2498 Telegraph Ave
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-548-8885
Yesterday, after my IT orientation, George drove up to Berkeley to have lunch. We walked down telegraph again, and this time chose our lunch spot based on a recommendation from someone that George accosted on the street. The place is called “Ann’s Kitchen,” and it looks like it’s been there for a while. It’s a breakfast-all-day+sandwiches kind of place, which usually suits me pretty well, and we were told it was cheap, which is always something I’m in the mood for. I decided not to get breakfast, but instead a BBQ sliced beef sandwich with home fries and lemonade to drink. The sandwich was pretty tasty–much better than what I had at Smart Alec’s. There were no apologies at this place for grease, or pretentions of health food. The sandwich was big, but not filling (for a Bryan). The home fries were everything they should have been, which is to say fried and covered in oil. Yum.
The best part of the meal, though, was the lemonade. I’m an amateur lemonade aficionado, and I like to boast that at the least I can tell if lemonade came from a powder or frozen concentrate. This stuff, though, was clearly the real deal. Lemons, crushed into water, with assloads of sugar poured in. Magnolia Cafe in Austin also has good lemonade like this, but they serve it without sugar, so you have to sit there for five minutes dissolving about a cup of sugar into your glass to reach the diabetic-shock-inducing level required for truly good lemonade. Not at this place. The stuff came sour enough to make even George wince a bit and sweet enough to register on my jaded scale. I’d go back just for another glass.