Flavor Boulevard

Friday. Nancy messaged Kristen and me that we should meet up early the next morning for breakfast at Jodie’s. We love breakfast. “How early, though?”, I asked.
– I could pick you all up… Mai at 7:45, Kristen at 7:50 ish…
– I have to say, this is insanely early, maybe I would just skip sleeping…
– Well, it is a TINY place next to a salon, I believe. It only seats eight at a time. The shop opens at 8 AM… There is the possibility of going later – 10 ish – but we would have to wait for “turnover” and wouldn’t be sitting with each other…
– …
– They have a table outside… it might be cold… They said they can’t predict if there will be only a few people or a lot… so we could always go a little later, but then we might have to wait for the table, but at least when that happens, we could still all sit together… Shall we try for 8:30 then? A bit of a compromise 😉
– 7:45 or 8:30 are the same to me, so let’s do 7:45. 🙂

Now, I’m an astronomer and a student, those two types of creatures don’t wake up early in the morning, they stay up into the morning. Which is exactly what I did. I stayed all until 7:50 when Nancy and her husband Ken picked me up. Then we swung by Kristen’s apartment. Kristen looked wonderfully bright and lively in pink pants (it might have been a salmon color, but after working the whole night, my color perception has reduced to that of a guy). During the drive, the conversation in the car was actually quite lively too, at one point we talked about male favoritism in ancient Chinese culture, but I won’t dwell on that now. The point is, boy was it the right idea to meet at 7:45, because by the time we arrived at Jodie’s (a bit before 8:30), 4 seats appeared filled. We took the remaining 4 seats.

I felt somewhat bad for the folks who came minutes after us. They were regulars. In fact, everyone there that day was a regular except the four of us. But someone left to wait for someone, 2 seats freed up, they filled in, the conversations started. Nancy and Ken, being long time residents in the Berkeley – Albany area, had no trouble connecting with everyone through stories of local high school principals and colleagues that somehow everyone (but Kristen and me) knew, while Kristen studied the walls of menus and photographs, and I snapped photos of those walls.

A huge mish mash of color papers, some faded, some laminated, covers the wall facing the customers. On each of those papers prints the description of a dish, its name, its number, and its price. I don’t know how long it would take to really read all of them, I lost track after a few panels and focused on taking pictures instead. There’s a normal menu on the counter behind the fruit preserve jars and sauces, too.

Jodie’s has a staff of two: Jodie, and a young guy who works the stove. The young guy hardly spoke. Jodie is a likeable man, he strikes me as a grandpa who would sit at the porch chewing out grandkids and neighborhood kids in a pretending-to-be-mean but loving voice, and no one would ever be afraid of him, he’s someone who makes you feel at home just by saying hello to you. He told us that the stuff in the counter menu are not on the wall, and the stuff on the wall are not on the counter menu. So I stopped reading both altogether.

Nancy knew what she wanted, and she also ordered for Ken after confirming with Ken that she knew what he wanted. So that went quickly. Kristen was up next. I know grits was involved (Kristen likes grits, and Jodie’s is famous for grits), but Kristen couldn’t decide between so many different delicious-sounding combinations, which she told Jodie, and Jodie chewed her out in his pretending-to-be-mean but loving voice. I heard some gigglings and “I don’t know”s, but I was running circles in my head trying to figure out what to get myself.

Then it was my turn. Like I said, I had already given up on reading the menus, so I just started listing what I wanted on my plate: hashbrown, pancake, sausage, scramble eggs. I wanted English muffins too, but Jodie stopped me before I said muffin, “then why don’t you get the Jodie’s Special? It has everything you said.” “Oh… okay.”

Either then or a little before, a lady stepped into the staff area behind the counter, so now Jodie’s has a staff of three. Jodie retreated out of view to prepare portions for each order. The lady took more orders (the line of customers was spewing out the door) and poured coffee. The young cook slapped bacon strips and hashbrown patties onto the sizzling platform. I don’t know how much time passed until we got our food, I alternated between gawking at the bacon and hashbrown browning and scanning the photos that covered the back wall. There were funny quotes, hundreds of pictures of Jodie’s regular customers, some sports photos. Old tattered photos make the place look more run down then it already is, but I can’t imagine decorating this place any other way, they embody too much memories and too many bonds among these people. Jodie’s wouldn’t be Jodie’s without the photos.

The lady told us to taste our food before adding anything to it. Nancy took a bite of her pancakes and grits, then reached for the salt and pepper (or some kind of condiment). Jodie flew out of his prep station into view, “Have you tasted it?” “Yes… !?” “Okay.” Jodie disappeared into the prep station again. [UPDATE: Nancy explained what actually happened: Nancy was going for the syrup bottle, but she had to move the salt and pepper out the way.]

I tried a nibble of Ken’s corned beef, more than I should have of Kristen’s “Jodie’s Special with a Y” (I’m sorry Kristen, it was too good and too close to me, and you were too nice), and I wiped clean my plate. Funny though, I’m not a fan of grits and Kristen’s not a fan of pancakes (which is why she ordered grits and I ordered pancakes), but we were both impressed by the other’s dish. The grits was anything but bland, it has an indescribable flavor that possibly comes from the grease on the griddle (or maybe just years of bacon smoke in the air?). The pancake was fluffy and buttery, it didn’t even need syrup. The bacon was thick and crunchy. The scramble eggs were creamy. For Kristen and me, Jodie’s has raised the bar for breakfast.

For Nancy, Jodie’s changed something else.
– I’ve been ribbed about having a coffee facebook theme…
– Why coffee?
– It kinda came from being at Jodie’s, although I never have coffee at diners… I’m always disappointed… But yeah, every one was having coffee in those diner type cups… made me nostalgic for my youth – going out for breakfast and having coffee. That’s back before any Starbuck’s and there was only one Peet’s in Berkeley. It was hard to get good coffee…

I think Jodie would be happy if he heard that. 🙂

At Jodie’s, one very early morning in July.

Jodie’s is located at 902 Masonic Avenue, Albany, CA 94706. (510) 526-1109. They’re open 8 am – 3 pm Wednesday through Friday and 8 am – 4 pm Saturday and Sunday. Visit Jodie’s website.

Facebook is hard. I don’t want to annoy people by posting personal things that nobody cares about, but I also want to connect with my friends. How long should a status or a comment be? How much of a political/cultural stand should I put out? Is a mellow status a sign of weakness, or even worse, boring-ness? Somehow Facebook has become a campaigning platform, where we are judged by what we say and what we don’t say and how many “Likes” and comments we get. I don’t know what to write on Facebook anymore, and I usually delete my status right before I hit “Enter”, but then I get these feelings that I want to write about. Like this week, I want to write about this surreal feeling I get sitting in the control room of a radio astronomy observatory.

The observatory is southwest of the White Mountains. Outside is the desert, and the telescopes, which are moving slowly in sync to track several objects in space. The telescopes look like little big robot kids innocently gazing at the sky. Occasionally the birds catch the moths that flutter right next to the glass windows, making a small “thump” sound and fly off. (The chipmunks are smaller than a cheap hotdog sausage, so tiny!) There’s another observer on duty, but we both stare at our computers when we’re awake. Everything is silence except for the clock ticking.

If you’ve watched “Contact”, chances are you remember the scene of Dr. Arroway (Judy Foster) sitting alone (in open air) at a radio observatory, the antenna in the background, listening to the transmission with her headphones. We actually do no such romanticism. We sit in a room with four computer screens, schedule and monitor projects (with our eyes, not ears), and hope that everything does what it’s supposed to so that we don’t have to physically touch the antennas or any of the other machines.

CARMA observatory. One morning in late June, 2012

At night, you can go outside and look up to a star-filled sky, but you have to remember to take the flashlight or you wouldn’t see your way back in. Sometimes, when something goes astray with the machinery, the alarm wakes you up and by luck you see sunrise. In those moments, you feel both annoyed and at peace. You want to share such beautiful sky with someone, but you also feel so intimate with the sky that it’s best to enjoy it alone.

I think the desert is where one can really appreciate nature. It doesn’t just happen the first time I was staying at an observatory. It happens every time. It happens when I see the rabbits hopping around at night, the chipmunks and lizards scurrying on the dusty ground, the motionless trees, half light brown like the color of the dust, and hillsides dotted with tufts of grass, also dust brown, like a magnified stubbly chin. It’s amazing how everything manages to stay half green. I appreciate the livelihood. Then I appreciate the food. Simple green salad, grilled chicken and boysenberry crumble, which the chef made for us at lunch the day before, stuff that I don’t know how much energy it costs to produce and transport to this side of the mountain range. Ah, and ice cream, too. I don’t know if I should appreciate them and eat them, or appreciate them and not eat them.

I choose the first option, and go fry some bacon and egg for breakfast.

Picture taken using computer camera because I forgot my camera in Berkeley 🙁

Thank goodness I have my blog!

The sky is grey. The ipod plays Gustav Mahler’s piano quartet in A minor. One hand turns the page to Der Prokurator. The other hand maneuvers the fork into a stack of three pancakes. Oozing chocolate chips and a thick strip of bacon.

Bistro 1491 sits, in fact, at 1491 Solano Avenue. Somehow I keep thinking that the name is 1941. It feels so. The burn orange walls, the abstract paintings, the white-haired ladies by the window.

The pancakes are fluffy, soft, good at first, the bacon is at the right saltiness. The maple syrup errs on the watery side, or maybe it’s just overwhelmed by what’s supposed to be dark chocolate but turns out too sweet. About 60% dark. A heavy feel sets in after the pancakes are gone, what’s left on the plate are messy streaks of brown chocolate and faint yellow syrup. It could almost make a hasty painting. But hasty does not suit this scene.

Address: Bistro 1491
1491 Solano Ave
(between Santa Fe Ave & Curtis St)
Albany, CA 94706
(510) 526-9601
Breakfast at noon: dark chocolate & bacon pancakes – $8.65

Not barbecue.

That stuff is everywhere in the South. I’m talking about something that only Texas has. Something a little sweet, a little pillowy, a little chewy, a little cheesy, a little meaty. Something that after you eat one, you just have to get another. Something that 99.91% of the time is chosen over donuts (I made up the stats, but I’ve never met anyone who picks a donut when they’re given this). My Texas friends, I miss the kolaches.

If you haven’t had it, you’re gonna say “That’s a pig-in-the-blanket, Whole Foods has loads.” No, it is far from a pig-in-the-blanket. I repeat, kolaches is NOT pig-in-the-blanket (PitB).

The difference is in the bread. PitB bread is plain, flare it up with poppy seeds and oily butter or not, it’s plain and must not be eaten without the sausage. Kolaches bread is sweet, like a Hawaiian roll*. PitB bread is dry and flaky. Kolaches bread is pillowy, slightly chewy and moist. The sausage is there for protein surplus and does not really add fireworks to the flavor. If you insist on an either-or, I’d choose the bread and toss the sausage every time. Donut shops in Houston would ask if you want the kind with cheese, say yes. The very thin inner lining of cheese makes its salty-sweet.

Then you’re gonna laugh at me and try to crumble my Texan pride, “It’s a Czech thing, not a Texas thing” and tell me to read Wikipedia.  Well, look again, the Czech kolache (pronounced |koh-lash|) is a sweet pastry with fruit jam on top. The Texan kolaches (pronounced |koh-lah-chee|) is savory with a little sausage link inside. The Texas kolaches isn’t any more Czech than the hamburger is from Hamburg.

Originally, it is a variety of the Czech kolache, referred to as “klobasnek” or “klobasnik,” which comes from “klobasek,” Czech for “sausage,” similar to “kielbasa“. But the Czechs consider the Texas kolaches a joke too far removed from their fruit-topped dessert pastries, for it has cheap cocktail sausage links instead of the huge Polish dogs. The misnomer “kolache” is perhaps due to the Houstonian Kolache Factory‘s successful advertisement of this savory breakfast on the go.

Black sheep to the Czechs or not, the Texas kolaches are extremely popular in Texas. Most donut shops have them, usually twice or three times more expensive than donuts, and all are sold out before noon. Sometimes 9 am. No kolaches left behind.

But you won’t be able to find it outside the Lone Star State. You probably will not even hear about it outside the Lone Star State. People just will not know what you’re talking about when you say “kolaches” (pronounced |koh-lah-chee|), unless they’re from Texas. Believe me, I asked my students here, in Berkeley-San Francisco, they gave me the confused eyes and directed me to Whole Foods for pigs-in-the-blanket. I’ve searched every donut shop in town, no luck. I’ve used Google Maps, AM Kolaches in Hayward is the only hit, but it’s the Czech version with fruits and cream cheese.

O Texas Kolaches, how I miss thee!

*Notes on the Hawaiian rolls: Get them! They make awesome sandwiches. Or spread pâté in the middle.

In foodie talk, Berkeley is synonymous with Chez Panisse: there’s hardly a writing of Bay Area cuisine without the mentioning of Alice Waters and her propriety. But as attractive as the local and sustainable idea sounds, places like Chez Panisse are clearly not in the accessible range for everyone’s weekly, or even monthly, savour. If it’s not what the locals regularly eat, how can it represent the local cuisine? The common Berkelers don’t make one month reservation to eat at a cafe, they instead would rather make a line on the sidewalk, waiting to be seated in 25 minutes or so-told by waiters with tattoos and spiky hair. Such casualness, though paired with obvious reduce in taste innovation and price, defines the Berkeley dining spectrum, with the holes in the wall like Razan’s Organic Kitchen and Gregoire at the cheaper end, to more comfortable sit-downs like Herbivore and Venus at the other.

I call it a sit-down because Venus is barely bigger than a classroom, and diners are spaced more snugly than students on exam day. Its rectangular base holds a kitchen-cashier combination and roughly 40 seats – an ok amount for lunch and dinner but not enough for the mornings. I’ve seen lines, and been in one myself, standing outside the door even on weekdays. The mornings here are cold, but Venus’s breakfasts are good.

Venus's scramble eggs with calabrese sausage , spinach and mushroom, with roasted potato and toasts - $11.00

Omelets and scrambled eggs are the main categories, with typical Californian blendings like chicken-and-apple sausage, fresh berries and chocolate chips in pancakes, and thick, fat, buttery French toasts accompanied by melons and oranges.

A Venus daily special - apple French toasts and sausage, to be dressed in blackberry syrup - $12.50

If you feel guilty about taking time to savor your toasts while others are shivering outside waiting to slip through that door, lunch proves a more comfortable choice. To boost, the hosts give you both the breakfast and lunch menus if you arrive around noon. The specials of the day are printed items with a simple twist, like my chicken salad with a load of watermelon cubes mixed in.

A Venus daily special - watermelon salad with grilled chicken breast and feta cheese - $13.00

The ingredients aren’t clamorous and the mixing isn’t adventurous, but such daily specials are nonetheless a refreshing attempt to harmonize flavors: sweet watermelon to temper tangy feta and vinaigrette, teeth-sinking jello crunch of the grilled chicken to pair with airy crustiness of newly baked bread. It isn’t the best salad I’ve ever had, but it bursts a mouthful of Casual-Cali aroma(*): healthy food can have attractive taste.

The atmosphere, too, is characteristic. Jazzy 60’s records reluctantly slip words one by one off the speaker like water dripping from a roof after some heavy rain. College students twirl their straws over a quiet chat by the windows. An old man with a cane and weak feet drags his steps to the table, clouding himself with a Degas’ look while waiting for his soup. Lone diners in spectacles spend an entire morning flipping through the news, occasionally take a bite of sandwich and a sip of coffee. Couples in their late fifties laugh and talk without constraint. Everyone is comfortable. It’s a noisy place, but oddly it’s full of solitude.

Venus restaurant, in some aspect, is just like their panna cotta: rich and smooth, with the occasional fresh and tart berries to boost.

Dessert at Venus - panna cotta with fresh berries - $8.00

Eating local and sustainable means spending unsustainably, or eating expensive in plain terms. Sure, breakfast for two or lunch plus dessert will rip you off about 25 dollars sans tip. But when the bill doesn’t absurdly boast $50 or more a person, the taste, the portion and the good feeling of eating healthy and local justify the self-indulgence. I guess.

Address: Venus Restaurant
2327 Shattuck Avenue,
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 540-5950

(*): This definition is made only on comparison with the cuisines of other states in America, as the fusion and local trend is by no means particular to California, but a growing fashion in high-end restaurants around the world.

The most irresistible American meal is the full country breakfast. I know it’s derived from the full English breakfast and all, and it’s probably so irresistible just because who in their right mind would refuse food after a long night with an empty stomach (hence the word “fast” – not eating, in “breakfast”). And yes, there’s nothing speedy about the old country breakfast. Making pancakes, scrambling eggs, frying sausages takes a good hour off your morning, not to mention scrubbing the skillets afterwards. I probably will never make a full country breakfast at home until I have nothing better to do, but thank God for blessing America with countless roadside brick houses opened up just to serve breakfast. And may those like Millbrae Pancake House flourish despite the swamping force of IHOP and the likes, because they serve freaking good breakfast.

I said freaking good because I happened to order the one dish that, it turns out for the first time, everyone on Yelp seems to agree to be MPH’s best. The Swedish pancake with lingonberry butter. Have no idea how Swedish this really is, but the pancake is not the fluffy butter kind IHOP is known for, instead it’s a small flat crepe. It’s dense and has a slight sweet chew. And the lingonberry butter is butter mixed with lingonberry bits. And I spread a ton of it on my pancake. And I ate it by itself, like eating chocolate. Americans, maybe it’s time to mix raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, gooseberry, and maybe other fruits too into your butter. It kills. Just sayin’.

The rest of the breakfast was really just so so. Hash brown, two runny eggs, and four sausage links were as good as they could(should) be, but nothing unexpected. That’s ok, the Swedish deal wowed me enough.

MPH is cheap too. All that was for $7.95. The thing is, it was too much. I couldn’t finish everything, had to lean against the wall for 10 minutes in the restaurant, and almost needed a walker to get to the car. Maybe I’d be in better shape if I gorge up on these more often.

Address: Millbrae Pancake House
1301 El Camino Real
Millbrae, CA 94030-1410
(650) 589-2080‎