Went to lunch with the progeny at Homeroom. Old school mac n' cheese with a hipster twist. It was delicious! The $10 mac n cheese will definitely fill you up. Don't forget to try the homemade oreos.
Rosamunde’s Sausage Grill
Contrary to popular belief, Gertrude Stein did not disdain Oakland. Her so often repeated (and misquoted) line “there is no there there” was not an indictment of our city, but an observation made in painful nostalgia that the Oakland of her childhood (and her childhood home) no longer existed. The rural Oakland (pop 35,000) that she left in 1891 had given way to an urban Oakland (pop 300,000) when she returned in 1935. But her actual meaning doesn’t matter. The saying so perfectly represents the dichotomy between the perception of Oakland and the reality. To outsiders Oakland is either a thug ...
Trueburger
“Have you found my husband’s body yet?” my grandmother practiced saying in Spanish on her third day alone in the desert. She was in a VW bus in Baja. When it broke down my grandfather rode off on the 90cc Honda dirt bike across the sand dunes to look for help. At the time she was practicing her morbid Spanish, he was waiting for auto parts on the laid back schedule of a small Mexican town. The note he’d written and given to a crop duster to drop to her had (predictably) not made it into her hands. They were adventurous people ...
Grand Lake Kitchen
Getting knocked unconscious is (ironically) the most memorable experience I’ve had on Grand avenue. I woke up on the pavement after a car driving next to me honked so loudly that I swerved into a parked car and flew off my bike headlong and headfirst into the street. I was 12. No one stopped. Likely concussed, I rode home anyway. Later that day my mom yelled at me and my dog bit me. That’s the stuff of country songs right there. That was the summer I was taking sailing lessons on Lake Merritt. In those days, in the late summer and fall ...
Wood Tavern
In 1980, I had breakfast almost every day with the Moonies. I was a high school dropout with a 10 speed bicycle, a couple of pairs of jeans, and no prospects. I’d roll to College Ave every morning for my croissant and latte at the Aladdin restaurant, which everyone knew was run by Moonies. I resisted invitations from the (unpaid, we later learned) glassy eyed servers to come for dinner and indoctrination. I was only there because they had an espresso machine. Tres hip in those days. My job at the nearby gourmet sandwich shop (Curds and Whey, for the OG ...
Bocanova
Sunday brunch in Jack London Square at one of my favorites, Bocanova. This is how we do summer in Oakland. Coffee, bikes and good food. It doesn't get better than this!
Mijita
When it comes to me and fish tacos it is not the pursuit of happiness but the happiness of the pursuit of the best version that makes my lunch hour fun. I'm always looking, no matter what side of the bay I'm on. In the East Bay, my current favorite is at Tacubaya. But if I'm at work in SF, I'll walk down to the Ferry Building at lunch to Mijita. I feel so lucky to be able to walk to such a beautiful place for lunch (a place that is a vacation destination for people from all over the ...
Town Hall
Lunch and happy hour at Town Hall in SOMA.
Bar Cesar
We whiled away a very pleasant afternoon at Bar Cesar on Cinco de Mayo.
Wayfare Tavern
When I was a kid, I was constantly killing off my parents. Well, not killing them maybe, but definitely disappearing them in my mind. It's not that they were terrible parents (they weren't). It was just that I really wanted to be an orphan. I was a voracious reader and I loved books about orphans (The Secret Garden, The Little Princess, Jane Eyre, The Jungle Book). Something about coming from no family and finding the exact life you were meant to live (the common theme) was so appealing to a lonely only child like me. Anyway, astute readers will notice and ...