Food & Drink Artisans
Finger Food in Four Cultures
Farmhouse Kitchen’s Lao Table engages the eyes as well as the hands. Eat with the Hands for Practical, Intimate, Sensuous Meals By Anna Mindess | Photos by Cynthia Matzger Amod Chopra, owner of Vik’s Chaat in Berkeley, washes his hands and sits down with some guests. His divided metal tray, called a thali, holds a…
Read MoreA Magic Launchpad at Emeryville Public Market
By Alix Wall | Photos by Rachel Stanich The story of how a Cambodian immigrant took her food business from pop up to food-court kiosk to a brick-and-mortar spot named one of America’s best restaurants within a few years has made food entrepreneurs with big dreams take notice. The journey is that of Nite…
Read MoreBeans, Bars, & Bonbons
An assortment from The Xocolate Bar in Berkeley. Read more about the business below. A Glorious Chocolate Adventure By Rachel Trachten | Photos by Jon Milavec Is there any better magazine assignment than the chocolate beat? Well, no, there just isn’t. Before launching our exploration of East Bay chocolate, we turned to Berkeley’s own…
Read MoreTacos in the Alley
By Kai Wada Roath | Photos by Austin Goldin Pleasing aromas drift through the open air down a little alley between storefronts on 40th Street in Oakland, where brightly painted pink, yellow, and turquoise walls lure in hungry customers, much like a newly opened stargazer lily would entice a hummingbird. It’s Tacos Oscar. Open…
Read MoreWine Tasting in the East Bay
New Urban Wine Trails An Illustrated Guide to Some of Berkeley and Oakland’s Hot New Wineries Story and illustrations by Nikki Goddard One of the great perks of living in the Bay Area is the ease of launching a weekend wine country getaway. But if you have only an afternoon and want to spend…
Read MoreMochi!
Mochi by the Bay Wisdom from local masters of the craft Story and photos by Kaori Becker Mochi! Suddenly it’s everywhere. Made with mochiko, a flour milled from Japanese sticky rice, mochi went mainstream with the trend for gluten-free foods. But longtime fans of this traditional Japanese sweet know that mochi is just fun to…
Read MoreFreshCatch
A Harvest from the Garden of the Sea FreshCatch Brings the Watery Sense of Place to Our Plates Story and photos by Austin Price Ian O’Hollaren wades through the intertidal zone south of Half Moon Bay looking for the algae called “mermaid’s hair.” This deep-red, spaghetti-like seaweed, also known as “ogo,” can be eaten raw…
Read MoreCrispy Chicken Legs with Zante Grape Panzanella
Recipe and photos by Christian Reynoso One might think a chef at San Francisco’s Zuni Café would grow fatigued by the long-running marriage of flavors in the restaurant’s iconic roast chicken with bread salad. For me, it’s quite the opposite. Although I taste the dish almost daily for quality control (and snacking), it’s easy to…
Read MoreA Map of the East Bay’s Favorite Asian Noodles
Story By Cheryl Angelina Koehler Illustrations by Margo Rivera-Weiss Good Asian noodles are deliciously easy to find in the East Bay—or so we discovered when our readers offered their favorites for this map. In sorting through oodles of mouthwatering suggestions, we realized what we most needed was some taxonomy and a map…
Read MoreFavorite Scoops of Summer
Illustrations by Margo Rivera-Weiss | Story by Cheryl Angelina Koehler What’s hot with ice cream this summer? Well first, let’s talk about what’s eternal, since a key ingredient in any icy summer delight is nostalgia. Here in the East Bay, we tip our cones to vintage businesses like Fentons (est. 1894), Dreyer’s (1928), Loard’s (1950),…
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