: banal (in any decent banh mi can you find equivalent carrots, with less oil)

Tuscan chicken liver pate – $8 – with sage, anchovy and capers.
Tasty level: Mud (I blame it on the overtone of anchovy)

Crostini – $8 – mussel ragu on toast
Tasty level: Good.
Why is it yellow? Beat me.

Grilled shrimp – $11 – in chili oil and parsley
Tasty level: Horrid.
The shrimps taste metallic. Was it overgrilled on open gas flames?

Salumi – $14 – spicy coppa, sweet coppa, toscano, ciccioli on toast, finocchiona.
Tasty level: Meh.
There’s no difference between the spicy coppa and the sweet coppa, or anything on that plate for that matter.

The SIDES (contorni)

Asparagus – $6
Tasty level: banal
I like the asparagus and I would have ranked it higher, but the sauce… They call it “fontina-tartufo fonduta”, which sounds like a chant to me, is so pungent because of the truffle.

Fries – $6 – One of the few edible items.

The first MAIN COURSES (primi)

Cavatelli – $14 – pasta with garlic pork sausage, kale, olives and parmigiano
Tasty level: Good
It’s not all that different from your homemade macaroni and cheese, but we could eat it happily.

Funghi e polenta – $15 – wild mushroom and polenta.
Tasty level: Meh
The polenta seriously needs more salt. There’s no taste in this dish at all. (The mushroom was faintly sour actually.)

Trippa alla Florentina – $9 – tripe stew with pancetta, spicy tomato, parmigiano and mint.
Tasty level: Okay. But it is too monotonic with the tomato sauce.

Tagliatelle al sugo – $15 – pasta with braised beef and pork.
Tasty level: Inedible.
What did they braise the meat with? Mud?

The DESSERTS (dolce)

Panna cotta – $6 – vanilla custard with spiced vino Lambrusco and Mission fig sauce.
Tasty level: Meh. (The custard is tasteless. The fig sauce is okay, though, it was neither too sweet nor too tangy)

Affogato – $6 – gelato with espresso
Tasty level: Good
If they had screwed up ice cream too, I don’t know what I would have done.

I like the vertical theme

Kristen studying Corso menu.

Kristen also reviewed Corso on her blog, Put It on Kristen’s Plate. We shared the same meal, and her review shows the same grave disappointment but with more thorough consideration than mine.

She also raised a good point: when the server approaches you with the question “Is everything okay?”, how do you respond when the food, in fact, is not okay? Do you say the common “yes” to just send the server away from the table? Do you explain what tastes bad? Do you ask to speak to the chef?

Address: Trattoria Corso
1788 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 704-8003
Dinner for 4: $172.77
Reservation is advisable. Despite its surprisingly horrible food, Corso continues to thrive in North Berkeley. All tables later than 5:30 pm on Friday were booked.

In 2008, nobody knew what I talked about when I said “pate chaud“ (pronounced |pah-teh-sho|), unless that person was Vietnamese. Not even Wikipedia. But it’s French, how can wikipedia not know about a french pastry, I felt desperate. Now Wikipedia has a page for it, first created on Nov 3, 2011. So it came from an obsolete French word for hot (chaud) meat pie (pâté), but the pastry itself is far from obsolete.

Until now, the only place where I can get patechaud has been Vietnamese sandwich shops, which Berkeley doesn’t have. Then UCafe opened, and one day, I saw the patechauds at the counter. UCafe also has banh mi. Although I’ve been to the new Sheng Kee Bakery on Telegraph that everybody raves about, although Sheng Kee does have an artificial-tasting but really satisfying taro bubble tea, and although UCafe doesn’t have taro bubble tea (yet), I’ll be loyal to UCafe.

The nitty gritty: UCafe labels it “puff chicken” on the receipt. I don’t know what they call it per se because they’re not Vietnamese and I do the classic point-and-get thing. The filling: pretty different from the normal Vietnamese ground pork meatball filling, this one has chicken, woodear mushroom and some kind of fatty yellow mush that my best guest is something of plant origin (potato or bean paste?) soaked in gravy, or maybe it’s just gravy. But it’s satisfying, like all things with salt and fat. Worth its $1.50 and I don’t remember getting sick last time I ate it, so I got it again today. 😉

Kinoko harusame (~$8) – potato starch glass noodle soup with mushroom (shimeji, eryngii, enoki, hiratake (oyster mushroom), portobello mushroom and shiitake.

Japanese glass noodle (harusame 春雨) is different from Vietnamese glass noodle: it’s made from potato starch (instead of mung bean starch or canna starch), it’s much thicker (like a spaghetti, whereas Vietnamese glass noodle is like a capellini), and it has a softer chew.

With that vegan broth sweetened by mushroom, it was comforting.

Until you finish that monster of a bowl, and you feel so full that it’s no longer comfy unless you unbutton a button or two.

Sansai harusame (~$8) – potato starch glass noodle soup with bracken, bamboo shoots, carrots and woodear mushroom

I don’t think I’ll ever get hungry thinking about Cha-Ya (does anyone ever get hungry for vegan food?), but I’d never turn it down when someone suggests Cha-Ya either. I get full and feel healthy when I go there. What more can I ask for from this little place?

P.S.: My previous experience at Cha-Ya was a little more elaborate than a bowl of noodle soup, and was just as comforting. 😉

A few years ago, things were rough at school and I was a bittermelon*. I got upset easily, turned people away from me, was critical of everything and mostly found faults in mankind. Long story short, I became a misanthrope and immersed myself in two things: anime and foreign language. Ironically, the former taught me to think more positively, and the latter brought me new friends. Then I realized that when I suppress my negative thoughts, eventually they dissipate on their own and I would feel so much better without bothering anyone with my complaints. In America, we are encouraged to express our negative feelings. People like to see and hear about problems (that’s why the daily news are mostly bad news and the reality shows are full of anger). Some people say that it’s good to let it out. That’s true, but it’s only temporary. Complaining is like eating chips, it’s impossible to stop**. Anger multiplies when it’s let loose. The more cynical I feel about a situation, the more depressing scenarios I envision, and it only goes downhill from there.

These days I try to appreciate everything more, and when some incident doesn’t seem so appreciable at first, I find it funny, which clears my mind and then I can see something to appreciate. But sometimes I lapse back into the critical mode, especially when it’s about food. It’s easy to lower my expectations and like everything. It’s also easy to write a very bad review. But it’s hard to find the good points while maintaining my high expectation. A bad review gives the temporary satisfaction of being in the position to judge. A good review for a not-so-good experience makes me appear goody-two-shoes and lose my credibility. One solution is that I only write about the good experiences. But I think that defeats the meaning of a blog. A diary doesn’t have only happy entries, why should a food blog talk only about the good food?

Every bad experience at a restaurant puts me into this dilemma. Cafe Rouge is the most recent one. Here’s my first draft when I sat down to write about it:

On my birthday, we went for drinks at Teance and then we got famished. Drinks for me are not alcohol but a few pots of tea. That’s the great thing about tea: it gives you an appetite. If you ever feel like you ought to eat something but just don’t feel hungry, drink some tea on an empty stomach, the next thing you know is that all you can think about is food. So we were famished, and we headed over to Cafe Rouge next door.

I should stress again that I was famished. Everything tastes better when you’re hungry, that’s a known fact. I could hardly wait to spread the velvety duck liver flan on my tongue and sink my teeth into a succulent slab of steak. The good thing is I didn’t have to wait too long. The problem, though, is that neither of my dreams came true. The duck liver flan was underseasoned and not smooth enough. The steak was so tough I thought I was chewing on a coil of rope.

Would a rare sear make it better? The full story goes like this: on the menu it said “Grilled bavette steak with sweet potatoes, broccoli, red wine cippolini onions and herb butter 24.” — I didn’t know what bavette steak was. The waitress asked me how I’d like my steak, I told her somewhere between medium and medium rare, she said let’s do the medium rare and if it’s too rare I can send it back to the kitchen for more sear. Turned out the cut was extremely sinewy. Even in the middle, where it’s still bright red. I told the waitress, and she said yeah well this is not like New York steak so hmm too bad…

So I gave up halfway and grudgingly waited for desserts.

We narrowed it down to 4 choices: vanilla panna cotta, chocolate streusel cake, granitas, and chocolate ice cream profiteroles, then we asked the waitress what she thought. She highly recommended the panna cotta, and said the following about the granitas: “it’s like a sorbet, if you’re into that kind of thing then it’s good”. We’re into sorbet, so we got the granitas. But granitas ain’t no sorbet, it’s water ice. Seven dollars for a tiny cup of water ice is too much. And not even very flavorful water ice at that. Huge disappointment.

So that’s my luck with Cafe Rouge. The seafood cioppino and the cassoulet that my friends chose turned out a little too seasoned for my taste, but a hundred times better than my steak.

I’ll file Cafe Rouge under “Won’t go out of my way to revisit”, although it’s really on the way every time I go to Teance.

The view from upstairs.

Here’s what I should think:

The restaurant is well-designed, I enjoyed looking from the upstairs at the people’s plates down below. My friends enjoyed their seafood and stew. Today Cafe Rouge’s dinner menu has “Grilled hanger steak with flageolet beans, radicchio and almond bread sauce”, so I wiki-ed “hanger steak”. This cut is “prized for its flavor”, which means its texture is tough. Then I clicked around and read about the other beef cuts. In the end, the steak taught me something new.

We should have listened to the waitress in the matter of desserts. Again, we went in not knowing what “granitas” was and went out knowing exactly what it was, so we got wiser by paying 7 dollars. That’s a cheap price for information.

Most customers around us ordered the burger ($14). While fancy burgers are like Rothko’s paintings to me, some people appreciate them. Maybe the rest of the menu also connects to people at such levels, which I simply couldn’t comprehend.

I probably won’t go out of my way to revisit Cafe Rouge, but its menu changes often and I go out of my way to Teance all the time anyway. When I have a more forgiving heart, and maybe a lot of hunger, I’ll stop by.

I prefer the mild, more positive view, although it’s like steamed rice. Next, I need to figure out how to make it funny. 😉

FOOTNOTE:
(*) Actually, I LOVE bittermelon! Bittermelon soup, bittermelon stir fried with egg, stuffed bittermelon. I love it so much that the first word I could think of that contains “bitter” was “bittermelon”.
(**) In high school health class, the teacher showed us a video about two anorexic twin sisters. When asked how they became anorexic, the surviving sister said that they were chubby when they were little, so one day they decided to lose weight and competed with each other to see who could lose more weight. The only detail that I remembered is that they would eat only 2 potato chips when they ate any chips at all. The interviewer asked her “How could you eat only TWO chips?!” With a lot of willpower.

Housemade charcuterie plate ($15) – rabbit pate: ok; duck liver flan: I’ve had better’s; air dried beef: well, it’s dried meat… Good pickled onion though.

Cafe Rouge bar ribs ($7) – Not fall-off-the-bone tender, but I liked the sauce.

Cioppino ($27) — dungeness crab, rock fish, mussels and clams in red wine tomato sauce. Good but too spicy for me.

Cassoulet of duck confit, garlic sausage, pork, baked beans and bread crumbs ($24) – good beans, tender duck, the sausage was too grainy (and doughy(?!)). Read more about it from Kristen’s point of view.

Blood orange and grapefruit granitas with shortbread cookie ($7) – The flavor wasn’t there.

One of The Clog‘s editors said: “Let’s do a cafe crawl around campus.” I happened to have tried almost everything at UCafe and been going there forever these days, so I took up that part of the crawl. I sent a 466-word essay to the editor, right before  I saw her email from 5 minutes earlier: “hey guys, cuz we’ll do 5 cafes total, let’s make it 100-150 words each”. Haha oops. Cutting time. Here’s the finished product.

Here’s my original 466 words. With pictures. 😉

“Since its grand opening last fall, UCafe on the South side has proved to be a reliable supplier of the Spanish bun (ham, cheese and sausage in a roll), the perfect $1.95 filler for those 10 minutes between classes.

Convenience:

It takes 1 minute to walk from Hearst Gym to UCafe, which is next to the post office at the Durant-Bowditch corner (yes, the post office with the most terrible customer service ever!). In UCafe, most of the pastries are placed in glass cabinets, you walk in, grab a tray at the front, a sheet of bakery paper and a pair of tongs, and start choosing. Even during the lunch rush, it doesn’t take more than 5 minutes to walk in and out of UCafe with your lunch if you already know what you want from the cabinets. If you have more time, a banh mi is worth the wait, and watching the kitchen staff rolling the dough into batches of ready-to-bake sausage rolls or the pâté getting spread inside your sandwich makes time go by faster.

There is enough seating for three by the window ledge, but almost nobody ever sits there.

Variety:

Clockwise from top left: pork bun, mango mousse, pork-and-green-onion roll, macadamia black devil (basically, rectangular chocolate muffin with nuts)

Clockwise from top left: patechaud (brioche with minced pork, $1.50), mini chocolate mousse ($3.95), cold cut banh mi ($3.25), lychee green tea (with lychee jelly, $3.50)

For the moment, only two kinds of banh mi are available: cold cuts ($3.25) and grilled pork ($2.75). However, the pastry selection is huge: several kinds of bread loaves, savory buns with sausage, beef, pork and chicken fillings, sweet buns with bean paste, berry and pineapple fillings, mooncakes, shortcakes, cookies, chocolate-muffin-like “butter bread”, etc. They also have a colorful assortment of macaroons, $1.25 each and “buy 4 get 1 free”.

To add to the young, chic but casual look of the café, the cake assortment and a multitude of milk tea and smoothie flavors are pleasing to the eyes and affordable for a student budget.

Price:

The cabinet pastries are all under $3, the mini cakes and regular-size drinks are under $4. One time they only accepted credit card for purchase over $15, I struggled to get up to $14.95 and the guy took pity on me and swiped my card anyway. Thank goodness they have no credit card limit now.

Taste:

Of course, you get what you pay for. Their cakes tend to be too sweet, the macaroons don’t appear with the best texture, and the banh mi is not made with the correct type of airy, scrumptious Vietnamese bread it’s supposed to be. But the overall taste is satisfactory, at least with the savory sausage buns.

To sum it up, UCafe is not a café where you sit and study while stylishly savoring your croissant with a cup of latte-art cappuccino. You can’t meet someone there for coffee either. But from there you can pick up a satisfying 2-minute lunch to go. It’s honest and no frills.”

Address: UCafe
2550 Durant Ave (between Bowditch St & Telegraph Ave)
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 981-1853

Isn’t there always some restaurant that you pass by a thousand times, think about trying it every of those thousand times, and just never do? For me, that restaurant is Bistro Liaison. Its rustic red awning shines brightly at the corner of Shattuck and Hearst, draws my attention enough to remember that from there I’ve sampled a cup of quenelle souffle – salmon and scallop mousse in a shrimp sauce (think clam chowder but fishier and cheesier, and surprisingly good!) – almost three years ago during a North Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto event. But the timing was just never right for an all-out dinner, until a few weeks ago.

We walked in without reservation, half worried that there wouldn’t be a table for us, and half worried that there would be a table for us, which might imply that the restaurant wasn’t good enough to fill up on a Friday night. But we were a party of two, perfect to squeeze in a table at the end of the room. When the hostess at the front desk offered to take my friend’s coat, we began feeling the warmth of old-fashioned restaurant service. And it only got warmer[…]

Read the rest of the review here. Starting from this post, I’ve joined the staff at the Daily Californian. Some of my posts are still in the editing tube. My editor seems easy-going at first but no sloppy writing goes unnoticed. He keeps things quite professional. And my new food-loving friends are so much more knowledgeable than me in the food news area. I hope to learn a lot (^.^)

A short note on Bistro Liaison that I didn’t include in my Daily Cal post: so I liked their seared pork loin a lot, and I emailed them to ask about it in details (what’s in the sauce, what’s the mini pasta thing, etc.). They NEVER replied! Such is the treatment you get when you’re just a blogger. I’m slightly, very slightly, vexed.

Address: Bistro Liaison
1849 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA
(510) 849-2155
liaisonbistro.com

The latest addition to my dream house: a wooden platform to put in the garden where we can sit cross-legged, eat, drink tea, lie down while listening to the birds and wind chime. That platform, we call it phảng |fang|, but I don’t know the Japanese or English word for it :-/

It came about when Kristen and I sat on that wooden thing outside Ippuku tonight. It was outside outside, not a patio sitting, no chairs, no tables, just a platform like a wide bench. We came for their goma ice cream, and the wait for a table was super long so ordering at the bar was the best idea. You’d think it’d be cold, but there was the heater lamp hanging off the roof to warm us. My face was so warm I thought I was gonna get sunburn at 9 pm.

It was so relaxing. Sit cross-legged, savor sesame ice cream, sesame cracker and a mochi, watch the street and the boys goofing off on it, and be watched by people waiting for a table. Come to think of it, we weren’t any less goofy than those boys. 😀

Address: Ippuku
2130 Center Street #101
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 665-1969

I wrote about twenty different Ippuku dishes before. Every time I came here it feels nicer and nicer. The guy at the bar was also so kind, he gave us water and wet towels (one of which is visible in the picture to the right) although we only ordered one bowl of ice cream…

*Photo courtesy of Kristen Sun*

UPDATE: As of November 2013, this dessert is no more. The machine broke down and would cost too much to be fixed, mostly Asians like this dessert while non-Asians don’t, and management doesn’t consider Asians the target audience. I weep (with rage).

Gyuu tan – sliced and grilled beef tongue, brightened up with a touch of lemon and raw daikon.

So I was going to write a really scathing review on this Joshu-Ya Brasserie place in Berkeley, but midway through the draft I went to Yelp to read my friend Kristen’s review for that same dinner by which we were both gravely disappointed. Not only is her review already detailed and scathing enough, but she’s also been to Joshu-Ya several times. Me? I don’t give restaurants second chances, even first chances are rare. So I figured no way I’d know and write about Joshu-Ya better than Kristen. Also as we immerse in this holiday spirit and on our way to a brand new year, I’d rather be all cheery about a restaurant that I love. 😉 It’s so close to me yet so secluded from the flock of eateries downtown that I hadn’t tried it until last month. Tried it once, then I went nuts and suggested Musashi the izakaya(*) to myself and everyone every time somebody says Japanese. Beware though, this is one of those places that you need to go with someone in the know to get the real things. There’s no fake thing per se (well truth be told I’ve only been here with someone in the know), but the real things will make you that much happier blowing your wad. Even better, your wad gets blown a lot less here than at other izakayas in the block: Musashi is cheap.

What are the real things? Please, no California rolls. (**)

Eggplant tossed with sesame and sweet soy sauce (goma ae). Healthy, no frills, and strangely addictive.

A fresh start is the 3-piece nigiri sampler (salmon, tuna and hamachi), but Musashi first blew me away with their simple green beans tossed with sesame, miso and sweet soy sauce (さやいんげんのごまあえ|saya ingen no goma ae|?). A similar eggplant dish started the next dinner we had there, good but I’m no eggplant fan. Of course we have no say in the free side dish, but if the stars all line up right you might just get the green bean. 😉

They have all of the common izakaya food like karaage (fried chicken), sunagimo (chicken gizzard, mmmmm), teba (chicken wing) and every other chicken thing, but my staple go-to has been the gyuu tan: a heap of sliced beef tongue, so lightly grilled that it doesn’t turn rubber, for a measly $6! (UPDATE: Musashi has the BEST gyutan in Berkeley!)

Hamachi nigiri – fresh and chewy as I like it

Clockwise from left: mune (chicken breast), tsukune (chicken meat ball) and karaage (fried chicken).

Although it’s possible to fill up on the skewers (I’ve done that at, of all places, Ippuku), it’s more economical and less confusing to fill up on something with rice. The nice thing about Musashi is they often have these few-day specials with ridiculous discount, such as this bowl of curry rice for $6 topped with a tonkatsu for another $1. The first time I had Japanese curry at a Korean-owned Japanese restaurant I was bored out of my mind, but Musashi’s sweet, slightly peppery curry works for me, with some tsukemono (pickled things). Unaju (rice with unagi) would also make a perfect choice any day.

That said, you can order all of these things without knowing Japanese, because they’re on the menu. The real deal isn’t, but somehow your Japanese friend knows it exist and asks the hostess, she nods welcomingly “hai! hai!” and you just enjoy the ride.

For example, buri daikon – fatty hamachi (yellowtail) and daikon simmered in soy sauce and mirin ($8.50), or  saba no misoni – saba (makerel) simmered in miso sauce, which, to my surprise, tastes almost identical to the Vietnamese cá kho despite the different ingredients. The sauces are watery and great over rice. If you’re afraid of (fish) bones like me, then ask her for buta no kakuni (braised pork belly), same concept.

Finish with black sesame ice cream.

One Monday evening I planned to meet a friend here, only to find out that they’re closed on Sunday and Monday. I was very sad.

Address: Musashi Japanese Restaurant
2126 Dwight Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 843-2017
www.musashiofberkeley.com

(*) There’s Musashi (宮本 武蔵) the famous samurai whose life stories inspired several works of fiction, such as the historical manga Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue. It’s bloody bloody, and bloody sad, nonetheless I’m at volume 34.

(**) I know. These American rolls can be good, and the place to get them would be Anzu.

Sometimes you just have to cast away all manners and enjoy a day in town like a tourist. After a few cups at Teance, Kristen and I were famished. As student I’ve gone lunch-less almost daily without problems, but drinking oolong without lunch is definitely the quickest way to wake up the hungry beast in you. We planned on gorging down pancakes at Bette’s across the street but we missed it by 6 minutes (why on earth do they close at 2:30 on a Friday?), so we dashed back to the other side of the street to Zut with exclamation mark and chose an appetizer and two entrees before the waitress could ask what kind of drinks we wanted. This, in our book, was record fast. However, despite our effort, the food didn’t come out fast enough. On a normal day, we would say the appetizer indeed got out in a really reasonable time, but one thumb-sized stuffed squid plus our extreme tea-induced hunger plus the lack of bread commonly served at Western restaurants really brought out the best of us: we stared longingly in the direction of the staff and the kitchen. The waitress caught our eyes.

Chorizo-stuffed squid ($9) – too expensive, the spinach is good, the sauce is good, tender squid, but the pepperiness of chorizo offsets the savoriness for me.

The first time she came back: “Do you need something?” Glances exchanged. “No…” *innocent smile* Longing stare continued… The second time she came back: “Would you like some bread with olive oi..” “Yes PLEASE!” *big wide grin* Four slices. Don’t know if they’re good because they’re good or because we were hungry, but they were gone after 2 minutes. More longing stare… This time our waitress intentionally avoided eye contact. We understand, but would we give up? No. Young as we were (we think), we were desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. We waved at another waiter, said, somewhat alarmed at our own temerity: “Could we have some more bread?”

Sausage and egg pizza ($15) – pizza’s okay, runny egg yolk on soggy pizza is waste of brain power

Zut! burger with white cheddar ($14) – the beef patty needs salt, the pickles are fresh, good crunchy fries

We were more fortunate than Oliver Twist because the waiter was much nicer than Mr. Bumble, as evident by the 6 slices following our request. Unfortunately, they arrived at the same time as the burger and the pizza, so instead of devouring them, we devoured the burger and the pizza. To discover that neither had enough salt.

Pear cardamom bread pudding ($8) – couldn’t taste either pear or cardamom. There were some kind of grapes which Kristen thought were fresh grapes and I thought were raisins. Ice cream would have been 56 times better than crème chantilly, but the airy crust on top saved the day.

So that solved the mystery: there’s a thing of salt on every table (not a salt shaker, mind you, but a sort of porcelain cup shape-wise akin to the thing that contains the tea candle, no lid). Without the bread we had no idea why it was there. Anyways they have good fries and good pickles. Dessert menus brought out, the waitress no longer avoided eye contact. Pear cardamom bread pudding looked good. So did grapefruit sorbet. We were really full at this point (Kristen finished only half of her pizza) so we said bread pudding please. Then we thought hey a palate cleanser would be nice because we needed to wash the fries off our palates… what next was only inevitable: “Can we have the grapefruit sorbet before the bread pudding please?” The sorbet dissolved the fullness (maybe it was just an illusion, but it lasted long enough for us to finish the bread pudding). How wonderful is the power of cold citrus things.

Grapefruit sorbet ($8) – with ginger snap. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

On a normal day Zut (exclamation mark or not) wouldn’t make the cut because we’re not into risottos and paninis, and we like our foods well seasoned, but that pink sorbet made our soul glint, an instrumental version of Memory was playing, the dangling lights on the trees were getting brighter as the sun got lower. The holidays drew nearer. We stood outside for a good five minutes just watching the lights. Silly girls. 🙂

Address: Zut! on Fourth 1820 4th Street Berkeley, CA 94710 510-644-0444 www.zutonfourth.com