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

In Vietnam, the first month-old birthday of a baby marks an important celebration. So today is the day, Flavor Boulevard is a month old! Considering FB‘s birth month is also the month of passion and chilly winter, what’s better than a hot plate of “Omu-rice – Perfect for sharing between a couple in love,” said the menu at our local Korean fave on Telegraph Avenue?

So I ate it, and here I share it with my FB. Fried rice with ham, green beans, and peas wouldn’t normally rank high on my list, but the saucy, creamy running egg yolk does wonders. The omelet tasted unseasoned, but its natural plainness was a great base for the rice. Given the fact that I always prefer my French fries sans ketchup, I didn’t find ketchup a well-matched condiment here, perhaps something more buttery would be nice. But perhaps a sour brush was a healthy contrast. Omu-rice is lovely still.

As usual, Berkel Berkel has unlimited spicy kimchi, nonspicy pickled cucumber, and sweet black beans to accompany your main course. Firm and nutty, the black beans (kongjaban) are a pleasant delectable if eaten individually. Of course it’s not easy to eat one by one with chopsticks, but it may be well worth the effort: black bean sweetened with honey and soy sauce “is good for your head,” so I was told by the kind-hearted host of Berkel Berkel. I’ll sure take any chance I get to be smarter, so I ate a bunch of these.

Being in the starchy mood, we also went for a steaming plate of japchae (glass noodle) on rice. I never thought about noodle on rice as a real meal, although as a kid I did find ramen a savory substitution for meat when it came to rice’s aids. The lustrous sesame oil is profound, but there’s a whole package of sweet and salty in every chewy bite of glass noodle.  Once again the chefs show that texture harmony and flavoring are more essential than substance, I’d be a vegetarian everyday if I could eat this japchae and rice everyday.

Although we haven’t tried the whole menu (*glance over other tables* the soups look smoking good), I have faith that everything at this joint scores at least 8 out 10 points for Korean comfort food. The atmosphere helps.

Want to know a little more about Berkel Berkel? Take a look at our first visit.  The place usually gets crowded around 8pm. Do Korean folks tend to eat dinner late?

Address: Berkel Berkel
2428 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704

For those who like to play in the kitchen: a recipe of kongjaban from Simply Senz and Steamy Kitchen’s personal touch on japchae.

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.

You know how some dishes just instantly come up when you think of certain places? Those are the dishes that always get served when you go on tours to the region they’re associated with, like barbecue in Texas, crawfish in Louisiana, crab in Maryland, clam in the little island Nantucket of Massachusetts. Well, in the deep south Mekong delta of Vietnam, where there are more rivers and canals than Venice, freshwater fish multiply like crazy and the countryside inhabitants make fish dishes like crazy. But for some reason, the name “Mekong Delta” is always linked with “cá kho tộ” (fish simmered in claypot). Why?

The fish (usually catfish) is cut up into thick sections across the body, skin and bone intact (scales off, though), simmered in fish sauce and caramel sauce until it turns beautifully brown inside and out. The mixed sauce is thick and savory, it’s sweet, it’s salty, it can spike up your senses if you add a fillip of chili pepper. Some might argue that fish can taste good by themselves, but this sauce alone would make every mouth water. I’d take the sauce and the sauce-soaked skin anytime over the flesh.

Then again, I had never thought about eating it when I was in Vietnam. Footless animals don’t appeal to me, footless animals with stinky needle bones ready to get stuck in my esophagus appeal to me even less. Footless animals with stinky needle bones were also too abundant, too cheap, and too easy to get when I was there, that boredom won over appreciation of taste. Pick any little food shack for workers on the streets of Saigon, any family-owned eatery by the side of the highway, any book about Southern Vietnamese cuisine, you’re bound to find two things: cá kho tộ and canh chua. It became trite. Little did I know that one day I’d only find it  again in an expensive restaurant in Berkeley.

A few restaurants in Bellaire advertise claypot fish in their menus, but usually say they’re out when you order. It could just be because the dish takes quite some time to make, and scrubbing away those little clay pots with caramelized sauce and fish isn’t really a desirable job. So I was ecstatic when they actually had it at Le Regal (just one good meal after another). The pot came out hot and sizzling, two slabs of fish steaks snuggled in the bubbling golden brown addiction. Fish had never smelled so good. The order does not come with rice, but plain white rice is a must, unless you want to slowly take in nibbles and licks overpacked with flavors.  Be sure to save a bit of rice to clean the pot after all the fish is gone.

Price: about $12-13. (This menu is completely out of date on the price, and does not have all the dishes currently served, but nonetheless it can give you an idea of what they have.)

Address: Le Regal
2126 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 845-4020

Click here to read Holy Basil‘s recipe of ca kho to.

Although we try to be objective, numerous factors always manage to skew our view in one way or another. Surely there are objective facts, like the restaurant is small or the fries are spicy, but generally the taste can be affected by the conversation of a nearby dining couple, the window seats looking out to a blazing sun, an unusual day at work, or sometimes just the unwillingness to compliment. The mood makes the food. My mood wasn’t particularly bad last time I was at Anzu, but it was particularly good this time I was there, as we were seated in this half-hidden corner. The bamboo curtain half obscured the view, the brown and green room was half sedative. The oksusu cha was half surprising, but fully pleasant.

We didn’t expect to be seated in such nice seclusion, nor did we anticipate an appetizer. But now that it came, two small cubes of fried tofu with honey,we seemed to recall that last time they also gave us something small for taste opening – a couple of gyozas it was. The tofu beats the gyoza. A thin crunchy crust contrasts yet complements the soft-almost-to-creamy inside, same with the bean blandness and the honey sweetness. Tofu can really do wonders sometimes.

For the main course, Anzu offers some good deals with combinations, such as a bento-box meal – like what we ordered last time – or the sushi-udon pair which we got today. The sushi comes in a full roll (6 pieces), with thinly sliced ginger and wasabi for kicks. But really, you don’t need kicks with California rolls, the nori’s salty streaks and avocado’s buttery dollop suffice. I also believe that what we have here was real crab meat, not surimi, because it wasn’t rubbery. It was good.

The sansai udon was also a delight. Thick wheat noodle in vegetable broth, it tastes far more interesting than it sounds. The stock is so pure and yet so relishing, with a profound taste of shungiku (Garland chrysanthemum, or rau tần ô). There was also an unsolved mystery: the pickled “bean sprouts” (translucent strands at the left corner). They look like bean sprouts, but only from a distance: close circumspection revealed rectangular cuts.  They also taste starchy like some kind of root. I incline to say turnip, as such texture is midway between the porous crunch of jicama and the granulous dense of potato. Whatever it was, it had a great companion – some kind of pickled radish in ruby color. It was like a sour candy, all different tangy levels sang a song in unison, the song is called “The Best Pickle I’ve ever Had”.

Yes, this visit was full of cute little surprises. What can I say, subjective factors aside, some restaurants are like a bunch of grapes, you wouldn’t stop eating the bunch just because the first grape you picked out happens to be a bit sour. Anzu at Berkeley is such a place, and this time, the grape was perfect.

Dinner for two (free appetizer, 1 California roll, 1 udon, 1 tonkatsu): $15.04

Anzu Japanese Cuisine at Berkeley
2433 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 843-9236

P.S. Anzu also has an excellent salad dressing made of peanut sauce, mayonnaise, and a bit of seasoning. The salad comes with the entree, no extra fee.

Update: the “bean sprouts” are actually kohlrabi (German turnip, or su hào). Thanks to my mom who knows every ingredient upon hearing the description of the texture!

Back then we used to take a break from Fortran coding, cross the street from the old Physics building to McDonald’s to refuel at midnight. Now having moved up the ladder, we have little unpretentious Chinese and Japanese down the block, though certainly they don’t open 24/7. A vegetable tempura is much lighter and less savory than a chicken nugget, but many of them would do. The batter is a mere coat for earthy cuts of sweet potato, squash, onion rings, and broccoli. The flavor does not go beyond steam pockets eagerly exploding and crumbled flakes scattering like confetti. Like sushi, Japanese tempura standing alone sans sauce is food for the eye, not quite the taste buds.

The same thing holds for beef teriyaki. Dark red grilled complexion topped with sesame seeds beautifully masks a rather dry and sinewy texture. The clear, thin dipping sauce needs some more ingredients to balance its salty lonesomeness. If you order teriyaki at Anzu, don’t expect the commercialized, Americanized, sauce-logged beef and chicken teriyaki in a Subway sandwich, it’s simply not the same.

The katsudon saved the day. Short for tonkatsu donburi (deep fried pork cutlet rice bowl), the concoction has the sweetness of egg-coated onions, the tenderness of breaded lean pork, the moist of gooey white rice. Each spoon was filling and satisfactory. Maybe I’ll eat this again before my next exam.

The trophy of Simplest Delicacy that day must belong to a tie among the miso soup (I suppose this is shiromiso (white miso)?), the edamame (boiled green soybeans in the pod), and the red beans which I have searched everywhere to no avail (but to find this colorful assessment on pickles in Secrets of the City). A miso soup this simple is more or less a salty version of herbal tea, you warm your hands with it, you gulp it down, no spoon, no vegetable, no meat, no chewing, just tiny white dusts of fermented legume forming vortices and clouds in a translucent dashi (vegetable and seafood stock). Then you squeezed a firm, crunchy soybean out of the pod, preferably with teeth and tongue, to taste a hint of salt on the fuzzy case. The red beans with their complimentary sweetness and a very, very quiet pickling sensation were just pure joy. We found these at Berkel Berkel too, any idea what they’re called?

Update: Anzu revisited

Anzu (in Berkeley, not to be confused with Anzu in San Francisco)
Dinner for 2: $24.58
Address:
2433 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-843-9236

When asked about Vietnamese food, Americans usually think of phở busily churned out in small noodle houses crowded with plastic chairs and formica tables. Naturally, since most immigrants gather in their community, the variety of traditional food can only circulate in specific areas. A small fraction of the people have settled in a predominantly American neighborhood long enough and are acquainted with the system enough to set up a business, but they often target the young customers with adventurous taste. Meanwhile, most young customers can only afford low price, hence phở and other easily-made noodle dishes make their way to the top.

Careful circumspection would show that pasta alla carbonara requires no more effort than bún thịt nướng, so is it just a matter of gaudy names, flashy advertisement, and aging familiarity that brought one into fancy menus but not the other?

By no means do I want to sound like a snob, but every now and then I get cravings for a nice dinner in a restaurant aptly labeled “restaurant”. Ladles of this melting cheese and mounts of that grated cheese just no longer light the candle. A retouch of Far Eastern eloquence was much needed to make the aesthetic night.

The price is a little steep, but here are clothed tables, warm lights, an all-English menu, little to no disturbances from foreign chattering in the kitchen and among customers. A middle-aged woman, busy like a humming bird, scampered from kitchen to tables with plates in one hand, orders and bills in the other. For a restaurant with a fair size like Le Regal, one-person play seems a little overwhelming. But it works, our food was served within the time it took for us to make a few glances at the decor and exchange some daily news.

Fried rice is an easy dish, if you throw in some meat, some egg, some legumes, some salt and soy sauce, it can be called well done. Its volatility allows the cook to break free from shackles of recipes, and the eaters to relax from judging its missing-this or extra-that. There’s no fixed list of ingredients, no fixed standard other than appealing to the mouth, hence no objective criterion to rank a plate of fried rice among others. But if we were to nitpick, creativity would pump this one fried rice on top of all other Asian concoctions I’ve had, simply because of the addition of pineapple. There were only a few wedges in that mount, but pineapple is not one to be bullied by other ingredients, its tamed acidity seeps through every grain of rice, sweeter and more thorough than a squeeze of lemon. It helps lowering the guilt of consuming chicken, shrimp, scallops, pork, fried egg and zillions of molecules of saturated fat in frying oil. The rice also made tasty leftover for the next day.

As much as the cook was generous with the protein and the starch, they also gave us enough veggies for ten. At other Vietnamese restaurants, a small plate of sprouts topped with some basil is the usual allowance. Here came a basket of mounting garden goodies. I hadn’t seen any bunch of greens this big for years, especially since we weren’t asking for phở. Not sure what to do, we made lettuce wraps with bean sprout, a couple of leaves of basil and mint, and grilled beef from the other dish we ordered. Dipped in nuoc mam, the wraps were rad.

I’ve blogged about bánh hỏi thịt nướng before, so instead of blabbing about the lacy texture, I’d just say that this was delicious. Now clearly it’s a bit disproportionate, nowhere in Vietnam would you find so much meat accompanying so little banh hoi, the rice vermicelli must be the base. But the food pyramid seems to be upside down in America, where meat is vital in keeping you thin and at all cost one must say no to starch. The cook also went bizerk with deep fried shallots and crush peanuts, but those are easily brushed off if you’re not into contaminating grilled beef with relatives of vegetables.

Together with Tomatina, Alborz, some Mexican eatery, and Top Dog, Le Régal makes Center Street a road of international cuisine, of course an addition of kangaroo ragout and kitfo would be nice.

Bill before tip: $26.23 – dinner for two and leftover lunch for one.

Address:
Le Regal
2126 Center Street (between Oxford & Shattuck)
Berkeley, CA 94704

There are three free things the Bear Transit has to offer (when the buses do come): a ride to and from campus uphill (free for those with a UCB ID), a lively chat between the bus driver and his or her favorite passenger (feel free to eavesdrop – even if you don’t want to, you have to – they’re loud), and a tour around downtown Berkeley, also happened to be the part cluttered with everything from restaurants to food trucks (if you have a free eye to wander). This last offer led to my finding of Azerbaijan Cuisine.

Although Alborz was shy of making the list of ubercmuc’s favorites, I thought I should give Persian food another try. After a winter shower, Fulton Street was sparkly clean. The trees shed another layer of their bright foliage. The breeze was quirky but not too cold. It was the perfect weather for a hearty meal in a nice restaurant. Like Alborz, Azerbaijan Cuisine shows great effort in designing an attractive, spacious interior. Plain white light bounces off mahogany surfaces and crystal wine glass, giving a delicate coziness that makes you smile softly and talk with care. But unlike Alborz, Azerbaijan Cuisine gives you house-baked pita bread for appetizer. It’s unevenly crunchy, light and mildly sweet, promising a satisfactory affair.

To make sure that we would go home with at least one full tummy, Mudpie pulled the safe card and ordered a serving of ground beef kabob accompanied by saffron rice. The chargrilled tomato on the side was arguably the most flavorful item on the plate.

As usual I opted for the most obnoxiously meaty choice on the menu – the Koofteh tabrizi (full description: “jumbo lamb meatball stuffed with dried plum, barberries, boiled egg and fried onion in tomato broth served with fresh berbs and bread – 14.95”)

Whoever made this must have dreamed of eating dinosaur eggs. I probably should have expanded my cavity as much as the frog in La Fontaine’s fable had swollen hers in order to store this gargantuan loaf of fare. Although the colors were inviting, if you’re not into bland food, this wouldn’t cheer up your palates. It was the first time I ever had to use both the herbs and the salt shaker on the table in a restaurant, with much liberty, still I couldn’t help but relating myself to a cow savoring golden bales of hay. Persian folks, being landlocked, seem to have built an appetite for meat-rich, sodium-poor diet. A strong cardiovascular system they must have.

To end on good terms, the dessert menu looks quite interesting. Perhaps one day I’ll come back for the bastani and the palloodeh. Ice cream doesn’t need salt, does it?

Dinner for two: Koobideh (12.95) + Koofteh tabrizi (14.95) = $30.62

Address: Azerbaijan Cuisine (part of Eclipse Cafe)
2175A Allston Street (the corner of Allston and Fulton)
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-704-1718

Update on August 9, 2010: This place is closed.

After a pleasant Turkish dinner at Turquoise Grill in Houston last year, followed by countless shawarma lunches at a cheap cafe on Durant this semester, I figure I should venture eastward and attack Iran, with a fork. The first target is 5 blocks away: Alborz Restaurant.

Take a look at the old menu to get an idea, but there are more items on the real menu, and the actual price is roughly two times higher. Being carnivorous as I am, I couldn’t resist the sound of a lamb shank with baghali polo (green rice with dill and lima beans) (pictured above). Ignorant me, I didn’t know the lamb shank was so little. It’s just about the size of a big turkey leg. Slow cooked in a vegetable stew, it’s more tender than deep fried turkey (which I had for an early Thanksgiving dinner). According to the far-eastern tongue, the stew fell short by at least a teaspoon of sodium chloride and a tablespoon of sucrose, per lamb shank. The polo (basmati rice), however, tastes slightly salty. It makes a dish alone. Each grain is slender and bare, the miniscule fibrous texture is simply lovely.

Mudpie got the better dish of the two: chicken fesenjoon (chicken in pomegranate-walnut stew), also served with basmati rice. I should mention that on every table there’s a jar of filled with mysterious maroon sumac powder, that looks most like some kind of aromatic sand accompanying a Yankee candle, and tastes somewhat like the pomegranate sauce. (We asked the waiter, but we couldn’t understand his answer, so we just nodded to make him happy. We finally found its name online.) Pomegranates grow well in hot, desiccant climate, (the grocery stores here were flooded with them last summer during the drought), is that why it is the central condiment in the Middle East? It can be quite acrid, but in moderation the pomegranate sauce gives a tinkling delight. Come on, FritoLay, what are you waiting for? Make this flavor.

Summary:
Dinner for two: $35 (with tax and before tip). The interior bathes in cozy light and delicate atmosphere, with white table cloth and well-dressed customers. The pita bread for appetizer was plenty, but of low quality. 3.5 stars for presentation, 2 stars for food. We ended the night with a bratwurst to fill up the salt quota.

Address: (not to be confused with the one in Texas or the one in Del Mar)
Alborz Restaurant
2142 Center Street
Berkeley, CA 94704

There is this little ice cream store on College Avenue. Somehow everyone knows about it, and forms a line from the cashier inside all the way out to 30 feet of sidewalk from the door. On a Thursday night, at 9:30 sharp, an employee went out and stood at the end of the line, kindly preventing more customers from queuing up. We felt guilty sitting on the bench nibbling at our treats while people patiently hunched their neck into layers of scarves and collars, ignored the chilly wind, waited for their turn to get into the store. Life’s rough to some.

The menu changes daily to whatever the chefs’ hearts desire. That day’s popular affairs seem to be orange-almond-nutmeg and cardamom-rose, which we got. We also couldn’t resist those little crème-fraiche-Amarena-cherry-and-chocolate at the bottom shelf. (The innocent employee later revealed that those 5 cute things had sit idly there all day, and that he’s glad someone finally got one. Guess we did the chefs a favor.) The cherry flavor was oddly artificial. The chocolate shell was a major challenge for a plastic spoon. The best part was the chewy chocolate cake layer at the bottom. Perhaps it wasn’t quite worth $5.25, but sometimes it’s just cool to eat something with a fancy name.

Now, the fancy ice creams… Orange peel, nutmeg, and candied almond made a combination resembling Cinderella in her pumpkin carriage. It’s girly sweet, and peasantly genuine. It’s safe and natural. What about the cardamom-rose? It’s a cavalier’s hand-kiss, genteel and reserved. It tastes and feels like herbal tea, each spoon lifts you up a step of contentment. But like all good things, one scoop went fast.

2 “Kid’s scoops” (2@2.85): 5.70; Cone single: 0.75; Individual bombe: 5.25. Total: $11.70
(for comparison: Dinner for 2 at Berkel Berkel: $14.71)

Address: Ici
2948 College Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94705