Ratings are on a scale of 0 to 24.  The scale used to be 0 to 10, so restaurants written about before 2012 may have only had their ratings adjusted by formula and not by hand (hence all the 2s, 5s, 8s, etc.)  The scale works as follows:

An asymmetrical 0 to 24 scale may not be intuitive, I realize.  But as a rule of thumb: a double-digit score means I liked it, while a single-digit score… less so.  Also, as you might expect, scores from many years ago may not be very reliable, so do check the dates.

Click on the column titles to sort the entries!

Name	Cuisine	Address	Last update	Score
Taco Primo	Mexican (taqueria)	Fillmore btw Clay/Washington, San Francisco	2025-02-22	12
As of this writing, this isn’t a real restaurant yet, just a sort of burrito sweatshop in the back of a bar.  But the burrito I got was unusually good⁠—I can certainly imagine ordering another one the next time I trekked out to San Francisco town to sample Salt & Straw’s flavor of the month.
Dolly’s	Italian	San Pablo btw Lincoln/Central, El Cerrito	2025-02-21	6
The specialty at this place is fettuccini alfredo that is tossed inside a giant wheel of parmesan cheese.  When I heard about that, I made a mental note to stop by sometime and try that, and today was the day.  And… I mean, it wasn’t outright bad, but I can make a fettuccini alfredo at home that is much more to my taste at a tiny fraction of the price.  Curiosity sated, expense rued.  (Oh, and the water was outright bad. Tasted like it was mostly dissolved microplastics.)
Chez Panisse	Upscale	Shattuck btw Vine/Cedar, Berkeley	2025-02-05	11
I’d visited the upstairs café a couple of times back in the ’00s, but after nearly a quarter of a century living within shouting distance of Chez Panisse, once considered the top restaurant in the U.S., I finally set foot inside, as Ellie took me here for a birthday dinner.  This is one of those places where you don’t choose what you get, apart from being able to tell them that you’re a vegetarian.  Looking at the lineups on nearby days, I think I got pretty lucky: the salad came with white beans and not sunchoke chips, the appetizer was a truffled raviolo à la Marco Pierre White and not spaghetti with breadcrumbs, and the dessert, which combined chocolate cake, pistachio ice cream, and cherry ice cream, certainly beat candied kumquats.  For my main course, the ribeye steak the carnivores got was replaced by a turnip gratin, and while I was initially dubious, it actually did a great job of serving the meat’s role on the plate without actually trying to taste like meat the way the stuff at, say, the Butcher’s Son does.  And since I don’t drink, I appreciated that the wine list included a non-alcoholic Pinot Noir grape juice, which turned out to be really delicious⁠—much better than any “wine-grape grape-juice” I’d ever tried before. Anyway, sure, we probably could have just gone to Zachary’s and had a meal we enjoyed more for less than ten percent of the price.  (I have to think Ellie would have enjoyed it more, as even though she didn’t get the vegetarian menu, she kept running into things she set to the side, like the grilled onions on the salad and the lentil-stuffed cabbage in the main course.)  But the historian in me was glad to have tried it at least once.  It’s sort of like when modern students read The Catcher in the Rye and complain, “What’s the big deal? All books about teenagers sound like this!”  Yeah, they do, and they do because of The Catcher in the Rye.  Similarly, there are lots of restaurants like Chez Panisse, but that’s true in large part because of Chez Panisse.  To showcase local produce, in a spot that has some of the best local produce on the planet, rather than just churning out nineteenth-century French dishes… I tried to eat my dinner imagining how revolutionary that would have been in the world of fine dining circa 1971, and it did enhance what was already a pretty good experience.
Bad Walter’s	Dessert (ice cream)	College & Birch, Oakland	2025-01-25	11
This is one of those hipster places that put booze and Crunch Berries in the ice cream, but I tried a more normal flavor (peppermint ice cream with Oreos and chocolate swirls) and it merited a thumbs-up.
Laughing Buddha	Chinese	Piedmont btw MacArthur/Yosemite, Oakland	2025-01-25	9
This is a vegetarian spot, so it was very nice to have the whole menu to choose from.  I got a noodle dish in a black pepper sauce; it was okay, but even though I’m no longer as averse to East Asian food as I used to be, it’s not my favorite and a Chinese place is going to have to be a lot more than okay to make me want to return.
Tarts de Feybesse	Bakery	24th & Waverly, Oakland	2025-01-22	7
For $8.50 for a single viennoiserie, I was going to have to be very impressed.  Apparently many have been: this place is already considered one of the best bakeries in the U.S.  Among its accolades, I saw just today that the proprietors are up for a James Beard award for the country’s best pastry chefs.  But I have to say, I tried three pastries (one scallion and cheese, one chocolate chips and cream, one raspberry), and not only did they not justify the price tag, they didn’t even stand out above your standard street corner French bakery.  I mean, sure, they were fine, but the shop up the street from Ellie’s old place in Portland was very similar and half the price.
Noor	Indian	ghost kitchen, Berkeley	2025-01-10	12
The first time I attempted to visit this place was a disaster, because it turned out that its purported location was actually one of those dystopian ghost kitchens.  However, the proprietors did eventually open up an actual restaurant, and it wasn’t even down in Oakland but just across the way from Ellie’s workplace.  So we checked it out one evening, and it turned out to be quite good.  I was most interested in trying the dishes that don’t appear on every Indian restaurant menu (and which aren’t available for takeout here), which in this case meant a paneer roll with black beans (deep fried and decidedly unhealthful, but good in small doses) followed by a roasted pineapple dish that walked the line between sweet and savory: it was a curry dish in which the pineapple pieces had a crackly sugar crust like a crème brûlée.  Ellie got a paneer lababdar and some well-made naan.  Dessert was a vegetarian panna cotta with berry coulis.  Overall, quite good if a bit pricey (but what isn’t these days?).
Pizzeria Mercato	Pizza	Shellmound btw 62nd/Shellmound, Emeryville	2025-01-06	7
Crust: good! Sauce: not noteworthy  Cheese: this is the weak link.  The cheese was not very flavorful and the texture was off.
Sakana	Japanese	Arlington & Amherst, Kensington	2024-12-31	10
The sushi rolls here are expensive, but quite big—⁠Ellie and I got three of them and that was too much.  I didn’t think the avocado and tofu roll I got was worth the price, but the egg and mango roll gets a thumbs-up from me.  (For non-vegetarians, I suppose I should mention that while Ellie was iffy about both of the vegetarian rolls we got, she gave a rave review to her shrimp one.)
Peace Natural	Tibetan	Solano & Tacoma, Berkeley	2024-12-30	15
This is pretty much an exact clone of Potala and Shangri-La Buddha, except this one’s on Solano.  Ellie said she found the food much more flavorful than that at the aforementioned establishments; I found it to be the exact same, but for me that’s high praise.
Bangkok by the Bay	Thai	Heinz near Seventh, Berkeley	2024-12-27	15
Here I got a vegan green curry dish that was a cut above: it looked like the kabocha squash had been grilled before being added to the mix and it made a noticeable difference.  Very good, and I look forward to returning soon.
La Espiga de Oro	Mexican	24th btw Florida/Alabama, San Francisco	2024-12-22	3
I read a review talking up this place and decided to check it out.  Mistake!  First, it turns out to be more of a market than a burrito shop; most of the people were waiting to buy pounds of corn masa or heat lamp chicken.  Our burritos took a lo‑o‑o‑ong time to come out, and when they did, they were dry and poorly constructed: gobs of lettuce and dried out rice, but virtually no beans.  I also got a tamale, which was equally dry.  And I couldn’t help but rue the opportunity cost: a longish drive, a hefty bridge toll, some very good burrito shops just a few blocks away, and we get this?
Super Duper	Burgers	regional chain	2024-12-21	10
I got one of the seasonal specials, the truffle veggie burger.  At first I was disappointed by how small it was, but it turned out to be just the right size: I did enjoy it, but the salt and grease accumulated quickly, and after the last bite, I would not have wanted another.  I liked that the patty was clearly made of compressed, identifiable vegetables rather than something that looked like a space-age polymer.  The hazelnut shake also turned out to be a fair bit better than it looked at first.
Mi Casa Grill	Mexican	San Pablo & Macdonald, Richmond	2024-12-12	12
I’ve gone here a couple of times to grab takeout because it’s close to my house.  It’s better than I would expect “random place close to my house” to be, with a focus on street food most local taquerias don’t offer, like mulitas and gorditas.
Hella Bagels	Bagels	San Pablo btw Marin/Dartmouth, Albany	2024-10-31	11
This place is within walking distance of… my old house, which I guess doesn’t do me much good these days.  But still, somehow this seems to have become my regular bagel shop.  The bagels have a pleasant chew to them, but what has drawn me back multiple times now has been the unusual toppings.  For instance, one I got in late summer was topped with mango cream cheese, fresh peaches, spicy honey, and mint leaves.  (Pretty pricey, though.  Then again, these days what isn’t?)
Jars	Dessert	national chain	2024-10-21	8
It looks like this place currently has seven locations stretching from Laguna Niguel to Chicago; I went to the one in Emeryville.  The gimmick is $10 desserts made of bits of cake and various goops loaded into a plastic jar like a miniature trifle.  Probably coming soon to a strip mall in an affluent community near you!
Pippal	Indian	Bay near Ohlone, Emeryville	2024-10-21	N/A
I’d wanted to try this place, despite the expense, because I saw that the menu offers up dishes I’d never encountered before.  For instance, on my first visit I got an “amritsar kulcha” with “pindi chana” and “khate pyaz muli”, none of which rang any bells.  It turns out that they’re all pretty familiar: in order, they’re bread with a(n almost unnoticeable) potato filling, a chickpea stew, and pickled radishes in that green samosa sauce.  More interesting than delicious, but I might come back to try more things.  I might wait until I’ve recovered from the throbbing techno soundtrack, though. Update: I got sick after eating here, so let’s lower the odds on that “I might come back” part.
Feel Good Bakery	Bakery	local chain, Alameda	2024-10-19	13
I was shocked to discover that I didn’t already have an entry for this place, because I used to go to their farmers’ market booth all the time!  They no longer come to the farmers’ market I visit, but I stop by their flagship storefront pretty much whenever I’m in Alameda.  The sweet pastries are very good, but their specialty is their seeded breadsticks with a type of cheese that changes daily.  I used to eat a couple of those every week.
Wild Ginger	Chinese	Park btw San Antonio/Encinal, Alameda	2024-10-19	13
A while back my recommendations feed directed me to a video about how to make “biang biang noodles”  Hand-pulling Asian noodles is beyond my current range of culinary skills, but the noodles did look good, and I poked around to see whether I could get them anywhere around here.  I discovered that there was a place in Alameda that specialized in them.  Eventually I did make it down to Alameda to check them out, and at least as this place makes them, I’m a fan!  Unfortunately, though, this seems like the sort of place where I will always just be ordering the one dish: I got the “spicy hot oil” biang biang noodles, which are vegan, and there aren’t too many other non-carnivorous options.
Shangri-La Buddha	Tibetan	San Pablo near Washington, Albany	2024-10-18	15
You don’t get to pick your meal at this vegan Tibetan establishment, just the size: it’s slightly different each day, and the components are listed online.  The meals don’t sound very promising, consisting as they do of items such as “brown rice with millet” and “steamed collard greens with tofu basil sauce”, but it’s pretty amazing how much flavor this place packs into such virtuous-sounding fare.  So I was sad when the covids shut it down, back when it was called Potala, but it’s back now, just a few blocks up the road from its previous location, and the quality of the food hasn’t slipped a bit.
Tane	Japanese	Shattuck near Berkeley, Berkeley	2024-10-16	4
I saw that another vegan Japanese spot had opened up near Cha-Ya, so I thought I’d give it a try and see how it compared.  Answer: poorly.  I got a spicy garlic ramen, and it was all right⁠—I didn’t care for the bits and bobs floating in it, but noodles are palatable enough even when the flavor profile of the broth isn’t what I would have gone with myself.  But Ellie was pretty unhappy with the sushi she ordered: one roll had two kinds of tofu in it and she said that while she’d had tofu that was bad in various ways before, this was the first time she’d had tofu that was a problem.
9 Julio	Argentinian	Claremont near Telegraph, Oakland	2024-10-15	9
The empanada I got here was better than average, but it was also tiny for the price, and it was one of only two vegetarian options⁠—and the other one was just a vegan version of this one!
Xica	Mexican	Battery near Greenwich, San Francisco	2024-10-11	13
I went here back when it was a window in Oakland called “Chica” and was kind of shocked at how good what was essentially just a bowl of burrito fillings could be.  But before I could really become a regular, the place closed down.  I was initially pleased to hear that the proprietors were re-opening under the name “Xica”, but even though it now has fancy new digs, the drawbacks mean that it’s unlikely I’ll be back more than once in a blue moon: it’s way more expensive, the portions are smaller, and most problematic of all, it’s in San Francisco town and thus very taxing to visit.  But as vexed as I am about this place crossing the bay, I have to admit that the food is still very good!
Forma Bakery	Bakery	Telegraph btw 49th/51st, Oakland	2024-09-12	12
This place offers up a long list of offbeat selections: I got croissants with corn pudding and tomatoes, with flan and strawberry jam, with pistachio frangipane.  Quality was good enough to warrant a return visit someday.
Sol Taqueria	Mexican (taqueria)	San Pablo btw Camelia/Gilman, Berkeley	2024-08-25	8
There seems to be a different taqueria at this address every year or two: La Palmita, Pepe’s, Nuevo Sol, and now just regular Sol Taqueria.  The free chips and salsa were good, but the nachos I got were just okay: they seemed to have made the chips thick and let them get stale so they wouldn’t get soggy, but they instantly got soggy anyway.
Sweet Bites	Bakery	San Pablo & Addison, Berkeley	2024-08-06	9
I was looking for a place to get a breakfast pastry after dropping Ellie off at work, and I saw that this place had accrued a handful of good reviews in the short time it’s been open.  My expectations took a tumble when I saw that the selection was quite limited (no counter full of viennoiseries, just a couple of little cake savers) and that the croissants in particular looked like something you’d see in a plastic clamshell at the Safeway.  But I tried a peach croissant and it was surprisingly good!  Unfortunately, the eclair I got didn’t live up to that standard⁠—it was pretty ho-hum.
Imperial Tea Court	Chinese	Ferry Building, San Francisco	2024-07-29	14
In early 2019 I logged in to add this entry and discovered that apparently I had written a dismissive micro-review eleven years earlier.  I’d been here many times since then, because every year pre-covid I met up with a friend at the Ferry Building location when she was in town for GDC.  She likes tea.  I don’t, so I’d have just had a ginger ale or something.  But in 2019 I decided to try some of the actual food and ordered the hand-pulled noodles.  I was shocked to receive one of the best bowls of noodles I’d had in my life!  So I made a point of going to the Berkeley location a few times and trying some more things, and several of them were phenomenal.  I generally dislike East Asian food, but this became one of my favorite restaurants.  And then… it closed.  A victim of the covids, I guess.  The Ferry Building location is still open, but it doesn’t have nearly the food selection that the Berkeley location did.  So, out of the pantheon, sad to say.
Lucia’s	Pizza	Shattuck btw University/Addison, Berkeley	2024-07-28	12
The loss of Pizza Politana from the Sunday farmers’ market still cuts deep all these years later, so when a new pizza booth opened, I was initially delighted.  Then I saw that it was run by Lucia’s, a restaurant in Berkeley to which I had given low marks in 2017.  So I wasn’t expecting much when I tried the farmers’ market pizza… but it turned out to be very good!  Not quite up to Pizza Politana standards, but not miles away, either.  Lucia’s rating is hereby doubled.
Millennium	Vegan	College near Chabot, Oakland	2024-07-11	13
When I moved back to the Bay Area in 2005, I kept hearing that San Francisco town had two great fine-dining vegetarian restaurants.  Greens I went to right away, but Millennium was not just vegetarian but vegan, and every time I looked at Millennium’s menu online, it looked very mushroom-and-tempeh, so I didn’t try it for seven years.  But when I finally took the plunge, I actually liked it more than Greens!  And then… I didn’t go back. It was in San Francisco town, after all.  But then it moved to Oakland, and while I can’t say I’m a regular, I do try to swing by at least once a year or so, and have been taken there for my birthday more than once.  Most recently I was lured in by their “Taco Thursday” special; the tacos were very good, but the main dish I got turned out to be just a couple of breaded rounds of squash on top of the usual beans and rice, and given that it was pricier than all three tacos put together, that was a disappointment.
Café Colucci	Ethiopian	San Pablo btw 59th/Stanford, Oakland	2024-07-10	14
The quality here is variable, but since that means that it yo-yos between about a 14 and a 17, this is my favorite Ethiopian restaurant.  During my most recent visit, my first after the restaurant’s move from Telegraph to San Pablo, the food was at the lower end of that span, but it did come out instantly (I guess it’s not too hard to scoop seven pre-made items onto a plate, but I am used to having to wait).
Pochys	Indian	Camelia & Tenth, Berkeley	2024-07-05	9
I looked up the menu for this place, headed down to check it out, and found it closed⁠—apparently the hours on the web site were inaccurate.  I tried again a few weeks later to discover that the menu had changed, and that you could no longer get a single wrap for $8, but had to buy a minimum of two.  Fortunately, I had Ellie with me, so we went ahead and got a pair of paneer wraps, which tasted fine but were quite simple and very small⁠—I could very easily have eaten both.
Mexicana	Mexican (taqueria)	Shattuck & Vine, Berkeley	2024-06-24	9
The latest place to take over the cursed Picoso/Guacamole 61 space in the “Epicurious Garden”.  Like its predecessors, it’s fine but not really remarkable in any way; unlike its predecessors, its prices are competitive with similar establishments outside the Gourmet Ghetto, so that’s something.
Peregrine Cafe	Eclectic	food truck, Emeryville	2024-06-21	8
I tried three things here.  Beignets: very good, though I might not rank them as highly as the guy who came back ten minutes after leaving to give the proprietor more money because he liked the beignets so much.  Mushroom sandwich: not as good as I’d hoped, with a mushroom mix that had too many bitter notes for my taste.  Churros: the one I tried was all crust with very little actual pastry in it, while two of the three churros Ellie tried were still raw on the inside.  Ellie liked the poutine she got, but I couldn’t try it because the gravy has bacon in it.  Prices are quite reasonable for 2024; that poutine was only $5.50, while the beignets and churros were only $2.50 apiece due to the Friday special.
Bageltopia	Bagels	University & Acton, Berkeley	2024-06-13	7
I became a vegetarian early enough in life that I never did get around to trying lox, so out of curiosity, I went here to sample the “vegan carrot lox” (on an everything bagel with cream cheese).  Verdict: tasted like marinated carrots.  Anyway, the bagels don’t compare to those at some other local places, so now that my curiosity is sated I figure that’s that.
Three.One Four	Pizza	Gilman btw Neilson/Tevlin, Berkeley	2024-06-08	10
After several years of hype and quite a few premature opening announcements, this place is finally up and running.  The pizza is pretty good, though it’s from the super thin crust, “char = sophisticated” school.  We also got one of the pasta specials, spaghetti baked with fresh mozzarella in a ceramic pot under a pizza crust; the food itself was nothing special and cost about twice as much as was really reasonable, but the presentation was interesting enough that I don’t regret ordering it just this once.
Little Kathmandu	Himalayan	San Pablo & Stockton, El Cerrito	2024-06-04	6
Not terrible, but a lot of misses: the seasoning on the dal was off, the paneer tikka masala was very pale and had an unpleasant aftertaste, the lachha paratha was dry and flavorless, and my attempt to try something new, the laphing, was a disaster: I thought I was getting a noodle dish with green beans, but instead I got gummy railroad cars (the cross-section of each “noodle” was a square) in an inedibly hot sauce.
the Cheesecake Factory	Eclectic	international chain	2024-06-02	4
Ellie wanted to try this after having heard many jokes about its comically large menu; she likes kitsch, and thought it would be kitschy.  She left furious about the bad food (she struggled through three bites of her greasy burger and compared the cheesecake to what you’d get at Safeway), inattentive service, and casino-like decor, and would give the place a zero.  I wasn’t quite as down on the experience as she was.  I liked the bread, my avocado spring rolls were edible if not good exactly, and I did eventually finish my chocolate cherry cheesecake after taking it home.
Gangnam Tofu	Korean	San Pablo btw Knott/Wall, El Cerrito	2024-04-28	8
Thought I’d check this place out because it’s very close to my current residence and I saw it mentioned as the location of an interview with a local author I happened across.  Apparently someone liked it enough to invite a reporter!  Apparently it is considered more authentic than the Bowl’d mini-chain that is the better-known Korean outlet around these parts.  It wasn’t terrible, but my hot rice bowl was sort of like the Bowl’d version with a third of the inventiveness removed.
¡Duende!	Spanish	19th btw Telegraph/Broadway, Oakland	2024-04-27	12
This place had been on my list forever, but it took a while before I had someone living locally who’d split a vegetarian paella with me.  It was very good!  So good that, even though we were stuffed, it seemed like a shame not to try a dessert… but the strawberry-rhubarb cake we got was so disappointing (dry in the middle, and kind of cold? were these frozen?) that it knocked a point or two off the score.
Catastrophe Pizza	Pizza	MLK & 45th, Oakland	2024-04-26	7
So, first of all, this place has been demoted from a pizza shop to a pizza counter inside an Algerian grocery store.  I thought about getting a piece of baklava to go with the pizza, but there were no labels or prices, so nope to that.  As for the pizza… better than the national chains, but that’s a low bar.  I didn’t regret buying this pizza but I don’t anticipate going back.
Taqueria La Venganza	Mexican (vegan)	Telegraph btw Alcatraz/66th, Oakland	2024-04-23	9
Pretty much what I expected.  I am a vegetarian, but I don’t like most vegan places because of their insistence on trying to mimic meat using plant products rather than just serving food without it.  Sure enough, I got three tacos here, and while I had to drown the fake carne asada and the fake carnitas in rice and beans to make them palatable, the taco whose key ingredient was sweet potatoes⁠—i.e., the ingredient was itself rather than a fake version of something else⁠—was far, far better.
Comal	Mexican	Shattuck btw University/Addison, Berkeley	2024-04-22	14
This is the semi-upscale Mexican restaurant of which my favorite nearby burrito shop is a spinoff.  It’s where you go if you want a tlayuda or some tetelas instead of the usual taqueria fare.  I see that in my 2012 writeup I said that “I can’t really make a habit of going to Comal because it’s stupidly expensive”; since then, the prices pretty much everywhere else have doubled, so Comal looks relatively reasonable.  (At least as of this writing.)  I was pleasantly surprised to find that an agua fresca was $5 instead of $8, for instance, and even more pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be uncommonly delicious.
Emiliano’s Tacos	Mexican (taco truck)	San Pablo & Lincoln, El Cerrito	2024-04-20	8
I got a plate of nachos here.  They were fine, though I’m not a fan of using dayglo orange liquid in place of just melting some real cheese; I know that to some that dayglo orange liquid is a defining element of nachos, but to me it is more like a defining element of bad nachos, even when my taste buds say that the nachos are fine.
Farmhouse Kitchen	Thai	regional chain	2024-04-18	9
My yellow curry was tasty enough, but the roti I got with it was so oily that it genuinely gave me a tough time⁠—I had to soak it in the curry to make it palatable.  Considering that this looks like a pretty casual place, prices were unexpectedly eye-popping: like, it’s a good thing I’m a vegetarian, because their version of a beef panang is $42.95!
Thai Corner	Thai	Gilman & Santa Fe, Berkeley	2024-03-10	11
Though there has been a “Thai Corner” in this location for ages, this is a new restaurant that kept the old name⁠—to save on the cost of signage, I guess.  As of this writing it is the most highly recommended Thai restaurant in the area, at least on Yelp, and it’s certainly good, but I’d put the food on the same level as a lot of the other places around here⁠—they’re all pretty close.  Maybe an extra half point for the ingratiating service, and minus a point and a half for the terrible rap music playing throughout our meal.
Pizzaiolo	Pizza	Telegraph btw 51st/49th, Oakland	2024-03-04	4
Back in the 2000s people talked as if this were the Bay Area’s premier pizzeria, so much so that I went every couple of years only to be disappointed anew.  I gave up.  Then, after well over a decade, I decided to give it another shot.  This time the pizza tasted better than I remembered, but I’m still dropping it very close to the red zone because the service was terrible.  I mean, imagine how much better that pizza might have been had it not been served to me stone cold?
Gary Danko	Upscale	North Point & Hyde, San Francisco	2024-02-05	10
I wanted to go to a big name fine dining restaurant for my 50th birthday, but we couldn't snag a reservation at the French Laundry and Chez Panisse is closed on Mondays.  My optometrist, of all people, had talked up this place, so Gary Danko it was.  Unfortunately, my birthday is in the middle of winter, so there wasn’t much chance for the chefs to show off any produce; instead, the stars of the show were strong cheeses, which are not for me.  I also chose a dessert that turned out to be a bit too heavy for me.  However, I could tell that the dishes were well done: the one savory course that did not feature a strong cheese was a pair of “tofu scallops” that were very good.  Probably the big win, though, was that Ellie, who had been apprehensive about going to such an upscale place (in part because she doesn’t like Millennium, one of my favorites), loved it—​she is not a vegetarian and did not have multiple courses of strong cheeses, but instead got a lobster dish that she says is the single best meal she’s ever eaten.  So I guess I now have someone to go to fancy restaurants with, once I build my savings back up!
Dandelion Chocolate	Dessert (chocolate)	Valencia btw 18th/19th, San Francisco	2024-02-01	10
I see that seven years ago I praised this place for its “surprisingly reasonable prices”.  After the 2022 inflation, this is no longer the case.  I got a sort of sugar donut with a few little chocolate chunks and an apricot chocolate mousse tart.  The donut was fine; I’d say it was worth about $1.50.  The tart was very well made, but also quite small, so I’d say that a reasonable price would be $3.50.  For those prices, I’d give this place a higher score.  But I paid $5 and $8 respectively.
Rico Rico Taco	Mexican (taqueria)	Lakeshore & Rand, Oakland	2024-01-19	12
Here I got a decent chile relleno burrito.  A little drier and a little spicier than your standard burrito, but quite good and an interesting change of pace.  Condiments are served in sealed pouches; the avocado sauce was a little off kilter somehow, but still good.  (The brown sauce was not to my taste.)
Piccino	Italian	Minnesota & 22nd, San Francisco	2023-12-30	9
We went for brunch and got a couple of egg dishes.  Both were plenty tasty, but they were also meals I could have made myself pretty easily, and were painfully expensive for what we got.
Bamboo Sushi	Japanese	Bollinger Canyon btw Sunset/Camino Ramon, San Ramon	2023-12-28	14
This is the California outpost of a sushi chain I really liked in Portland.  It’s expensive enough (and distant enough) that I can’t be a regular, but on the rare occasions that I find myself in San Ramon it’ll be hard to pass up the chance for another Green Machine roll.
Tashi Delek	Himalayan	San Pablo btw Potrero/Madison, El Cerrito	2023-12-27	15
This is one of the first places I visited after the move to El Cerrito.  I got a very tasty bowl of noodles and Ellie got a thali platter that I sampled little bits of, which impressed me enough that I made a mental note to get a thali platter myself the next time we visited.  Instead, my next visit was a takeout order just for me, a vegetable momo soup that turned out to be really delicious.  If the third visit matches the first two, Tashi Delek goes into the pantheon.
El Talpense	Mexican	Euclid btw Hearst/Ridge, Berkeley	2023-12-14	3
I was wary of this place, because undergraduate food is almost never good, but was swayed to give it a try by the ecstatic Yelp reviews.  And… yeah, undergraduate food is almost never good.  This is the sort of gloppy Mexican food I would expect to get at a Mexican restaurant in South Dakota in 1985.  For instance, I got a cheese enchilada, and it turned out to be full of unmelted pre-shredded supermarket “Mexican blend” cheese.  Still, I would have at least given this place a 4, except that they charged me an extra dollar to use a credit card instead of paying by scanning a QR code, which I cannot do because I don’t own a smartphone.  Seriously, Yelpers—​this is across the street from the University of California, Berkeley, not the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.  You have better options.  Comal is half a mile away: you can get a delicious tlayuda for half the price I paid for my combo plate with its Rosarita refried beans and whatnot.
Antojitos Guatemaltecos	Guatemalan	San Pablo near Potrero, El Cerrito	2023-12-09	7
When I moved to El Cerrito, I poked around to see what restaurants in town were recommended, and this place topped nearly every list I found.  And… well, I can’t judge most of the menu because it appears that they offer only one vegetarian item, a set of spinach and mushroom empanadas.  But based on that, I gotta say, I wasn’t impressed.  I mean, sure, they were palatable, but kind of soggy and I wouldn’t order them again, meaning that I don’t really anticipate ever going back.
H & J’s Restaurant	Breakfast/lunch	San Pablo & Orchard, El Cerrito	2023-10-28	15
This place is a spinoff of Inn Kensington, run by the kids of Inn Kensington’s proprietors.  It’s the same menu in a grittier neighborhood but slightly cheaper prices.  And somehow the dishes come out at the same lightning speed!  The food on my most recent visit, however, was not cooked quite up to pantheon standards.
Mercado 925	Mexican (taqueria)	University & Eighth, Berkeley	2023-10-20	10
Pretty good.  Burrito quality was a cut above.  Downsides are the expense (is a basic veggie burrito really $15 now?) and the fact that the veggie burrito mentioned in the parenthetical a moment ago is full of chunks of crunchy, bitter carrot.  And then I gave it a second try and got some nachos that I don’t really recommend: though the chips themselves were good, the toppings were gloppy.
Sliver	Pizza	regional chain	2023-10-15	15
This place was started by Cheese Board alumni and the pizza is identical to Cheese Board pizza; for its first few years it was located on Center Street, but it has since expanded to several locations.  It’s nice to be able to get Cheese-Board-style pizza without standing in the usual block-long line; other pluses include the two free salsas and ample seating, at least at the Telegraph location.  On the flip side, unlike at the Cheese Board, sometimes you get a slice that’s been sitting around a while.  And actually, sometimes you wind up waiting nearly as long—​not because you’re stuck in line, but because you go right up to the counter, place your order, and the folks working there stand around or take other orders and only get around to actually distributing pizza quite some time later.  (Also, while many Cheese Board pizzas have feta, which I do not like, nearly all of Sliver’s do nowadays, so I only wind up going on rare occasions.)
Bowl’d	Korean	Solano btw Santa Fe/Curtis, Albany	2023-10-11	12
This was actually my introduction to Korean food—​it had long been a huge dark spot in my culinary map, like North Korea on a nighttime satellite photo.  As noted elsewhere on this page, I generally don’t like East Asian food.  But this place entered my regular rotation for a while there.  I pretty much always got the dolsot bibimbap with the mixed rice, mung bean pancake, and citrus dressing, and I even developed a taste for many of the side dishes.  But… that was in the Before Times.  Post-pandemic inflation has changed the calculus somewhat: a meal that is very good for $14 is significantly less impressive for $21.
Bua Thai Kitchen	Thai	San Pablo btw Dartmouth/Marin, Albany	2023-10-10	10
I went looking for a place with post-9 p.m. eats on a Tuesday, and this spot that took over the old Potala Vegan space popped up on the list of results.  I got a pad kee mao and it was fine.  It was also ready seven minutes after I ordered it, so thumbs up on that count as well.
Afghan Burrito	Mexican fusion	San Pablo btw Bancroft/Chaucer, Berkeley	2023-10-02	12
When I was a kid I was always mystified by the way that there might be two widget stores in the entire county, and they’d be located across the street from each other.  Why not move to the other end of the region and have a local monopoly?  Apparently there is an answer—​if you own the second widget store, you might want to put it where you know there are already widget-seeking customers milling around—​but it still leads to weird situations like this one where there are probably only two Afghan burrito places in the world and they’re both on San Pablo within a few blocks of each other.  The Hot Shop has way more options than this one, and a couple of decades’ worth of extra goodwill, but the burrito I got here was indeed pretty dang tasty.
Nick’s Pizza	Pizza	Shattuck & Alcatraz, Oakland	2023-07-19	11
While the Sliver folks left the Cheese Board to serve identical pizzas, the Nick of Nick’s Pizza left the Cheese Board’s cousin Arizmendi to do a slightly different spin on the basic concept.  While a Cheese Board pizza is a fairly slick production, carefully balancing vegetables, cheeses, herbs, and oils, the pizzas at Nick’s look more humble.  For instance, the first one I got was just a big, fairly dry sourdough crust on which cheese and fresh artichokes had been haphazardly heaped and then thrown in the oven.  But it was very good!  Not every pizza I’ve ordered here has met that mark, but it’s pretty much all been high quality stuff. Sadly, I’ve had to bump this down a few notches, because not only have the prices gotten a little out of hand, but the last time I went, they didn’t actually have any of the specialty pizzas in stock, nor, according to the staff, could they make any!  Rule number one: have the food you purport to serve.
Thai Table	Thai	University btw Seventh/Eighth, Berkeley	2023-05-01	13
This was the last place I ate out at before a pestilence descended upon the land, and I am happy to report that it seems to have survived the pandemic.  I vaguely recall that the curry I got in 2020 was good; the pad kee mao I got this time around was also good, but the real winner was the pineapple fried rice Ellie got.
Pizzeria da Laura	Italian	Shattuck & Addison, Berkeley	2023-04-12	6
This place, which took over the space of PIQ, actually has reasonably good pizza, but I can’t give it a higher rating than this until their service is ready for prime time.  I watched as they took my pizza out of the oven, put the wrong toppings on it, mislabeled it, and let it sit out the counter for ten minutes while a guy kept lifting the lid of the box and staring at it in confusion… then, after much befuddled staring at the computer screen by multiple people, they finally figured out what was what, picked off the basil and whatnot they had applied, and served the pizza to me cold.  When I complained about this, the guy flat-out lied and said, “It just came out of the oven!”  (The proprietor is an alumna of Tony’s, one of the few places where I have had an even worse take-out experience.)
Blondie’s Pizza	Pizza	Telegraph & Durant, Berkeley	2023-02-10	4
Returning to Telegraph for the first time in ages, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the pizzeria a stone’s throw from my old dorm was back to calling itself Blondie’s, after a name change upon the arrival of new ownership a few years earlier.  Nostalgia seemed to dictate buying a slice in appreciation—​I certainly downed my share of $1 cheese slices during my years in Unit 3 (and even earlier, on high school debate trips 35 years ago).  But there’s a reason I hadn’t been to Blondie’s or its successor in sixteen years: it was never actually very good even for a dollar, and it is ludicrous that one basically tasteless, not particularly large slice at Blondie’s now costs more than two slices of actually good pizza at Sliver down the street.  Only the aforementioned nostalgia is keeping this from a red rating.
La Note	French	Shattuck btw Durant/Channing, Berkeley	2023-01-04	21
Breakfast is a meal I was once reluctant to eat out for, figuring that I could make an omelette just as well at home.  This Provençal place showed me how much better a restaurant breakfast could be.  The Cote Nord is one of the finest breakfast—​nay, meals!—​I have ever had: cream cheese on toasted levain bread with herbed scrambled eggs on top, red potatoes with rosemary, roasted tomatoes… seems simple, but it is awesome.  The Cote Ouest, which swaps in an astoundingly fluffy omelette topped with delicious ratatouille, is another peak gastronomic experience.  I will concede that not everything is a winner—​I didn’t care for the raspberry oatmeal, for instance—​and service can be hit or miss.  I’ve even had a couple of meals whose preparation was subpar.  But just a couple, over the course of nearly twenty years.  I’m updating this entry basically to marvel at how miraculous it is that I first came here in January of 2006, and as of January of 2023 its quality has not gone down one iota.
State Flour Pizza Company	Pizza	College btw Ashby/Webster, Berkeley	2022-11-03	13
Pizza quality: very high!  Selection: not great, Bob.  The only vegetarian pizzas on offer are a margherita with burrata and a white cauliflower pie.  Service: iffy.  On my most recent visit I ordered at the counter, waited in the shop so I would get my pizza as soon as it was ready, and… somehow it was still cold when they gave it to me.  I guess they let it sit around.  Suboptimal!
Squabisch	Pretzels	Solano btw Peralta/Tacoma, Berkeley	2022-10-13	8
This place took over the space that used to house the late, lamented La Bedaine.  It sells Swabian pretzels, which have a fat bit at the bottom that can be used for a little dab of a topping—​I’ve had the artichoke topping and it was pretty good.  For what La Bedaine used to charge for a lemon tart ($2) this would be a decent treat.  For $5, yeah, one cold pretzel with a spoonful of topping will not earn my custom as frequently as La Bedaine did.
Standard Fare	Breakfast/lunch	Eighth & Carleton, Berkeley	2022-10-01	8
Here I got a biscuit sandwich that was good but was just the sum of its parts (biscuit, poached egg cooked hard, roasted tomato, greens) and a cardamom sticky bun that was disappointing: a weirdly mealy texture and not much cardamom flavor.  I’ll call the sandwich a ten and the bun a six, and take an average.
Humbowl	Bowls	College btw Ashby/Webster, Berkeley	2022-08-12	12
On my first visit here I got the “brassica bowl”, with broccoli, cauliflower, sauteed greens, and a tomato basil vinaigrette, along with the legume mix (chickpeas, black beans, etc.) and the standard brown rice and quinoa.  It was delicious and I very much looked forward to exploring more of the menu.  The “scrambowl” was disappointing, though: the flavors were clumsier, and while I expected scrambled eggs to be mixed through the dish, instead a big thick omelette was just dumped on top.  The “seasonabowl” sort of split the difference.
Shalimar	Indian	regional chain: Fremont, SF, Dublin	2022-06-19	19
The food here is very, very, very good.  Since my original review a decade ago, my skiils cooking up Indian food have advanced to the point that actually going out for it is generally kind of pointless—​but Shalimar is an exception.  The food here is of absolutely pantheon-level quality.  (Though you do have to be careful about the inedible bits: cardamom pods, bay leaves, giant peppercorns.)  For a while I was reluctant to score this place appropriately because the atmosphere is so unpleasant: shredded chairs, styrofoam cups, squalling babies.  Then I discovered the wonders of the to-go order.
Nabolom Bakery	Pizza	Russell near College, Berkeley	2022-06-04	10
This place has been around since the ’70s, but it’s all the way across town, so in all the time I’ve lived here I never actually gave it a try until they started serving Cheese Board-style pizza.  It’s not quite in the Cheese Board’s class, but it’s pretty good, and I can see why if you lived around here you might not want to trek all the way across town for the genuine article.  (I also tried the soup, which was okay but nothing special, especially for the price.)
Sistory Thai Kitchen	Thai	San Pablo btw Gilman/Harrison, Berkeley	2022-05-13	12
Pretty tasty fare here; my one objection is that some of the vegetables are undercooked.  The crunchy green beans could be chalked up to preference, but the eggplant in my last order was flat-out inedible.
Square Pie Guys	Pizza	two locations: Oakland, SF	2022-05-11	7
The pizza I got looked good and had a nice crunch, but on the flavor front it came nowhere close to justifying the cost.
Farley’s East	Cafe	Grand btw Broadway/Webster, Oakland	2022-05-01	2
I got a strawberry limeade here.  Pretty dreadful.  No strawberry flavor at all.
La Châtaigne	Bakery	Lafayette Circle, Lafayette	2022-04-29	17
Though I do not miss driving out to the 680 corridor to tutor every day, the one thing I do miss about that commute is that it took me past La Châtaigne.  The Isigny croissants here are the best croissants I’ve had in the U.S.: flaky without being crispy/crunchy, light yet substantial (neither overly bready nor just an air pocket), and tasting of good butter without being greasy.  The other pastries are excellent as well; the only thing holding this place back from being an 18+ is that it’s pretty small, and when I walk in there are generally just a handful of unlabeled offerings crammed into the display case.  With a wider and more consistent variety of labeled offerings, this could be a destination in and of itself.
Zalla Kabob House	Afghan	Sycamore Valley & San Ramon Valley, Danville	2022-04-29	11
Here I got the vegetarian aushak (which is what I pretty much always get at Afghan places, if available).  It was fine.  Service was a bit brusque.
Lunchette	Salads, etc.	4th near B, Petaluma	2022-03-23	6
Pizza Politana used to serve up some of the very best pizza in the Bay Area, but after several years of operating food stalls at farmers’ markets and other events, the proprietors shut the business down to reorient toward a brick-and-mortar business, Lunchette in Petaluma.  I made a mental note to check it out if ever I happened to be up that way around lunchtime—​especially since they offered pizza.  But it turns out that the pizza is nothing like that from Pizza Politana, and the polenta bowl I got along with my pizza was full of unpleasant exotic mushrooms along with the good stuff (like the artichoke salsa).
the Counter	Burgers	international chain	2022-03-22	7
I was impressed by both the number of possible combinations (22 sauces, 34 toppings, etc.) and by the quality on my visits back in the 2010s, but my 2022 visit was a bummer—​quality was way down and my burger was just okay.  (The artichoke hearts I ordered as a topping were close to inedible, for instance.)
Rose Pizzeria	Pizza	University btw Milvia/MLK, Berkeley	2022-03-09	7
When I saw the rave reviews for this place, I figured I had to check it out, and when I saw the menu, I figured I had to check it out multiple times—​so many pizzas I wanted to try!  But then the first pizza I tried, the “She Wolf” with burrata and olives, was a strikeout that I only finished out of a sense of duty.  Unfortunately, the potato pizza was just good enough to convince me to give the place one more chance, but I couldn’t decide between the mushroom and margherita pizzas, so I wound up giving it two more chances.  Mushroom was meh; the margherita was nearly cheeseless and very disappointing.  I will probably not be giving this spot a fifth chance any time soon.
Saul’s	Deli	Shattuck near Vine, Berkeley	2022-02-24	10
This is a Jewish deli and restaurant that I went to a grand total of once in my first fifteen years back in the East Bay.  Then the pandemic hit and, in order to expand its to-go offerings, Saul’s started making bagels, in house, that won a fair amount of acclaim.  This consequently became my local spot for bagels… and then Boichik came to town.  I recently did a little taste test and I’m afraid that Boichik came out on top.
El Tiny Cafe	Cafe	Adeline btw Harmon/Fairview, Berkeley	2022-02-22	10
I got the “tiny breakfast burrito”, which lived up to the name: I finished it in five small bites, but I probably could have downed it in two large ones.  But it was tasty enough, and for $3.25, yeah, it was probably better than a muffin of the same size and price.
Boichik Bagels	Bagels	College near Alcatraz, Berkeley	2022-02-21	12
There are still long lines at this place after a glowing New York Times review calling its bagels the best in the country, and they are very good—​I did a taste test between this place and Saul’s, and Boichik did come out on top—​but ultimately, y’know, they’re bagels.  As with donuts, there is a ceiling on how life-changing a bagel can really be.
Lao Thai Kitchen	Thai (Lao)	Solano btw Santa Fe/Carmel, Albany	2022-02-10	10
As of this writing, I have had pad kee mao three times.  This was the worst rendition of the three.  But it was still pretty darn good!  Though the dish itself was a bit bland, it came with some chile sauce that not only made it spicier but was a real flavor boost as well.  Service was very friendly, too.
Guru Curry House	Indian	Grand btw Staten/Ellita, Oakland	2022-01-23	8
Hmm.  It looks like I gave this place high marks on previous visits, but this past visit left me underwhelmed.  Maybe standards have slipped due to the covids, or maybe my own standards have risen since I’m making significantly better Indian food now than I was just a few years ago, but I felt like I’d made a faux pas taking someone here.
Kelly’s Deli	Mexican	in front of Home Depot	2022-01-22	10
Ellie wanted a breakfast burrito while she was in town, but Fresco is gone, so I wasn’t sure where to take her.  I did a search to see what the consensus was for best breakfast burrito in the East Bay.  And the answer was… Home Depot?!  Apparently, at least in the Bay Area, Home Depot now sells breakfast burritos out front, with the Emeryville location considered particularly good.  So off we went, and yeah, not bad at all!  I might have preferred a little more heterogeneity, and the price was a bit higher than I might have liked, but all in all, much tastier than I would have expected at a place better known for table saws than taquera salsas.
Café Nostos	Greek	MLK & Berkeley, Berkeley	2021-11-24	11
Rave reviews on Yelp, and while I wouldn’t give this place my equivalent of five stars, I did think that the leek croissant and gianduja muffin were winners.  (The beignets were a little dry.)
La Crêpe à Moi	Crepes	Euclid btw Hearst/Ridge, Berkeley	2021-11-05	7
Despite the rave reviews, I was skeptical: this place seemed too close to campus to actually be good.  And… yeah, it’s undergraduate food.
La Guerrera’s Kitchen	Mexican	8th btw Broadway/Washington, Oakland	2021-11-03	11
Very good: empanadas!  Much better than I am used to.  Meh: vegan taco.  Not bad, just nothing special at all.  Outright bad: the horchata.  Virtually flavorless.
Daily Driver	Bagels	Ferry Building, San Francisco	2021-10-27	7
I was at the Ferry Building getting olive oil and discovered that it now had a bagel shop.  I got an everything bagel with cream cheese.  It didn’t really stand out in any way.
Liguria Bakery	Bakery	Stockton & Filbert, San Francisco	2021-10-27	15
This place is legendary, at least in the Bay Area—​it’s been around for over 110 years, and it only serves one thing: focaccia.  And it is indeed extraordinarily good focaccia.  Green onion FTW, as the kids say, or used to say—​I guess that one might be 110 years old by now as well.  Anyway, hours are limited and the place is in San Francisco, so I don’t stop by often, but I am always delighted when I do.
Salt & Straw	Dessert (ice cream)	regional chain	2021-10-20	11
This is a Portland-based chain, so check it out on my Oregon page.
Pizzeria Violetta	Pizza	Piedmont near Pleasant Valley, Oakland	2021-10-13	8
This location used to be the home of Slicer Pizzeria, and the new place seems strikingly similar to the old: same focus on slices, roughly the same number of options (about half a dozen), even the same type of pizza.  But the pizza’s not quite as good, the place was out of multiple varieties, and the cashier spent about fifty years talking to the person in line in front of me.
June’s Pizza	Pizza	Magnolia btw 24th/Grand, Oakland	2021-09-29	12
Very similar to Emilia’s Pizza in Berkeley: you have to call hours ahead to reserve one of the day’s few pizzas, the pizzas are absolutely gorgeous, and the taste doesn’t quite match the looks.
Soul Slice	Soul food	San Pablo btw 59th/Stanford, Oakland	2021-08-13	8
This place serves “pizzas” consisting of soul food toppings (I got black-eyed peas and sweet potatoes) on a biscuit “crust”.  The first several bites were interesting, but by the end my curiosity had been sated and I didn’t anticipate getting another one in the near future.
Icing on the Cake	Dessert (bakery)	Main & Lundy, Los Gatos	2021-08-04	11
I was crazy about this place back in the ’00s, but I guess I have upped my own personal cookie game enough that it no longer seems worth paying a bakery $4 for a single cookie that doesn’t quite match the ones I make at home.
Cafe Nine	Breakfast/lunch	San Pablo & Madison, El Cerrito	2021-07-13	7
At this place, which styles itself variously as Cafe N!ne, Cafe 9!ne, and theCafe9ine, I got a breakfast burrito which was okay but tasted like the sum of its parts: the flavors didn’t meld like they do in a really good breakfast burrito.
5 Tacos & Beers	Mexican (taqueria)	two locations: Albany, Walnut Creek	2021-06-28	8
I went in for one of their “Meatless Mondays”: it was nice to have five vegetarian choices rather than just the usual one.  The tacos certainly weren’t bad, but now that my curiosity is sated, it is highly unlikely that I ll be back: I couldn’t afford these prices on anything resembling a regular basis.
Roam	Burgers	local chain	2021-06-27	8
One of the standard options here comes topped with mustard, gruyere, watercress, caramelized onions, avocado, and parmesan truffle fries, so they certainly have the right general idea when it comes to toppings. But the veggie patty itself is just a mush of beets and quinoa, and while I have been lured in by specials from time to time, the results have been hit and miss.
Arinell Pizza	Pizza	chain: Berkeley, San Francisco	2021-06-26	9
When I went to Cal in the early ’90s there was basically only one place to get anything resembling New York pizza, and this was it: large, irregularly cut, very flat slices served by the drummer for Crucified Vomit. It looks like the sort of place where they drop the pizza on the floor and then pick it up and brush the cigarette butts off it. Quality is situational: there have been times that I have really felt like a slice, come in, bought one, devoured it, and thought, “This place is great!”; there have also been times that I’ve ordered a whole pie and thought, “Why did I do that? The crust is flavorless and the cheese is subpar.”
Casa Latina	Mexican (bakery/taqueria)	San Pablo near Delaware, Berkeley	2021-06-23	12
Apparently I wrote a review of this place ten years ago and didn’t like it.  Since then the space has been redone, and perhaps the food has too, because now I’m a fan.  The avocado enchiladas aren’t the best enchiladas I’ve ever had, but the handmade tortillas make them a very honorable mention.
Zomsa	Himalayan	San Pablo btw Moeser/Waldo, El Cerrito	2021-06-22	8
Here I got some vegetarian momos (basically spinach dumplings) in a thin cashew/peanut sauce, low-quality garlic naan, and dal soup with chiura, a type of dried, flattened Nepalese rice that looked like breakfast cereal but needed to be soaked in the soup to be edible.  An interesting change of pace but not a must-return-soon type of destination.
Chalos	Argentinian	Taraval btw 33rd/32nd, San Francisco	2021-06-06	6
A lot of empanadas on offer, with the choice to have them either baked or fried, but the ones I’ve had have only been passable, I’m afraid.
Delhi Diner	Indian	small chain: Albany, Berkeley	2021-05-27	11
This place is very close to my house.  At one point I called it “a solid neighborhood joint”, but that’s almost exactly wrong: there’s little here that has made me think, “Yeah, that was solid.”  It’s either, “Yeah, that was really good! What an awesome place to have a few minutes’ walk away!” or “Yeah, that was a misfire.”  And the misfires have been frequent enough that every couple of years I find myself docking this place another point, such that it has fallen from near-pantheon status to this level.
Gusto Pinsa Romana	Italian	Bush & Jones, San Francisco	2021-05-22	10
After being disappointed by the new “spizzicheria” in Oakland, I had my doubts about another place serving not-exactly-pizza, and the web site’s insistence that “pinsa” was so much healthier than regular pizza was another cause for concern: I’m way more concerned about taste than nutritive value.  Still, with a solid five stars on Yelp, I decided to give it a try… and I was very impressed by the light, pillowy, flavorful delight my artichoke and arugula pinsa turned out to be.  I hurried back to try the margherita… and it was actually quite bad!  The crust was still fine, but the cheese was so unappealing that I wondered whether I’d received the vegan version by mistake or something.  So, call it a 14 for visit one and a 6 for visit two… and then visit three, in which I got the pesto and potato pinsa, split the difference.  So I guess this is where we land.
Veganburg	Vegan	international chain	2021-05-15	5
“This food is a crime,” Ellie grumbled, and while I wouldn’t go that far, I also wouldn’t go back.  This place (nearest intersection: Haight and Ashbury!) is an outpost of a Singapore-based mini-chain, with rave reviews from people like Chrissie Hynde and Paul McCartney.  But I was put off by some off flavors, and Ellie complained that her burger was weirdly “bouncy”.  Paul McCartney hasn’t disappointed me this much since “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”.
Southie Tacos	Mexican (taqueria)	College btw 63rd/Alcatraz, Oakland	2021-04-22	11
Back in the Before Times, I got a sandwich here that sounded equal parts interesting and random: shaved zucchini, corn, watercress, sundried tomato spread, and a few other things.  As for how it tasted, well, “random” won out over “interesting” by a fair margin.  Then I happened to pass by during the pandemic to discover that Southie was now apparently “Southie Tacos”, and got an unusual veggie taco with cauliflower, sugar snap peas, ricotta, and some other stuff.  It was quite good!  I made a couple of additional visits to try some other items: chilaquiles were solid; the veggie burrito wasn’t bad, but the fact that only pureed beans are available made it a tube of fillings with virtually no texture, so I wouldn’t get that again.
Long Bridge Pizza Co.	Pizza	3rd btw 20th/22nd, San Francisco	2021-04-03	10
Ellie wanted just a regular, high-quality cheese pizza—​not a fancy margherita from an AVPN-certified establishment, but also not one of the doughy, disappointing pizzas the places in her neighborhood pump out. This fit the bill.
Casa Barotti	Italian	College near Alcatraz, Oakland	2021-03-30	5
This place bills itself as a “spizzicheria”, selling reheating slices of focaccia with pizza toppings on them. It turns out that there’s a reason that the world is full of pizzerias and not spizzicherias.
Crepes on Cole	Crepes	Carl & Cole, San Francisco	2021-03-28	10
The usual covid caveats (coviats?) apply: my impression might be different if I were eating off a plate instead of out of a box. But I got a crepe (spinach, mushrooms, provolone, onions, avocado, and sundried tomato pesto) that would have been great for $10 but was not worth the $20 it actually cost. The red potatoes on the side were slightly undercooked and more than slightly underseasoned.
Cowgirl Creamery Sidekick	Cheese cafe	Ferry Building, San Francisco	2021-03-13	16
IN MEMORIAM. This place had a different grilled cheese every day; some were not to my taste, but some were the best grilled cheese sandwiches I have ever eaten. (Sample offering: Raclette, Holey Cow cheese, and chipotle pesto on thick slices of Acme bread.) Fell victim to the covids.
Home Coffee Roasters	Coffee shop	local chain, San Francisco	2021-03-07	4
I got a “Nutella hot chocolate” here that tasted like hot water. I’ll give it a 4 for the cat design on top.
Portside Bakery	Bakery	farmers’ market booth	2021-03-07	9
This place has some unusual offerings (I once saw a pistachio croissant, and more recently I saw a “lime puffin” that I took to be a morning bun with lime curd in the middle). On my last visit I got a blackberry danish. It was quite good. It was not good enough for me to feel cheerful about having spent five bucks on it.
Taqueria San Bruno	Mexican (taqueria)	San Mateo btw Hermosa/Scott, San Bruno	2021-03-06	7
I got some nachos here that were decent at first but got soggy quickly. Ellie got a veggie burrito that she hated, lamenting that it was mostly lettuce. It wasn’t the worst taqueria I’ve ever been to, but it was definitely not worth the hour-long wait.
El Burrito Express	Mexican (taqueria)	local chain, San Francisco	2021-02-06	15
When Ellie moved to her new place, closer to a street with shops and eateries, we discovered that there was a burrito shop really close by… but what was the likelihood that it would actually just so happen to be a good one?  After all, there weren’t any particularly good ones within a good couple of miles of her old place.  But this one turns out to be a big winner!  The “El Bronco” burrito is up there with the one at La Taqueria in the “best basic burrito” department (though preparation is a little uneven, keeping it just out of pantheon range), and the vegetables in the fresh mix burrito may be a little crunchier than I like, it is one of the only decent vegetable burritos I’ve had (the one I’d recently ordered from another establishment was nothing but raw bell peppers and onions, for instance).
Escape from New York	Pizza	local chain, San Francisco	2021-02-06	5
2008 review: “This pizza appears to have very recently escaped from Blondie’s.” Thirteen years later, Ellie ordered one of these delivered. It was even worse than the earlier review would suggest—​maybe half a step ahead of the big chains. Apologies for the insult, Blondie’s.
Shizen	Japanese	14th btw Stevenson/Valencia, San Francisco	2021-02-05	11
The elaborate “signature” sushi at this vegan establishment is a winner—​the spicy tofu number is particularly good—​but I gotta say, for less than half the price the avocado roll was more than half as good.  Gyozas are good also, but skip the ramen and the miso soup.
Tacos Oscar	Mexican (taqueria)	40th btw Webster/Shafter, Oakland	2021-01-21	9
Many interesting vegetarian options in place of your standard beans and cheese: charred broccoli, honeynut squash… and I could simultaneously be glad for a change of pace and acknowledge that beans and cheese probably would have better hit the spot.
Spinning Dough	Pizza	Market near San Pablo, Oakland	2021-01-17	14
I randomly happened across this place in 2018, stopped in, got a margherita, and thought it was very good, but wanted to wait to review it until I tried one more pizza.  That wound up taking nearly three years.  Whoops.  Anyway, I got the brussels sprouts and cauliflower number, and while I was expecting (and would have been happy with) a regular cheese pizza with chunks of crucifers in it, in fact the toppings were finely chopped and spread throughout to create a work of art.  Very impressive.
Graffiti Pizza	Pizza	Washington btw 7th/8th, Oakland	2021-01-13	9
I drove down to a pretty sketchy part of Oakland to try the veggie calzone with broccoli and potato.  It was fine, but it was pretty much exactly the sum of its parts and would have benefited from sauteing the broccoli or roasting the potato or throwing in some herbs or some such.
Cafe La Flore	Breakfast/lunch	local chain, San Francisco	2021-01-09	9
Ellie really liked the breakfast burrito and smoothie we got here; I thought they were fine, but I’ve had breakfast burritos that were flavor bombs (even just at the farmers’ market) and this was not that.  Same with the smoothie: I certainly had my share of sips, but it was no Juice Stop, nor even as good as the smoothies I make at home.
Noodle Theory	Pan-Asian	small chain: Oakland, Moraga	2021-01-03	5
I’d passed this place a million times, but never went in, thinking that I generally don’t like East Asian food.  Recently I’ve been liking it more though, and liking East Asian noodles in particular, so I gave Noodle Theory a shot.  But even keeping the covids in mind, this is a miss.  Tofu garlic noodles had a dull brown flavor, and the texture of the sweet potato fries was unappealing.
Teni East	Burmese	Broadway btw 40th/41st, Oakland	2020-12-29	11
They say that Thai food is like Chinese food averaged with Indian food, and that Burmese food is like Thai food averaged with Indian food again.  Sounds pretty good, but my first experience with Burmese food, in Philadelphia, was memorably dire.  But I gave this place a chance, and I’m glad I did: my spicy noodles, vegetable curry, and side of roti bread were all pretty darn tasty.
Keeva	Indian	Clement btw 10th/11th, San Francisco	2020-12-26	8
Vegetable korma: bad. Tadka dal: actually quite tasty, but the souplike consistency meant that a lot of what I paid for was water.
Sushi Goemon	Japanese	Irving btw 16th/17th, San Francisco	2020-12-25	10
Ellie thought the avocado sushi compared poorly to what you get at Whole Foods. I thought it was fine, if not on Cha-Ya’s level. We both thought the veggie tempura sushi was a winner.
Zazie	French	Cole btw Parnassus/Carl, San Francisco	2020-12-20	8
It’s probably not fair to judge a restaurant based on its covid offerings; a fancy brunch isn’t meant to be eaten out of a takeout container.  But that’s what Ellie and I had to go by: her takeout container was stuffed with a slice of French toast, a buttermilk pancake, and a gingerbread pancake with Meyer lemon curd and a slice of pear, while I got a couple of bread pudding pancakes.  The online menu indicated that the flavor of those pancakes changed regularly but didn’t indicated what flavor was on offer this time, so I took a gamble; as it turned out, the answer was “none”.  It was just plain.  Pretty good once I got them home, reheated them, and doused them in vanilla maple syrup, but quite boring in the car.
Arsicault Bakery	Bakery	local chain, San Francisco	2020-12-13	10
I can see why this place attracts long lines: the pastries are visually perfect, unbelievably flaky, astoundingly rich… which is not actually my type of pastry.  I prefer my pastries a bit breadier and less likely to make me feel like I’m drowning in butter after three bites.  My favorite pastry was the cranberry coconut scone, but even that was made up of buttery layers.
Universal Cafe	American	19th btw Bryant/Florida, San Francisco	2020-12-12	11
I got some pretty tasty scallion-potato cakes with poached eggs.  Ellie got French toast that she deemed more like bread than French toast, with “compote” that was just fruit pieces rather than a jammy concoction.  Long story short, I ate 1½ breakfasts.
Eagle Pizzeria	Pizza	Taraval btw 27th/28th, San Francisco	2020-12-05	6
Friendly service, but disappointing pizza. The cheese was a featureless white sheet, the crust was bready, the sauce was ketchuppy, and the toppings were raw. Better than big chain pizza but not by much.
Irving Subs	Sandwiches	12th & Irving, San Francisco	2020-11-22	13
I was about type that I got a pretty darn good sandwich here, and it suddenly occurred to me that, come to think of it, I can’t actually think of a better one. I’m not generally into sub shops—​it’s rare that they have more than a couple of perfunctory vegetarian options—​so, yeah, off the top of my head I can’t think of a superior sandwich.
Strada Pizza	Pizza	Taraval btw 21st/22nd, San Francisco	2020-11-08	7
I’ll give this a slightly positive score because even disappointing pizza is still pretty good, but yeah, disappointing. I’ve given this place two chances, and the second one was a deal-breaker: if you say the pizza comes with caramelized onions and sun-dried tomatoes, you actually do need to caramelize the onions and sun-dry the tomatoes.
Mavericks Creperie	Breakfast/lunch	San Mateo & Cabrillo, Half Moon Bay	2020-10-25	12
Got the “Mazatlan” crepe on a day trip to Half Moon Bay. It was better than I had anticipated!
Sunset Cantina	Mexican	Judah btw 39th/40th, San Francisco	2020-09-19	8
This place didn’t look like it’d be for me—​it’s pretty clearly primarily a bar, with a small menu and not many vegetarian options—​but it does serve brunch, and the reviews were good, so I placed an order for some chilaquiles.  They tried to class up the dish by poaching the eggs, but they didn’t poach them long enough and the result was gross liquidy egg white.  Otherwise it was a decent box o’ food.
Rose Indian Cuisine	Indian	9th near Judah, San Francisco	2020-09-15	12
Standard fare, but so far, very good renditions of that standard fare. (Though the naan is a bit doughy.) Prices are pretty good; for forty bucks (including tip) I got enough food to make up four substantial meals.
Uncle Benny's	Donuts	Irving & 22nd, San Francisco	2020-07-30	10
I don’t put too much stock in “Zomg! Best donuts ever!!”-type reviews, because ultimately even the best donut is just a donut.  So I will simultaneously say that these may well be the best donuts I’ve ever had, and that they are pretty good.  That’s about the ceiling for donuts.  Still, for someone who keeps the hours that I do, being able to get a pretty good snack at 4:30 a.m. is much appreciated, so thumbs up to this place for that.
Las Cabañas	Mexican (taqueria)	MLK btw Hearst/Berkeley, Berkeley	2020-07-27	11
As of this update, this place is pretty new, and I certainly welcome a new place to get dinner at 11:30 p.m. during a pandemic. Visit one was a bust, since the veggie burrito turned out to be about 60% bell peppers, to which I am allergic, but I’m glad I tried again, because the chile relleño burrito was a winner.
Mr Szechuan	Chinese	Taraval & 19th, San Francisco	2020-07-26	11
I’m not generally into Chinese food, and seeing things like bullfrogs on the menu here made me wary, but it was open pretty late on a Sunday during a pandemic, so I gave it a go, playing it safe by ordering green beans and rice.  Those were some pretty darn good green beans and rice!
Italy on Gilman	Italian	Tenth & Gilman, Berkeley	2020-07-24	6
This place replaced La Calle 10, which had been floundering for a while. I ordered a vegetable lasagna. It was cold in the middle. I can get a better frozen lasagna for a quarter of the price, so I don't anticipate making another visit.
Juanita & Maude	Upscale	San Pablo btw Solano/Washington, Albany	2020-07-10	12
When pestilence descended upon the land and forced restaurants to become takeout-only, this seemed like a good opportunity to try some upscale restaurants that I would normally feel intimidated about asking for takeout from. Juanita & Maude, which took over the Nizza la Bella space, was an obvious candidate. Verdict: the food was very good, and I would become a regular if a small takeout box of fried rice and a small takeout box of pesto pasta had not cost me $50. For $20, this would have been a fantastic meal. For $50, it was a way to assuage my curiosity, but not a herald of frequent visits to come.
Seniore's Pizza	Pizza	regional chain	2020-07-05	5
Bready pizza of the sort you'd find on a road trip through flyover country. The main selling point is that they're open really late. Also, they got our order wrong, but delivered a fixed version of the incorrectly made item even though we'd originally ordered pickup, so that was nice.
El Toro Taqueria	Mexican (taqueria)	Valencia & 17th, San Francisco	2020-06-06	7
I had a bite of a burrito Ellie got from here once and liked it enough to finally get my own… only for it to turn out to be dry and distinctly lacking in the “super” elements I had ordered.  Maybe I should come back closer to the beginning of the day, and when I can get a freshly made one instead of a pre-ordered lockdown pickup.  Or maybe I’ll just stick to places that don’t turn out these sorts of duds.
Les Gourmandes	Bakery	5th & Folsom, San Francisco	2020-04-23	7
Thumbs up for a varied and unusual selection, but the pastries themselves are hit-and-miss (the hazelnut praline pastry was a winner, but the raspberrine was overly sweet and the chocolate almond croissant was a misfire), and the prices are grotesque: $20 for three croissants? Horreur.
Bon Appe Tikka	Indian	24th btw Diamond/Castro, San Francisco	2020-04-11	12
My first visit here was sensational: the cauliflower appetizer and biryani special were both unusual and delicious, and even the more standard fare like the korma and naan were standouts. Later visits revealed an excellent dal makhani… but also a disappointing number of misfires, from a dull tadka dal to a saag paneer I couldn’t even bring myself to finish.
Breakfast Little	Breakfast	22nd btw Bartlett/Mission, San Francisco	2020-04-04	14
This tiny storefront serves up a sensational and unusual breakfast burrito with plantains and tater tots; at ten dollars, it’s pretty pricey, especially since it’s smaller than average, but it’s dynamite. Also good is the mollete toast; on weekends the place offers French toast (which is more like bread pudding, especially as you eat it out of a bag) in a variety of flavors.
Tartine Bakery	Cafe	Guerrero & 18th, San Francisco	2020-03-31	8
Despite the line out the door, I’ve only been here a handful of times over the past fifteen years. One reason is the aforementioned line out the door. But a bigger reason is that I’m not a huge fan of what you get when you make it to the front of the line! The baked goods are a couple of degrees too dark for my tastes. During the lockdown I took advantage of the fact that the line had been pared down to four people (which still meant that it stretched out into the street, thanks to social distancing) and give this place another try… and I had the same complaints I had in ’05. Everything looks great, but it’s just not for me!
Maya Halal Taqueria	Mexican (taqueria)	14th & Webster, Oakland	2020-03-03	12
This is an above average taqueria! If I lived nearby I would come by frequently. But it's not worth the trip into Oakland given that Berkeley has a number of superior options. (Also, the veggie options all come with bell peppers that I have to pick out: they're delicious, but they give me migraines.)
Plain Jane	Breakfast/lunch	Guerrero & 22nd, San Francisco	2020-02-15	6
Cannoli French toast sounded interesting, but the rolls were very small for the price, and the chocolate was bitter. Crispy potatoes tasted a bit too much like burning. Eggs were not as revelatory as the price demanded.
Anthony's Cookies	Dessert (cookies)	Valencia near 25th, San Francisco	2020-02-01	5
Seven dollars for three small, crumbly discs of mediocrity. Too bad, because the service was friendly and it would've been nice to be able to give the place a good review.
Arizmendi Bakery	Bakery/panaderia	Valencia btw 24th/23rd, San Francisco	2020-02-01	10
The pizza was not particularly great, and the chocolate muffin I got had too much chili powder in it for me to enjoy it, so why a positive review? Because I also got a berry bread pudding that was top-notch.
Dolce Spazio	Dessert	Santa Cruz btw Nicholson/Bachman, Los Gatos	2020-01-01	7
I was looking all over for a smoothie that wasn't full of parsley and kale — parsley and kale are fine in pasta and whatnot, but a smoothie is supposed to be fruit juice and frozen fruit in a blender! Preferably with sherbet! I'm looking for a tasty treat, not a "cleanse" or a "protein blast"! So I went to this place. I am grateful that a place with the smoothie philosophy I was looking for was open on New Year's right near where I happened to have parked my car. But, uh, the smoothie actually wasn't particularly great or anything.
Manresa Bread	Bakery	chain: South Bay	2020-01-01	9
Demand-pull inflation, ahoy! In an area with too much money chasing all available goods, you end up with single-bite cookies that cost four dollars… the one I saw actually looked pretty tempting, but that was a bridge too far. I got an almond croissant for five bucks. I must concede it was a pretty darn good almond croissant.
Tilak	Indian	Mission & Cortland, San Francisco	2019-11-09	N/A
As Poppy once lamented, these lifeless flavors don't satisfy me. The sauce in the vegetable tikka masala might as well have been water, and that in the cauliflower dish might have been better had it been water. Still, I might have given this place a 6 or so for the reasonable prices and the decent garlic naan, but I felt queasy the next day and my dining companion felt even worse. She insists that I not even dignify this establishment with a number, so N/A it is.
Crixa Cakes	Dessert (bakery)	Adeline btw Ward/Stuart, Berkeley	2019-11-01	11
I recently discovered that I hadn't updated my review of this Hungarian dessert shop since my first visit way back in 2005, when I concluded that "this doesn't look like my sort of cakery." And yet in the subsequent 14+ years I have come here fairly regularly! Yes, most of the cakes are soaked in alcohol or full of gelatin, and are therefore not on my shopping list, but there are enough options left over that I can usually find something to take home. Most commonly I go with the "bread pudding", which is actually made with chocolate and vanilla sponge cake rather than bread. That in and of itself makes this my kind of cakery after all.
Pollara	Pizza	Fourth btw Hearst/Virginia, Berkeley, Berkeley	2019-10-14	10
This is a Roman-style pizzeria: the pizza comes in long rectangles, you indicate the size of the cut you want, and the staffer weighs it to determine the price. That price is quite high, which is why this rating isn't higher, since the pizza is good.
Taqueria El Castillito	Mexican (taqueria)	Church btw Duboce/14th, San Francisco	2019-09-28	8
I got one of those burrito-style quesadillas I like, and it wasn't bad, but the cheese was insufficiently melted. With so many other options I doubt I'll return.
Ardiana	Italian	Church btw 30th/Day, San Francisco	2019-09-27	9
I got a pizza that was more of a piadina, given that it was essentially flatbread topped with tomatoes and a big salad. It was pleasantly fresh but could have been more flavorful. I also tried the lasagna but didn't much care for it — I think it may have had sheep ricotta in it.
Flavia Osteria	Italian	Center btw Shattuck/Oxford, Berkeley	2019-09-25	7
I was lured into this place (which once housed the original Sliver) with the promise of $5 macaroni and cheese, which turned out to be unexpectedly good. So I returned before too very long to try the pizza, which turned out to be unexpectedly bad. That ain't a margherita, fellas.
Savory Kitchen	Eclectic	Telegraph btw Dwight/Haste, Berkeley	2019-09-21	6
The vegetarian breakfast burrito here is cheap ($5), healthful (or at least it's got spinach in it), and huge... though that last part is rarely a recommendation where burritos are concerned, and sure enough, the seasoning in this one was seriously lacking.
Romeo's Coffee	Cafe	Telegraph btw Dwight/Haste, Berkeley	2019-09-14	10
I passed their sidewalk ad hawking their sandwiches a million times as I walked from my usual parking spot to the office, and I finally gave one a try (cheddar, avocado, pesto, tomato). Would order again, as the kids say. Or used to say. Who can keep up with the kids, amirite.
A+ Burger	Burgers	Telegraph btw 63rd/62nd, Oakland	2019-08-31	8
B- burger. All the toppings (including avocado!) on my veggie burger made me think I would be in for a treat, but there were way too many bites that were nothing but an intense salt hit. Garlic fries were initially good but ultimately self-limiting.
Gadani	Dessert	Berkeley Square btw Center/Addison, Berkeley	2019-08-31	8
This place serves those Hong Kong "egg waffles", often folded around a scoop of ice cream. My first visit was at the beginning of spring, and then I returned at the end of summer to discover that they had put in a computer terminal to take orders. The picture of the "banana chip" waffle depicted a waffle topped with banana slices and chocolate chips. That looked pretty good, so I got it. What I received was just a waffle. It was banana flavored, with chocolate chips baked in. That's not what the picture showed. I was disappointed.
Pizzeria Avellino	Pizza	Lombard & Lyon, San Francisco	2019-08-01	10
She wanted a classic New York cheese slice, and the internets said that in SF this was the place. It was pretty good — I liked that I could get shishito peppers on my slice.
Daydream Cake Shop	Dessert	32nd near Noriega, San Francisco	2019-07-27	11
I was not super impressed by the expensive, tiny Asian cakes, but the "Sweet Dream" strawberry slush drink was probably the best smoothie I've had in the Bay Area (though I admit I avoided the yogurt blobs).
Cupcakin'	Dessert (cupcakes)	Telegraph btw Channing/Durant, Berkeley	2019-07-23	11
I guess it was about ten years ago now that cupcake shops became a huge fad. Sadly, good cupcake shops did not become a huge fad. But long after the rest of the world moved on to poké bowl and avocado toast, this cupcake shop popped up on Telegraph, and its cupcakes actually are really good. However, I only go on Tuesday afternoons, when the cupcakes are two dollars. I ain't payin' no $3.75 for a single miniature cupcake.
Bar César	Pan-Latin	Piedmont btw 41st/40th, Oakland	2019-07-17	6
I see that I already had a review up of this place from 2010, around the time it split from its parent restaurant in Berkeley and switched to a pan-Latin menu. I had given it a bad review, complaining that the tacos were tiny for $3 each. 9½ years later, the tacos are still tiny, but now they're $7. I had recently been to the Berkeley restaurant and had some crostini-type things that were tiny and expensive but also delicious, so I thought that while I was trying many restaurants on Piedmont I'd give this one another chance: maybe the same would be true for those tacos. Aaaaand yeah, the tacos were still not worth the $3, let alone $7.
Mistura	Peruvian	Piedmont btw Rio Vista / Montell, Oakland	2019-07-16	5
The first two things I tried to order the proprietor said were unavailable. I finally got the veggie saltado, which was odds and ends of carrot and onion with french fries (no condiment) and plain rice. Price: over $15. Yikes.
Juice Zone	Smoothies	Crow Canyon & Camino Tassajara, Danville	2019-07-14	8
The prices were a lot more reasonable here than at Sidewalk Juice, but the smoothie I ordered (off the "top recommendations" board) was ill-considered: it basically contained all the fruits and the weird jumble of flavors was less than the sum of its parts. Certainly drinkable but not anything to order again.
Mixt	Salad	interstate chain	2019-07-14	5
The salad I got here had some serious flaws. The supposedly roasted cauliflower was not nearly cooked enough, the falafel crumbles were gritty, the potatoes were rubbery… can't recommend.
Sidewalk Juice	Smoothies	chain: San Francisco, Daly City	2019-07-12	8
The smoothie I got was decent (though I wasn't enamored of all the coconut chunks), but I can't imagine coming back because, criminy, $7.95 for a small smoothie? Peninsula, you crazy.
Baja	Mexican (taqueria)	Piedmont btw Glen/41st, Oakland	2019-07-11	10
Here I got some cheese enchiladas with mole sauce. It was a decent plate of food but the enchiladas were quite small.
Andaman Thai	Thai	Market near Alcosta/Bollinger Canyon, San Ramon	2019-07-07	9
One Yelp reviewer went so far as to call the pad thai here the best ever; in reality, it's not even all that good (too sweet with slightly off flavors). The tom kha was decent, though.
Pakwan	Indian (Pakistani)	local chain, San Francisco	2019-07-04	9
I went to the Ocean Avenue location and got some excellent tadka dal and a couple of tasty naans, so I was very much looking forward to my second visit. On my second visit, I got a flavorless saag paneer and a couple of burnt naans. I did hazard a third visit and got a pretty darn good biryani and some bad samosas, so I guess we'll split the difference between the first two scores I assigned.
El Café	Cafe	Taraval & 24th, San Francisco	2019-06-28	11
The default vegetarian option at a lot of places like this is a caprese sandwich, which is generally tasteless: tasteless mozzarella and tasteless tomatoes on tasteless bread. This caprese sandwich was not tasteless, and that in and of itself was impressive.
Marugame Udon	Japanese	regional chain	2019-05-07	7
I'm not generally a fan of East Asian restaurants. There are notable exceptions. This is not one of them. People at Stonestown stand in long lines for cafeteria noodles and heatlamp tempura.
Chevys Fresh Mex	Mexican	national chain	2019-05-06	7
This is one of those big chains, maybe half a step better than Chili's, but back in the day (by which I mean like 25+ years ago) I was a huge fan of their chips, so when I was taking the girl to do some errands and saw one nearby, I couldn't resist seeing whether the chips were still as good as I remembered. They're still decent: great texture still, but a little sour. Entrees look grody and corporate but actually taste all right — the selection has improved quite a bit from the days when all they really had was fajitas. But the chain went bankrupt last year, so who knows how much longer it'll be around.
Augie's Montreal Deli	Deli	Potter btw Seventh/Fifth, Berkeley	2019-04-17	7
Specializing in smoked meat, this place didn't have anything I could eat except the vegetarian poutine. Verdict: nowhere near as good as the Pink Bicycle in Victoria, but better than Smoke's south of campus.
the Forge	Pizza	regional chain	2019-04-09	8
Here was a pizza that sounded great: cauliflower, gruyere, pesto, mozzarella, arugula. I ordered one for takeout. But it was not hot by the time it finally got to me, and the taste was marred by all the charred flour on the bottom.
House of Pancakes	Chinese	Taraval btw 20th/19th, San Francisco	2019-03-26	7
More like "house of blandcakes", amirite? I tried the veggie noodles and the scallion pancake and was perplexed to discover that neither one was seasoned, like, at all. Yes, salt shakers were provided, but that doesn't actually make up for failing to season the food while it's being cooked.
Pineapples	Hawaiian	Ocean & Delano, San Francisco	2019-03-26	0
At first this place seemed like a real find — hey, a place to get Dole Whip Floats without having to go to Disneyland! — but three strikes and you're out. Strike one: there's only one guy who works there and his communication skills are close to nil. Strike two: the posted prices are lies. They bear no resemblance to what comes up on the cash register screen, and if you point out the discrepancy to the guy, he just babbles incoherently. Strike three: quality control. While my first couple of floats here were good, the juice in the last one had gone off and make the whole thing inedible. Dear restaurateurs: priority one in your business is to make sure you're not giving your customers food that has spoiled. (You can even throw in a strike four — weird hours that bear no resemblance to those posted online — but for me that is basically moot now.)
the Halal Guys	Mediterranean	regional chain	2019-03-25	11
This place has branches in California and Nevada as of this writing, and I assume is going to be trying to expand like its clear inspiration, Chipotle; if it does, cool, because the falafel sandwiches here are really quite good. The sauces add a lot and it's great to have free add-ins like olives on offer.
Pizzetta 211	Pizza	23rd & California, San Francisco	2019-03-21	12
Some places hold to the philosophy that pizza is fundamentally bread with toppings, so you had better have fantastic bread, because ultimately the toppings are kind of incidental. Not this place, which seems to treat the crust as an incidental platform for toppings: frequently beautiful and delicious toppings, but served on a crust that just ain't the best.
Little Goan Indian Cafe	Indian	Novato & Wilson, Novato	2019-03-16	11
Here I skipped straight past the standard Indian fare and zeroed in on the Goan specialties, ending up with a coconut-based curry that was pretty decent and whose vegetables had been chopped with impressive care.
Nopalito	Mexican	local chain, San Francisco	2019-02-28	8
2010 review: This is a modern, semi-upscale place with some decent dishes (a pretty good blue corn quesadilla filled with braised greens) and some misses (a really bland tamal dulce). It's all quite expensive for what you get: $14 for a mini-quesadilla and a single quartered taquito, for instance. 2019 review: same
Taqueria Dos Charros	Mexican (taqueria)	Cambon near Castelo, San Francisco	2019-02-26	8
Here I got some nachos in a sad-looking strip mall near the university. They were fine.
Calibur	Burgers	West Portal btw Vicente/Ulloa, San Francisco	2019-02-25	8
Good garlic fries, good shake, but the veggie burger is not the best — it's kind of a paste.
Creekwood	Italian	Sacramento btw Woolsey/Prince, Berkeley	2019-02-10	8
Yelp went crazy for this place, but I was pretty disappointed when the gnocchi with avocado had been replaced by a gnocchi with exotic mushrooms. And then the pizza turned out to be beautiful but kind of average on the taste side.
the Flying Falafel	Mediterranean	chain: San Francisco, Berkeley	2019-02-08	9
There are a bunch of falafel joints near the Berkeley BART station now. This one's okay — better than Oasis, worse than Halal Guys. Its two signatures are a choice of falafel balls (spicy and sesame) and a chatty proprietor who tosses the falafel balls into the air (hence the name).
A16	Pizza	chain: San Francisco, Oakland	2019-01-26	9
I've been to the SF location a couple of times and didn't particularly care for it, and while my visits to the Rockridge branch have been better, I still don't see why this often gets tops Bay Area pizza lists. The rachetta — half pizza, half calzone, looks like a tennis racquet — didn't completely work for me due to the Bellwetheriness of the ricotta, and the fried montanara pizza is self-limiting. I'll give them credit for a fun gimmick: the pizzas arrive unsliced, and you cut your own pieces with a pair of giant scissors they provide for you.
Comal Next Door	Mexican (taqueria)	Shattuck btw Addison/University, Berkeley	2019-01-24	19
Gadzooks, did it really take me until like the tenth visit to remember to write up my favorite local burrito shop? Sure, the options are limited, but it's all so good! The tofu chile verde burrito and vegetarian open-face torta are enough to secure this place a spot in the pantheon.
the Butcher's Son	Vegan	University btw MLK/Milvia, Berkeley	2019-01-18	8
I'm not normally into the fake meats, but I kept hearing about this vegan deli over the years and was curious how close soy and gluten concoctions could come to, say, the French dip sandwiches I used to order when I was twelve. Answer: not very. My sandwich was tasty enough, I guess, but I was just too aware that I was eating a space-age polymer. The uniform thickness of the fake meat sheet was uncanny.
Kiku Sushi	Japanese	Gilman & Neilson, Berkeley	2019-01-09	6
This place is closer than Cha-Ya, and has a vegan menu with a lot of overlap with the menu at Cha-Ya, but it ain't no Cha-Ya. The avocado tempura sushi was worse but still okay; the vegetable soup I got was not only far short of Cha-Ya's yasai, but the broth was flavorless. If I ever go back I'm sneaking in a salt cellar.
Pâtisserie Rotha	Bakery	San Pablo btw Dartmouth/Marin, Albany	2018-11-30	14
This is the tiny shop of a Paris-trained pastry chef: the selection is small on any given day, and some offerings have left me cold, but I've been wowed by some others. For instance, I can't think of a better plain kouign amann than the one I had here.
Lavender	Bakery	Solano & Colusa, Berkeley	2018-11-27	11
Someone finally took over the old La Farine space, and it's another bakery. This one seems to specialize in desserts; there's a whole row of $5.95 personal-size treats, and I've had a chocolate hazelnut mousse hexagon, an apricot frangipane tart, and a chocolate cream cup so far. Pretty good. The croissant-type things here are fine but nothing special from what I have sampled.
Barbarian	Pizza and Indian	Shattuck btw University/Addison, Berkeley	2018-10-16	8
Yeah, it's basically an Indian restaurant that happens to serve a bunch of NY-style slices. I was sad to see the veggie tikka masala slices go, but those that remain are of decent quality. Not a destination, but not a disaster.
Roti	Indian	West Portal btw Ulloa/Vicente, San Francisco	2018-10-16	8
I got the vegetarian thali here. The green chutney at the beginning of the meal and the kheer at the end were both quite possibly the best I've ever had. Everything in between was meh.
Shandong Restaurant	Chinese	10th btw Webster/Harrison, Oakland	2018-10-06	10
I am not big on Chinese food, but once or twice a year I do get a hankering for it, and the internets recommended this place, particularly for its sesame paste noodles. I am still not big on Chinese food, but I had no complaints.
310 Eatery	So Cal	San Pablo btw Washington/Portland, Albany	2018-09-09	5
Here we had chocolate chip pancakes and stuffed French toast. I guess I can't complain too much about my pancakes: I chose them because the vegetarian options on the menu were seriously lacking, but they did what they said on the tin. But her stuffed French toast was weird—​cloying and just somehow wrong—​and then she put her finger on it: it tasted like funnel cake. French toast shouldn't taste like funnel cake.
Obelisco	Mexican	E. 12th & Avenida de la Fuente, Oakland	2018-08-24	7
My chile relleño burrito was kind of a bust—​too dry, kind of an '80s Mexican restaurant meal overall—​but she liked her enchiladas, so I'll bump the final grade up to a 7.
Slow G's Eatery	Sandwiches	Diablo near I-680, Danville	2018-08-13	7
This sandwich shop, which bills itself as an emporium of healthy eats, has signs up proudly proclaiming that there's no salt in the food and that the flavor makes itself known in other ways. I got the vegan torta, which turned out to be a version of the standard Mexican black bean spread sandwich with sharp Indian spices. I still added salt. Interesting, but I wouldn't get it again.
Curry Up Now	Indian fusion	regional chain	2018-05-21	12
This place, which started as a food truck and expanded to multiple food trucks and then to multiple restaurants, offers up X-Treme™ Indian food. I was initially quite wowed by it, but found that over the years every trip seemed worse than the last. However, I'm bumping it up a couple of points since my last update because I finally decided to try one of the non-fusion offerings, one of the thali dinners, and was shocked to be re-wowed. The saag and the dal tasted so different from how they taste at conventional Indian restaurants, in a good way! I guess purists would scoff that they've been reworked for a California palate, but since I have one of those, I give it high marks.
Maison Bleue	French	Kittredge btw Milvia/Shattuck, Berkeley	2018-03-06	13
This is mainly a crepe place. There are two main kinds of crepe places, I have found. One is the kind where the menu has a million pretty bland options and the person behind the counter just plops the batter onto the griddle right in front of you, piles the toppings on, and folds it in half or into quarters. The other is the kind where you select from a carefully curated list of crepes full of French cheeses and various confits, and it comes out of the back room folded into a square. This is the second kind. I like the second kind more. The crepe I got here was pretty dang tasty.
Copenhagen Bakery & Cafe	Bakery/cafe	Burlingame btw Lorton / Primrose, Burlingame	2018-03-04	11
This place looks like (and apparently is) a relic from the '70s, and the pastries I ordered looked like they might be Entenmann's-quality, but I was pleasantly surprised: my cinnamon almond ring was really good, a lot lighter than it looked, and the coconut mazarin was an unusual cake-based confection that was worth it for the novelty (and wasn't bad either). Thumbs up.
Cantina del Sol	Mexican	Solano & Stannage, Albany	2018-02-08	5
I ordered a pair of quick-fried flour tacos that the menu said came with cheese, rice, beans, lettuce, pico de gallo, guacamole, crema, zucchini, corn, poblano, and potato. With that description, and for $16.40, I expected a feast. Instead, the zucchini, corn, poblano, and potato were microscopic little shavings, the other ingredients apart from the cheese were outside the taco, the sour cream was like half a teaspoon, the pico de gallo was a quarter of a teaspoon, and the guacamole was non-existent. Oh and the rice was dry. That this place gets as high a score as a 5 can be attributed to the uncommonly good chips and salsa you get while you wait.
Cool!naria	Mexican	food truck	2017-12-14	12
After taking four consecutive CSET tests, I was making my bleary-eyed way back to the BART station when I passed this food truck. One item on offer was a chilaquiles sandwich, so I had to give it a try. This may be a bit of a "two great tastes that taste great separately" thing, but it was still pretty good.
El Molino Central	Mexican	Central & Sonoma, Boyes Hot Springs	2017-12-02	10
I saw online that this place offered Swiss chard enchiladas and some other froufrou offerings, so I was picturing some sort of swanky establishment frequented by wine country aristocrats. Turns out that it's a little shack. You park on gravel. But they did have Swiss chard enchiladas! Which were okay.
Nachoria	Mexican (taqueria)	Lorton btw Howard/Burlingame, Burlingame	2017-11-26	8
This is an interesting outfit: it's a taqueria that emphasizes nachos, and by that I mean ballpark nachos more than standard taqueria nachos. That is, this is the only taqueria I've been to at which the nachos were actually topped with bright runny day-glo cheese sauce rather than, y'know, cheese. It's an interesting change of pace but a pretty expensive one (a full plate of nachos with guacamole and sour cream and such runs $17 plus tax).
Rise Pizzeria	Pizza	Burlingame btw El Camino Real / Primrose, Burlingame	2017-11-12	10
Pretty standard entry in this new wave of "make your own pizza" places (as if pizza places haven't always let you pick your own toppings?).
Squeeeze	Smoothies	Solano btw Kains/San Pablo, Albany	2017-11-06	3
Here I got the berry smoothie. First impression: basically undrinkable due to the lack of sugar. I took it home and added some sugar just to make it palatable. Second impression: the texture was dominated by powdered seeds. Ergo, still basically undrinkable. That it was expensive added insult to injury.
Barney's Gourmet Hamburgers	Burgers	regional chain	2017-10-30	6
Bzzt. My veggie burger was unimpressive, and the supposedly sauteed mushrooms and onions were seared but otherwise uncooked. My chocolate blackberry shake sounded interesting but was basically a vanilla shake with mild hints of those other two flavors.
Larb	Thai	San Pablo btw Central/Lincoln, El Cerrito	2017-10-28	8
Okay, but not particularly memorable. (Actually, what I do remember was that the different curries on the menu listed different vegetables as ingredients, but it turns out that all vegetables are in all curries. I tried to order one that didn't have bell peppers, but it did and I consequently went home with a headache.)
Bare Knuckle Pizza	Pizza	Webster & 12th, Oakland	2017-10-18	14
On a sketchy street corner, one guy (Viet Nguyen seems to be his name) makes pizzas in a weird, cramped spot with people going up and down a narrow twisting staircase. The pizzas take a long time and I saw a couple get sent back due to mixups. But the one I got was pillowy, sweet, and delicious. I was impressed and will be back.
Falafel Hut	Mediterranean	4th near A, San Rafael	2017-10-08	9
When I first tried this place, more than a decade ago now, I ranked it as pantheon-level. It has gone steadily downhill (the potatoes in my last falafel deluxe weren't even cooked though!) and I can't even rank it as a solid thumbs-up anymore. Sad face.
Main Street Pizza	Pizza	Solano near The Alameda, Berkeley	2017-09-25	7
Two New-York-style slice shops opened up on Solano Avenue within a few days of each other. They're both mediocre: worlds better than Domino's, but nothing I'd seek out. The slices here are saucier than at the one down the street. (Fun fact: this place is in the former Khana Peena location and seems to be run by the same people; it still says Khana Peena on the receipts.)
Islice	Pizza	Solano near Evelyn, Albany	2017-09-24	7
Two New-York-style slice shops opened up on Solano Avenue within a few days of each other. They're both mediocre: worlds better than Domino's, but nothing I'd seek out. The slices here are cheesier than at the one up the street.
Rainbow Donuts	Donuts	San Pablo btw University/Addison, Berkeley	2017-07-08	8
Reasonably good donuts, but donuts are just donuts. There is a ceiling on how good a donut shop can be.
Falafel Stop	Mediterranean	regional chain	2017-06-22	11
I got a poached egg dish here with falafel balls on the side. The falafel was nothing special, but the eggs were good — maybe they should change their name to Poached Egg Stop.
Biryani Bowl	Indian	regional chain	2017-06-21	9
Points for having a more varied buffet lineup than is usual for such places, but no extra points for quality — not terrible but pretty blah.
West of Pecos	Tex-Mex	Valencia btw 16th/17th, San Francisco	2017-06-11	12
I got the huevos rancheros with red and green chile. Tasty enough.
Rasoi	Indian	Burlingame btw Primrose/El Camino Real, Burlingame	2017-05-31	15
When I have a student on the peninsula I always make a point of stopping here to stock up on Indian food to stick in the freezer — the navratan korma (with fruit!) is a particular standout, but pretty much everything I've tried has been very good.
Taqueria el Buen Sabor	Mexican (taqueria)	Valencia & 18th, San Francisco	2017-05-28	10
Pretty good. When I had a few bites of my super chile relleño burrito, I had that "Oh, good, this isn't just a standard meh burrito" moment of relief, but now that I've checked it out I don't think I'd go back — there are better options a lot closer.
Stella Alpina Osteria	Italian	Primrose & Chapin, Burlingame	2017-04-26	9
Another upscale place, so big prices for tiny portions, but some of the food is good. Impressively pillowy gnocchi, and interesting pear and asiago pasta purses. The pear tart I got for dessert on my first trip was a miss, though, and my second trip was a miss all around: the cannelloni was way too heavy on the bechamel, and the soup was just a smooth liquid. Smooth liquid soups are meh by definition.
Sift	Dessert	regional chain	2017-04-16	6
The web site says, "Yeah, we're frosting obsessed." I am not. This place has cupcakes and macarons and unlabeled cookie sandwich things (grr! you must label!) and some other concoction that was listed as cake and frosting smashed up and dipped in chocolate, and, just, no. Eating a blob of frosting sounds gross to me.
Lemonade	Cafeteria	regional chain	2017-04-12	10
Cafeteria food + chain restaurant doesn't seem like a winner, and the signature beverage was just okay (and should be sold in more than one size! I don't need that much beverage!), but I was surprised at how tasty my truffle mac & cheese and vegetarian chili were. They did convince me to come back sometime and try more things.
Pica Pica	Venezuelan	Valencia & 15th, San Francisco	2017-04-06	11
The arepas and crepes themselves are very tasty: that sweet sticky corn is a great change of pace from a tortilla. But the food here does seem a bit expensive for what you get.
Oren's Hummus	Mediterranean	chain: South Bay	2017-04-05	8
The hummus didn't really do anything for me — all other hummus pales in comparison to Holy Homous in Victoria BC. But the pita bread! So soft and fluffy! I bought a pack of five to put in my freezer and ended up gobbling it up pretty quickly.
Venga Empanadas	Empanadas	Valencia btw 15th/16th, San Francisco	2017-04-04	9
I liked the flavor of the empanada I got here, though I was expecting to be able to identify distinct ingredients rather than having them all combined into a homogenous mush. Prices were reasonable.
New Thai Bistro	Thai	Valley & Santa Rita, Pleasanton	2017-04-02	15
The name doesn't show a lot of foresight, but that's the only real criticism I can level. I've been here a couple of times and have been super impressed: on my most recent visit I got the emerald noodles and the vegetables were just perfectly cooked. It is exceedingly easy to make eggplant terrible and this was some of the best eggplant I've ever had.
Chile Pies	Dessert (pie)	chain: San Francisco, Guerneville	2017-03-26	7
This place is best known for its "pie shake", which is what it sounds like: a milkshake with a piece of pie blended into it. The result is something worse than a milkshake and worse than a piece of pie. The fact that it's $10 for a fairly small cup makes it an even worse choice.
Red Chillies	Indian (Malabar)	Main & Serra, Milpitas	2017-03-26	10
What a difference buffet makes! If Thai food is sort of like Indian food averaged with Chinese food, then Malabar food is like Thai food averaged with Indian food again, i.e., Indian food with a lot of coconut. I love coconut, so I thought I would be into this place, but the dishes I tried at dinner were not to my taste — the avial in particular was close to inedible — so I thought I should see whether the lunch buffet might have at least something I would like. It's hit-or-miss: the first time I was blown away, but subsequent visits have been middling. The one thing that puts this place in the blue zone is that the parathas are amazing. They're so good that I keep trying to order parathas elsewhere and am invariably disappointed.
Giordano Bros.	Sandwiches	16th near Valencia, San Francisco	2017-03-23	10
This place bills itself as a little piece of Pittsburgh in the middle of San Francisco town. It serves sandwiches with french fries and coleslaw in them. Not too shabby, and I appreciated that service was really fast even though I accidentally visited while the place was packed with people watching the NCAA tournament.
El Palenque	Mexican (taqueria)	chain: San Mateo, South San Francisco	2017-03-22	10
Really downscale, but the Yelpers seemed to like it, so I gave it a try. I can't say it was great, since the rice in my burrito was unpleasantly dry, but I have to say that I ordered it wet and the sauce on top was uncommonly good.
The Burrito Truck	Mexican (truck)	62nd & San Pablo, Oakland	2017-03-08	6
Very disappointing. Beans were almost non-existent.
Old Chicago	Pizza	Petaluma near Western, Petaluma	2017-02-27	12
Here I got a deep dish with artichokes. It was tasty, and the second half reheated surprisingly well. Good job, Old Chicago.
Rosso	Pizza	chain: Santa Rosa, Petaluma	2017-02-22	6
In 2008 I went to the Santa Rosa location, 70 miles away, after reading a review calling this the best pizzeria in the Bay Area (or Greater Bay Area, given how far away Santa Rosa is). It wasn't very good. Nine years later I went to the Petaluma location, having forgotten about my '08 trip, to find that once again it wasn't very good. Tomatoes, eggplant, olives… I like all those things! It seemed like it'd be great! But it was bitter and just less than the sum of its parts. At least this time I was already in Petaluma.
Oasis Grill	Mediterranean	regional chain	2017-02-16	7
First bite: "Oh, this is better than I was expecting!" Every subsequent bite: "Oh, it's just the hot sauce that's good. All other ingredients are meh. Oh well."
Nopalito	Mexican	Bodega & Eastman, Petaluma	2017-02-08	12
Looks like a really downscale crapateria, but the chile relleño burrito I got was surprisingly good. Sophisticated seasoning, and the chile wasn't just a blob in the middle of the burrito like at most places that offer the dish.
Déjà Vu	Smoothies	Burlingame & Hatch, Burlingame	2017-02-05	14
I got a strawberry, pineapple, and coconut smoothie here; I wasn't expecting much, and so wound up being pretty shocked at how much I enjoyed it. Now I'm wondering how visit #2 will be, now that my expectations have been raised.
Tony's Coal-Fired Pizza & Slice House	Pizza	Stockton btw Union/Columbus, San Francisco	2017-02-05	0
I like the coal-fired pizza at the real Tony's, but this sidecar restaurant with takeout is a dumpster fire. Laughably bad service. They give everyone a number, and then actually call maybe 20% of the numbers that come up. Ask whether your order has come up, and they're hostile about it. Wait patiently while your pizza congeals for half an hour, and when they finally give you your order, they're hostile about it. They may not have New York pizza down entirely, but they certainly need no further coaching in New York attitude.
Kara's Cupcakes	Dessert (cupcakes)	regional chain	2017-01-19	6
Pretty meh. (I guess the fact that I gave it a 6 pretty much already covered that.)
Perbacco	Italian	California btw Front/Battery, San Francisco	2016-12-13	5
Yeah, no. This is an upscale place, which means huge prices and tiny portions. But not only did the food not justify that state of affairs, it wouldn't have justified low prices and huge portions. I got a ravioli dish, and I know that these sorts of places are pretty aggressive about making pasta al dente, but this was just too far under: the pasta had that raw pasty texture that suggested multiple minutes of further boiling was required. Soup was $13+tax/tip/SF fees for a couple of spoonfuls of meh. But at least I can finally cross it off my list.
Caffè Macaroni	Italian	Columbus btw Jackson/Gibb, San Francisco	2016-12-06	10
I was kind of dubious about coming here despite the good reviews, because a look at the menu suggested that I would be having the baked ziti, and, like, I can make a baked ziti at home. That said, y'know, there is something to be said for sitting down at a table and asking for a baked ziti and reading a book and having a perfectly decent baked ziti appear a few minutes later.
Jougert Bar	Yogurt	Burlingame btw Hatch/Lorton, Burlingame	2016-12-01	4
I remember the frozen yogurt craze of the early '80s — it's just like ice cream, but good for you somehow! — but mostly missed out on the next one twenty-odd years later that was less about chocolate frozen yogurt with sprinkles and gummy bears on it and more about tangy plain frozen yogurt on which you put some fruit yourself. Continuing in that direction is this place, which dispenses with the "frozen" part: it's plain Greek yogurt with toppings. Five stars on Yelp with over a hundred reviews! Named one of the top 100 places to eat in the U.S.! And, uh, what? I got a small cup of bland yogurt with a little bit of topping and paid $6.49 for it. I'm really missing what people see in this.
Rasa	Indian	Park near Howard, Burlingame	2016-12-01	8
Upscale Indian, apparently with a Michelin star, but no great shakes. I had an overly dry appetizer of brussels sprouts and butternut squash, and then absolutely had to try the truffle dosa, but it was just a regular dosa with a hint of truffle oil in it.
Zaytoon	Mediterranean	Solano & Kains, Albany	2016-11-30	8
First trip: pretty decent lentil soup with a lot of celery and whatnot in it, followed by a mezze platter that was very small for the price and made up of misses and mehs. Second trip: unmemorable moussaka, but a tasty and surprisingly generous dessert of ice cream over crumbled baklava.
North India	Indian	2nd & Minna, San Francisco	2016-11-29	6
Here I got some chalky paneer in a tangy sauce that lacked body. Disappointing, but I was still grateful to have a place to eat at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday.
El Manantial	Mexican (taco truck)	55th & MLK, Oakland	2016-11-16	13
Very good taco truck in the parking lot of a gas station. My first visit was a bit better than my second, though.
Atcha	Thai	San Pablo & Moeser, El Cerrito	2016-11-06	9
A big thumbs-up for having a vegetarian menu, and the food is well-prepared (fresh vegetables and all that). But I guess maybe they rely on fish sauce for flavor, and leaving it out leaves nothing left? My tom kha was fine, but my pad thai was very bland.
Tres Truck	Mexican	food truck	2016-11-06	4
I'll let this sneak into the purple zone because my taco wasn't actually BAD, but for $3.50, it was pretty pitiful. Odds and ends of vegetable in a single small corn tortilla. C'mon.
House of Curries	Indian	local chain: Berkeley, Albany, Oakland	2016-11-05	7
So the last time I wrote about this place, I said, "The palak paneer here is much better than the palak paneer at any other local establishment, and much better than any other entree I've tried here. How can you be so great at cooking spinach and kind of meh at everything else?" Well, on my last visit the palak paneer was meh too.
Mexico Tipico	Mexican (taqueria)	Mission btw Brazil/Excelsior, San Francisco	2016-11-03	8
Pretty much the same lettuce and sour cream burrito as at Taqueria Guadalajara. I'll give this place an extra point for having much better chips.
La Fusion	Latin fusion	Pine near Kearny, San Francisco	2016-11-01	12
Here I got a mushroom turnover with a cylinder of mashed potatoes for $24, so, yeah, it's one a' them upscale places, but it was actually quite tasty (the promised truffle oil actually showed up in more than a homeopathic dose!) and pretty much exactly the right amount of food: didn't leave hungry, didn't leave overstuffed.
Taqueria Guadalajara	Mexican (taqueria)	Mission & Onondaga, San Francisco	2016-10-27	7
My burrito here was dominated by sour cream and lettuce.
Golden Boy Pizza	Pizza	Green near Jasper, San Francisco	2016-10-25	6
Why, Yelpers? Is focaccia pizza such a novelty to you that you'll give it 4½ stars even when the quality is this low? I mean, it wasn't the worst, but the opportunity cost…
La Corneta	Mexican (taqueria)	regional chain	2016-10-20	13
I wasn't expecting much from this burrito when I saw it being put together — old-looking rice with peas in it, a chile relleño out of the microwave — but to my surprise it was soft, moist, and delicious.
Hector's Pizza	Pizza	McDowell & Casa Grande, Petaluma	2016-10-18	10
Here I got a thick crust pizza with artichoke hearts, caramelized onions, sundried tomatoes, and grapes. An interesting change of pace.
Beep's Burgers	Burgers	Ocean & Lee, San Francisco	2016-10-16	10
Veggie burger was pretty standard. Steak-cut fries were perfectly done, but needed seasoning; I think if I ever come back I'll go for the garlic fries instead.
Passione Pizza	Pizza	food truck	2016-10-09	8
Despite the name, and despite what the "cuisine" box says, there is a difference between pizza and flatbread with cheese on it, and this is the latter. Not bad, but not really pizza.
El Aguila	Mexican (taqueria)	Contra Costa & Ellinwood, Pleasant Hill	2016-10-02	10
Looks like a nondescript strip mall taqueria, but it turns out that the fare is on the froufrou side. The garnishes make every plate look like a flower arrangement.
Posie	Dessert (ice cream)	Magnolia btw William/King, Larkspur	2016-10-01	9
Hipster ice cream, though it doesn't look like the flavor selection is as insufferable as Humphry Slocombe's. I got their version of cookies and cream, which had full-sized soft-baked cookies embedded in vanilla ice cream.
Locanda Ravello	Pizza	Prospect & Front, Danville	2016-09-28	13
Here I got a pizza with eggplant and artichokes and whatnot with a heap of burrata in the middle and a thick layer of arugula on top. It was quite good and came out shockingly fast.
Piatti	Italian	national chain	2016-09-21	9
Stopped in here and got a burrata appetizer and a margherita pizza that seemed to have a tomato-cream base. I didn't know it was a chain until I looked it up, but I guess it stands to reason, since I was in Danville and what in suburbia isn't a chain?
Emporio Rulli	Bakery	chain: Larkspur, San Francisco	2016-09-19	14
Original review: I'm just grading based on the pastries, since the separate case with the cakes and cookies has (sigh) no labels. C'mon, Italian bakeries, stop with the mystery food. Anyway, the pastry case, which does label at least a fair number of the items, contains a number of very good offerings: a rice pudding cake with orange zest and a chocolate frangipane number with a raspberry center spring to mind. By the way, only go to Larkspur — the service at the SF and SFO locations is terrible. Update: Hey, I got something other than a pastry for once: namely, an artichoke-mushroom quiche. It was really good! (As was the pastry I got along with it for dessert, but that was no surprise.)
La Taqueria	Mexican (taqueria)	Mission near 25th, San Francisco	2016-09-18	16
When I first moved back to California I tried a bunch of highly recommended Mission taquerias and wasn't impressed by any of them. So when fivethirtyeight.com gave this place its nod for best burrito in the U.S., I didn't expect that recommendation to work out any better than the earlier ones. But on my first trip here I got probably the best burrito I've ever eaten. Certainly it was the best made: tortilla was perfect (meltingly soft), beans were perfect, avocado was perfect, proportions were perfect. Salsa was good but maybe a little too hot. Price was very reasonable (under six bucks!). Overall, wowzers. Sad to say, each subsequent visit has been worse than the last. I don't know whether it's going downhill or whether my brain is just down-regulating, but at present this place is hanging onto pantheon status mainly due to memories, not recent performance.
Rojbas	Kurdish	University & MLK, Berkeley	2016-09-14	8
So once upon a time there was a Kurdish restaurant called Kobani that served terrific falafel wraps, and then closed, and then (much to my surprise) reopened, but was nowhere near as good. And then as if to announce that this was no longer the Kobani of old, it changed its name to Rojbas. I tried a Rojbas falafel wrap to see whether it was closer to the first Kobani or the second. Sadly, it was the second.
Aryana Afghan Cuisine	Afghan	Crow Canyon & Tassajara, Danville	2016-09-13	8
Standard Afghan fare, minus my usual choice (vegetarian aushak) — I got a pumpkin appetizer (very good, though most Afghan places in my experience get this right as well) and a bolani appetizer (because the Yelpers had talked it up, though it turned out to be pretty bland). Why two appetizers and no entree? Because the prices here are pretty high: even for the two appetizers I ended up shelling out $24!
Mission Beach Cafe	American	Guerrero & 14th, San Francisco	2016-09-11	10
After spending well over an hour sitting among the horde of people on the corner waiting to get in, I finally had my name called. I got the "Mission Beach Huevos": a bowl of ranchero sauce with poached eggs and heirloom beans in it, topped with giant tortilla-chip slabs, which were topped in turn by dollops of creme fraiche and guacamole. Interesting! Pretty good! Not something I'd wait another hour-plus for, though.
Tandoori Pizza	Pizza	Grafton near Dublin, Dublin	2016-09-10	8
More of these Indian pizzerias seem to springing up, but so far none of them I've tried can even touch Zante. At this one I got an aggressively seasoned cauliflower pizza, and it was okay, but the cauliflower was a little crunchy and the actually pizza-making left something to be desired.
Thorough Bread and Pastry	Bakery	Church btw 15th/Market, San Francisco	2016-09-03	8
Points for variety, but no extra points for outstanding deliciousness or anything. The croissants are that "all crunch and no chew" kind I don't care for.
Kaffa Ethiopian Cuisine	Ethiopian	Sacramento near Ashby, Berkeley	2016-09-02	7
When I go to Ethiopian restaurants I always get the veggie sampler, so I did not feel at all put out by the fact that at this place it's the only thing on the menu. You just pick a size. Unfortunately, I wasn't super impressed; I'd had hopes that the kale Kaffa serves would be an improvement over the usual collard greens, but I actually liked it less. Thumbs-up to the lentil sambussa, though.
Taqueria Bahia	Mexican (taqueria)	B btw 4th/5th, San Rafael	2016-08-30	11
Here I had some eminently respectable chilaquiles. The chips I munched on while I was waiting were very good as well.
Remy's	Mexican	Haste near Telegraph, Berkeley	2016-08-25	6
So first Mario's moved from its spot on Telegraph to this place on Haste, and then closed after more than half a century... but it was never actually very good, so I didn't exactly lament. They do give you a lot of food, but too much of it is school cafeteria quality.
Rockridge Cafe	Breakfast/lunch	College near Lawton, Oakland	2016-08-21	5
So I wrote this: "'Since 1973', this place proudly declares, and it doesn't appear to have changed in the interim. I ordered the migas with a side of home fries. The home fries were undercooked, underseasoned cubes of red potato; the migas were scrambled eggs on top of a handful of convience store tortilla chips. Austin has nothing to fear." And then in investigating a glitch I discovered that I had been here just two years before and completely forgotten it! The previous time, I wrote: "I gotta say, it sure looked like low-quality food. The potatoes in particular looked kind of gross: translucent gray cubes." Dang, I gotta make sure I don't order those potatoes a third time. Criminy.
Taqueria Cancun	Mexican	4th & Santa Margarita, San Rafael	2016-08-15	10
It'd been ages since I'd had a chimichanga and even longer since I'd had a good one, so when I saw this place had a vegetarian chimichanga on offer, I gave it a go. It was pretty good! I was impressed that they fried it exactly the right length of time.
Enssaro	Ethiopian	Grand btw Perkins/Ellita, Oakland	2016-08-04	11
If you've been to a decent Ethiopian restaurant, then you pretty much know exactly what this place is like. Your totally standard red yellow green and cabbage.
Domenico's	Deli	Hartz btw Church/Hartz, Danville	2016-08-03	6
This was a comedown from my previous visit to a 680-corridor deli: unlike at Morucci's, here the cheese came only one layer thick. The roll was not the freshest, and the potatoes in the potato salad needed to be at least two clicks softer.
Morucci's	Deli	Boulevard btw Palana/Flora, Walnut Creek	2016-07-30	11
Here I got a sandwich with spinach and artichokes and pesto and things. I was struck by how the provolone was layered about four slices deep (generous!), but the tomatoes were essentially January tomatoes in July.
Blue Line Pizza	Pizza	regional chain	2016-07-21	14
This was quite good! Similar to its parent Little Star (i.e., like Zachary's but with a cornmeal-based crust), but somehow better — Little Star has always left me cold for some reason, but my Blue Line pizza was a winner.
Tous Les Jours	Bakery	international chain	2016-07-20	7
So, here we have a Korean bakery serving French pastries in the suburban U.S. All right then. A hazelnut banana tartine sounded awesome, but it turned out to be a rectangle of blandness.
Cafe Durant	Breakfast and Mexican	Durant btw Telegraph/Bowditch, Berkeley	2016-07-18	6
In the '90s I spent a few years living in a dorm on Durant, so I would semi-regularly stop by this place on the way back from a late afternoon class and get a chimichanga. The place seemed kind of old and decrepit then, and adding an extra quarter century hasn't changed that. Recently I stopped by for a breakfast burrito and, yeah, it seemed like the sort of breakfast burrito you might get in the '90s. In Ohio.
Chicks and Love	Pizza	Locust btw Lacassie/Cole, Walnut Creek	2016-07-17	6
Flatbread (not real pizza dough) topped sort of like a pizza and then baked in a toaster oven. When I went, the toaster ovens were "running cold" and so even though I was quoted 20 minutes, my order still wasn't done after 45. At least I got my money back.
Lotus Cuisine of India	Indian	4th & Tamalpais, San Rafael	2016-07-14	14
Very good — I was impressed by both the tarka dal and the naan I got at dinner, and while that dinner was expensive, the lunch buffet is well above average and is quite cheap.
El Jarro	Mexican	Mt. Diablo btw Lafayette/Lafayette, Lafayette	2016-07-13	10
This is a table-service place, not a taqueria. It doesn't have a lot of vegetarian options, but I did see on its web site that it offered up enfrijoladas with avocado, and one afternoon when I was in town and felt like having that, I went in. The enfrijoladas were satisfactory.
Little Gem	Dessert (waffles)	Telegraph btw Haste/Dwight, Berkeley	2016-07-13	5
I'd like to give this place a good review, because when the waffles are made correctly they're quite good. Sadly, more often than not I have bitten into my waffle to discover that the inside is still uncooked batter. If you're going to open a waffle shop, make sure the employees know how to use a waffle iron.
Arizmendi Bakery	Bakery/cafe	Fourth & City Plaza, San Rafael	2016-07-07	13
I'm making a separate entry for this one, since it's quite different from the one in Emeryville. The pizza is worse. Everything else is better. One week this place had roasted peach sandwiches with arugula and mascarpone, which were sensational. And the bakery section offers up all sorts of interesting things, notably both sweet and savory bread puddings: blueberry coconut, chocolate cranberry pecan, artichoke olive.
Oasis Cafe	Mediterranean	Mt. Diablo btw Oak Hill/Happy Valley, Lafayette	2016-07-06	8
Good bread, good balance of ingredients, but the falafel was basically a paste rather than a set of crispy patties.
Lottie's Creamery	Dessert (ice cream)	Main near Cypress, Walnut Creek	2016-07-01	14
High scores both for quality and for variety of flavors.
On Fire	Pizza	Crow Canyon & Crow Canyon, San Ramon	2016-06-29	5
The pizza I got looked very good but tasted like burning. Seriously, this place makes a very big deal about their wood-burning ovens, but even though my pizza was not overdone, it still tasted like burnt wood.
La Crema	Mexican	Solano & San Pablo, Albany	2016-06-25	9
There used to be this Mexican restaurant near my house that became one of my favorites; it was called Montero's, and was nicely low-key with a wide variety of vegetarian options. Heaping plates of awesome Mexican comfort food with just a dash of panache. Then it closed, and reopened under a new name, and then closed again, and reopened under the old name but with a menu that was halfway between the two incarnations, then closed again for a long time. Now it's open again under the name "La Crema". La Crema is okay, but I miss the substance of a Montero's brunch. La Crema's offerings are comparatively meager. And they top the chilaquiles not with avocado but with lettuce!
Favorite Indian	Indian	regional chain	2016-06-23	12
The little hole in the wall near my old San Leandro place has come up in the world! It's now a regional chain, and at least one of the new locations is significantly fancier. I'm not totally surprised, because it was one of my standbys back in '05 and '06, and the lunch buffet I went to in '16 was comfortably above average.
Cafe Attila	Bakery/cafe	San Ramon Valley & Purdue, San Ramon	2016-06-21	7
I felt silly paying $8 for a scrambled egg on an English muffin, but I thought that "our caper herb garlic sauce" might turn it into something I couldn't easily make at home. But said sauce was just a thin spread that didn't add much.
Four Flavors	Pan-Asian	Marketplace, San Ramon	2016-06-21	7
Yet another "Chipotle except _____" place, and in this case the _____ is Thai. Nice to be able to customize your Bowl of Stuff, but having the noodles congealing in a pot is suboptimal, and the green curry was barely detectable. Much better to just go to a Thai restaurant.
El Mono	Peruvian	San Pablo btw Eureka/Lincoln, El Cerrito	2016-06-10	8
Here I got one of the three vegetarian options, a mix of underdone green beans and soggy french fries with a mound of rice. The sauce it came in was okay, though, and the green sauce that came on the side was very good — drizzling it on top raised the quality of the meal by an order of magnitude.
Masala Cuisine	Indian	International & 79th, Oakland	2016-05-26	11
This place is in the sort of neighborhood that right-wing red staters have in mind when they talk apocalyptically about Oakland on message boards. It is, shall we say, not gentrified yet. That's both inside and out; the restaurant is a kitchen and a table, and the place is a two-person operation, the two people in question being a friendly, talkative elderly couple who bring you samples of the food before serving it so you can tell them if you want it spicier or saltier or anything. Flavorings are pretty unusual, and I think my palate leans toward the more traditional. But it's certainly an interesting change of pace.
Kanishka's	Indian fusion	Bonanza & Commercial, Walnut Creek	2016-05-21	6
Not actually bad, but still kind of ludicrous. The paneer appetizer was five little paneer french fries for eight dollars. The artichoke hummus was just a dollop of regular hummus, three or four little artichoke leaves, and a palm-sized piece of flatbread for nine dollars. Come on now.
Valenti & Co.	Italian	San Anselmo btw Woodland/Pine, San Anselmo	2016-05-19	8
Food was fine, but yow, expensive. There was a choice between a small and large portion of gnocchi. I got the large. Based on the amount I received, I would call the large "small" and the small "homeopathic".
Lotus Chaat & Spices	Indian	4th near F, San Rafael	2016-05-05	14
I was skeptical about this place - I'd been to dosa spots before, and in my experience dosas were big, paper-thin, not particularly flavorful crepes with a couple of dollops of undistinguished spiced potatoes in the middle. And the ones here were fifteen to twenty bucks! Could the dosas here actually turn out to be significantly better than the other ones I'd had up to that point? It turns out that the answer was yes! An enthusiastic thumbs-up to, at least, the saag paneer dosa I got.
Bill's Cafe	Breakfast/lunch	regional chain	2016-05-01	10
I got the eggs caprese (a benedict with caprese fixings instead of meat). That seemed like it could fall anywhere on the spectrum: could be amazing, could be a matter of white tomatoes, rubbery cheese, and congealed hollandaise. It turned out to be in the middle. Fine, not memorable.
Swaad	Indian	13th & Empire, San Jose	2016-04-29	14
Hey, the Yelpers got one right! This place was uncommonly good, from the spicing of the samosas (inside and out) to the tenderness of the aloo gobi to the nuance of the tikka masala to the beauty of the garlic naan. Two misfires: the nuts-and-cherries naan was overdone, and, ugh, cucumber water.
Gotta Eatta Pita	Mediterranean	regional chain	2016-04-24	11
Yet another entrant in the "it's like Chipotle for _____ food" genre. In this case, the food is Mediterranean; you start with a falafel sandwich and say yes or no to each of the offered fixings as you work your way down the the line. I'm not complaining — I was very glad to be able to say no to the cucumbers and yes to the eggplant.
Pizza Bello	Pizza	Hopyard & Valley, Pleasanton	2016-04-23	9
Okay for the suburbs. Points off for the cost ($20 for a small) and for the fact that the toppings so clearly came out of cans.
Maya Fonda	Mexican	University near McGee, Berkeley	2016-04-19	10
This is a small Mexican grocery with a taqueria counter up front. I got a burrito. First few bites: "This is surprisingly good!" Last few bites: "I'm not too sure I feel very well."
Frontier Spice	Indian	Main near Angela, Pleasanton	2016-04-17	10
I was pleased to see some unusual dishes on the menu; I got the "dum pukht gobi", but unfortunately the cauliflower was a bit underdone. The naan was very good, though.
Two Amigos	Mexican (taqueria)	Stanley & Bernal, Pleasanton	2016-04-10	5
Yelp, you so crazy. 4½ stars for a taqueria that doesn't even come particularly close to average? I say thee nay.
Tigerlily	Indian fusion	Shattuck btw Vine/Cedar, Berkeley	2016-03-27	6
I went to brunch here and was sad to discover that the menu I'd seen online was not up to date; no coconut curry for me. Instead I got a naan pizza whose flavors didn't really add up to anything.
Denica's	Breakfast/lunch	regional chain	2016-03-20	5
I went to the one in Dublin. Very confusing setup with multiple counters, long slow lines, and the chilaquiles I got, while voluminous, were bland — felt sort of like the Idaho version.
Sugarie	Bakery	Bernal & Tawny, Pleasanton	2016-03-20	9
The croissants here are the kind that are very flaky on the outside, are kind of flat and doughy on the inside, and leave you feeling like you just ate half a stick of butter. Some people like that! I prefer a fluffier (some might say breadier) croissant, myself.
Khyber Pass Kabob	Afghan	Village & Amador Valley, Dublin	2016-03-19	8
I pretty much always get vegetarian aushak at Afghan places, and this was no exception. Usually they have some sort of tomato or lentil topping in addition to the yogurt sauce, though, and the rendition here did not.
Nothing Bundt Cakes	Dessert (cakes)	national chain	2016-03-19	8
Happened across this place out in suburbia, gave it a try. The cake had a good texture and was otherwise fine but not revelatory.
Tava	Indian fusion	chain: San Francisco, Palo Alto	2016-03-15	10
Another Chipotle-style Indian wrap shop like Urbann Turbann, but I liked this one a bit more: the wraps are made to order from balls of dough, and the fillings were a bit higher quality.
Zero Zero	Pizza	Folsom btw 4th/5th, San Francisco	2016-03-14	5
The crust was reasonable, but on top of the already high base prices I paid extra for mozzarella di bufala, and it was really bad — basically a paste.
54 Mint	Italian	regional chain	2016-03-13	9
This is one of those Italian bakery/cafes with pastries in the morning and pizza for lunch; I went to the one in Walnut Creek and got an apricot thing that was decent, a Nutella twist that was virtually tasteless, and a margherita pizza that looked puny and underdone, but tasted a bit better than it looked.
Bacheeso's	Mediterranean	local chain: Oakland, Berkeley	2016-03-06	7
Here's what I wrote several years ago: "For under ten bucks this place offers a brunch buffet with an impressive array of offerings, a little different every weekend: I've seen pesto penne, vegan lasagna, stewed peaches with kale, eggplant and tofu stew, stuffed artichokes with aioli, moussaka, French toast, scrambled eggs with spinach, and much much more. It's all quite good, too." And now it's over fourteen bucks, there are fewer options, and the food is generally cold, even quite early in the day. Hence I am chopping the score in half.
Flour & Co	Bakery/cafe	chain: San Francisco, Berkeley	2016-03-01	9
This place has some pretty good stuff — scones and little cakes and things. It has pop-tart-like thingies filled with things like butternut squash, lemon curd, and nutella (not all in the same one). It is also quite expensive, however.
Rotten City Pizza	Pizza	Hollis & 66th, Emeryville	2016-02-11	6
Leave the "city" out, and you've got the basic idea. Har har. I wouldn't actually go that far, but I've been in here a couple of times — most recently when I happened to be in Emeryville late and night and was really craving a slice of pizza — and I'm afraid the pizza just isn't very good. Floppy, congealed texture, iffy flavors.
Sanctuary Bistro	Vegan	Camelia & Tenth, Berkeley	2016-01-22	7
This place is fancy, if not quite schmancy; that means that, e.g., the potatoes in the Niçoise salad will be one single fingerling potato, cut into dime-sized discs. You know the drill: expensive for what you get, and more pretty than particularly flavorful. But again, it's hard to resist a place where more than 10% of the menu is something I can order.
Gran Milan	Italian	Jacuzzi btw Central/Washington, Richmond	2016-01-12	7
This is an Italian bakery/cafe tucked away in an industrial shopping center between two freeways. None of the items in the cases are labeled. I have tried a pizza (fine, but nothing you couldn't get out of a box at the supermarket), pistachio croissant (i.e., regular croissant with a glop of olive-green paste on top), and olive breadstick (subpar). I have yet to try the hot chocolate or the desserts.
Brittany Crepes	Crepes	University btw 7th/8th, Berkeley	2015-12-16	7
I'd had one of these folks' crepes at the Temescal farmers' market, and now they have a storefront. Seems a bit odd that they only have table service, given that crepes tend to be a grab-and-go sort of affair in general (and their market booth certainly is).
La Marcha	Spanish	San Pablo near University, Berkeley	2015-12-16	6
The food was tasty enough, and the service was fine, but it was the same issue as at most tapas places — not only were the portions really small for what they cost, but they were also insubstantial. Like, a little dish of brussels sprouts and a little dish of scallions set me back nearly twenty bucks. It was like paying for a large pizza and not getting the crust, sauce, or cheese.
Gioia Pizzeria	Pizza	Hopkins btw McGee/Sacramento, Berkeley	2015-11-21	7
This pizza is New York style, by which I mean you walk in and see a bunch of mummified pizzas in the case and you ask for a slice and they sorta-kinda reheat it. Sometimes the pizza is good enough to overcome this process (I recall liking the asparagus and spring onion slice) but sometimes not so much. For about ten years I kept making mental notes to try getting a freshly baked full pie here, and I finally got around to doing so, and… somehow it still tasted mummified!
the Advocate	North African fusion	Ashby near College, Berkeley	2015-11-15	12
Here I got a burrata and tomato flatbread and a side of roasted cauliflower — not quite as good as the equivalent pairing at Pizzeria Delfina, but a lot easier to get to.
Tacos Sinaloa	Mexican (taqueria)	local chain: Oakland, Berkeley	2015-11-05	15
Over the years I've checked out many highly regarded taco trucks, and had always found them pretty average. But I'd never been to the heralded ones along (seedy) International Boulevard, so when I happened across some people raving about Tacos Sinaloa in particular I decided to brave the iffy neighborhood and check it out. And… it totally lived up to the hype! Cheap and awesome. So I went home, ready to write about how I would be making the occasional trek to get a plate of these tacos… only to discover that Tacos Sinaloa had opened up an actual storefront just a few days earlier, in Berkeley, much closer to home! (A thirty-second jog from my old dorm, for cryin' out loud.) Very cool to see something good spring up on Telegraph, which as of late had become (in Local H parlance) a road of holes. (Update: I have now tried the burritos as well, which are better than your average burrito, but the tacos are still the clear winners.)
Homestead	American	Piedmont btw 40th/41st, Oakland	2015-10-27	5
I went here for breakfast, when it's more casual, and had a creme fraiche custard (inoffensive but bland) and a beignet (fried to death, and left enough oil in my stomach that I got a bagel on the way home just because I felt like I needed to soak it up).
Marhaba	Indian	Franklin btw 15th/14th, Oakland	2015-10-20	9
Despite the laudatory Yelp reviews, the Indian buffet here seemed pretty standard. I'm sure I'd go occasionally if it were across the street, but I don't foresee myself trekking to Oakland for it again.
Namaste Pizza	Pizza	San Pablo & 60th, Oakland	2015-10-11	8
This is Indian fusion pizza, but it ain't no Zante. The Indian part is perfectly fine — it's the pizza that needs work. Rubbery and tasteless is no way to go through life, cheese.
Ba-Bite	Mediterranean	Piedmont btw 40th/MacArthur, Oakland	2015-10-04	10
It was nice to happen across a Mediterranean place where there was actually another choice for me aside from a falafel wrap. I got a bowl of fried cauliflower with tahini sauce on a bed of rice and lentils. It seemed like the ingredients may have been at the end of their shift, but it was still decent enough.
Grand Lake Kitchen	Deli	Grand btw MacArthur/Euclid, Oakland	2015-08-31	11
Here I've had the savory French toast (rye bread, porcini batter, parmesan, arugula, wild mushrooms, poached eggs), which was an interesting change of pace but not a taste sensation, and the chilaquiles, which looked beautiful and had a generous helping of avocado but which was ultimately a little too bitterly spicy to get top marks. So, pretty good, but my curiosity is now satisfied.
Doc's of the Bay	Burgers	food truck	2015-08-09	6
I've had the black bean burger here a couple of times and am not really a fan, even though the green chile on top should have sealed the deal. I do like that you can get a combo of fries and green beans as a side, but these are not always of great quality, and in fact the last time I ate here I wound up feeling unwell afterwards.
Johnny Doughnuts	Donuts	food truck	2015-08-05	9
Apparently this place has a storefront in San Rafael, but I know it from the truck that comes to El Cerrito every couple of weeks. The first couple of times I tried it I was very impressed, as both the cronut and lime mascarpone bismarck were big winners. But everything else I've tried has turned out to be a totally standard donut, and the peach/strawberry one was downright bad.
Della Fattoria	Bakery	multiple locations	2015-07-18	15
Apparently this place is based in Petaluma, but I know it from its booth at the Ferry Building farmers' market on Saturdays. The first time I tried it, I picked up a bear claw and a pineapple pound cake; the second time, a hefty disc of croissant bread pudding. Everything so far has been a winner.
Taqueria Cancun	Mexican (taqueria)	Mission near 19th, San Francisco	2015-07-09	9
I'd read that this place was particularly heralded for its vegetarian burrito, but I found it to be very much in the genre that made me think Mission burritos were a lost cause back in '05: the dominant note was a slightly bitter combo of sour cream and cold cheese.
Canasta Kitchen	Mexican	food truck	2015-07-01	7
The food's pretty good, but way too expensive for what you get: $9 for a taco, $10 for a huarache, and in both cases it's just a slab of fried corn topped with a few beans and a mountain of lettuce.
the Chairman	Chinese	food truck	2015-07-01	5
I don't normally like Chinese food, but this truck (which serves "bao", a.k.a. sandwiches) gets rave reviews, so I figured I'd give it a try. I got the miso tofu on a baked bun. It was virtually flavorless. Opinion of Chinese food: not improved.
Bangkok Thai Cuisine	Thai	University btw Acton/Sacramento, Berkeley	2015-06-09	13
I had a craving for massaman curry and decided to give this place a shot. Not only did the curry hit the spot, but it turned out that the place also offers vegetarian tom kha, and a very good rendition too.
High Peaks Kitchen	Indian	College near Clifton, Oakland	2015-05-28	12
This place, like most Indian places, is hit or miss; I really like the cream sauces (tikka masala, shahi paneer, etc.), but the others are unremarkable, and vegetables are often not cooked through (I've had broccoli and potatoes here that were close to raw). Similarly with the breads: the garlic cheese naan impressed me, but other varieties have been too crackery for my taste.
Picante	Mexican (taqueria)	Sixth btw Gilman/Camelia, Berkeley	2015-05-10	15
This is a big, gringo-friendly taqueria near my house that plays a critical role in my dining rotation: on those days when I know I should eat but nothing sounds good, I come here, get the cheese enchiladas, and am always eminently satisfied.
Los Cantaros Taqueria	Mexican (taqueria)	San Pablo btw Park/45th, Emeryville	2015-05-02	6
Little did I know when I ordered a super bean and cheese burrito that the word "bean" was singular for a reason. It was a gluey tortilla surrounding a filling that was mostly sour cream. Wait time was long. (I also got a boring breakfast burrito when the place was virtually empty and the wait was even longer.)
Pizza Hacker	Pizza	Mission near 29th, San Francisco	2015-04-30	13
On my first trip here I got the "Top Shelf Margherita" made with dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes — which are among my favorite eating tomatoes, but which I haven't had much luck cooking with. They're too delicate. And I found that to be the case here. The pizza was gorgeous, but I found myself craving an earthier sauce. On my second trip, I got the "Rocket Man", which had a lot to recommend it: the slight bitterness of the arugula was balanced with generous amounts of lemon; the grana padano on top and the fresh mozzarella beneath were both very flavorful, the former pleasantly sharp, the latter complexly sweet; really, it was top flight stuff, except that there was a bit more char to it than I prefer. I've read that this place draws inspiration from Portland's Apizza Scholls, and I see the resemblance: beautiful pizza with the best ingredients, but not my favorite style.
El Farolito	Mexican (taqueria)	regional chain	2015-04-25	15
So I thought I was trying somewhere new, but apparently I went here in '05 and got a bad enough burrito that I didn't come back until ten years had passed and I had forgotten my earlier visit. But my '15 burrito was excellent — not paradigm-shifting like La Taqueria, but definitely first-rate.
Sol y Luna Taqueria	Mexican (taqueria)	Shattuck btw Berkeley/Hearst, Berkeley	2015-04-23	10
I'd read that this place was supposed to be good for nachos, and the nacho plates are indeed meticulously composed; they're above average to start, though slightly below average at the end, as the chips totally disintegrate. I did eventually get around to trying a burrito here, but I was less impressed — the tortillas are just thrown, dry, on a grill, and end up with an unpleasant texture.
Oliveto	Italian	College & Shafter, Oakland	2015-04-17	12
Oliveto offers two menus, one for its swanky upstairs and a smaller one for its no-reservations downstairs. On either floor, expect tiny food: this is an upscale place, so while the prices look reasonable the portions are amusingly small. The $14.50 cannelloni, for instance, turns out to be four tubes the size of dry-erase markers. I guess when you order from the pasta column it's supposed to be a brief course before you plunge into your ribeye steak or whatever. Of course, the reason a place like Oliveto can get away with charging so much for so little is that the food is often pretty goddamn tasty. That said, not everything's a winner. Half the time I leave distinctly unimpressed. But the other half… (Update: I had to dock this place a couple of points for scaling down its breakfast offerings. The main thing I came here for was pizza at 7 a.m., and that's no longer on the menu. Feh.)
Smitten	Dessert (ice cream)	regional chain	2015-04-06	7
The gimmick here is that your ice cream is made on the spot with liquid nitrogen; the resulting texture is a bit odd, sort of like paste. Prices are pretty shocking; for the price of a four-ounce cup, you can go to Safeway and get two pints of premium ice cream. The flavor selection is pretty limited, too.
Green Chile Kitchen	New Mexican	regional chain	2015-03-31	14
I really like New Mexican food, so I've kept coming back to Green Chile Kitchen even though it's uneven. Good thing, too, because it seems to be on an upswing — I've now had several delicious meals in a row here. Those used to the cheap and gigantic meals you get in Albuquerque will also find the big prices and small portions here jaw-dropping, but, well, this ain't Albuquerque. I actually like the fact that I can get a meal here and walk away knowing that I haven't just gained five pounds. I also like the fact that this place has done well enough that since my previous update, it has expanded to San Rafael — easier to park in than San Francisco town! Now if they'd just put another branch in one of these empty spots on Solano…
Three Twins Ice Cream	Dessert (ice cream)	regional chain	2015-03-31	11
Three Twins offers up the best supermarket ice cream in the area, so I figured that when I was in Marin I'd swing by one of their shops and see whether there was anything on offer I couldn't get at the Berkeley Bowl. The one bonus flavor on offer was banana nut. It was good, but less impressive when competing with Ici than when competing with Ben & Jerry's.
Wally's Cafe	Mediterranean	San Pablo btw Adeline/40th, Emeryville	2015-03-27	8
Weird location in the back room of a dive bar — walk down the alley if you want to go straight to the restaurant part. The complimentary lentil soup and tiny baklava were nice, but my falafel sandwich failed to impress.
Mission Pie	Dessert (pie)	Mission & 25th, San Francisco	2015-03-26	9
Happened to pass this pie place, saw they had banana cream, gave it a try. Decent but unremarkable. Prices are reasonable for the area.
Humphry Slocombe	Dessert (ice cream)	local chain, San Francisco	2015-03-14	5
This is a hipster ice cream shop with flavors revolving around booze and pork. I've gone a handful of times (and gotten things like vanilla and caramel) and not been impressed — the quality of the ice cream has actually been subpar every time I've tried it. (It's pretty icy.)
Primavera	Mexican	Ferry Plaza, San Francisco	2015-03-14	13
This is a stand at the Ferry Building farmers' market on Saturday mornings; they offer a handful of things, including chilaquiles. The line is long but moves reasonably quickly.
Gay Nineties Pizza Company	Pizza	Main & Abbie, Pleasanton	2015-03-07	7
Back in the '90s — and given the name of this place I guess I should specify that I mean the 1990s rather than the 1890s — I took a fair number of cross-country drives, and often found myself in motel rooms in flyover country leafing through the Yellow Pages to find somewhere to eat. It was always nice to be in someplace like Ogden, Utah, and find a local pizzeria that was surprisingly good. They usually felt like this, too: historic building, very thick crust. So, yeah — in one of those places, this would be quite a find. I'm glad I don't live in one of those places.
Farm Burger	Burgers	national chain	2015-03-06	7
The veggie burger I got was going to have to be really good to justify the ages I waited in the ludicrously slow line, and, yeah, not so much. (The "FB fries" also disappointed.)
Amber India	Indian	regional chain	2015-03-04	6
I went to the Amber in Mountain View back in '05 and got an expensive thali platter full of weirdly tangy dishes — tangy as in "this broth appears to have been made from boiled pocket change." Ten years later I tried the lunch buffet in San Francisco town: I liked that the items were not all bog-standard, but didn't like that they were fiery hot rather than actually flavorful.
Boss Burger	Burgers	Solano near Cornell, Albany	2015-03-03	10
The only thing I can get here is the veggie burger — the fries are cooked in beef tallow — but that veggie burger was one of the better ones I've had.
Osha Thai	Thai	local chain, San Francisco	2015-03-02	8
I can't speak for every location, but the one I went to put itself forward as hip and urban, not your typical "one big room in a strip mall" type of Thai place. Food was okay. The rice-to-curry ratio was way too low, but I was with twenty other people and consequently the service was too scattered to remedy this.
A Dora Pie	Dessert	University near Milvia, Berkeley	2015-02-24	6
This place sells pie, cookies, and meringues. They are all very expensive (e.g., the pie is $7 for a not particularly large slice) and nothing about the offerings I've tried has come close to justifying that price tag — it's pretty ordinary.
the Junket	Deli	El Cerrito Plaza, El Cerrito	2015-02-23	9
This place offers sandwiches in addition to selling a selection of groceries from Germany and Britain. I wasn't wowed by the avocado lentil sandwich I tried, but it was made with obvious care.
Los Moles	Mexican	65th & Hollis, Emeryville	2015-02-10	14
As the name suggests, this place specializes in mole — every weekend Los Moles offers a brunch buffet, with unlimited beans, rice, chips, fresh fruit, pastries… and no fewer than eight different mole sauces in giant pots. The weekday breakfast burritos are small but shockingly cheap (around three bucks), with options such as enmoladas for those with more of an appetite.
Tacos Mi Rancho	Mexican (taco truck)	1st Pl & 1st Ave, Oakland	2015-01-24	10
Totally standard fare. Good prices for what you get, but I'm not going down to Oakland again for food identical to what I'd get across the street.
Gilman Grill	Breakfast/lunch	Fourth & Gilman, Berkeley	2015-01-15	5
Disappointing huevos rancheros here. Dry black beans, no actual ranchero sauce but just a dollop of salsa.
El Porteño	Empanadas	local chain (San Francisco) with a truck	2015-01-11	9
Decent empanadas, but expensive ($5 for a few bites).
Whip Out!	Burgers	food truck	2015-01-11	3
Yeah, I'm pretty much done with this truck. Split pea burger has declined in quality (from no particularly great height), the promised "avocado" turned out to be avocado sauce, the bread pudding with strawberries and blueberries contained neither promised fruit… and it's expensive on top of all that. Feh.
Tandoori Nite	Indian	University btw Oxford/Shattuck, Berkeley	2014-12-26	6
Boring. An Indian buffet should be a chance to sample some unusual dishes you might not want to order a full entree of. Plunking down some saag and channa and calling it a buffet is almost insulting.
Smoke's Poutinerie	Poutine	international chain	2014-12-12	5
When I first heard of poutine as a teenager, the context was "look at the gross things people in other countries eat" — poutine, the universal opinion seemed to be, was to Quebec what haggis was to Scotland. Eww. Then in the 21st century I ended up spending a lot of time in Canada and saw places that served poutine as if it weren't a joke. I even found a place that served vegetarian poutine that was very good (Pink Bicycle in Victoria). Now apparently poutine has achieved fad status; first there was that cart in Portland, and now here's an outpost of a Canadian chain right on Durant Avenue in Berkeley. I tried it. And… it ain't no Pink Bicycle.
Los Cilantros	Mexican	Shattuck btw Prince/Woolsey, Berkeley	2014-12-02	12
Pricy, small portions, but quite good, and I particularly like how the menu ranges beyond your standard fare to encompass things like tlacoyitos.
Cassave	Salvadorian	San Pablo & 54th, Emeryville	2014-11-26	8
I admit that when I go to a restaurant and receive a gigantic plate of food I sometimes grumble that I would have preferred to pay half as much and receive half as much. But when I ordered a breakfast special here — eggs! casamiento! plantains! AND a pupusa! — I was a little disappointed when each item was just a little dollop of food on a big plate.
Eureka!	American	regional chain	2014-11-22	6
One long wait to get my order taken and another long wait for my order to arrive. I got the truffle fries, which were acceptable but not noteworthy. No discernible truffle flavor but the hint of scallion was nice.
Pieology	Pizza	national chain	2014-11-09	8
Figured I should try this if only out of completism. I've seen it described as "the Chipotle of pizza", and yeah, like Build on Shattuck, you point at the toppings you want and someone on the other side of the counter adds them. Except Build uses standard pizza dough and Pieology uses something that cooks up faster and ends up very crackery. Better than the fast food chains but worse than the real pizzerias that are all over the place around here in this day and age.
All Good Pizza	Pizza	Jerrold near 3rd, San Francisco	2014-10-30	13
Somewhat crackery crust, with the sauce baked into it, and a whole lot of cornmeal giving it crunch. Pretty tasty though!
Philz Coffee	Coffee shop	regional chain	2014-10-25	5
I don't drink coffee, but I started going here because they carry a few Starter Bakery products. One day I decided to try some hot chocolate along with my pastry. The hot chocolate tasted like a whole lot of nothing with a bitter note on top. The only reason this doesn't get an even lower rating is that it is nice to be able to get a Starter Bakery croissant at 6:15 a.m. on a Wednesday.
Bette's Ocean View Diner	Breakfast/lunch	Fourth btw Hearst/Virginia, Berkeley	2014-10-24	6
I've been here a few times, and it's generally been sort of middling, but the last time I went I had one of those expensive soufflé pancakes and it was just flat-out bad. Unfortunate.
Toss Noodle Bar	Pan-Asian	Shattuck btw Kittredge/Bancroft, Berkeley	2014-10-21	12
Choose a starch, choose a sauce, choose a protein. I got the Hokkien noodles with Malay sauce and tofu, hold the fish and oyster sauces. I normally dislike East Asian food but I had an odd craving for it and this place satisfied it nicely.
Cosecha	Mexican	9th near Washington, Oakland	2014-09-27	14
I was dubious about this place when I walked in — it's not a restaurant, exactly, but rather a counter in a sort of warehouse with communal seating. I ordered the chilaquiles, which were pretty expensive. But when the plate arrived, wow, it was gorgeous. (And, uh, tasted good too! With food that's pretty important.)
Doughnut Dolly	Donuts	regional chain: Oakland, Berkeley	2014-09-26	8
Hipstery but good. Pillowy donuts that are pumped on the spot with one of four fillings.
Doyle Street Cafe	Breakfast/lunch	Doyle near 55th, Emeryville	2014-09-26	12
At the Homemade Cafe in Berkeley I once got something called "Home Fry Heaven": breakfast potatoes with nacho toppings. It wasn't very good. This place offered a similar dish by the same name — but the first time I got it, it was a big winner, and while subsequent times haven't been as good, they've still been perfectly decent. Maybe the key is that the potatoes were slivered instead of cubed, or something? In any case, thumbs up. I've also liked the French toast and huevos rancheros here.
Dream Fluff Donuts	Donuts	Ashby near College, Berkeley	2014-09-25	6
Pretty standard. Yelpers are silly.
Crepes A-Go-Go	Crepes	regional chain	2014-09-11	6
I came here a lot when it first opened in the early '90s, and it was very inconsistent: great one day, lousy the next, mainly depending on which of the brothers who ran the place was working the griddle. When I returned in the mid-'00s it was run by entirely different people and was still maddeningly inconsistent. But it seems to have finally achieved consistent mehness. Spongy premade crepes, low-quality fillings. Alas.
Pearl's Deluxe Burgers	Burgers	Post near Jones, San Francisco	2014-09-02	6
Here I got a veggie burger and garlic fries. The burger was fine but undistinguished, and while I initially liked the garlic fries' strong, sharp flavor, I did not like the way that on the walk home I felt like I had swallowed a hand grenade.
Benchmark Pizzeria	Pizza	Oak View & Colusa Circle, Kensington	2014-08-05	11
Crust: excellent. Toppings: quality seems fine, but somehow flavor is missing. I've had to take my pizza home and sprinkle on some salt and parmesan to get it to taste like much of anything. Prices: pretty high for what you get.
Hopkins Street Bakery	Bakery	Hopkins btw McGee/California, Berkeley	2014-07-23	7
Now that my local branch of La Farine is gone, and Octoberfeast no longer has a storefront, I've been trying to find a place to get a good croissant. This isn't it; the croissants were basically just bread inside. Sad face.
La Farine	Bakery	local chain: Oakland	2014-07-21	13
This used to be my neighborhood bakery, and I went all the time before my local branch abruptly disappeared — dispute with the building owner, apparently. Hélas. The selection of breakfast pastries isn't enormous — you've got a few kinds of croissants, a couple of scones, a morning bun, and that's about it — but they're pretty darn good, and there are also a fair number of cakes and cookies for dessertier moods. Even the bread is perfectly decent, though I tend to turn to Acme for my regular bread needs.
Sketch Ice Cream	Dessert (ice cream)	Fourth & Addison, Berkeley	2014-07-06	19
IN MEMORIAM, AGAIN. I was a regular at the old location back in the '00s: highish prices, limited hours, only a few flavors on any given day, but I was frequently gobsmacked by how good this place was. Let me put it this way: I don't know whether this was the best ice cream I've ever had, but it was the best burnt caramel ice cream I've ever had, the best hazelnut ice cream I've ever had, the best apricot ice cream I've ever had, and most definitely the best blackberry ice cream I've ever had. Also the best tangerine sorbet I've ever had. And the granitas were the platonic ideal of an Italian ice I'd been carrying around in my head since 1979. Good cakes and cookies, too. Then they went away for three years (the entire operation consisted of one married couple, and they had a baby), then returned for two — but now they seem to be gone for good.
Caravaggio	Dessert (gelato)	Shattuck btw Delaware/Francisco, Berkeley	2014-06-19	9
Standard fare. I went a couple of times to do my due diligence, but the next time I feel like a frozen dessert, I'll be sticking with Sketch or Ici.
Jodie's	Breakfast/lunch	Masonic near Solano, Albany	2014-06-14	15
IN MEMORIAM. This was a real hole in the wall, with very tight seating for six, and most of the customers went there pretty much every day for twenty years. So if you're into chatting it up with a bunch of jovial old characters, including the proprietor, this was the place. I find it a little taxing, myself. But it was one block away from my house, and I had some really good things there — two standouts were the vegetarian Eggs Royston, which came with artichokes and an herbed cream sauce on an English muffin, and the vegetarian Skip-A-Roo, Anaheim peppers and eggs scrambled with a seriously tasty homemade salsa. Even something as simple-looking as the pancakes turned out to be winners.
Breads of India	Indian	chain: Berkeley, Oakland, Walnut Creek	2014-06-10	10
There's a reason this place is called Breads of India and not Foods of India. There are five different unusual breads on offer, a different set every day, and in my experience they're generally excellent. And… I have learned to get those breads to go and eat them with Indian food from elsewhere, because the actual entrees tend to be bland and interchangeable. But really, the breads are top-notch!
the Crème Brûlée Cart	Dessert (crème brûlée)	food truck	2014-06-04	11
Little cups of crème brûlée, with various toppings available. The nutella strawberry crème brûlée is worth checking out.
Twister	Mexican (burritos)	food truck	2014-06-04	4
When I saw that this place offered "burrito cones" I was intrigued, but the one I got turned out to be quite bad: flavorless beans and rice in an equally flavorless cold fried tortilla. But I figured that before I did a writeup I should try a standard burrito as well. It wasn't much better. Thumbs down.
Casey's Pizza	Pizza	food truck	2014-06-01	13
The pizza here is pretty expensive, at $10 for two slices (the minimum order), but otherwise there's not much to complain about. The crust is nothing particularly special but the quality of the toppings is excellent, at least on the margherita.
the Burr-Eatery	Mexican (burritos)	food cart	2014-06-01	6
This place is pretty histrionic about NOT being Mission-style: no rice, no avocado, no sour cream, and "if you want it super, put a cape on it." The food tastes fine, but the prices are pretty ludicrous, at $5 for a tube of refried beans the size of a taquito.
Gordo Taqueria	Mexican (taqueria)	chain: Berkeley, Albany, San Francisco	2014-05-28	14
This place is just a little ways up the street from my apartment, and every time I go, I am like, "Bleah, I don't feel like going all the way to somewhere good — I guess I will just settle for Gordo." And then I am like, "Goddamn, this Gordo food is delicious." Why do I keep forgetting that last part? (I guess because that "every time" is a little exaggerated — this place is a little inconsistent. But the hits outnumber the misses by a lot.)
Aunt Mary's Cafe	Southern/Southwestern	Telegraph btw 43rd/44th, Oakland	2014-05-17	14
The brunch menu here has some stuff that goes well beyond the usual. I've had a million versions of eggs before, but never simmered in a combination of roasted tomatoes, horseradish, and Tabasco sauce, then served on top of gruyere toast.
Tamalpie	Pizza	Miller btw Camino Alto/Valley, Mill Valley	2014-04-21	9
Beautiful pizza, good texture to the crust, flavors seemed maybe a little off — the olive oil was on the bitter side, for instance.
the Plant	California	regional chain: SF, Burlingame, Marin	2014-04-13	15
Here I had a very good plate of huevos rancheros with generous amounts of avocado and a lot of interesting twists (e.g., it was served on top of crispy tortillas which in turn were served on top of a white bean stew). Impressive.
Beth's	Bakery	Miller & Sunnyside, Mill Valley	2014-04-07	10
Here I got a sort of strawberry danish thing. It probably deserved more than a 10 but, grrr, unlabeled bakery case. Labels are our friends.
Prabh Indian Kitchen	Indian	Sunnyside & Parkwood, Mill Valley	2014-04-07	8
Here I got a vegetarian thali. It was okay. Probably worth more than an 8, but there was a hair in one of the bowls and there was a very annoying little boy at the table next to me.
Just for You	Cafe	22nd btw 3rd/Tennessee, San Francisco	2014-03-16	8
Here I had a frittata and a beignet, both of which I vaguely recall as being okay. (Unfortunately, I went here in the middle of a personal crisis and so was too dazed to really register the experience.)
Genova Delicatessen	Italian deli	btw Telegraph/Shattuck, btw 51st/49th, Oakland	2014-03-07	8
"ZOMG I fly from L.A. to Oakland on the regular to get a Genova sandwich!!" Calm down, Yelp. The sandwich I got here was fine. It was nice that there was a cold vegetable mix (artichokes and peppers and suchlike) to keep it from being lettuce and tomatoes on a bun. But the hyperbole is "whut?"-inducing.
the Sacred Wheel	Cheese cafe	Shattuck & 51st, Oakland	2014-03-06	6
Here I got a grilled cheese. It was nothing special. How special can a grilled cheese be? Cowgirl Creamery proved it can be PRETTY DADGUM SPECIAL, so this was a disappointment.
Easy Creole	Cajun	Alcatraz btw Ellis/Adeline, Berkeley	2014-02-20	10
This is sort of like Indian food: no matter what you order, pretty much, you will get rice covered with some slop (e.g., chili, creamed spinach, etc.). But it's pretty tasty slop, and the service is friendly.
Momo Masala	Indian/Tibetan	Hearst btw Euclid/Le Roy, Berkeley	2014-02-07	5
Downscale undergraduate food. Downscale food is often great; undergraduate food, virtually never.
Grégoire	French	local chain: Berkeley, Oakland	2014-01-11	10
This is a tiny place that serves everything in takeout containers. By "everything" I mean things like "salad of hearts of palm and Wilgenburg tomato stuffed avocado" and "peach bread pudding with sour lemon cream." The menu used to be completely overhauled every month, and I ended up going at least once more months than not. Now the offerings change less often and I go less often; of course, a bigger reason for that is that this used to be a place you could get an entree with multiple side dishes and an order of potato puffs for about ten bucks, and you can no longer get that for under $20.
Artichoke Basille's Pizza	Pizza	Durant & Bowditch, Berkeley	2013-12-02	6
This is a mini-chain out of New York that has planted its flag halfway between Telegraph and Unit 1. It's competing in the Blondie's space, as the business types would say. I no longer consider that a good space.
Fresco Mexican Grill	Mexican (taqueria)	Shattuck btw Allston/Center, Berkeley	2013-11-21	11
This place has really good breakfast burritos for a low price ($4.50). So good that after getting a few of them I went back one afternoon to get a regular burrito. The regular burrito was bad. So, the 11 over there is really like a 13 for breakfast and a 5 for lunch and dinner.
Flavor Brigade	Dessert	Fruitvale btw MacArthur/Coloma, Oakland	2013-11-15	8
This place, which name-checks Philadelphia, offers Italian ice and frozen custard. The Italian ice is not what I remember from my own days in Philadelphia — the stuff I used to get is what I now see called a granita, while the stuff here is day-glo and more like snow than ice. Unfortunately, on my first trip they didn't have any of the flavors I'd been hoping for, so I ended up getting stuff like lime and grape that didn't go too well with the custard. I'll probably give it another shot at some point, though.
Pollo's	International	Shattuck & Addison, Berkeley	2013-11-14	8
I've known about this place for nearly a quarter of a century but never went in (I assumed it was mainly a chicken place). Then I read some rave reviews of their breakfast burrito, so I gave it a try. It was pretty standard. I did like the hot salsa it came with.
Pepples Donut Farm	Donuts	San Pablo near 61st, Oakland	2013-11-13	6
Better than average donuts, but (a) that's not saying much, and (b) even if it were saying more than it is, $5 for two donuts is kind of absurd.
the Hot Shop	Mexican fusion	San Pablo near Solano, Albany	2013-10-19	16
I'd been here a couple of times during my time in San Leandro just because I had to check out what Afghan/Mexican fusion was like; now that I live a five-minute walk away, it's more than just curiosity that makes me a regular visitor. I can't think of any conventional burrito shops that turn out better fare than the ones on the special menu here. Honey-curry, garlic-lime, cajun, artichoke, they're all sensational.
Arabica	Mediterranean	Kittredge btw Fulton/Shattuck, Berkeley	2013-10-15	6
Here I got a "pitaza," which turned out to be pretty much like a regular pizza, only with three times as much cheese as a person could possibly want. If I go back I think I'll stick to the more traditional fare.
El Burro Picante	Mexican (taqueria)	University btw Milvia/Shattuck, Berkeley	2013-10-07	10
Friendly service, open till midnight, cheap. However, the same is true down the street at Monte Cristo, and the fare there is more flavorful than the tacos I got on my first visit here.
Ici	Dessert (ice cream)	College & Ashby, Berkeley	2013-09-26	17
IN MEMORIAM. It seems that every time I went here it was better than the time before. This place hit a sweet spot between places like Sketch (excellent, but very simple flavors) and Humphry Slocombe (ridiculous hipster ice cream with flavors like bacon bourbon): we're talking caramel pistachio with cocoa nibs, malted vanilla toffee, stuff like that. Really good.
Cafe Valparaiso	Chilean	Solano near Carmel, Albany	2013-09-19	11
Pretty much everything I've had here has basically been high-priced goopy corn mush. But it's tasty enough high-priced goopy corn mush, and it's right near my house, so I imagine I'll keep going from time to time.
Pizzahhh	Pizza	Hearst near Euclid, Berkeley	2013-09-03	9
This score is for the food, which is significantly better than national-chain pizza for very low prices. But I won't be going back, because the store is festooned with inane libertarian propaganda.
Pizzalina	Pizza	Sir Francis Drake & Sunny Hills, San Anselmo	2013-08-17	13
Here I got a potato-leek pizza. It looked kind of weird because the cheese came in glops, but it was quite good.
Kabana	Indian	University & 10th, Berkeley	2013-07-30	11
The first time I went here I was impressed by the chana dal and the garlic naan. I went back soon afterward and got an aloo gobi and another garlic naan. This time the naan was nothing special, and the aloo gobi was kind of bland. So, still good overall, but no longer on my "noteworthy" list.
Abesha	Ethiopian	Shattuck btw 52nd/48th, Oakland	2013-07-11	7
Very good sambussas, but the veggie combo was pretty lackluster and the service was slo-o-ow.
Katrina Rozelle	Dessert (bakery)	chain: Oakland, Alamo	2013-07-11	14
The first time I went here I was not particularly impressed for some reason. The second time, 4½ years later, had me cursing the 4½ years I'd wasted. I got three cookies (praline, double chocolate, coconut macadamia) and each one had me exclaiming about how good it was.
Cholita Linda	Mexican (tacos)	farmers' market booth	2013-06-30	11
Rave reviews for these tacos on Yelp, so one week I tried them instead of getting my usual Pizza Politana. The booth at the Temescal farmers' market only has three choices (fish, pork, tofu), so I got the tofu tacos, which really are just tofu and slaw and some sauce — no beans, no guacamole, nothin'. Still pretty darn good, though.
Picco	Upscale	Magnolia & King, Larkspur	2013-06-24	15
A fresh batch of risotto served on the half hour: very cool. Avocado bruschetta with balsamic vinegar and sea salt: excellent. Fries: very good, and the pistachio romesco was terrific. Corn and stracchiatella ravioli with corn and wild mushroom sauce: not my favorite, but showed me that they know how to do pasta. Intense chocolate cake: too intense for me, but the salted caramel ice cream that came with them was a winner. Butterscotch bread pudding: not the best, I'm afraid. Service: excellent. Price: high enough that this will have to be a place for rare occasions (though being in Larkspur is a rare enough occasion). All in all, though, definitely recommended.
Mission Rock Resort	Seafood	Terry A. Francois btw Illinois/16th, San Francisco	2013-06-23	8
This one wasn't my choice, as the "cuisine" tag there should indicated. Brunch with Elizabeth's paleo friend. Luckily, it being brunch, there were at least a couple of vegetarian options. I ordered the French toast and it was fine. (That said, the "mixed berries" turned out to be two strawberries. Doh.)
Homeroom	Macaroni and cheese	40th & Shafter, Oakland	2013-06-18	6
This is a place that offers mostly various preparations of macaroni and cheese, with a handful of other items (salads, specials). I haven't been impressed, sadly — I'd much rather whip up some at home. (Also, the first time I went I forgot my lactase pills and wound up very sick for the better part of a week.)
Caffe Baonecci	Pizza	Green & Bannam, San Francisco	2013-06-03	10
This place offers up ultra-thin crust pizza (the outer rim is like a papadam). I got a zucchini pizza, which was interesting in that I think it was the first pizza I've had seasoned primarily with black pepper. Anyway, it's fine but I don't see myself returning more than once in a blue moon given the other options here in the Bay Area.
Tropisueño	Mexican	Yerba Buena near Mission, San Francisco	2013-05-27	12
The burritos here are pretty huge — I was reminded of ordering burritos in New York and receiving what were essentially throw pillows full of beans and rice. I got a chile relleño burrito: the chile itself wasn't great (undercooked) but everything else was fine. I was even able to get mole in it.
Taqueria Monte Cristo	Mexican (taqueria)	University btw Sacramento/Acton, Berkeley	2013-05-24	13
After I learned that Taqueria Monte Cristo was open till midnight — most of the other decent taquerias in Berkeley close at ten — whenever I would find myself hungry at 11:30 p.m. I would think, "Do I stay in and cook something or do I go to Taqueria Monte Cristo?" But I never chose the latter option because I'd gone a couple of times during daylight hours and not been impressed. But recently I have taken advantage of their late hours, and have been pretty impressed! The crispy vegetarian taco would be great at 1:30 p.m., let alone 11:30.
Firefly	American	24th & Douglass, San Francisco	2013-05-13	5
I was optimistic about this place when the bread came with a black bean and cumin spread rather than butter or olive oil. That black bean and cumin spread was great. Pea soup was meh. The entree I got was full of things I normally like (asparagus, fava beans, hazelnuts, etc.) but it was pretty bitter and getting through it was kind of a chore. Plus, Elizabeth got an avocado salad and half the avocado slices were brown! They comped us for the salad, so no harm done, but it was still not the best of all possible worlds.
Xolo	Mexican (taqueria)	Telegraph near 19th, Oakland	2013-05-11	13
I'd read that portions were small for the price, and they are. $8.50 for a chile relleño burrito that's on the slender side. The first time I had one, it initially seemed pretty meager — no rice, really just a thin tube of black bean puree… except when I got halfway through I found that I was really enjoying it. Whatever they mix into that puree makes for a good balance of flavors. These burritos are seriously good.
Capo's	Italian	Vallejo btw Stockton/Grant, San Francisco	2013-05-10	11
Here we had the "quattro forni," a pizza-like thing that's a crispy piece of high-rise bread topped with mozzarella and tomato sauce; it's cooked in four different ovens and only twenty are available each evening. We also had an eggplant lasagna that was a gigantic platter of eggplant and heavy noodles under a thick blanket of cheese. This is not a place to stop in for a light meal, is what I'm saying.
Pizza Politana	Pizza	farmers' market booth	2013-05-05	16
IN MEMORIAM.  I randomly happened across the Temescal farmers’ market one weekend and, while I wasn’t hungry then, noted for future reference that there was a wood-fired pizza booth in the lineup.  The next time I was awake on a Sunday morning I went down there to check it out.  It turned out that the pizza was great—​you can see on this page how many Bay Area pizzerias I’ve tried, and this place might have served up the best margherita out of all of them.  And I haven’t even mentioned that you paid about half what you’d pay for a comparable pizza elsewhere.  This quickly became a must-visit whenever I happened to feel like having some pizza at 10 a.m. on a Sunday (which was the case startlingly often).
Mozzeria	Italian	16th near Guerrero, San Francisco	2013-04-30	8
I made a reservation here on the basis of liking the looks of the Tuesday special for two — two appetizers, a pizza, a pasta dish, and a dessert for $39 — having no idea whatsoever that what this restaurant was actually known for was being owned and operated by deaf people. Ordering food involved lots of pointing at things. Anyway, the arancini appetizer and the bombolini dessert were the highlights; in between, we got a burrata appetizer that was kind of a non-entity, an ultra thin and floppy crusted margherita pizza, and a bowl of agnolotti in broth that was not very good (the pasta was a bit underdone and the broth had a bitter note to it). We also waited several years between the pizza and pasta courses.
Kokkari	Greek	Jackson & Front, San Francisco	2013-04-29	7
You will notice that there are not too many Greek restaurants on this page. I don't like Greek food. All vegetarian Greek food seems to involve some kind of goat or sheep cheese and I find those pretty gross. But Elizabeth likes Greek food a lot, and Kokkari did seem to be acclaimed as one of the top restaurants in San Francisco town, so I figured that I could at least give it a try. Anyway, I still don't like Greek food, but I can see that this must be a pretty good rendition. I liked the zucchini cakes and the two halves of baby artichoke I ate. (I also got an order of fava beans, much to the dismay of Pythagoras.)
Shangri-La Vegan	Tibetan	Linden & 40th, Oakland	2013-04-24	12
Apparently this place is an ancestor of Potala — the Cheese Board to Potala's Sliver. It's almost identical, except the food is significantly blander.
Flour + Water	Italian	Harrison & 20th, San Francisco	2013-04-23	12
Asparagus and avocado appetizer: very good, especially the salsa verde in which it was dressed. Rye tagliatelle: fine, tasted like regular Phoenix pasta in a cream sauce. Margherita pizza: not bad, but somewhat disappointing. Too much char for my taste.
Renee Gourmet	Italian	delivery, El Cerrito	2013-04-22	4
Yelpers were crazy about this place, which delivers handcrafted frozen pizzas to your door. The lesson, as always: Yelpers are crazy, period. Not only is this not good pizza, it's not even good frozen pizza. Reading between the lines, as they marvel at the "not greasy, not oily, clean tasting" pizza, I have to think that either these reviewers have only had chain pizza up to this point (and, yes, this is a big improvement over Domino's) or else they just don't like pizza.
Toma	Mexican (taqueria)	Steiner btw Lombard/Chestnut, San Francisco	2013-04-14	10
Pretty good but pretty expensive. Nice to see sopes available along with the usual burritos. Also nice that calabacitas (pretty good ones, too) are available in place of a meat filling.
Ajanta	Indian	Solano & The Alameda, Berkeley	2013-04-09	7
This is one of the most acclaimed Indian restaurants in the Bay Area, and the menu makes it easy to see why, with unusual options such as lubia aur mukhbi and tandoori asparagus. But, um, it's just not very good. Or at least it's not to my taste. I pass it more days than not, since it's right on the main drag here, and every few years I think maybe this month's specials will merit the hype, and they just never do.
Source	Vegetarian	Division near De Haro, San Francisco	2013-02-24	4
I'm being nice with this score, since I always want to give bonus points to places that offer more than a couple of vegetarian options. But the "smashed potato" pizza I ordered was pretty awful — one of the worst I've had in quite some time. (I get potato pizza all the time… but it's never come with gravy before. Gravy that wasn't listed in the menu description, mind you.)
Montague's Gourmet Sandwiches	Sandwiches	Channing near Telegraph, Berkeley	2013-02-21	6
I gotta stop reading Yelp, or at least take the pool of contributors into account. 4½ stars for these totally generic sandwiches? Things I should have factored in: it's on Telegraph; the people who eat on Telegraph are the 19-year-olds in the high-rises; most of those people are comparing what they eat to fast food chains and the dining commons; being better than Subway therefore ends up gathering dozens of "ZOMG BEST SANDWICHES EVER" posts. This is totally skippable.
Cugini	Italian	Solano btw Peralta/Ordway, Albany	2013-02-18	12
Here I've had a couple of pizzas and a calzone… they're quite good, and feel somehow heavier/more substantial than your standard pizza. Pass on the manicotti, though — it looked good, but was cold inside and made me wonder whether it was a Stouffer's entree.
Aroma Cafe	Bakery/cafe	Franklin & 19th, Oakland	2013-02-15	7
Ever since having an awesome butterscotch and chocolate chip cookie from Pure Vanilla in Oak Bay, BC, I have kept an eye out for a really good cookie place here in the Bay Area. Yelp suggested this place. Cookies were reasonably priced, but kind of doughy and nothing special, except to the extent that cookies are inherently special.
Da Flora	Italian	Columbus & Filbert, San Francisco	2013-02-07	6
Vegetarian-friendlier than I had been led to believe, and while the food sites were full of scary tales about an eccentric proprietor, she was nowhere in evidence. However, while I am not averse to paying biggish prices for minuscule portions if the food is super great, this meal did not qualify. The supposedly legendary sweet potato gnocchi were unremarkable, and the manicotti was not to my taste (too bitter and wrapped in a crepe rather than pasta).
Spoon	Korean	Ashby & 9th, Berkeley	2013-02-04	13
This slightly more casual spinoff of Bowl'd has a lot of menu overlap, but I wanted to try something I couldn't get at Bowl'd, so I got the spinach miso soup. After my first few spoonfuls I was uncertain how much I liked it, but it soon grew on me and I ended up enjoying it quite a bit! Looks like the Bowl'd crew has another winner.
Belli Osteria	Italian	Shattuck btw University/Addison, Berkeley	2013-01-23	11
This place specializes in ravioli, offering up three or four varieties per night. When I went, the only option was sweet potato and basil ravioli in a beet sauce with pecorino fonduta. I was dubious, but that radioactive pink sauce turned out to be really good! Still, after tax and tip, $18 for three ravioli is kind of nuts.
Helmand Palace	Afghan	Van Ness btw Green/Union, San Francisco	2013-01-22	11
The sauces that came with the bread had me very optimistic: the spicy tomato sauce was particularly great. But the vegetarian aushak, while otherwise fine, was topped with undercooked split peas that put this place in "good but not great" territory.
Loving Cup	Dessert	Polk near Union, San Francisco	2013-01-06	10
This place serves frozen yogurt, which I haven't tried, and rice pudding, which I have — c'mon, like I'm not going to try a place that offers toffee rice pudding and coconut rice pudding and a bunch of other flavors? That said, it turns out that it's really not any different from going to Trader Joe's and buying some rice pudding and sprinkling some toffee or coconut in, so.
Cheese Board Pizza	Pizza	Shattuck & Vine, Berkeley	2012-12-06	17
The Cheese Board is a worker-owned collective with a pizza shop next door to the cheese shop. Every day from Tuesday through Saturday it offers exactly one kind of pizza (always vegetarian); the only decision to make is how much you want. The pizza is extremely good — so much so that if the kinds I like (e.g., tomato asiago) were always available, this place would probably score a 20 or higher. As it stands, I have jags when I come here pretty much every day they're serving something I like, which means that multiple trips in a single week are not uncommon.
Suzette	Crêpes	Solano btw Evelyn/Talbot, Albany	2012-11-28	8
This place isn't the best — the crepes are often rubbery, and the menu shrinks with each passing day — but it's on the same block as my house and is pretty cheap, so it's become part of my regular rotation.
Taco Grill	Mexican (taqueria)	12th & 34th, Oakland	2012-11-28	7
After reading bunches of raves about this place I decided to make the trek down to Fruitvale. I got a vegetarian burrito, and while the preparation was high quality, it was loaded with a carrot-heavy vegetable mix that was not to my taste and dominated the other flavors.
Inn Kensington	American	Arlington & Amherst, Kensington	2012-10-24	17
This has become one of my regular breakfast spots. I went through the following cycle with it: 1. "Wow, that meal was great! Now I want to try everything else on the menu!" 2. "I've now tried a bunch of other things on the menu and some of them were pretty blah! Maybe this place isn't so great after all!" 3. "You know, if I walk in knowing that if I order my favorite thing (the chilaquiles with that awesome simmered salsa) I will have a spectacular breakfast... shouldn't that alone be enough to land a pantheon rating?" For now I'm saying yes.
Urbann Turbann	Indian fusion	Euclid near Hearst, Berkeley	2012-10-04	7
This place is an assembly-line taqueria, except the ingredients are Indian instead of Mexican: naan instead of tortillas, chutneys instead of salsas, etc. I've gone a handful of times and have had varying experiences — my most recent trip yielded a pretty flavorless chole faux-burrito so the 7 there might be a little high.
Westside Cafe	American (Southwestern-inflected)	Ninth & Parker, Berkeley	2012-08-29	8
I had some very good chilaquiles the first couple of times I came here, but since then they've been just okay. The gingerbread and coffee cake draw a lot of raves but I didn't find them noteworthy.
Starter Bakery	Bakery	farmers' market booth	2012-08-22	16
Though it has some very decent competition, I have to give Starter Bakery the nod as the best there is at what it does, at least in the area. Kouignoù-amann are its specialty, with fillings such as Tcho chocolate and peaches from a few booths down, and it offers dozens of other goodies: twice-baked almond croissants, pistachio coffee cakes, all sorts of things. Unfortunately, you can't just swing by whenever you want; Starter mostly sells to cafes, and if you want to buy fresh stuff straight from the source, you have three windows to swing by one of their farmers' market booths: Saturday morning, Sunday morning, and Wednesday afternoon. Luckily for me, the Wednesday market is a few blocks from my house.
Royal Cafe	Breakfast/lunch	San Pablo btw Washington/Solano, Albany	2012-08-10	10
I was surprised to see this place leading the Albany Patch poll for best breakfast in Albany, since I've lived here for two years and had never heard of it. Turns out that it's an old diner that I'd passed a million times without looking twice at. However, the food is more up to date than you'd expect (e.g., I got a roasted eggplant omelette with sundried tomatoes). One oddity: there are two doors and no one is posted near either one. You have to walk past bunches of people already eating in order to be seated.
Boffo Cart	Grilled	farmers' market booth	2012-08-08	9
Boffo Cart is a guy with a grill; I ran into the enterprise at the Albany Farmers' Market. The menu consists of one or two varities of calzones and panini, one or two meaty things, and (every time I've gone) romano beans. Tastiness is variable.
3-Sum Eats	Hipster	food truck	2012-07-04	12
Here I got a grilled cheese sandwich with provolone, pepper jack, spinach, arugula pesto... and grilled peaches. Quite good! I like fruit in savory meals.
Northside Cafe	Cafe	Euclid & Hearst, Berkeley	2012-06-12	11
Here I got a perfectly decent breakfast burrito for a very low price ($3.99+tax!). It would've been nice to have some beans in it but the crunchy potato bits added a reasonable amount of interest on their own.
Tacos El Autlense	Mexican (taco truck)	San Pablo near Garfield, Albany	2012-05-30	11
I went here after discovering that the Hot Shop was closed for vacation. Pretty decent veggie burrito, well within acceptable parameters.
Thai Idea Vegetarian	Thai	Polk btw Willow/Eddy, San Francisco	2012-05-27	8
Looks like vegetarian Thai has finally made it other places besides Seattle and Montreal… unfortunately, that doesn't automatically mean that really good vegetarian Thai has. I thought this might be a good place to stock up on food to stick in the freezer and reheat the way I do with Shalimar, but unlike that of Shalimar, this place's fare isn't really an improvement over Trader Joe's.
Avatar's Punjabi Burrito	Indian fusion	regional chain: North Bay	2012-05-20	10
This place serves curried chickpeas and rice wrapped in chapatis and calls the result "Punjabi burritos." They're fine if you like curried chickpeas and chapatis, which I do, but there's no great synergy like in a traditional burrito.
Panta Rei	Italian	Columbus & Stockton, San Francisco	2012-05-15	7
Tony's was closed as scheduled, and Da Flora turned out to be closed for no reason, and L'Osteria del Forno also turned out to be closed for no reason, so my friend and I wound up going to the first place that was open. I'm always dubious about places that feel the need to put a carnival barker out front to bring people in, and when I got a look at the menu nothing really appealed, but I went with a bruschetta appetizer and I have to concede that it at least surpassed my low expectations.
Cafe Romanat	Ethiopian	Santa Clara near Grand, Oakland	2012-05-08	11
Pretty standard Ethiopian food. Entrees are quite oily (in a good way). No idea how this ended up regularly topping my Yelp searches — it's pretty much the definition of "middle of the pack."
Platano	Salvadoran	University btw Milvia/Shattuck, Berkeley	2012-05-07	9
The pupusas are pretty good, but I think this is a sit-down restaurant with a counter-service eatery trapped inside trying to get out. Service is very slow, and things like the salads are kind of dubious. If this place offered the pupusas at a window and served them in little baskets or wrapped in foil to go, I would go here a lot more often.
Tony's Pizza Napoletana	Pizza	Stockton & Union, San Francisco	2012-05-06	15
This place has positioned itself as the Bay Area's pizzeria for the connoisseur: stacks of awards (World Pizza Cup, Pizza Champions Challenge, International Pizza Championships), specialty flours, multiple types of oven. Also multiple styles of pizza: Neapolitan, Roman, Sicilian, New York, New Jersey, and many more. My favorite is the 1000° coal-fired pie that means I no longer have to dream about Luna Pizza back in Connecticut. Elizabeth is partial to the sicilian pizza with burrata and the assertively cheesy artichoke pie. Yeaahhh, pizza.
Plum	Small plates	Broadway & 22nd, Oakland	2012-05-05	8
Having eaten here shortly after visiting Millennium, I found it interesting to reflect on the difference in how I felt about the two establishments. In theory, I should like them both roughly equally. Yes, Plum gives you about half as much food — but it also charges about half as much, so it all balances out, right? Except somehow it doesn't. To see harissa prominently listed among the components of a dish at Plum, and then to see that said harissa consists of literally three small droplets on the side of the plate… I mean, that's just meager. Yes, the food at Millennium was a little better (Plum being more "interesting" in that upscale way), but really it was that ethos of "these three artichoke slivers constitute the artichoke portion of your $11 artichoke appetizer" that sunk Plum for me.
Cupkates	Cupcakes	food truck	2012-05-02	11
On Wednesday evenings this truck can be found at the Off the Grid gathering of mobile food vendors. I never really got into the whole cupcake craze but the salted caramel cupcake here is really good.
Luca	Italian	San Pablo & Addison, Berkeley	2012-04-04	12
Though the ingredients are high-end — Acme bread, organic olive oil, etc. — this is still downscale Italian: fairly low prices, hole-in-the-wall ambiance, and messy food with big gobs of sauce and cheese. It's pretty good, though there aren't many vegetarian options.
Zarri's	Deli	Solano near Evelyn, Albany	2012-04-04	0
Every single time I have gone in here — and it's right across the street, so I keep giving it chances — this place is out of what I try to order. I'll order e.g. an egg salad sandwich and the guy'll peer into the bin and say, "Nope, I got tuna" or something. If something is on the menu and you don't bother to keep it on hand, (a) take it off the menu and (b) bite me.
Chile Jalapeño	Mexican (taqueria)	San Pablo near 67th, Oakland	2012-03-30	12
My first three trips to this taqueria juuust over the border from Berkeley went like this: (1) super vegetarian burrito: "this is seriously delicious! I may come here a lot!"; (2) super nachos: "this is seriously mediocre! I may stop coming here!"; (3) breakfast burrito: "this is just good enough that I don't know whether to keep coming here or not!"
Morgan's Cafe	Cafe	Shattuck btw University/Addison, Berkeley	2012-03-21	9
Rave reviews on Yelp, but I didn't really see anything special. Menu was fairly minimalistic. Food was fine but unmemorable (I got a waffle and a smoothie).
Gather	California	Oxford & Allston, Berkeley	2012-03-15	8
The regular menu looked a little too crunchy for my taste (the pizzas with cashew byproduct instead of cheese tipped me off there) so Elizabeth and I went for brunch. I had polenta with lentils and it was okay, but I didn't care for the veggie scramble she got — it tasted like it had goat cheese or something in it. Later I saw a cauliflower/cannelini sandwich on the lunch menu so I went in to give it a try. It was an interesting idea, but the execution was only so-so, with many of the beans significantly undercooked.
Cafe Yesterday	Cafe	University btw San Pablo/Curtis, Berkeley	2012-03-05	3
Here I ordered a breakfast burrito. It took freaking forever to come out and had an odd tang to it. The final insult was that the napkin dispensers were empty.
Wat Mongkolratanaram	Thai	Russell near MLK, Berkeley	2012-03-04	8
This is not a restaurant. It's a Buddhist temple. But every Sunday it offers a brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. First, you stand in a line and exchange your money for plastic tokens. Each token is a dollar. Then you stand in a different line to get your food (separate lines for vegetarian and non-vegetarian; the vegetarian line is about a tenth as long, which worked out nicely for me). It's six tokens for one dish, seven for two, and eight for three. If you order your food to go, you bring your own containers. Bring bigger containers and you get more food. And as for the food… well, it's okay. I liked the tofu in the eggplant dish, for instance. If these were $12 restaurant dishes I might be more critical, but for $2.67 per large entree I can't complain much.
Rendez-Vous Cafe-Bistro	French	Solano btw Kains/San Pablo, Albany	2012-03-03	6
Blintzes were okay, though the strawberries that came with them were virtually white: yes, it's March, but if something's out of season, replace it with something in season! Service was subpar; the waiter was initially somewhat brusque and then forgot all about me.
Mt. Everest Restaurant	Indian (Nepalese)	Telegraph & Parker, Berkeley	2012-02-28	10
No lunch buffet, but I got a lunch special of palak paneer, chickpea curry, rice, naan, and salad for $9 after taxes and tip. It was fine.
Flacos	Mexican	Adeline & Emerson, Berkeley	2012-02-23	6
This place has a regular booth at the Berkeley farmers' markets, and I finally got around to trying one of their tamales. It wasn't terrible or anything, but neither did it surpass a Trader Joe's microwave tamale, so.
Bittersweet	Dessert (chocolate)	College btw Lawton/Hudson, Oakland	2012-02-16	11
I went here one morning, having heard that the salted caramel hot chocolate was good, and got one; it was okay, but not particularly noteworthy. Then Elizabeth and I happened to be in the neighborhood, and I took her here, and she got the exact same thing, and it was really great. So I'm going to split the difference between the two experiences for the nonce.
Aangan	Indian (Nepalese)	San Pablo near Solano, Albany	2012-02-14	6
Suckered in by all the great Yelp reviews. Saag paneer and vegetable korma: bland. Vegetable momos: I guess I will never like these things. (One odd note: the proprietor seemed very worried that Elizabeth and I would get impatient and kept reassuring us that, first, a table, and then, our food, would be ready soon.)
Zaika	Indian	University btw Shattuck/Milvia, Berkeley	2012-02-09	9
I had the buffet here. The pea curry and chickpea curry were not to my taste at all, but the dal makhani was fine and the bhaturas were a guilty pleasure.
Alfonso's Cafe	Cafe	San Pablo btw Bancroft/Chaucer, Berkeley	2012-02-06	8
This is a little shack tucked away between a liquor store and an auto body shop, and looks to be a one-man operation (and presumably the man in question is Alfonso). Apparently the crepes are the main draw, and I had a savory one with artichokes and tomatoes and things. It was okay. The crepe was very crunchy/crumbly; I'm used to them being a lot spongier even when they're cooked relatively long. The proprietor seemed nice.
Ideale	Italian	Grant near Vallejo, San Francisco	2012-02-02	7
I got a pizza margherita here, and while it was not bad, it was also about as bad as a pizza can be while still meriting the term "not bad." Very thin crust, uniform orangey smear on top. Tartufo for dessert was pretty good, though not $7 good.
Cream	Dessert (ice cream sandwiches)	Telegraph & Channing, Berkeley	2012-01-19	10
This place serves a scoop of ice cream (many flavors to choose from) in between two warm cookies (many flavors to choose from) for two dollars. Kind of amazing given that at most places in the Bay Area a cookie will cost you two dollars all by itself. It's also open till midnight — or 2 a.m., on some nights. Hard to imagine a place more ideally situated next to seventeen dorms.
Troya	Turkish	Clement & 5th, San Francisco	2012-01-15	7
Here I had a "vegetarian moussaka," which turned out to be some odds and ends of eggplant and zucchini baked in a shallow ramekin of bechamel sauce. Unmemorable in either direction.
B Star	Asian fusion	Clement btw 2nd/3rd, San Francisco	2012-01-08	7
I happened to be in the Inner Richmond on a Sunday, so stopped here for brunch as I was intrigued by the prospect of azuki-bean-stuffed French toast with bananas and almonds. But it turned out that the azuki paste was gritty and not to my taste (East Asian food so rarely is). I was also intrigued by the vegetable samosa soup on the menu, but at $7 for a small and $13.50 for a large, I elected to pass.
Pancho's	Mexican (taqueria)	Durant btw Telegraph/Bowditch, Berkeley	2011-12-01	5
This is a place is that little alcove on Durant, notable mainly for being open until like 2:30 a.m. or something like that. Not much else to recommend it, it turns out... the nachos are supposed to be the house specialty and they're pretty weak.
Jerusalem Organic Kitchen	Mediterranean	Solano & The Alameda, Berkeley	2011-11-23	5
Here I got a falafel sandwich that was bad in two ways: one, it didn't seem to contain any of the eggplant or potato I had ordered and paid for, and two, the falafel itself was really no good at all — blobs of gritty beige mush. The hummus and bread were okay, I guess. It's weird to think that on the other side of the San Rafael bridge is this exact same item done a thousand times better.
Bagel Street Cafe	Bagels	regional chain	2011-11-03	5
Stopped here because I'd run across a positive review and it was on the way to campus. Won't be doing that again. If you want repeat business from me, you don't have to be as good as a bagel shop in Manhattan... but you do have to be as good as Manhattan Bagel. Which this is not.
Gypsy's Trattoria Italiana	Italian	Durant btw Telegraph/Bowditch, Berkeley	2011-10-27	8
This place in Berkeley's undergraduate district apparently gets rave reviews, and while I can't concur with them, I can see why it gets them. Like, when I first got to Cal, I thought Blondie's Pizza was great: for a dollar you could get a huge slice of pizza, and it was better than Little Caesars!! Twenty-odd years later, you can come here and for six bucks you can get a plate of pasta, and it's better than the Olive Garden!! Then eventually you get around to eating at some restaurants that aren't suburban chains and you realize that these weren't exactly high bars to clear.
Cafe Panini	Sandwiches, etc.	Shattuck btw Center/Allston, Berkeley	2011-10-11	8
I had a pretty good sandwich here (pesto, artichokes, tomatoes, melted mozzarella, and some other things on a toasted baguette) but, man, how long does it take to make a sandwich? Having come here directly after Saturn Cafe's flameout I started to wonder whether I'd become unstuck in time.
Saturn Cafe	Vegetarian	Allston & Oxford, Berkeley	2011-10-11	2
The first time I went here I tried the "nacho fries," thinking that the notion of steak fries with nacho toppings sounded intriguing. Turns out that there's a reason that most places use tortilla chips. But hey, that's just one item, so I decided to give the place another try. On my second visit, I just sat at my table in a mostly empty restaurant and it quickly became clear that no one would be coming by to take my order ever. So fuck 'em.
Masse's Pastries	Bakery (desserts)	Shattuck btw Vine/Rose, Berkeley	2011-10-09	8
Some very complicated and pretty desserts for reasonable prices, though it appears that the top layer of all of them is rendered hoof. I discovered that this place is actually open for breakfast and tried one each of the almond and chocolate croissants; the chocolate one was pretty good, but the almond not so much.
Ristobar	Pizza	Chestnut & Scott, San Francisco	2011-10-02	8
The pizza here is decent. But let's get real. I can go to the Cheese Board and order two slices, and the Cheese Board folks will throw in a third for three. This will amount to more food than a full Ristobar pizza... probably even without the free slice. The Cheese Board pizza will be significantly better ("excellent" rather than merely "decent"). And... it'll be $5.44, rather than, at minimum, $14.53+tip.
Tacos El Rey	Mexican (taco truck)	near Ashby & Seventh, Berkeley	2011-09-20	14
This truck doesn't serve the best Mexican food in town, but it may offer the best value: a very respectable veggie burrito, with avocado, for $4.50, and a decent taco for all of $1.25. It's usually parked on Ashby west of Seventh but is sometimes a block north on Potter.
Cinnaholic	Bakery (cinnamon rolls)	Oxford btw Center/Allston, Berkeley	2011-09-15	5
I'd passed this place a few times and decided to give it a try. The cinnamon rolls are the sort of thing you would get at the mall, and while the chance to choose your own frosting flavor is a neat twist, it really just means that a few drops of flavored syrup are mixed into your white slop. (I got macadamia.)
La Mission	Mexican (taqueria)	University & Chestnut, Berkeley	2011-09-14	11
I thought this place had pantheon written all over it after I went down late at night and got a taco that was huge and awesome, but since then I've tried an also huge but merely good burrito, mediocre enchiladas, and mediocre nachos... ah well. Guess I'll stick to the taco, then.
the Musical Offering	Café	Bancroft btw Dana/Telegraph, Berkeley	2011-09-13	11
At this place (half café, half classical music store) I had a pretty darn good eggplant sandwich on focaccia, along with some lentil soup that needed salt.
the Sunny Side Café	Breakfast/lunch	local chain: Albany, Berkeley	2011-08-31	8
The portions here are ridiculously huge — the breakfast burrito is essentially a midsize sedan filled with black beans and scrambled eggs, and one dish, I kid you not, is a mix of broccoli, spinach, roasted tomatoes, and mushrooms between two pieces of French toast and topped with two eggs and hollandaise sauce on a bed of balsamic reduction. But there is no synergy of flavor in these creations; on the contrary, everything is really underseasoned. I wind up giving the salt shaker quite a workout just to conjure up some flavor.
À Côté	Small plates	College btw Taft/Lawton, Oakland	2011-08-20	5
I can't say this place is completely terrible, but I can say that it's stupidly expensive ($40+ per person) given its propensity to turn out clunkers (e.g., roasted eggplant flatbread that's mediocre at best) and to run out of food.
Bay Wolf	Upscale	Piedmont btw 40th/MacArthur, Oakland	2011-08-20	5
You know the drill: big prices, small portions. This is okay when the food is great, but nothing here has really impressed me. This was a coin flip between a 2 and a 3, but having the server flat-out forget part of my order tipped it to the bad side of the fence.
Cafeina	Cafe	Solano near Carmel, Albany	2011-07-26	12
The breakfast wrap here is small and kind of expensive — but it's tasty enough that I keep coming back.
Lanesplitter	Pizza	local chain	2011-07-07	2
Had some bad pizza here in 2005: clumpy, mealy cheese, and the sauce and crust were not so hot either. Decided to give it another try six years later. It was just as bad. Avoid.
Barlata	Spanish	Telegraph & 49th, Oakland	2011-07-01	8
Heard about this place, decided to give the vegetarian paella a try. It was okay but skippable. Giving it a 3 rather than a 2 because the bread was pretty good.
Sweet Adeline	Bakery	Adeline & 63rd, Berkeley	2011-07-01	8
Here I got a slice of almond cake. It was kind of dry.
Gaumenkitzel	German	San Pablo & Cowper, Berkeley	2011-06-30	5
Tried the broiled egg breakfast here. It turned out to be a blackened on top but severely underdone pair of eggs along with a few slivers of fruit, three pieces of brown bread, and a single spoonful of citrus spread. (I wonder about the potential longevity of this place because it's huge yet always empty — I was the only one there and I got the sense they were flabbergasted to have an actual customer.)
César España	Small plates	Shattuck btw Vine/Cedar, Berkeley	2011-06-19	5
This is mainly a tapas place, so the dishes are very small. They are also very expensive. You pay eight bucks and out comes this tiny little dish of food. The first few times I came here those tiny little dishes of food were so delicious that I gave this place a top score. But each visit has been less impressive than the last, with fewer vegetarian options, and at this point I'd say that César has crashed through "disappointing" and into flat-out "bad." Can't really see myself going back.
Amici's	Pizza	regional chain	2011-05-24	11
This is a Bay Area chain that turns out pizza far superior to your typical chain pizza — and in some places where I spent a lot of time in my tutoring days, like San Mateo and Dublin, it was actually one of the best choices when I needed to grab something before teaching a lesson. But not really the sort of fare that could compete in a city with better choices (e.g., Berkeley).
Emilia's Pizzeria	Pizza	Shattuck & Ashby, Berkeley	2011-05-17	9
The pizza here looks gorgeous, but it's not the transcendent experience one would hope for. Mid-list.
Chocolatier Blue	Dessert	local chain, Berkeley	2011-05-16	5
This place took over Sketch's storefront on Fourth Street. The ice cream is nowhere near as good, and the chocolates are $1.50 for a morsel barely larger than a chocolate chip... I have no idea why the chowhounds are over the moon about this place. Whutevah.
La Bedaine	French	Solano btw Peralta/Tacoma, Berkeley	2011-05-08	15
IN MEMORIAM. This place had vacuum-packed meals that were almost exclusively for carnivores, and the few vegetarian entrees I tried were not to my taste really at all. But La Bedaine also had a lot of surprisingly inexpensive desserts — $2 for a chocolate tart, for instance — and many of them were just heavenly.
Mama's Royal Cafe	Breakfast/lunch	Broadway & 40th, Oakland	2011-05-04	8
This place apparently opened the month I was born, and, dang, I sure hope I've aged better than it has. The food isn't bad, but I've had such bad experiences here (once I was seated near a mentally ill homeless man a delivering violent monologue to no one; another time the service was so slow that I got a $66 parking ticket) that I can't give it a very high score.
Taqueria Talavera	Mexican (taqueria)	Solano & Peralta, Berkeley	2011-04-25	11
Here, despite the skepticism of both the cashier and the cooks, I was able to get a vegetarian burrito with mole sauce. It was interestingly different. Other selections haven't been so hot, though, and prices are rather high.
La Palmita	Mexican (taqueria)	San Pablo near Gilman, Berkeley	2011-04-22	5
I got nachos here, and they were pretty inexpensive and the chips were fairly suitable for the purpose, but the guacamole was dubious and the beans were very bland.
Au Coquelet	Cafe	University & Milvia, Berkeley	2011-04-21	8
This place's big selling point is that it's open fairly late — you can go in at 1 a.m. and still avail yourself of a well-stocked dessert case. If I find another selling point I'll let you know.
Iscream	Dessert (ice cream)	Solano near Colusa, Berkeley	2011-04-16	11
Small ice cream shop that replaced "Presto Prints 1-Hour Film Developing" — talk about your dead industries. Selection is small, but the ice cream is good.
Sophia Cafe	Mediterranean	Solano & Masonic, Albany	2011-04-14	8
I liked the very fluffy pita bread used in the falafel sandwiches, but filling was far too cucumber-heavy for my tastes.
Toot Sweets	Dessert (bakery)	Gilman & Santa Fe, Albany	2011-03-31	8
This is one of those places that offers "fine desserts" yet closes at six o'clock — yo, you might want to check into when dessert is traditionally eaten. But I finally did manage to swing by before it closed, and while I wasn't impressed by the cookie I got, I can't be too down on any place that offers mini German chocolate cakes.
Fatapples	American	MLK & Rose, Berkeley	2011-03-29	8
This is a landmark, at least to real estate agents who will often cite proximity to Fatapples in their ads, but, uh, it's just a little "family restaurant" like you'd find in Indiana in 1982. I got a waffle with a little thing of spreadable apricot sauce. It was okay.
Meal Ticket	Breakfast/lunch	San Pablo btw Gilman/Harrison, Albany	2011-03-24	11
This place has a vibe not entirely unlike that of an east coast diner, but the food is ever so slightly highfalutin: your scrambled eggs might have roasted asparagus and sundried tomatoes in them, for instance. Quality is up and down.
Zut!	Mediterranean	Fourth btw Hearst/Virginia, Berkeley	2011-03-12	8
The menu didn't match the one online — grr. So I wound up just getting a regular margherita pizza, which was okay but not really noteworthy. A real shame that Eccolo, which used to be in this space, closed down in the economic collapse.
Bonfire Pizzeria	Pizza	Theatre Square, Orinda	2011-03-11	8
The 3 is generous: I like pizza. And, sure, it's a hell of a lot better than Domino's. But we're looking at a stiff, half-fried, weird-tasting crust with toppings that don't really meld. (The service, though well-meaning, is amateur hour: a bunch of Miramonte High kids getting confused about every step of the transaction of selling a pizza. They were seriously befuddled about the fact that I had the same name as someone who worked there — they kept trying to give him my order, and it wasn't a joke.)
Octoberfeast	Bakery	Center btw MLK/Milvia, Berkeley	2011-03-01	15
This place no longer has a storefront, but I still regularly head to the Saturday morning farmers' market to snag some of their pretzel croissants. (And occasionally an almond danish.)
Venus Restaurant	California	Shattuck btw Bancroft/Durant, Berkeley	2011-03-01	8
The 8 is a compromise score, since my meals here have ranged from really quite good (lemon-ricotta pancakes with fresh blackberry syrup) to fairly bad (a quesadilla full of undercooked, underseasoned vegetables; burned chocolate/raspberry pancakes) to just plain ugly (don't run out of food!).
Luka's	Southern	Broadway & Grand, Oakland	2011-02-13	11
(I guess only the brunch is explicitly Southern, but that's what I went there for.) Quite good, but also pretty expensive: e.g., $1.50 for a single slice of regular red tomato to be added to a sandwich... and the sandwich itself, at $13.50, was smaller than the equally tasty $5 sandwich I got at the similar named Luca the day before.
the Xocolate Bar	Dessert (chocolate)	Solano btw Tacoma/Ensenada, Berkeley	2011-02-13	8
I guess this is a decent enough chocolate shop, though I always feel stupid after I gape at the ridiculous prices for high-end chocolate bars in stores and then get a few pieces at a chocolate shop that weigh less and cost more. (Here I got seven for $11.) This is especially true since I don't like dark chocolate. Anyway, I recommend the dulce de leche, vanilla, and gianduja, and very much do not recommend the Aztec.
Bakesale Betty	Bakery	Telegraph & 51st, Oakland	2011-02-08	11
I guess this is mostly wholesale/catering? I walked in, saw several trays of unlabeled baked goods, had some awkward back-and-forth with the staff, and finally was able to get a scone and a cookie. They were pretty good... maybe a little cloying, but still worth an entry in the plus column.
Everest Cafe	Indian (Nepalese)	Solano btw Tacoma/Ensenada, Berkeley	2011-01-28	11
On my first visit here I got a few different items, which turned out to be a good thing because if I'd just gotten the eggplant dish I'd think this place was mediocre. Instead, I switched to the navratan korma and discovered why this place gets raves. I guess we'll see which of these the other entrees come closer to.
Flavors of India	Indian	College near Alcatraz, Berkeley	2011-01-13	11
More options than usual — on my first visit I got a pinto bean curry — decently but not memorably executed.
Sam's Log Cabin	Breakfast/lunch	San Pablo btw Solano/Marin, Albany	2010-12-22	5
This place isn't terrible by any means, but the "corn cakes" I got (which were really very similar to regular pancakes) had an oddly metallic tang to them that I didn't care for.
900 Grayson	Breakfast/lunch	Grayson & Seventh, Berkeley	2010-12-20	8
Small menu, small portions (or maybe it just looks that way because of the big plates?). Tries to be whimsical but whimsy is neither delicious nor filling.
Rick & Ann's	American	Domingo & Russell, Berkeley	2010-12-15	8
I've been here a number of times (frequently in 2007, when I was at the Claremont a lot) and have tried a number of things... orange-cardamom French toast was very much like regular French toast, and potato cheese pancakes were too heavy for me, but I seem to recall that some of the specials were pretty good.
Paisan	Pizza	San Pablo near Dwight, Berkeley	2010-11-09	8
Not a particularly distinguished entrant in the high-end pizza arena. My "paisan pizza" — their name for a standard margherita, for apparently their own "margherita" cuts some corners — was pretty good, but Lizzie and I had to giggle at how her potato-artichoke pizza was clearly just a matter of someone boiling a potato, cutting it into wedges, and throwing it on top. No special seasoning, no attempt at the sort of alchemy you get at places like the Cheese Board.
Café Raj	Indian	Solano & Stannage, Albany	2010-11-02	5
Figured I might as well try this place because it's right next to my house, but the bangan barta I got was far too reminiscent of baby food for my taste. Wonder if Shalimar might be inclined to open a Solano outpost...
San Francisco Soup Company	Soup	regional chain	2010-09-24	5
San Francisco Bland Nutritive Medium Company.
Little Star Pizza	Pizza	chain: Albany, San Francisco	2010-09-14	11
The local pizza snobs seem to prefer this place to Zachary's, and years after trying it in SF and not being very impressed, I moved to Albany and discovered that there was a just-opened branch in my new neighborhood. I gave it another try, and while it's not bad, I still prefer Zach's. The crust is a crumbly cornmeal job which does not appeal.
Ike's Place	Sandwiches	regional chain	2010-09-09	N/A
This place has been in the news a lot because the long lines in the Castro location have led to an eviction fight. Me, I just went to the one squirreled away in a huge corporate office building in Redwood City (phone orders only). The sandwich as a whole was very tasty, with the baked-to-order bread and the house sauce as particular standouts. It was cheap, too! ($6 for a large sandwich, chips, and a beverage.) So I originally gave this place a 5. Then I went back a second time, tried the grilled cheese, and was violently ill for a day and a half. So I highly doubt I'll ever be able to bring myself to go back.
Caffé Delle Stelle	Italian	Main & Lincoln, Walnut Creek	2010-08-31	14
I don't normally get pasta in restaurants, figuring that I can almost always make better pasta at home, but the pasta rustica here is a concoction of orecchiette, fontina, potatoes, and truffle oil that's hard to beat. Service suffers from the lack of waiters — at lunch, at least, it's just the proprietor dashing around.
Sakoon	Indian	Castro btw California/Dana, Mountain View	2010-08-21	11
This place is extremely hit-and-miss. I very much like that it's got a lot of unusual dishes: I'd never seen avocado jhal muri before, or a peanut, coconut, and sesame seed curry. But while some of the unusual combinations are quite good, just as many are terrible. The service also has some glitches, with things coming up at weird times, waiters leaving food on a nearby stool but forgetting to actually put it on the table, etc.
Va de Vi	Small plates	Mt. Diablo & Main, Walnut Creek	2010-08-17	5
Here I got a tower of insufficiently roasted vegetables and a chile relleño filled with a cheese that was too strong for me. They were both quite expensive.
Reposado	Mexican	Hamilton btw Emerson/Ramona, Palo Alto	2010-08-09	5
Here I got the vegetarian sopitos, which turned out to be corn cakes topped with an impressively unappealing combination of unidentifiable pale rectangular crunchy things.
Bobby G's Pizzeria	Pizza	University near Shattuck, Berkeley	2010-08-05	11
Wasn't impressed by the slice I got a couple of years ago, but I went back and tried a full chile and avocado pizza and it was above average.
Annapoorna	Indian	El Camino Real & 23rd, San Mateo	2010-07-03	8
I used to be a big fan of this place, having been wowed by its lunch buffet, but the last couple of times I've gone there it's been a big disappointment. The entrees seem to be just a bunch of broths lately.
Boot and Shoe Service	Pizza	Grand btw Santa Clara/Mandana, Oakland	2010-07-02	11
This is a spinoff of Pizzaiolo, which I've never liked... but, hey, I can't not try new high-end pizza in the East Bay. And for some reason I found this a bit of an improvement over its parent. The margherita pizza I got was not a lot of food for the price — it's smallish and very thin — but it was a respectable pie. (And if you're wondering what's up with the name: this was an old cobbler's shop and I guess they didn't want to change the sign.)
the Slanted Door	Vietnamese	Ferry Building, San Francisco	2010-06-25	8
It took me five years to make it here because, despite this restaurant's status as a local institution, I just don't like East Asian food. But after a fresh round of recommendations I finally tried it, and... I just don't like East Asian food.
Comforts	Breakfast/lunch	San Anselmo btw Pine/Woodland, San Anselmo	2010-06-12	11
I'd like to give this place a higher score because the dessert case features the best macaroons I have ever tasted, but I've been to the cafe twice now and my food was seriously underseasoned both times.
High Tech Burrito	Mexican (taqueria)	regional chain	2010-05-07	8
In 1994 I thought this place was the bomb. I was a regular at the Orinda branch, back when there was an Orinda branch. Usually I got the quesadilla with pinto beans, guacamole, salsa, and sour cream. Anyway, I was out in the sticks and saw one of these, so I went in to see how it was after all these years. Answer: it's a totally standard chain taqueria.
Caffe Riace	Italian	Sheridan btw Birch/Park, Palo Alto	2010-05-05	8
There are several Italian places I have tried over the past few years that serve really tiny amounts of food with really light textures and sophisticated flavors, accompanied by a high price tag. This isn't one of those. I got the cannelloni and they were huge, solid, extremely mainstream... and accompanied by a high price tag. Seems to be a local special-occasions place. The way the Olive Garden was for September Young.
Taqueria El Grullense J & G	Mexican (taqueria)	El Camino Real & Kendall, Palo Alto	2010-05-04	8
Not really noteworthy in either direction.
Satura Cakes	Dessert	local chain: Palo Alto, Los Altos	2010-05-03	5
Not remotely good enough to merit the high prices.
Consuelo	Mexican	Santana Row & Olsen, San Jose	2010-05-02	11
Another place with a stack of corn tortillas and three dipping sauces — I guess that's the new thing these days. I went here for brunch and got scrambled eggs with mole on a huarache. It was okay, but it said it came with potatoes, and seriously, it was like 1/6 of a single red potato. C'mon.
Starbelly	Pizza/Eclectic	16th btw Market/Pond, San Francisco	2010-05-01	14
I've grabbed a couple of pizzas here. One I didn't care for, since I didn't realize that the sauce would be black garlic and that black garlic is awful. But I went back and tried a regular margherita pizza and that was quite good. The inner crust is too thin — it's basically a sheet of soggy paper — but the outer crust is close to ideal. And I do like that there are numerous vegetarian options.
the Little Chihuahua	Mexican (taqueria)	Divisadero near Page, San Francisco	2010-04-27	11
This place had a plantain burrito I wanted to try. It turns out to be a burrito with a giant plantain in the middle. Maybe not the way I would have gone. I've also had the nachos and as I recall they were fine.
Marzano	Pizza	local chain, Oakland	2010-04-25	11
Pizzas here are big (I could only eat 2/3 of one) and cheap ($10 if you go at off-peak hours), but the crust is kind of bland.
Sangria's Restaurant	Mexican	Monterey near 2nd, Morgan Hill	2010-04-23	5
It's very nice how they bring out fresh tortillas for you (and keep doing so!), and I could tell by the unusual flavors that they were trying for something high-end, but unusual doesn't equal good. This place would be a 3 if there were more vegetarian options or if it were just a little cheaper, but as is, in the end I couldn't justify it.
Papalote	Mexican (taqueria)	24th & Poplar, San Francisco	2010-04-18	11
Tried a couple of burritos here in the '00s: a vegetable one dominated by dry potato chunks, and a regular bean-and-cheese that was good but nothing special. I can now also report that the nachos are pretty middle-of-the-road. But, man, the chips and salsa they bring out to placate you while you're waiting for your food (and it can take a while) are really top-notch.
El Metate	Mexican (taqueria)	Bryant btw 22nd/23rd, San Francisco	2010-04-17	11
This place might have a higher rating if not for the fact that the vegetable mix in the vegetarian burrito consists of carrots and broccoli that seem just about raw. Similarly, the nachos are generally pretty good, but what's up with that goopy guacamole?
Sweet Pea's Cafe	Crepes, etc.	chain: Los Gatos, Capitola	2010-04-16	11
I got the veggie scramble crepe. It was all right. The fillings didn't blend very well, though.
Gialina	Pizza	Diamond & Kern, San Francisco	2010-04-09	5
Not good. Ketchuppy sauce, cheese like deposits of paste, crust that tasted almost entirely of flour. And by the time I finally got my pizza it had clearly been sitting around a while.
Sol Food	Puerto Rican	Third/Fourth & Lincoln, San Rafael	2010-04-07	8
This place has two locations, a sit-down spot on Third and a take-out spot a block away on Fourth. I got the one vegetarian thing, the beans with olives, rice, avocado, and plantains. It's decent enough but expensive for what you get — I could make this at home for $1 but it costs $10.
Tomatina	Italian	regional chain	2010-03-08	14
Here you can get piadine, sizeable pizza-like flatbreads that you stuff with lettuce and other toppings and eat sort of like gigantic tacos. It's a chain but I'm pretty fond of it.
Yogurt Park	Dessert (frozen yogurt)	Durant btw Telegraph/Dana, Berkeley	2010-03-02	8
This place is a time capsule from 1977. I lived across the street from it for three years and went in maybe twice (and one of those times was to talk to a girl I had a crush on). The last time I randomly popped in I got the chocolate coconut, which was initially quite good but had a bad aftertaste.
Beretta	Pizza	Valencia & 23rd, San Francisco	2010-02-17	8
Lots of vegetable antipasti, though the two we got (cauliflower for Lizzie, zucchini for me) weren't especially inspired. The pizzas are also quite skippable — indifferent crust rolled really thin to make a cracker with toppings. And the toppings we tried (burrata, roasted vegetable) weren't really anything to write home about either. A decent (but really expensive) rhubarb-almond cake knocked this up to a 3.
Goat Hill Pizza	Pizza	Connecticut & 18th, San Francisco	2010-02-13	5
Not appreciably better than any other pizza from the "bread with a giant slab of congealed cheese on top" school. This is the sort of pizza I would expect to find if I were driving through Kansas.
Pizza Nostra	Pizza	De Haro btw 16th/17th, San Francisco	2010-02-06	8
The pizza itself isn't too bad, but I'm pretty bummed out that the vegetable sides are gone — they made for better toppings than the official ones. Boo.
La Calaca Loca	Mexican (taqueria)	51st & Telegraph, Oakland	2010-01-25	14
I wasn't a big fan of the burrito or the agua fresca that I got here in 2007, but I came back to try the nachos and they were much better. Like the burrito, they're sort of odd — in place of the usual jack, the nachos come with a dusting of sharp white cheese — but the chips are first-rate and the other toppings aren't bad either.
Cafe M	American	Fifth & Delaware, Berkeley	2009-12-30	11
Decent but unremarkable. On my most recent visit I was surprised to find the place packed, because I'm used to there not being a soul on the premises other than the servers.
Tacubaya	Mexican (taqueria)	Fourth btw Hearst/Virginia, Berkeley	2009-12-28	14
This place has gone downhill a fair bit since I first gave it a rave review back in 2005. Though there's still a decent chance that any given visit will include a dynamite tamale or chile relleño or something, a lot of the vegetarian options aren't so hot (tostadas tend to be bland, fideo and frijoles con todo are just okay, torta is hit and miss), and there aren't enough of them. And when the place is busy the distribution system tends to break down — I've watched dishes sit on the counter for fifteen minutes as the confused servers try to figure out what goes to which table.
Pizzeria Picco	Pizza	Magnolia btw William/King, Larkspur	2009-12-26	8
The regular pizza is a little overcheesed, underspiced and charcoally, and the toppings on the more ambitious pies never seem to amount to anything good.
Turmeric	Indian	Murphy btw Evelyn/Washington, Sunnyvale	2009-11-15	11
I like the variety of the buffet here, and there's always something good (on my last couple of visits it was the cauliflower), but the curries seem to be distinctly off in that peculiar Amber way.
Nopa	Eclectic	Divisadero & Hayes, San Francisco	2009-11-07	11
Elizabeth and I wound up here after she landed at SFO on a late-night flight. It was a bit odd to be eating dinner in a packed restaurant, watching the cooks whip up fancy appetizers and entrees, at well past midnight. The highlight was a tasty vegetarian tagine; I was significantly less fond of the overly smoky tomato sauce in the egg dish we got.
Pizzeria Delfina	Pizza	local chain, San Francisco	2009-11-02	15
I've been back in the Bay Area for a while now and have tried many pizzerias. Of those I've tried, Pizzeria Delfina makes some of the very best pizza — the crust in particular is terrific. Which makes Delfina's insistence on limiting itself to a handful of frou-frou pizzas (a few variations on plain cheese, a too-bitter broccoli rabe, and some meaty ones) very disappointing.
Tara's Organic Ice Cream	Dessert (ice cream)	College & Alcatraz, Berkeley	2009-07-27	8
I guess this was okay, but it was just ice cream. Hardly a substitute for the late lamented Sketch on Fourth Street.
Flame	Burgers	College btw Ashby/Webster, Berkeley	2009-05-06	5
Was tempted by a menu full of many vegetarian choices, but first they got my order wrong and then it turned out that the garden patties just aren't very good. Maybe the tofu ones are better, but I'll probably just stick with Bongo.
New Eritrea Restaurant	Ethiopian	Irving btw 10th/11th, San Francisco	2009-04-11	11
Flat, square, delicious lentil sambusas; pretty standard vegetarian combo.
Tommaso's	Pizza	Kearny btw Pacific/Broadway, San Francisco	2009-03-04	8
I recall liking this place when I went with Elizabeth in '06, but when we attempted to return, it was closed even though the web site specifically said that it would be open that day. I really hate that. When I finally did give it another try I got a vegetarian pizza and it wasn't that great: topping overload. Throw in its location and I doubt I'll be back.
Ti Couz	Crepes, etc.	16th & Valencia, San Francisco	2009-02-23	11
I've now tried both the savory crepes and the sweet ones; my verdict on both is that they're decent but not hugely memorable.
Pizz'a Chicago	Pizza	chain: Palo Alto, San Jose	2009-02-12	5
Yes, I actually felt like deep-dish (as opposed to stuffed) pizza when I tried this place, so it wasn't that I didn't get what I was expecting. It's just that it wasn't very good.
Holy Land	Mediterranean (Israeli)	College & Ashby, Berkeley	2009-01-28	5
Forgot to write this up when I went here, which pretty much sums up how much of an impression it made. Much better places around for falafel.
Tandoori Oven	Indian	regional chain	2009-01-20	8
This is a Indian entry in the "relatively upscale fast food" niche. I guess it was okay, though I didn't care for the shredded cucumber they seem to load into everything.
Zachary's Pizza	Pizza	chain: Oakland, Berkeley, San Ramon	2009-01-09	18
Zachary's stuffed pizza was once my favorite food, bar none, but I have since tacked on over a decade of culinary experience and I'm less hyperbolic about it now. It's still pretty awesome, though, and those who prefer other stuffed pizzas (such as those at Little Star with their lamentable crust) are stuffed with crack.
Flora	American	Telegraph & 19th, Oakland	2009-01-07	5
Finally made it to this place, which is trying to establish a beachhead for upscale-ish dining in a dismal section of downtown Oakland. I can't really recommend it — my meal wasn't awful, but half the ingredients listed on the menu were delivered in homeopathic quantities.
Salang Pass	Afghan	Fremont & Rose, Fremont	2009-01-06	14
It turns out that Fremont of all places has the largest Afghan population in the US. It also has a number of Afghan restaurants, but I keep coming back to this one. I like the vegetarian ashak, but Elizabeth likes the eggplant enough that given the entire Bay Area to choose from for her birthday dinner, she went with Salang Pass eggplant.
Homemade Cafe	Breakfast/lunch	Sacramento & Dwight, Berkeley	2008-11-29	11
This place has a dish that is basically nachos using home fries instead of tortilla chips. I thought that was a pretty good idea.
Trattoria La Siciliana	Italian	College btw Ashby/Webster, Berkeley	2008-10-24	5
Very friendly service, and the entire meal wasn't a bust, but wow, was I ever wrong about the pesto gnocchi. I thought, "Hey, at worst it'll be like the gnocchi I make at home with some pesto out of a jar." But no: the "pesto" was a slightly gritty, day-glo green liquid that tasted no better than it looked, and the gnocchi were gummy little pellets.
Fonda	Small plates	Solano & Curtis, Berkeley	2008-10-11	14
Almost gave up after sitting for ten minutes without anyone coming to my table, but in the end I was glad I waited because the huevos rancheros I got were very good. Though I'm not a big cheese person and even a sprinkling of manchego was a bit much for me.
Taqueria Pancho Villa	Mexican (taqueria)	chain: San Francisco, San Mateo	2008-10-10	8
This is a friendlier space than other Mission taquerias: clean, brightly lit, with an expansive, readable menu and no lard... but that's like praising a McDonald's in Nebraska for not being a meth lab. So I'll just say that I've had some good burritos here (I mainly go to the San Mateo one) and a lot of mediocre ones.
Yung Le's Fusion	East Asian	Winchester & Payne, San Jose	2008-10-09	8
Samosas in egg roll wrappers are an interesting idea, but otherwise this seems like a standard East Asian restaurant, meaning that I didn't much care for it.
L'Osteria del Forno	Italian	Columbus btw Green/Union, San Francisco	2008-10-02	8
I've heard of restaurants that didn't have an oven; this place has only an oven, so everything's either uncooked or baked. This basically means roasted vegetables (which have been okay when I have gone, though the cauliflower gratin was bland), focaccia sandwiches (okay, but a sandwich is just a sandwich), and pizza (which I haven't tried).
Aqui	Mexican fusion	local chain: San Jose and environs	2008-09-10	11
This is Mexican fusion, so you get stuff like artichoke enchiladas and wasabi wraps and things. It's okay. For some reason I tend to leave feeling not so hot.
West Coast Pizza	Pizza	University & McGee, Berkeley	2008-08-22	2
This was served at an office meeting. Laughably bad.
Zona Rosa	Mexican (taqueria)	Haight & Shrader, San Francisco	2008-08-08	5
Zona Rosa was on Telegraph and Durant when I lived in Spens-Black Hall, and it was therefore my introduction to Mission-style burritos. So does the fact that I now place it firmly in the "meh" category mean that it was better then or that my taste was worse?
Coupa Cafe	Cafe	Ramona btw University/Hamilton, Palo Alto	2008-08-06	8
I got a mediocre danish here and was intercepted on the way out by a dog who was clipped to a chair but who just dragged the chair around in pursuit of me and my danish. Several years later I went back in and discovered that there's a menu full of Venezuelan stuff; I got an arepa, but it wasn't much better than the danish.
Laïola	Small plates	Chestnut near Fillmore, San Francisco	2008-07-21	8
At this tapas place I got one of those potato/egg cakes, which came with a preposterously small amount (less than a teaspoon) of fava bean compote, and some fried sticks of chickpea batter; I thought about getting corn cakes, but I'd had my fill of fried food by that point. I also had a cheesecake served with pistachio brittle on top and blueberry compote underneath.
Palo Alto Baking Company	Bakery	California btw Ash/Birch, Palo Alto	2008-07-20	8
This place came up on a list of places to get a good croissant. It probably shouldn't have.
Bi-Rite Creamery	Dessert (ice cream)	18th & Dolores, San Francisco	2008-07-15	14
Fresh-tasting artisanal ice cream — very good mouthfeel, to use the Newspeakish food writers' term. Big ups to roasted banana.
Coco 500	American	Brannan & 4th, San Francisco	2008-06-30	5
Here I had a "truffled squash blossom flatbread" that was like an overdone pizza and an almond pound cake that was okay but nothing special.
Basque Boulangerie Cafe	Deli	1st btw E. Napa/Spain, Sonoma	2008-06-12	14
One day I got to Sonoma very hungry but in a hurry. No time to sit down and eat. And I'd already had one crappy meal that day and wanted something good. If only Sonoma had some kind of casual yet interesting place where I could get maybe some pasta salad and a fancy cookie, I thought. And then there it was! After that I've returned often when I've been in Sonoma. The baked goods and desserts are great, and best of all: they're labeled.
Mirchi Cafe	Indian fusion	Fremont & Papazian, Fremont	2008-05-28	11
So far all I've had at this place is pizza, and hoo boy is it a mixed bag. Pizza is, fundamentally, part of the bread kingdom, and this is one of the best crusts I've encountered in California. The masala sauce used on the pizzas is also pretty good. But, gyah, the toppings! Too much cheese, and vegetables are thrown on at the end and come out almost completely raw. Seriously, you'll bite into a slice and find that it contains like half a raw onion. Awful. I thought I could avoid this by getting the palak paneer pizza — toppings should be precooked, right? Nope: paneer cubes, raw onion, and a few charred spinach leaves. Maybe I'll just have them make me a plain cheeseless masala pizza and top it myself at home.
the Red Grape	Pizza	1st W near W Napa, Sonoma	2008-05-26	8
Ultra-thin crust pizza that failed to impress. Supposedly the white pizza is better than the red, so maybe I'll give it another chance if ever I'm in the mood for white pizza.
Arizmendi Bakery	Bakery/pizza	San Pablo btw 45th/Park, Emeryville	2008-04-29	11
This spinoff of the Cheese Board often surpasses its parent collective in the quality of its pizza, but you have to be extra careful about making sure you show up when it's fresh; unlike at the Cheese Board, which has enough turnover that you always get a high-quality slice, at Arizmendi you run the risk of getting one that's been sitting around for a while.
Robeks	Smoothies	national chain	2008-04-15	11
I got a smoothie here and it was pretty darn good, which surprised me because this place was within walking distance of my house back when I lived in kind of a wasteland. It soon disappeared, though.
Pomegranate	Mediterranean	University btw California/Sacramento, Berkeley	2008-04-08	5
My food was marred by gritty spinach, but the main problem was that the restaurant was woefully understaffed — it looks like the proprietor attends to every table. I realize that in our wintry economic climate it may not be easy to hire a waiter, but I wasn't the only customer exasperated by the slow service.
Ben & Jerry's	Dessert (ice cream)	international chain	2008-04-03	5
Wow. Friendly service, but the ice cream I got... if you had given me a blind taste test and asked me what flavor it was, I would have guessed battery acid. Slightly sour, metallic, vaguely fruity. It was supposed to be coconut!
Just Desserts	Dessert	chain: San Francisco, Oakland	2008-03-29	8
I stopped at the SFO location on the way to the baggage claim. The person in front of me ordered a slice of carrot cake and received a slice of coconut cake. Then I ordered a peanut butter cookie and discovered after I had left that I had been given some kind of pecan bar. Buh?
Finfiné	Ethiopian	Telegraph & Blake, Berkeley	2008-03-20	11
Quite good! Like Café Colucci, Finfiné has a more elaborate vegetarian combo than most Ethiopian places. Thumbs up.
Dollar Curry House	Indian	Fulton btw Center/Allston, Berkeley	2008-03-11	5
Everything here is either $1.00 or $1.99. How do they afford such low low prices? By not actually bothering to make the food all that good. I mean, I've certainly had worse, and I suppose you could make the case that if the food at Naan 'N' Curry costs 400% as much but is only 250% as good, then Dollar Curry House is the better deal. But I wouldn't make that case.
Citizen Cake Patisserie	Dessert	Grove near Gough, San Francisco	2008-02-27	8
Okay dessert place, but too pricey for what you get.
Saha	Yemeni	Sutter near Larkin, San Francisco	2008-02-27	2
To give you a sense of how far short this place fell of my hopes for it — they managed to screw up water. Water should not taste like cucumbers! Horrible. Anyway, we ordered four things: bland fouel that had been turned into a paste (it's not supposed to be like refried beans!); vegetable baklava, kind of gross; mushroom ravioli in a mango sauce that were okay if you took the mushroom mixture out; and "Middle Eastern pizza" topped with vegetables that were both charred and way underdone.
Specialty's	Dessert (cookies) and cafe	regional chain	2008-02-27	11
This place apparently serves things other than thick wedges of cookie, but I haven't tried anything else. The cookies are quite good.
Almare Gelato Italiano	Dessert (gelato)	Shattuck & Center, Berkeley	2008-02-26	11
New management, but so far pretty much identical to Gelato Milano, which was in the same space. I have sort of forsaken the Shattuck gelato places in favor of Sketch, but maybe I'll give them another shot on BART days now that it's getting warmer.
Bongo Burger	Burgers and Mediterrean	local chain, Berkeley	2008-02-26	11
Quite a few vegetarian options considering that this is a burger joint, among them a very tasty veggie burger made primarily of black beans.
Brazil Cafe	Brazilian	Shattuck near University, Berkeley	2008-02-26	5
I was dubious about this place because almost all the glowing write-ups centered on the meat, and sure enough, the avocado sandwich I got was eminently skippable.
Sunrise Deli	Mediterranean	Bancroft btw Telegraph/Dana, Berkeley	2008-02-21	11
Tasty falafel, with unusual add-ins such as avocado.
Turkish Kitchen	Turkish	Shattuck btw University/Berkeley, Berkeley	2008-02-14	8
I came here because I'd heard the baba ghanoush was great; it's okay. But it's kind of strange — much closer to the color and texture of whipped cream cheese than of hummus. Also, the waitress with the pigtails is super cute.
Le Croissant	Diner	Bellam & Castro, San Rafael	2008-02-10	2
I keep hearing great things about this place, but give me a break. This is the sort of place that you dread having to stop at while stuck in Wyoming on a cross-country drive. Oh, and the prices! I cannot believe that I spent $11 on one English muffin, a rectilinear brick of hash browns, and a bowl of pea-green slop that they called spinach. Oh, and the service! Or lack thereof, rather. This place sucks. I'll give it a 1 because I wasn't actually traumatized, but man, avoid.
Table Cafe	Indian fusion	Magnolia & Estelle, Larkspur	2008-02-08	5
Forced to change a vowel by a Danny Meyer lawsuit, the former Tabla Cafe is a highfalutin wrap shop using dosai instead of tortillas. But the dosai are too bitter for my tastes, and the fillings, while very intriguing on the page, have not been very good in practice. I've gone several times thinking that the next dosa will be the really good one, but no luck yet.
El Huarache Azteca	Mexican	International btw 38th/39th, Oakland	2008-01-18	5
I have read reviews of this place praising it to the high heavens for years now, but always thought it was off-limits because it is an "authentic" Mexican restaurant situated in the barrio and therefore bound to use tons of lard. It was only recently that I learned that it is a lard-free establishment. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that there are many vegetarian options — I was stuck with a plain huarache (corn tortilla stuffed with beans) and sope (corn tortilla topped with beans). They weren't terrible but I have no inclination to go back.
Tamarine	Vietnamese	University & Tasso, Palo Alto	2008-01-04	11
Upscale Vietnamese fusion, yet good. (Apologies to MA-B.) The highlight was the banh mi roti, pan-fried flatbread with a bean dipping sauce and a delicious curry dipping sauce. The fact that it has disappeared highlights the fact that making a satisfying vegetarian meal out of Tamarine's menu is difficult. Yes, asterisks indicate that many of the menu items can be made vegetarian, but this is only true in the sense that a hamburger bun is a vegetarian hamburger.
Sultana	Turkish	El Camino Real btw Santa Cruz/Oak Grove, Menlo Park	2007-12-17	5
The red lentil soup and the bread were quite good, but the "spinach manti" turned out to be a small scattering of tiny thick ravioli swimming in an ocean of yogurt. Almost insulting for the price.
the Bread Workshop	Bakery and cafe	University & Acton, Berkeley	2007-12-04	5
Points for having savory scones, though the one I got wasn't great. Neither was the croissant, which tasted sour (and not in a good way). And man, really unfriendly service.
Zand's	Persian	Solano & Carmel, Albany	2007-12-04	5
The sign in the window advertises that this place has the "Best Falafel Sandwiches in Town." I had eaten half my mediocre sandwich when it suddenly struck me: this place is in Albany.
Paragon	American	The Claremont, Berkeley	2007-11-25	5
I gather that people come here (a) for the views, (b) for the drinks, (c) because it's located in the swanky hotel where they happen to be staying. Without these advantages, I can't imagine that the Paragon would get much business — the food is much more expensive than its quality would merit. Such a heavy hand with the rosemary!
Ethiopia Restaurant	Ethiopian	Telegraph near Ashby, Berkeley	2007-11-15	5
It is interesting to me that some Ethiopian restaurants are much better than others. Why? Because Ethiopian food, at least on the vegetarian side, consists almost entirely of stews! Stews don't require much in the way of technique, do they? And if skill doesn't enter into it, then really it's just a matter of finding a good recipe... and Ethiopia Restaurant needs to keep looking.
Tucker's Ice Cream	Dessert (ice cream)	Park btw Central/Alameda, Alameda	2007-11-09	11
Elizabeth said that the ice cream here seemed to be only slightly better than storebought. I think that's actually pretty good!
Ephesus	Kebabs	Locust & Mt. Diablo, Walnut Creek	2007-11-05	5
The kebab I got was actually pretty good, though it better have been after I paid ten bucks for a stick with some mushrooms and zucchini on it. The white bean salad I got was bad, the beans almost rock hard.
La Cumbre	Mexican (taqueria)	chain: San Mateo, San Francisco	2007-11-02	11
I've been here twice and it was like two different places: once the tortilla was grilled and the filling was dominated by bean liquid. The second time the tortilla was steamed and the filling was actually a little dry (but tasty). So I dunno!
Talavera	Mexican (taqueria)	Solano & Peralta, Berkeley	2007-10-30	8
This place apparently used to have psychotically bad ownership. It might be better now, but the burritos are just okay.
Speederia Pizzeria	Pizza	Laurel & Cherry, San Carlos	2007-10-04	8
I read a number of reviews that said that this place was like an authentic New York slice shop. I've lived in New York and can verify that this is the case. It is like an authentic New York slice shop — specifically like the New York slice shops that make too many pizzas for the amount of turnover they get and consequently offer up pizzas that look as though they've been sitting around for days. Tastes all right, but unappetizing.
Kabul	Afghan	El Camino Real & Hull, San Carlos	2007-09-26	5
It takes a while for the staff here to notice that you've walked in the door, and even longer to get you a menu. From said menu I ordered a really quite bad bulani appetizer and a better but still not stellar vegetable combo. I will say this: even a mediocre Afghan restaurant like this knows its way around a pumpkin.
Mario's La Fiesta	Mexican	Telegraph & Haste, Berkeley	2007-09-25	5
When I was a small child my mom used to make me and my brothers accompany her to the mall all the time. Often for lunch I would go to the food court and get a big hunk of cheese dipped in batter and fried. By the time I got to college, my tastes were much more sophisticated, and I would frequently go to Mario's La Fiesta. There I would order a big hunk of cheese wrapped in a tortilla and fried. I tried it again out of nostalgia. It is not so tasty as it was when my only basis for comparison was the Buena Park Mall.
Osteria Cucina Toscana	Italian	Hamilton & Ramona, Palo Alto	2007-09-18	8
Passed it many times but never went in because I looked at all the vegetarian items and thought, "I can already make all of those." This time I thought, "Hmm, well, they have ravioli, and when I've gone to Dopo and Eccolo the ravioli has involved these ethereal pasta sheets and hasn't looked like something out of a plastic case." So I gave it a shot. Osteria's ravioli looked like it came out of a plastic case. I was unhappy until I received my dessert, a gianduja flan that made up for the mediocre main dish.
Naan 'N' Curry	Indian	chain: Berkeley, San Francisco	2007-08-15	11
The fare at this Pakistani fast food joint is way better than you might expect looking at the low prices, and some of the dishes really wowed me: the baingan bharta here was an order of magnitude better than any similar dish I'd had before (though I've since had even better). My experiences here have been all over the place, though: sometimes I come out thinking that this is top-notch and deserves a 5, and at other times am distinctly underwhelmed and am more inclined to go with a 3. Guess I'll split the difference.
Zante	Indian	Mission & Cortland, San Francisco	2007-08-14	14
Most of Zante's menu is your usual Indian food, but the place has become famous for one thing: Indian pizza. I'd meant to try it for a while, but seeing a mention of the place in Y the Last Man of all places motivated me to finally give it a try. It turns out that Indian pizza is delicious! The crust is meltingly soft naan, crunchy on the bottom; the toppings (mostly spinach, green onions, cilantro and cheese, but with a bit of eggplant, cauliflower and ginger as well) are also most excellent. It looked like there were some tomatoes and lentils thrown on there as well. Definitely a must-visit in San Francisco town.
Juice Appeal	Smoothies	Shattuck & Center, Berkeley	2007-08-13	11
This is probably the best smoothie place I've tried so far in the Bay Area, but (1) it's still worse than the places I got smoothies in Orange County and even Holyoke, and (2) the first time I went the guy behind the counter was a complete ass. It looks like he's gone, though.
Recchiuti	Dessert (chocolate)	Ferry Building, San Francisco	2007-08-13	14
Not really an eatery, but since I usually buy a few chocolates and eat them immediately, I'll put them on this list. Very good chocolates — labeled and described! THANK you! — in a wide variety of interesting flavors.
Pizza Antica	Pizza	regional chain	2007-08-10	11
Artisanal pizza comes to minivan land. Interesting combinations such as "Bartlett Pear, Sweet Garlic and Mt. Tam Triple Cream Cheese" and "Heirloom Potato, Caramelized Onion and White Truffle Oil" made me giddy at the thought of how suburban kids who otherwise order in Domino's must react. But there's been some downhill motion as it has expanded into a chain.
Phoenix Pastificio	Pasta	Addison near Bonar, Berkeley	2007-08-08	17
This isn't really an eatery, but as with Acme it's too great a treasure not to be on this list. It's a tiny, hard-to-find pasta manufactory that seems to exist mainly in order to sell its wares at the Berkeley farmers' market three times a week, but you can also just swing by and stick your head in to place an order. The fresh pasta here is at least an order of magnitude better than any other pasta I've had.
Noah's	Bagels, etc.	regional chain	2007-07-29	5
Noah's is a chain that offers bagels in such varieties as chocolate chip and peppercorn. And there's nothing wrong with that! Just because H&H didn't think of it first doesn't make it a heresy. Noah's also steams its bagels — in fact, I've seen banners outside the place that say "IT'S THE STEAM!" — and there's noth— actually, wait, there's something seriously wrong with that. Noah's "bagels" are basically hamburger buns. That's bad. Not because it deviates from New York orthodoxy, but because who wants to eat a toasted hamburger bun with cream cheese?
La Finestra	Italian	Lafayette near Whitten, Lafayette	2007-07-20	2
The bread came with a dish of dipping oil full of herbs and garlic and cheese and things. It looked delicious. I tried it and it was very bitter! I kept trying different parts trying to find a better flavor but it was bitter all the way through. And then when my bad, gummy gnocchi arrived, it was in a sauce that was even more bitter. At that point I became somewhat bitter myself.
Acme Bread Company	Bakery	regional chain	2007-07-19	16
I go to the Berkeley location, at San Pablo and Cedar, to get sweet baguettes. What usually happens is that I buy a baguette to use for a meal later that day, and then I can't resist biting off the top end as I walk out the door, and then it is so delicious that I end up eating like half of it.
Caffe 817	Breakfast/lunch	Washington & 8th, Oakland	2007-06-22	11
Here I had a sandwich of mozzarella, artichoke and peppers. It was okay. I wish I could have had a glass of water with it.
Dopo	Italian	Piedmont btw Echo/John, Oakland	2007-06-20	11
I found myself in the mood for upscale Italian, so I decided to give Dopo another try. The first time I'd gone, the menu was extremely meaty and I had to get a plain pizza, but this time one of the main courses was summer squash and ricotta ravioli in pesto, so I got that. It was quite good — the pasta sheets especially so. But it was pretty small. Then I got dessert, a sludgy strawberry gelato that I did not care for. But I was still quite hungry! So I ordered a Calabrian pepper and garlic pizza to go and ate it in the car. I suppose that Italian dining does feature the idea of primi piatti and secondi piatti, but still, I am unaccustomed to having to order multiple main courses.
Junnoon	Indian fusion	University & High, Palo Alto	2007-05-25	5
MA-B described New York's Tabla as "upscale Indian fusion, yet good." Junnoon really wants to be Tabla — there was a huge display of cookbooks by Tabla's Floyd Cardoz — but I went to Tabla a few times in New York and it was not actually all that great. Junnoon is worse. I saw "shells filled with spiced chickpeas" and they turned out to be half a dozen tasteless pastry shells filled with a couple of cold chickpeas and drizzled with an indifferent tamarind sauce; "avocado raita" suggested slices of avocado floating in a light yogurt sauce, but was instead a thick pudding the color of a plastic chair from the 1970s; "spring vegetable tahiri" was a box of bland rice with a few odds and ends of carrot and brussels sprout. I've never used a restaurant's salt shaker, but I really wanted one at Junnoon... yet none was provided. Verdict: upscale Indian fusion, and, uh, drive safely.
Mission Pizza	Pizza	Washington near Paseo Padre, Fremont	2007-05-16	8
Here the crust and cheese are merely an incidental foundation for overwhelming piles of toppings. In the case of the two vegetarian pizzas I've tried, the toppings appeared to be nearly raw. Meh.
Golden Gate Bakery	Bakery (Chinese)	Grant btw Pacific/Jackson, San Francisco	2007-05-06	8
I've heard people say that the custard tarts here are the best foodstuffs available in San Francisco town, so I finally got around to trying one. The custard was okay (if a bit too gloppy for my taste) but the shell was waaay flakier than I would have preferred.
Taqueria Tlaquepaque	Mexican	Lincoln & Curtner, San Jose	2007-04-23	8
This isn't really a taqueria but a full restaurant with table service, which came as a rude surprise when I first came in hoping to grab a burrito and be out the door in five minutes. That time I left because no one even came to show me to a table. On my second visit I was eventually seated, but the service remained questionable as what arrived at my table bore only a passing resemblance to what I had ordered. It was a heavy 1970s-style Mexican meal, but not too bad, I guess.
Chow	American	Lafayette & Whitten, Lafayette	2007-04-22	11
I got a pizza here whose crust was fair at best but whose toppings were surprisingly good. I also had a decent if unremarkable rhubarb cobbler. I wouldn't make a trip to eat here but if I were standing in front of it again I'd be happy to go in again.
Citizen Cupcake	Dessert	Stockton & Market, San Francisco	2007-04-21	2
First thought after hearing this place recommended: "Wow, $3.50 for a cupcake! They'd better be huge!" First thought after seeing the tiny cupcakes: "Wow, $3.50 for a tiny cupcake! They'd better be good!" First thought after eating the cupcake: "Wow, $3.50 for a tiny, crappy cupcake! This place sucks!"
Habibi	Lebanese	Washington btw Fremont/Roberts, Fremont	2007-04-20	8
This place got a crazy high rating on Jatbar. I have no idea why. The food here is totally pedestrian. Not bad, just... there are a million Mediterranean places no worse than this.
Taqueria la Familia	Mexican (taqueria)	Shattuck near Ashby, Berkeley	2007-04-19	8
Unremarkable burrito. Shredded iceberg lettuce = bad.
A Slice of New York	Pizza	Stevens Creek btw Tyler/Cypress, San Jose	2007-03-27	8
Standard slice: pretty good! Sicilian slice: seriously wretched!
Canteen	Upscale	Sutter near Jones, San Francisco	2007-03-24	11
At this tiny establishment (for once being alone was a huge advantage! no wait for a spot at the counter!) I had what was billed on the menu as "a big pancake" and turned out to be of middling size. But it wasn't your standard flapjack — it was kind of custardy, and different enough to be interesting despite the subpar strawberries. Also, I was overcharged, but not by enough to be worth complaining to the waitress about.
Pizza My Heart	Pizza	regional chain	2007-03-10	8
This is a Bay Area chain with passable slices.
Extreme Pizza	Pizza	national chain	2007-03-08	11
Mid-list pizza. While it has a long way to go to catch the avocado quesadilla pizza at Antonio's in Amherst, I recommend Extreme's similar pie with black beans, tomatoes, cheese, onions and two kinds of chiles.
Passage to India	Indian	El Camino Real btw Rengstorff/Clark, Mountain View	2007-02-27	11
This place has a vegetarian buffet every Tuesday, so I thought I'd go check it out. I was astonished: I counted around fifty items, possibly more. And not just the usual suspects, either: we're talking Indian pizza, roll-your-own dosas, adapted Chinese food, finger sandwiches, puff pastry, birthday cake... sadly, the quality does not match the variety. It's not bad, but it's nothing special.
Rivoli	Upscale	Solano btw Peralta/Neilson, Berkeley	2007-02-20	11
Dinner for two here included purée of sunchoke soup with toasted pumpkin seed oil and crème fraîche (which ultimately I came to regret eating, because it led me to believe that sunchokes were okay, only to discover later that they are evil incarnated in vegetable form); sweet potato gnocchi with yellow foot and king royale mushrooms, brown butter cream and toasted hazelnut gremolata; wild mushroom, baby artichoke, mozzarella and ricotta lasagna with rouille, fonduta, mint salsa verde and grilled asparagus; warm chocolate brioche bread pudding with whipped cream and blood orange caramel and chocolate sauces; and mascarpone cheesecake with sour cream topping, shortbread cookie crust and fresh strawberries. It was pleasant enough, but it paled in comparison to the previous day's lunch at La Super-Rica in Santa Barbara, where dishes cost an average of $3. At Rivoli I paid $72 and only eating lots of bread kept me from leaving hungry. That's the thing about upscale places: you're paying for service and presentation. Those things are nice, but to me flavor is infinitely more important.
Stacks'	Breakfast/lunch	regional chain	2007-02-16	11
Here I had a very good smoothie and banana macadamia coconut pancakes which were also pretty good.
Priya	Indian	San Pablo btw University/Addison, Berkeley	2007-02-06	11
I was initially impressed by the wide array of options at the lunch buffet here, but the quality is fairly pedestrian.
La Ultima	New Mexican	Hartz & Short, Danville	2007-01-24	5
I love New Mexican food, but this place had almost no vegetarian options. I was stuck with a bunch of overdone and underseasoned broccoli and carrots wrapped in a dry tortilla and a sopaipilla that wasn't worthy of the name.
Plátanos	Pan-Latin	Guerrero & 18th, San Francisco	2007-01-14	5
Every time I went for pizza at Delfina I passed this place and thought, "Hmm, maybe I should go here instead! I have been to Delfina many times!" And then one day Delfina was way the hell too crowded, so I decided to try Plátanos. And I'm glad I did... because now I won't have that dilemma anymore.
Rose Pistola	Italian	Columbus btw Green/Union, San Francisco	2007-01-07	8
Not too much for me to choose from here. I got the cheese-stuffed focaccia with truffle oil, which turned out to be a very flat flatbread (I was expecting something fluffier) for which I was charged $2 more than the menu indicated.
Gelateria Naia	Dessert (gelato)	regional chain, Berkeley	2006-12-28	8
The selection is quite varied, but the gelato is just not all that great. It's grainy and often has icy chunks in it. Too bad, because I wish I could find chocolate orange and even Ferrero Rocher elsewhere.
La Boulange	Bakery	regional chain	2006-12-23	11
Here I got a chocolate hazelnut croissant. It was good! It was also tiny! It was also expensive!
Mekong	Thai	O'Farrell & Larkin, San Francisco	2006-12-18	8
This was the first place I found in the Bay Area promising vegan Thai food. Just as well that it turned out not to be all that great — it's in a pretty crappy neighborhood.
Mantra	Indian fusion	Emerson btw High, Palo Alto	2006-12-03	5
Good service, but unsuccessful food. I tried the paneer cuboid, which was a single piece of cheese with a shot of soup that tasted pretty much entirely of cucumber, and the fall stir fry, which was potato chunks in a blah sauce.
Taqueria El Balazo	Mexican (taqueria)	regional chain	2006-11-26	11
I had a chile relleño burrito at the San Ramon location of this chain. It was pretty good.
Crepevine	Crepes, etc.	regional chain	2006-11-19	5
When I first walked into one of these and looked at the huge menu board, I wanted to order about half of it. But this place has proved a disappointment: the crepes themselves have been bland and rubbery; the Florentine crepe was filled with a mass of unseasoned spinach; the Santorini dessert crepe could hardly have had less flavor. Even the peanut butter fudge cookie was bad.
Chez Panisse Café	Upscale	Shattuck & Vine, Berkeley	2006-09-21	8
I have been here twice. The first time was part of my pizza quest: I've been trying to sample every notable pizza spot in the Bay Area and Chez Panisse was a notable omission. I have read some people rank it #1 for Bay Area pizza, so my expectations were high. I was unimpressed. The pizza was overfloured and not even half as good as the pizza at the Cheese Board across the street. But I figured I shouldn't rate Chez Panisse as a pizzeria, so I went back and got a fixed menu. Salad: too bitter. Spaghetti with arugula pesto and oven-dried cherry tomatoes: okay, but not as good as the pasta I made at home the evening before. Strawberry ice cream with strawberries and biscotti: the strawberries and the biscotti were good, and the ice cream had a nice flavor, but was a little icy. Now, sure, you might say that the reason some consider Chez Panisse the best restaurant in North America is downstairs dinner, not upstairs lunch. But some of the best meals I've ever had — okay, I'm chiefly talking about dessert here — have been in the outer room of Gramercy Tavern at lunchtime. So far it doesn't look like Chez Panisse is even in the same league.
Maya	Mexican	East Napa and First, Sonoma	2006-09-17	8
I really like the selection of vegetarian small plates here, but I do wish they were actually, y'know, better. The chile in the chile relleño was way underdone, and the flash-fried artichokes weren't much better than the ones at Giant Artichoke.
Soop	Soup	Shattuck & Vine, Berkeley	2006-09-15	5
In my review of A Beautiful Bowl of Soup I mentioned that I'd been to many restaurants that started by serving up an amazing bowl of soup and then a mediocre meal. At Soop, soup is the mediocre meal. I've had a few varieties now and they've all been pretty bland.
La Burrita	Mexican (taqueria)	local chain, Berkeley	2006-09-12	11
I've had some excellent burritos here, as well as the best chips I've had since returning to the Bay Area. But it's hit-and-miss. The nachos are terrible, for instance, and I've had some subpar burritos along with the really good ones.
Round Table Pizza	Pizza	regional chain	2006-08-24	2
Very bad, but I'll give it a one because it is the sort of badness that prompts amusement rather than anger.
La Costeña	Mexican (taqueria)	Old Middlefield & Rengstorff, Mountain View	2006-08-23	11
This small Mexican grocery has a burrito counter in the back. Apparently the locals consider it legendary but I found it merely passable.
Cocola	Dessert (bakery)	Santana Row btw Alyssum/Tatum, San Jose	2006-08-18	11
Cheaper than Fleur de Cocoa, and the desserts seem to be of roughly the same quality. The croissants aren't quite of the same caliber, though.
Dishdash	Mediterranean	Murphy btw Washington/Evelyn, Sunnyvale	2006-08-03	14
I ordered something here thinking that I was going to get a big pile of vegetables and rice, and instead it was an artfully crafted vertical stack surrounded by a moat of tasty herb-tomato-yogurt sauce. And for what turned out to be an upscale place, there was a surprisingly decent amount of food for the price. One exception: the baklava, while impressively varied, is $6 for four very small pieces.
Estrellita	Mexican	San Antonio btw Loucks/Sherwood, Los Altos	2006-08-01	8
This place seems to have only one vegetarian offering, the "vegetarian plate" which consists of three items: a quesadilla full of undercooked zucchini, an enchilada full of undercooked zucchini, and a tamale that is actually quite good.
Viognier	Upscale	4th & B, San Mateo	2006-07-31	8
Here I got a "margherita" pizza that turned out to be a dinner-roll crust topped with mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes and then absolutely drenched in balsamic vinegar.
Dasaprakash	Indian	Homestead & San Tomas, Santa Clara	2006-07-28	11
The lunch menu at this vegetarian South Indian place used to look like the outcome of someone doing a permutation problem by brute force, but even if you can't tell a vada from an iddly you couldn't go too far wrong. But Dasaprakash was devastated by India's ban on exporting lentils, which took out a huge chunk of its menu. The waiter suggested I try "The American Combination" but it was bad.
Taqueria Guadalajara	Mexican (taqueria)	14th & 143rd, San Leandro	2006-07-25	5
This is like a little piece of the Mission right in San Leandro. That isn't a compliment.
Fleur de Cocoa	Dessert (bakery)	Santa Cruz btw Bean/Bayview, Los Gatos	2006-07-21	11
Many interesting jewelbox desserts, but not an explosion of deliciousness or anything. Croissants are good but comedically small.
Chili Palace	Chinese	Lewelling & Washington, San Lorenzo	2006-07-18	5
I was seduced by the promise of scallion pancakes. They were not very good. Neither was the undercooked broccoli in oversweet garlic sauce.
Andalé	Mexican	University btw Ramona/Emerson, Palo Alto	2006-07-09	11
Burritos are okay, but pretty expensive and not really noteworthy. I was pleased to see vegetarian flautas available, but they were also expensive and the "veggies" promised on the menu turned out to be mashed potatoes.
Peninsula Fountain & Grill	Diner	Emerson & Hamilton, Palo Alto	2006-07-08	5
Hrm, bad news. Spent $6 on a milkshake that was full of ice crystals.
Bucci's	Italian	Hollis btw 59th/61st, Emeryville	2006-06-20	8
Perhaps the Italian dishes are good, but I got a pizza and it was not so great. Just a wee bit too far on the fried side. The one I got seemed promising (onion, peppers and pesto) but the toppings just didn't come together.
Kirin	Chinese	Solano btw Colusa/Ensenada, Berkeley	2006-05-17	8
My quest for a Chinese place like Red Hot in Brooklyn brought me here a couple of times, but while it's not terrible it's also not even close. It's also extremely basic food. If you order noodles you get a big bowl of noodles with a few scallions. If you order asparagus you get a big plate of asparagus. I expect restaurant dishes to have a little more interest.
Cactus Taqueria	Mexican (taqueria)	local chain: Berkeley, Oakland	2006-05-16	8
I had a really good burrito and agua fresca my first time here, and so thought this would be one of my favorite places, but since then I have had a bad enchilada, a bad quesadilla, a bad mejor plate and bad tamales, so maybe I should stick to the burritos or maybe I just got lucky the first time.
Udupi Palace	Indian	national chain	2006-04-27	8
This is a vegetarian South Indian place, so the dosa and utthapam sections dominate the menu. On my first visit I got a bowl of tomato soup, hoping that it would be more interesting than Campbell's, and it was. But I also got an utthapam, and that was a disappointment, full of undercooked onion. I returned months later and got a dosa, which was slightly better. In all, this place is okay but doesn't merit the raves.
Flora's Gyros	Greek	Golf Club & Old Quarry, Pleasant Hill	2006-04-14	2
Rule 1: don't stand out in front of your restaurant smoking and giving incoming customers the hairy eyeball. Rule 2: don't be out of food in the middle of the afternoon. This was an East Bay Express suggestion. What a fiasco.
White Lotus	Vietnamese	Market near St. John, San Jose	2006-04-12	5
Typical fake meat place. Cha-Ya and Brooklyn's Red Hot have proven that vegetarian East Asian food doesn't have to suck, so why does it everywhere but those two places?
La Cascada	Mexican (taqueria)	Center btw Fulton/Shattuck, Berkeley	2006-04-04	5
Dodgy nachos — mediocre chips, mediocre guacamole, drowned in sour cream. And the breakfast burrito's eggs and black beans are whisked together into a thin gruel.
Johnny's Donut Shop	Donuts	Mount Diablo & Happy Valley, Lafayette	2006-03-14	8
Johnny's is regularly chosen as having the best donuts in the East Bay. But donuts are just not a good food.
Mehak	Indian	Sacramento near Dwight, Berkeley	2006-03-09	11
I read something that said ranked Mehak right behind Priya on a list of Indian lunch buffets. Interestingly, it's pretty much the opposite of Priya in every way: tiny selection, unoriginal vegetarian dishes... but also fresh naan and hand-cut vegetables in the very good navratan korma.
LaVal's	Pizza	Euclid btw Hearst/Ridge, Berkeley	2006-03-08	8
The slice I got wasn't bad — not nearly enough sauce, but the crust was good — but the wait was long and I'm not a huge fan of the 1970s pizza parlor aesthetic.
360 Gourmet	Mexican (taqueria)	national chain	2006-03-05	11
This is a chain but not a completely bad one. And if you're walking past Gate 8 at 5:25 in the morning and are very hungry, you might well find that the breakfast burrito with eggs, cheese, sour cream, ranchero sauce and potatoes is exactly the correct food.
Lo Coco's	Pizza	local chain: Berkeley, Oakland	2006-03-03	8
Bready, unremarkable pizza that, based on the prices, seems to think that it is much better than it actually is.
Jucy's	Smoothies	College & Miles, Oakland	2006-02-28	5
Weak smoothies. Why isn't Juice Stop in the Bay Area?
Walker's Pie Shop	American	Solano btw Curtis/Santa Fe, Albany	2006-02-23	5
The newspaper clippings in the window rave, "Like eating dinner at Grandma's house!" and "A little slice of the Midwest right here in the Bay Area!" Might as well complete the effect by promising that the waiter will kick you in the head. Still, the word "pie" was in the name, so I stopped and got some pie. It was no different from the pie across the street at the Safeway.
Greens	Vegetarian	Fort Mason, Building A, San Francisco	2006-02-22	12
This is among the most hit-or-miss places I've ever been. Some items are among the best food I've had in the Bay Area: black bean chili, caldo soup, pasta e fagioli... and yet I've also had a fair amount of bad food here, including a mushroom and leek tart that tasted not so great and vegetable brochettes that tasted like not much at all. Yet I still come back from time to time, if only for the novelty of a menu from which I can order anything.
Dona Tomas	Mexican	Telegraph btw 51st/49th, Oakland	2006-02-17	11
This place bills itself as being not an American-style "Mexican restaurant" but rather an example of the sort of thing you'd find if you went looking for a good restaurant in Mexico City. Overall the food is quite good, but I didn't like the thick, oily chips, the underdone squash, the prices, or the actual space. I think I'll stick with Tacubaya.
Caffè Strada	Cafe	Bancroft & College, Berkeley	2006-01-31	8
The pastries are nothing to rave about, but this place has a prime location on College and Bancroft, and hot white chocolate sometimes seems like just the right beverage on a chilly morning.
El Sombrero Taqueria	Mexican (taqueria)	University & Shattuck, Berkeley	2006-01-24	5
For sixteen years I never went in here because, even in 1990, the sign looked really outdated. I figured the whole place would be stuck in a time warp, like going to a Mexican restaurant in 1977. Then I finally poked my head in and it looked like any other taqueria, so I decided to give it a try. They say you can't judge a book by its cover but in this case I probably should have trusted the sign.
Long Life Vegi House	Chinese	University btw Shattuck/Fulton, Berkeley	2006-01-21	5
I got vegetable wonton soup, thinking fondly of Red Hot in Brooklyn, but these wontons were full of a harsh combination of raw mixed vegetables. With no scallion pancakes on the menu either I don't think I'll be back.
Chaat Cafe	Indian (fast food)	regional chain	2006-01-20	8
I got pesto naan here. It was cooked well, but I can't say I recommend pesto naan.
Cafe Brioche	French	California btw Ash/Peral, Palo Alto	2006-01-18	11
French seems to be almost exclusively a carnivorous cuisine, so I rarely eat it. Here I got an eggplant and polenta napoleon with mushrooms. It was about par for the course for upscale places: unusual, but not actually any tastier than more pedestrian fare, and in no way worth the extra price.
Zeni Restaurant	Ethiopian	Saratoga btw Payne/Colombo, San Jose	2006-01-12	5
I went here after reading a rave review that began, "Once a year two friends of mine, my boyfriend, and I rank our top favorite 20 restaurants in the whole world. Zeni ranked #5 on my list, #3 on my friend Brendan's list, and #1 (for the second year in a row) on my friend Lila's list." So I guess I'm with the boyfriend, because this place sucks. It's interesting how Ethiopian places can share 99% of their DNA and yet one's veggie combo is delicious and the next one's ranges from bland to bleah. Oh, and the sambussa here is like a croissant! As they say in Ethiopia, wtf?
Gelato Classico	Dessert (gelato)	regional chain	2006-01-07	8
I liked the spumoni I got in New York. Palo Alto beats New York in most regards but spumoni isn't one of them.
Patxi's Chicago Pizza	Pizza	Emerson btw University/Lytton, Palo Alto	2006-01-07	5
The pizza here is like Zachary's, only with smoother sauce, and about 700% more salt.
Vik's Chaat Corner	Indian (fast food)	Allston btw Fifth/Fourth, Berkeley	2006-01-06	11
This place is part of a warehouse that also includes a wholesale Indian grocery next door. The restaurant offers specials A, B, and C and regular menu items 1 through 10. I tried the 1 (garbanzos and crackers in a cold tamarind yogurt sauce) and the 6 (puffy crackers with cold garbanzos and potatoes) and was not impressed. But then I noticed that everyone was ordering the #9 — the orders at the cash register sounded like the end of the White Album. So I tried the #9, a huge puri with hot garbanzo curry, and it was quite good. A nice alternative snack to a burrito or slice of pizza. And with no matter what you order, you can have any cutlery you like, so long as it's a spork.
Cha-Ya	Japanese	Shattuck & Virginia, Berkeley	2006-01-02	19
This all-vegan Japanese restaurant, which proudly declares that it does not even serve "honey made by the hard-working bee," has given me a chance to enjoy a cuisine that was previously inaccessible to me. I had never had miso soup before, and didn't even know how it was supposed to be consumed; fortunately, I was right in my guess that you just pick up the bowl and drink out of it. It was delicious! I had also never had sushi before; the nigiri sushi with avocado was quite good, and I am sure I'll be trying other varieties here. Even a big bowl of vegetables and soba noodles in a light broth turned out to be extremely good. The only misfire has been the pineapple chunks with some dubious gritty sauces on top. I'm still not a fan of East Asian cuisine in general, but this is a winner.
Cancún Taqueria	Mexican (taqueria)	Allston btw Shattuck/Fulton, Berkeley	2005-12-30	8
Here I have had an unimpressive, expensive burrito that seemed curiously empty somehow, and nachos made with bad chips.
Addis	Ethiopian	Telegraph & 61st, Oakland	2005-12-22	8
I really like Ethiopian food, so it's tempting to give any Ethiopian restaurant at least a 5 right after digging in. This isn't bad, but I've had better, and the glacial service — it looked like one person was covering the entire restaurant — was a serious negative.
Loard's Ice Cream	Dessert (ice cream)	regional chain	2005-12-22	8
Decent ice cream, I guess.
Real Ice Cream	Dessert (ice cream)	El Camino Real & Calabazas, Santa Clara	2005-12-09	11
This Indian ice cream shop offers many unusual flavors and a few usual ones concocted for a different palate from that the supermarket brands aim for. Interesting but not really worth a special trip if you're not in the neighborhood.
Taqueria la Bamba	Salvadoran (taqueria)	Old Middlefield & Rengstorff, Mountain View	2005-12-08	8
I found a web site giving the burritos here a 9.88 out of 10. That strikes me as about 6.88 too high. Underdone tortilla, blah mix of cold fillings.
Stan's Donut Shop	Donuts	Homestead & Layton, Santa Clara	2005-12-07	8
Significantly better than Happy Donuts, but still, just donuts.
Taqueria Can-Cún	Mexican (taqueria)	Mission & 19th, San Francisco	2005-12-06	11
I am getting the sense that actual Mission burritos are not for me. Can-Cún supposedly has the best vegetarian burritos in the Mission, and the one I got was better than the one from El Farolito, but c'mon, it was worse than Chipotle and Chipotle's a chain. The flaky tortilla was an interesting change of pace, but not as good as a steamed one. The mix of fillings was okay but somehow less than the sum of its parts.
Tart to Tart	Dessert (bakery)	Irving btw 7th/8th, San Francisco	2005-12-03	8
I got two muffins here. The first was coconut, and it was good but a little over-sweet. The second was chocolate cream cheese, which turned out to be stuffed with filling like an enormous Hostess Ding Dong. One-word review: cloying.
Planet Juice	Smoothies	regional chain	2005-12-02	11
Decent smoothies, with a surprisingly rare create-your-own option.
La Mediterranée	Mediterranean	chain: San Francisco, Berkeley	2005-11-28	11
I am used to having to get a plate of hummus and baba ghanoush at places like this, and I was considering doing so here until I noticed a more interesting plate further down the menu. So I got a plate of little phyllo bundles stuffed with cheese and spinach and such... and came away feeling an awful lot like I'd just eaten a plate of hummus and baba ghanoush. I dunno, I guess I find eastern Mediterranean food kinda samey.
Cicero's Pizza	Pizza	Bollinger & Miller, San Jose	2005-11-21	8
This is pizza of the "small fried disc" school, like that served at the pizzeria within walking distance of my old place in Massachusetts. Of course, even though it was only a couple of blocks away, I only went to it once, which tells you something.
Happy Donuts	Donuts	chain	2005-11-21	5
I went here because I was still hungry after the pizza and had read that this place had been declared by one newspaper or another to have the best donuts in the Bay Area. If that is true then I guess it means that I think all donuts are gross, which is entirely possible.
La Canasta	Mexican (taqueria)	Buchanan & Union, San Francisco	2005-11-17	5
The vegetarian burrito was a big tube of refried beans and rice in a dry, powdery tortilla. Friendly service, though.
Tabla	Indian	Pimlico btw Santa Rita/Brockton, Pleasanton	2005-11-11	5
"I've been to Tabla next to Trader Joe's," wrote one reviewer. "It's wonderful, comparable to any of the places in the South Bay." I misunderstood. I thought he meant the south end of the San Francisco Bay. But based on the navratan korma with its limp vegetables and dull sauce, I have to assume the Bay in question was Hudson's.
Jackson Fillmore	Italian	Fillmore & Jackson, San Francisco	2005-11-09	11
Pluses: very quick service, an interesting menu (I got penne with avocado and almonds), and the food is almost as good as my own, which is saying something where pasta is concerned if I do say so myself (though the credit goes to Jack Bishop). Minuses: it's not quite as good as what I make and I wouldn't charge myself sixteen dollars after tax and tip for a bowl of pasta.
Fat Slice Pizza	Pizza	Telegraph btw Durant/Channing, Berkeley	2005-11-08	2
I think I heard somewhere that this place was just another branch of Blondie's, yet I always found it to be significantly worse (and that's saying something). It sure was worse this time. I threw out my slice after eating about 1/3 of it.
Ryowa	Japanese (ramen)	University btw Shattuck/Milvia, Berkeley	2005-11-07	8
I guess I'll give this one a blue rating because I can't say that I rue my decision to come here, but I am really thinking that East Asian food may just not be for me. The noodles were fine, and the broth was acceptable, but the various sprouts and seaweeds and soy products in my ramen were just not to my taste.
Sweet Adeline	Dessert (baked goods etc.)	Adeline & 63rd, Berkeley	2005-11-03	8
I got some cocoa-covered hazelnuts here that were too overpowering and a mini cake that was uninteresting and dry. But maybe I just made bad selections.
I.B.'s	Sandwiches (hot)	Durant near Telegraph, Berkeley	2005-10-22	9
I went to this place a lot when it first opened fifteen years ago. I always got a plain cheesesteak, sometimes with mushrooms, but never with lettuce or tomato or onions or condiments or any of the other things that would have livened up the meat and bread. "Someday I'm going to make you a real sandwich!" insisted the girl who worked there. Fifteen years later, I am finally ready for all the stuff I used to leave off — the only problem is that I don't eat steak anymore. So, just to get some closure, I went in, I got a veggie sandwich (mushroom, avocado and bell pepper instead of steak) with all the trimmings, and it was quite good and unmistakably an I.B. hoagie. But it's entirely possible that I will never get another.
Michelle's Yogurt & Sweets	Dessert (ice cream etc.)	Durant near Telegraph, Berkeley	2005-10-22	11
This place serves Bud's Ice Cream, which is pretty darn good. But I remember when it was Christopher's and had even better ice cream and wonderful cookies. What happened to Christopher's?
Golden Lotus	Vietnamese	Franklin & 13th, Oakland	2005-10-21	11
Now that I am back on the Pacific Rim I would like to try to develop a taste for East Asian food, which I generally don't much care for. This all-vegetarian place seemed like a reasonable place to start, since I could try things without worrying about what they were made of. To start I got the banh xeo, a Vietnamese crepe; the crepe itself was delicious but it was wrapped around a blob of fake pork and bean sprouts the size of a football. I quickly ended up eating around the filling. Then I had spicy garlic green beans with tofu. I dunno. I know people who go crazy about the sauces at Chinese and other Asian restaurants but they just don't do much for me. All in all it was a pleasant meal but I'm still not a convert.
Blackberry Bistro	Breakfast/lunch	Park & Wellington, Oakland	2005-10-20	14
This looks like it's primarily a breakfast place, but I came at lunch and got some grilled polenta with zucchini slices and cheese, topped with herbs and some very good tomatoes (even in late October — man, it's good to be back in CA), all served on a bed of black beans. This is what I call a highly acceptable lunch.
Fentons Creamery	Dessert (ice cream etc.)	Piedmont & Entrada, Oakland	2005-10-20	11
Fentons (apparently with no apostrophe) has been operating in Oakland since the 1890s but has aimed for the 1940s in its current incarnation. If you are in the area and looking for a much-too-large sundae, this would be a good candidate.
Taqueria Los Pericos	Mexican (taqueria)	Pelton Center & 14th, San Leandro	2005-10-19	5
I kind of liked the vibe of this place — apparently it's where a lot of the local Latino high school kids come to grab some chow, listen to the jukebox, play video games and flirt with each other, like an updated version of a malt shop on a 1950s TV sitcom — but the food was not so good.

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