Thursday, April 26, 2012

American Oak

Barceluna basically rebranded itself to the new name of American Oak.  It just re-opened not too long ago. I am not sure if Alamedans have caught on yet.  The new tag line of the restaurant is a Whiskey Bar with Rad Food specializing in wood oven pizzas.  I know that great pizzas can be produced from the wood oven because I use to buy pizzas all the time from Lucien when he owned Luciano's.   I am sure East End Pizza Co. is watching and waiting.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Poutine

I love poutine.  Poutine is a fancy French Canadian word for french fries with cheese curds and gravy on top.  The caveat is that the gravy must be a beef based brown gravy.  Americans have picked up on this Canadian dish and is now selling it in different places around the bay area.  My first notice of poutine was at the Salt House in San Francisco.  Their version was a little too heavy on the salt for me (hence the name of the restaurant).  However, I was blown away when I saw it on the menu board at Scolari's.  Initially they called it fries with cheese and gravy and somewhere down the line they picked up the Canadian term and now use it.
Scolari's does a decent job on the poutine even though they technically don't use the cheese curds.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Cafe Jolie Experience

The former Tillie's diner had a face lift inside and out and it's now a beautiful space.  The outdoor seating along Santa Clara is great for sunny days.  The interiors have complimentary light blue and cocoa colors with a French inspiration decorum.  There are plenty of delicious baked items to select from and it's difficult to not order all of them such as the croissants, cakes, cheesecakes, and beignets. Yummy!

Cafe Jolie has been extremely busy and lines are out the door.  I couldn't even get in during a week day lunch  period.  Thank goodness the business owners brought there ideas and inspirations to the West End because the area certainly needed it.