Flavor Boulevard

Summer Green Roll – avocado, cucumber, kaiware sprout, wakame and hijiki. Alissa scooped wasabi like it was green tea ice cream, but I like this one just as it is: plain, fresh and light.

It’s been a long time since I last either wrote about food or ate anything that I could write about. The occasional rainfalls during the drought of takeout Chinese are so-so hu tieu and com suon somewhere in the Ranch 99 complex, and homemade soups, lovely but no hot news. Vegetable intake has been limited to shibazuke from Berkeley Bowl, homemade kimchi, and toasted seaweed (seaweed counts, doesn’t it?). Before leaving for her trip, Cheryl fed me her black chicken soup, brown rice, tau yew bak (similar to thit kho but with soy sauce instead of fish sauce) and, like a loving sister, concerned looks and advice on how I should feed myself healthy meals. I agree with her one hundred percent, but all planned menus for the next day fluttered their wings away as I run from class to class and get home only wishing to relax. Cheryl is married. I entertain the idea that I live like a single guy. A single guy that could not have looked more forward to a vegan dinner with some old friends.

After much debate we decided on a simple kampyo roll, a big fluffy summer green roll (that we each stuffed into our mouth in one bite to prove our manliness(*)), a Cha-Ya roll, a tempura stuffed eggplant, a gyoza and vegetable soup, and three desserts.

Cha-Ya Roll – avocado, yam and carrots, tempura roll with sweet soy sauce.

Tonchi Nasu – tempura stuffed eggplant with setsuma potato, corn, tofu, hijiki, soybean and carrot

Taku Sui – gyoza soup with tofu, broccoli, zucchini, napa cabbage, snap peas, asparagus, cauliflower, silver noodles and mushrooms in a light broth – I like this a lot!

Yellow Moon – tempura banana with a scoop of soy ice cream, drizzled with green tea sauce and red bean sauce

The Yellow Moon is just the tempura banana, the soy ice cream is listed as a separate dessert, but we shameless girls requested a scoop of ice cream with the banana. The Cha-Ya staff is so nice. 😉 This tempura banana is not oily like the deep fried banana desserts at Thai restaurants, the batter is light and plain. It gives you the impression of healthy foods.

Vegan chocolate cake (left) and Oshikuro (right) – plain white mochi in gooey red bean sauce. The red bean is a bit too sweet, but I like it still. The cake is like a soft brownie, not at all dry and lifeless like normal vegan cakes.

(*) In case you wonder, a picture of us is to the right.

Address: Cha-Ya Vegetarian Japanese Cuisine
(North Berkeley)
1686 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley CA 94709
(510) 981-1213
Dinner for four: roughly $90 – Kinda expensive now that I think about it…

I wish I could be like Hikaru, eating 20 cakes in 3.5 hours. Then I could go to cake shops like Masse, ask for every beauty of the day and not worry about missing out on any flavor. Wouldn’t life be so sweet then?

But maybe I don’t have to be like Hikaru. Minus the pastries and the cookies, Masse has only about 10 cakes on display, most of them are available in small size (because they don’t sell by the slices like Crixa Cakes); if I skip dinner and invite a friend, we could easily bring down all of them in one sitting, don’t you think? Danielle and I tried only two this time, though. Five bucks each, round and pretty and screaming “Got your spoon ready?”

The mocha walnut chocolate cake was a fun little one: I thought about peeling off its white, woody patterned wrapper but it turned out the wrapper was white chocolate. 😀 The caramelized walnut base proved a mild and coarse complement to the thick, creamy layers of dark chocolate cake, chocolate Bavarian cream and espresso mousse. Its richness is complemented by its stark coffee flavor. Just now, I realize the cake looks like a cup of coffee with two stirring straws. 🙂

But the main reason we came here was the cheesecake. The soft, subtly briny ricotta is wrapped up in a coat of hazelnut shavings and topped with a refreshing guava glaze. The glaze actually tastes too sweet and too fruitily generic to be guava, though. Regardless, when I combined a spoon of cheesecake with a spoon of mocha cake, I saw fireworks just like Remy.

——————
A few days later…
——————

I found out about Reuschelle’s. Victor Reuschelle says “[his cheesecake (I think)] is like heaven on a fork!”. I think it’s pretty heavenly that he offers delivery for free within 20 miles of the East Bay (in fact, there’s no physical store to visit).

Reuschelle’s Cheesecake is a one-man operation: Victor receives order via phone or email, Victor makes the cake, Victor delivers. Victor says ordering 4 days in advance would be best, but he makes exceptions based on what he has and what his schedule looks like. I ordered yesterday afternoon and the cheesecakes arrived this morning. The best deal is the 4-flavor sample of four 3-inch cheesecakes for $20, and unlike sampler plates in restos, you get to pick the flavors from a thousand choices on Reuschelle’s list. Okay, so it’s 57, but Victor says custom made is no problemo.

Clockwise from top left: Red Velvet, Original, Raspberry Lemonade, and Sweet Potato. I had my reasons for such picks. I wanted the original cheesecake flavor the way I want the original pho brought straight from the kitchen to the table, unadulterated by sauces or herbs. The red velvet is a playing-safe choice because it has chocolate. I haven’t seen sweet potato flavor in desserts. Raspberry and lemonade sound tart enough to temper the cheese.

Heaven forbids, these cheesecakes are no joke to get tempered by fruits. The Sweet Potato is a twin of the country pumpkin pie. The raspberry hint is stronger than the lemonade hint, but neither can emerge from the dense, creamy grasp of the cheese. The cocoa in the Red Velvet? Got lost. They’re good cheesecakes, but they’re all the same.

At Masse, North Shattuck, Berkeley. What happened to the boy's pants?

Thinking back, I’ve come across Reuschelle’s bites at Ghiradelli Square chocolate festival last September. He just started his business a few months before that. I like Victor’s casual friendliness, his delivery option, and his thrive for varieties, but if I must compare Masse’s one cheesecake with Reuschelle’s four, Masse’s wins. The fruit glaze makes the cake more dessert-like and less cheese-tray like, the hazelnut shavings break the textural homogeneity. The prices? Reuschelle’s a bit steeper, but you get the cake at your door.

And no, I couldn’t finish 4 mini 3″ cheesecakes in one sitting. Ninety percent of them are hanging out with the spinach and the pork chops in my fridge. Would you like some?

Address: Masse’s Pastries
1469 Shattuck Avenue (across the street from Safeway)
Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 649-1004
www.massespastries.com

No-address: Reuschelle’s Cheesecake (aka Victor Reuschelle)
Telephone: (510) 219-2997
E-mail: reuschelle@gmail.com
www.reuschelles.com

By the time we found Crixa Cakes, the bluish afternoon sunlight was tinkling its almost empty glass cabinets. The bakery closes at 6:30 everyday and does not open on Sunday. The menu changes daily and the cakes go fast. But we were slow at making up our minds. Bakeries are worse than quaint bookstores, where you can at least try out something before buying it.

Easiest choice: Boston creme pie. Tender chiffon cake with creamy vanilla custard, covered with dark chocolate ganache. The refrigerated sponge is like Choco Pie, only much better and, of course, pricier at $5.85 a piece. (Fun facts: its monetary value is, however, nothing compared to the Choco Pie in North Korean black markets, where a single pie costs one sixth a worker’s monthly wage.)

Curious choice: Pave vergiate. Flourless chocolate cake.  Slightly bitter, some on and off hint of lizard eggs or herbal tea. I know that sounds weird, and it’s not like I’ve tried lizard eggs, but you’ve gotta trust your instinct, and as weird as it may sound, it’s a nice subtle taste that leads you on forking. Now texture-wise, eating pave vergiate is like bouncing on a plush sofa (not to mention that the piece looks like one). Featherly light with intermittent chocolate hits. It gets dense and similar to normal chocolate cake once refrigerated though.

Eastern European choice: Poppyseed rugelach. Flaky tender pastry roll with ground, honeyed poppyseeds. This is Hungarian, to be exact. The poppyseeds are like finely ground sesame, eating them between layers of baked dough is like walking on a sandy beach with a semisweet tropical wind. I’d ditch cinnamon rolls (and I always do) for these cuties anytime of the day.

There’s hardly any better way to sum it up than Elizabeth Kloian’s own lines:

[…]Think of the smallest pastry as the greatest extravagance not because of how many calories it has, but because of the satisfaction it gives you[…]

And yes, “extravagance” is the right word, these darlings cost aplenty. Especially when you keep wanting to buy the whole store…

Address: Crixa Cakes
2748 Adeline Street (across the street from Berkeley Bowl)
Berkeley, CA 94703
(510) 548-0421