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.

2355 Telegraph Ave Berkeley, CA 94704-1615 (510) 704-4000

Well, I’m here today for my first official day of grad-studentness (for real, this time). Morning was your fairly standard miscellaneous information dispersal exercise: get this account here, that one there, here’s how to get paid, here’s how to register, whatever. After it let out I hit “The Missing Link” bicycle coop for more grocery-toting equipment–hopefully it will be put to good use. Then I set out to find what would be notch 2/100 in my Berkeley eatery belt. I was going to go to Intermezzo Cafe (as suggested by Nicole), but it was swamped for lunch with a line out the door, and I realized I’d been there before with Leslie and Clare. So I hit up a self professed “Health Food Fast Food” place also on Telegraph called “Smart Alec’s.” I got the basil chicken burger combo, which consisted of basil spiced baked chicken, basil mayo, tomato, lettuce, and red onions (I skipped those). It was middling… everything was fresh, but kind of bland and not really remarkable. The fries that came with it were the best part of the meal. “Air baked,” whatever that means, but presumably it would mean that no boiling in oil was involved. The little paper tray liner claimed that someone had voted them Berkeley’s best fries–I don’t think I’d go that far. Maybe the best “air-baked” fries. Anyway, you couldn’t argue with the price: under $6 for the entire combo (sandwich, fries, drink), and that wasn’t the cheapest there. I did walk away with a full stomach but I didn’t feel gross like I’d had a load of fast food, so they did at least succeed there. I’ll keep it in mind for times I’m in the area and short on cash.

2955 Telegraph Ave Berkeley, CA 94705 (510) 843-1992

Yesterday, George and I went up to Berkeley to investigate the local climbing gym and take a class at Berkeley’s only ashtanga yoga studio, with plans to get dinner somewhere afterward.

The climbing gym was very nice. 45-foot lead walls, many, many routes, a complete attached fitness center, showers, everything. Along with the niceness came a nice pricetag: $60/mo. I suppose if I’m able to get down to it several times a week that will make sense for me, but a lower student rate would have been nice. We didn’t actually climb, since there was no time before the yoga class started at 5.

7th Heaven was great. It had all the things yoga studios that I’ve seen in the bay so far lacked. Multiple rooms, nice, hard-wood floors, heaters, a broad selection of classes. The classes run $12 a pop, or $10 if you’re a student. A reasonable discount, I guess… I paid $8/class at Yoga Yoga in Austin. Unfortunately, the ashtanga class we came in for had been cancelled, so we went to a “Vinyasa flow” class instead, which was good, but not quite as punishing as I’d like.

After yoga, wiped out and ravenous, we started trolling around Berkeley for a restaurant. What we found was Ethiopia Restaurant. The place was nearly empty when we walked in, and it never got much fuller. I always feel a little out of place eating Ethiopian, because I seem to inevitably be part of the only white table in the place. Still, the waitress was very nice and conversational, helped us pick something from the menu where our experience flagged, and came back several times to check on us. We ended up with a family-style combination of two combinations: vegetarian and meat. I don’t know exactly what it was called, but it was basically a huge plate with about eight different things on it ranging from mild lentils to spicy red lentils, spicy chicken, cabbage, spinach, and lamb all spread over a giant piece of injera bread. There were no utensils–just an accompanying basket of little rolled-up slices of injera you use (we guessed) to just scoop the different things up, curry-style. The food was delicious. It went across the whole range of spicy to mild, and it all had a slow-cooked taste and heartiness that really hit the spot after yoga. I also tried an Ethiopian Bedele beer, which I’ll just say was yummy because I’m really not qualified to describe beer in more complex terms.

It ocurred to me during dinner that I would probably be eating at many, many different and great restaurants while at Berkeley. So I decided to set a goal: before I graduate, try to eat at 100 different restaurants. And I’m going to try to write a little about each of them up here when I do. So consider “Ethiopia Restaurant” #1 / 100.

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Comments

cameron — 2004-08-02 18:46:08

ooo, a new “topic”

i’m excited about you and leslie coming to texas in around a week! :)

bryan — 2004-08-03 12:01:32

me, too. i wonder if there’ll be anyway to get down to austin while i’m there…

nicole — 2004-08-18 22:30:42

a few MUST-EATS in berkeley: intermezzo cafe (HUGE-ass sandwiches and salads for $5) christopher’s nothing-fancy cafe (shrimp chimichanga. SO good) zachary’s pizza there is a place on college & ashby that is burmese food. i can’t remember the name, but it is yummy, yummy, yummy of course, chez panisse oliveto, for a high-priced dinner truly mediterranian on college also, for amazing ethiopian, the red sea le cheval, for vietnamese (original in oakland) good luck with your epicurian searches.

bryan — 2004-08-18 23:22:40

wow, thanks! I’ll be sure to get by them each. so exciting… are you an alumna?

nicole — 2004-08-19 16:15:56

no, but i worked in berkeley & emeryville for 7 years. so i know the area!