Bakesale Betty's - 5098 Telegraph Ave

Sweet Jesus, I thank you for bringing this establishment into the world. Good God, how did I live this long without that Fried Chicken Sandwich being just down the street?

I love this place. And I'm not particularly into pastry or baked goods, but my God I will eat them here.

The reason I came to Betty's was to try the Fried Chicken Sandwich. It's a huge sandwich double-stacked with perfectly crispy, seasoned fried chicken breasts on a fresh-baked roll, and the only other ingredient is a delicious, crunchy spicy cabbage slaw that is mercifully mayonnaise free.

This sandwich is awesome. In fact, I just ate one. Mmmmmmm.

Betty's has the best apple pie I have ever had in my life, and I even eat the crust. Normally I hate crust; not her crust. Another standout is the date cake with delicous rum butter sauce that you heat up and dump over it. We found ourselves eating this sauce with a spoon, and I'm not ashamed of it.

Other standouts: the ginger cookies, the scones, and the banana bread.

Everything's great here, with a single exception: if you like traditional egg salad, you might not like this one: there's no mayonnaise (woot for mayo-haters like me) and it's simply a ton of fresh eggs and arugula. I personally like this sandwich, but I can't imagine bothering when a fried chicken sandwich is there.

What we've ordered: apple pie, pecan pie, lemon-curant scones, apricot almond scones, pear ginger scones, date cake with butter rum sauce, fried chicken sandwich, egg sandwich, ginger cookie, blueberry pie
Other things they've given us to try: lemon ices, banana bread, strawberry shortcake, brownies
Service: super friendly local hipsters
Atmo: nouveau urban hipster bake shop - the tables are made out of ironing boards
Crowd: The neighborhood + the in-the-know-non-neighborhood
Spent: it varies - we always leave with something free, so there's that
Overall rating: 5 enthusiastic sporks

Extra bonus points for using the chicken and the egg in the 2 sandwiches offered...

At some point I will try the chicken pot pie, and I'm guessing I'll rave about that too.

The other nice thing about Betty's is the vast amounts of free food handed out by the ever-cheery staff. I got an entire free pie at Christmas, and today we went in for a sandwich and some scones and walked out with a slice of banana bread, 2 lemon ices and a strawberry shortcake.

And oh Lord, that strawberry shortcake was good. And another thing I don't generally eat. The banana bread isn't greasy, and was so good we actually bought a whole loaf.

So beware: do not go to this place if you're dieting. Somehow, you always leave with more than you planned to get.

Betty also gets extra bonus points for wearing a bright blue wig and her baby in a sling around the joint. It's nice to see a funky young gal make a go at something she loves to do, and it's clear that everything Betty's offers is a house specialty.

So yes, I hella heart Bakesale Betty's. May she do this for the forseeable future so that I might never go without a Fried Chicken Sandwich.

Rico's Diner - 400 15th St - Oakland, CA

We didn't know what to expect when we hit Rico's Diner.

We knew that the folks on Yelp liked it, and we knew that the gravy was supposed to be good.

In fact, the entire reason we decided to stray from Telegraph (other than the fact that we wanted breakfast) is that my Partner in Chow was seriously in the mood for some biscuits 'n gravy. And it's hard to find good biscuits 'n gravy, even in Oakland. Or at least we thought it might be hard, not knowing where to find them. And so, with the help of the Yelpers, off to Rico's we went.

I figured this would be a run-down, questionably clean downtown locale full of locals. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to find it recently remodeled with clean lines, nice tile and clean modern tables.

I was even more pleasantly surprised to find that, despite this being a true diner with a true diner menu, the bread is organic and there's an entirely separate vegetarian/vegan menu. This means that your veg friends can come to this diner and actually order a faux pork sandwich, rather than getting a cottage cheese and tomato plate. So Rico's gets extra bonus points for catering to the urban renewal that downtown (and the newly christened "Uptown" - ah, realtors and developers and your clever marketing ploys) is experiencing.

Which is to say that the loft communities springing up down Broadway mean an influx of yuppie and hipsters that want good food. And Luka's is both expensive and not open for breakfast on Saturdays.

Anyway, once we went in I was pretty happy with our surroundings. Note: you seat yourself and order at the counter. And they only take cash, so be forewarned.

What we ordered: Mexican egg-white omelette with a side of veggie sausage, biscuits and gravy with 2 scrambled eggs and bacon, 2 coffees
Service: friendly
Atmo: nouveau diner - they took care in redoing this place
Crowd: Hipsters + the neighborhood
Spent: $20
Overall rating: 4 sporks

This place gets extra bonus points for a focus on quality ingredients in basic diner food, as well as for cool and clean decor. The bathroom was even clean, and the tile and groovy metal sink show an attention to detail.

The good: The food was a notch above usual diner food. The omelette was well executed and full of vegetables, and the gravy was incredibly rich and definitely satisfying for someone with a hankerin' for good old fashioned biscuits 'n gravy.

The less good: The breakfast potatoes were too fried for my taste, but I'm all about protein in the morning anyway. PIC was "afraid" of her scrambled eggs, because they were "too yellow." They tasted good, but she was afeared anyway. We're not sure whether it's fair to ding them for that - they may have been just super farm fresh. Or they may have been nuclear. Who knows?

The coffee was good, hot and plentiful. Mmm. Coffee.

The other upside: this place is cheap. Cheaper than the Rockridge Cafe or Mama's, and the food is as good or better than both of them. Plus, you can't find that kind of gravy (or any, as I recall) at either location. And there was no wait. And they serve breakfast all day. And they have both cheesesteaks and meatloaf on the menu, which means we'll be back at some point to try these diner classics.

I talked with Rico himself about some awesome hand-painted signs I found upstairs while waiting for the bathroom. They're rad mid-century diner menu signs that were there when he took over the place, and we both agreed that they'd look awesome in a house kitchen. He told me that he's been running the place for about a year.

Nice guy, nice place. Go eat there.

But don't tell too many people. Waiting 45 minutes for brunch drives me up a wall. ;)

Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen - St. Helena, CA - 5/2008

It seems that the lunch crowd at Yelp is disappointed by Cindy's in recent reviews; we however went for dinner and weren't disappointed whatsoever. It should be noted, though, that some wine tasting and the fact that we were staying down the street meant that we were feeling... festive... and the 1/2 bottle of Conundrum did help us maintain that nice Napa Valley warm fuzzy feeling.

Cindy's got immediate bonus points for a nice patio where we sat under a fig tree. Also bonus points for two busboys that were so attentive that we ended up tipping them as well. But I'm skipping ahead.

The bread here is warm, fresh and awesome. I love good bread and it's a detail that really shouldn't be overlooked by any higher-end restaurant serious about impressing its diners.

We started with the rabbit tostada. This was absolutely delicious and lacked any lettuce - all cabbage means no sogginess from the black bean chili layer. It also means that you don't get the full irony of eating a rabbit *and his evening meal, so perhaps this is a way to subconsciously remove the diner from thoughts of eating the Easter Bunny. (No carrots in this salad either.)

In any case, mmm. Black beans in mole-type sauce = yum. And the tostada piece itself held up to the beans and dressing. Yay.

We then moved into eating game birds - my Partner in Chow (PIC) had quail and I went for the oven-roasted duck.

We were told that Giada deLaurentiis had the duck when she dined at Cindy's. This brought up the unwelcome image of Giada (and her boobs), both of which annoy the holy bajeez out of me - and I've tried so hard to like her being Italian myself and all, but watching her whine her way through the "Iron Chef" battle and then roll her eyes after Rachel Ray and Mario Batali whomped on her and Bobby Flay was the last straw. And I don't care if you speak Italian, your over-enunciation of every goddamned Italian food word is irritating and unnecessary and hearkens back to that old SNL skit with Jimmy Smits and Kevin Nealon... "You mean a tornado?..." Work with me here, Giada. Just tone it down and make it about the food, not about you. Sheesh!

Oh dear, I've been distracted. ARGH Giada.

In any case: I had the duck despite knowing that Giada had reviewed it, and that her review would invariably annoy me and lead me to wish I'd ordered something else. The duck was oven-roasted, not greasy at all, and delicious. There were two big leg pieces and some sort of mashed potato cake that was sinful and probably full of cream and butter. Yum.

The quail, though, was the standout. PIC did a little puppet show with her quail (ah, Conundrum) and had the little body dancing around the potatoes when we realized that the busboy was laughing at us - but in a nice "that girl may be crazy, but she's entertaining" kind of way. PIC enjoys eating things that were once cute (lamb, duck) and quail definitely fits. (Note: she doesn't eat them because they're cute, mind you. It's a coincidence that leads to a guilty conscience and not much meat eating.)

In any case: the quail was fantastic. Not super filling - quail are wee - but there were 2 of them and that's twice as many as you'll get on a plate at A Cote. The potatoes that came with the quail were kinda boring and a couple were undercooked, but the quail itself was great and I was sharing my potato cake.

If you're really hungry, get the duck. Or something else. But if you haven't had quail and you're not starving, go for it.

At this point we were stuffed and could eat no more, though the waitress brought me guava sorbet because it was my birthday.

Would we eat there again? Sure. There's only so many times one can eat at Market or the Rutherford Grill, after all.

Eating up... everywhere

The Eating up Telegraph project is what started it all.

Well, maybe that's not entirely the case. What probably started it all is Little Joe's, which my great-great grandfather started back in 1908.

The restaurant was an L.A. institution until my Dad (and Uncle Bob a'course) decided to shut down in the late 90's - as Uncle Bob put it, "We've had a good run - no need to ride it until the wheels fall off."

The downside of the restaurant shutting down: I was unable to become a twentysomething restaurateur, which had been the eventual plan. (Assuming they'd retire and leave it to me/my cousins to run - all those long hours of wearing a ridiculous VonTrapp Family Waitstaff uniform complete with nylons - eek! - had been due penance, after all.) The upside: I moved to Northern California and landed in the Internet industry. And that's been a fun ride. And I got a "Little Joe's" tattoo, so hey - there's always something there to remind me... (warning: earworm alert.)

And yes, the part about the tattoo is true. No, I won't show you a picture - I dropped my pants at a family reunion to prove that I had this tat enough that I started to feel like I was at a [insert state/region with vaguely believable incest claims here] wedding. But I digress...

Growing up in a restaurant family replete with noisy Italians meant an appreciation for food (and the lively conversation/celebration that surrounds it) from an early age. It also meant that I was able to be an adventurous diner from day 1 - which made one of us, since my sister ate spaghetti and steak and chicken and that was about it.

I was always willing to try new, unpronounceable things (saying "calamari" is hard when you're wee) - if just once. The glaring exception here is the Durian fruit, which once made its way home with me and had to be summarily tossed once we split it open and it smelled like a just-found mob hit after a week in sweltering summer sun.

Which is to say it stunk. But I digress. Again.

Anyway, I like to eat. And living in San Francisco and then Oakland have afforded me no lack of awesome restaurants. So one day, after realizing the tendency to hit the same establishments over and over again, an idea was born: eat from one end of Telegraph Avenue to the other in the spirit of discovering, through food, a reflection of the various neighborhoods that this Avenue bisects. Food doesn't have to be fancy to give you a great dining experience. It's all about what you're looking to experience. And eat.

And so I convinced my Partner-in-Chow to do that project with me. But in the meantime there's so many other restaurants and other food adventures that hit the radar, and it seemed silly to shelve writing about those just because these adventures weren't occurring on any of the many eating thoroughfares we'd decided to hit at some point.

So we figured we'd start a main foodie blog to talk about any food topic that doesn't fit within the "Eating Up [insert street here]" projects.

And that is this blog.

If I can ever figure out how to permanently put links to the other blogs in the right-hand nav, I will. Otherwise, the naming convention is: eatingup[street].blogspot.com

If you need to reach us, that's easy. Take the spaces out of eat up eat well at g mail dot com - we'll get back to you. Maybe. If you're not screeching at us for something.