AHN's Burger

 

 

439 Grand Ave
(between Bellevue Ave & Staten Ave)
Oakland, CA 94610

(510) 763-4328

 

Special Appearance by Kmill

 Where can you get a cheap burger, crinkle cut fries and a corn dog? Ahn's Burger in Oakland! Crinkle Cut fries are my favorite kind of fries-so I instantly loved this place. Ahn's isn't one of these trendy burger joints that have been popping up lately. They don't serve ridiculous sized burgers in a modern dining room-instead they serve up decent sized burgers in a "rustic" setting reminiscent of the late 70's/early 80's. So it's a hole in the wall, but its a good hole in the wall. Its a good place to get a good, greasy, and quick bite to eat 

Me @ Ahns stuffing my face

Did I mention they also have a one hour photo?

Battle of the Bay: Burrito Edition

Taqueria Las Comadres Burrito

First up is Taqueria Las Comadres in the Oakland Hills. This place was pretty good. You order your burrito at the counter and tell them which ingredients you want in it. Its like a Chipotle if Chipotle was run by actual Mexicans. They have other menu items, but the three of us all picked burritos. They were huge and cheap-my two favorite things about Mexican food. They were also really good. Did I mention they were huge? Its like two meals in one-I took half of mine home and had it for lunch the next day-and still yummy.

El Farolito Taqueria 2779 Mission St. San Francisco

Our next contender is El Farolito Taqueria in the Mission district of San Francisco. Jono had been talking about this place non-stop and finally wore me down to make the voyage across the Bay Bridge for a Burrito. Eating here was like being in Mexico, the corner stores sold those wrestling masks and the air even smelled like tacos.  In the front window there is a huge hot plate where they crisp up the tortillas and cook some of the meat. The rest of the meat is cooked on these gigantic grills along the back wall. The entrance is always packed full of people waiting in line to get there burrito.  When we finally got our burrito it was amazing. Jono describe this place as "if the place we went yesterday was a 6 out of 10-this place is an 11" and he was right. I was SO GOOD. What I like best about this burrito was unlike most places when you get avocado in your burrito its actually chunks of avocado instead of guacamole. I have to declare El Farolito the winner for best burrito, but Taqueria Las Comadres was a worthy opponent.

The Sandwich Search Begins....

Jono found his sandwich spot!

Lunch Rush @ Genova

Yummy-ness! Turkey on Dutch Crunch w/extra Mayo!

A sandwich is defined as two or more slices of bread with a filling such as meat or cheese placed between them. Jono and I do not eat just regular sandwiches-our sandwiches have standards-high standards. First they must have the best bread-dutch crunch, sourdough, soft roll-it has to be fresh and taste yummy by itself or the sandwich is going to suck. Next is the different sandwich options the place offers-if they just have the basics that's what you will get: a basic sandwich (there are exceptions to this rule but usually its how it works out). Our old favorite was Traverso's back in Santa Rosa and we're on a quest to find a equal substitute in the East Bay. Kelly told us about this place back when we visited Bakesale Betty across the street. Genova has got the same vibe as Traverso's with the deli inside of an "Italian grocery store" that sells everything from cheese and salads to pasta and panini. We got there around the same time as the lunch rush, so we took a number and waited for it to be called. We each got turkey on dutch with cheese, extra mayo and salt/pepper/oil/vinegar. We grabbed a seat outside and dug in. The sandwich was pretty good. I really wished I got mine heated because I always think sandwiches taste better warm, but it was good-okay it was really good. I think Jon has already been back like 3 times. So if he-the Sandwich Nazi-likes it you know it must be good.

5095 Telegraph Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609-2067
(510) 652-7401

Some Thai Food @ Summer Summer

Jono @ Summer Summer

Crispy Spring Rolls

Jono and I were craving some Thai Food, so we decided to try this restaurant that had a booth at the Framer's Market. Summer Summer Thai Eatery is just a few blocks away from our apartment on this first floor of some office building. The inside of the restaurant is really modern and not decked out with typical cheesy decor. It kind of resembled the set of House, which was funny because they also played the theme song over the sound system.

Drunken Noodles

 We started with Crispy Spring Rolls, because you can always judge a place by its Spring Rolls. The fact that we downed the entire plate in under three minutes, must have been a good sign. We only had half of one left before we remembered to take a picture.  For our main courses we ordered the Pad Thai and Drunken Noodles. We didn't share so I can't say how the Drunken Noodles were-but seeing as there wasn't any leftovers I'm guessing it was just as good as my Pad Thai-which was really good. And not to mention huge, I only ate about a 1/3 and took the rest home. It was good leftovers for the next couple of meals too.

Pad Thai

Summer Summer: 5885 Hollis St Emeryville, CA 94608
510.658.3234

 

Turkey Dinner in Berkeley

Family dinner @ Brennan's in Berkeley

Big Papa trying to decide which sandwich to get.

Open Faced Hot Turkey Sandwich

Brennan's is a old fashioned hofbrau meets sports bar. They are famous for their hand carved sandwich and real Irish coffee. Brennan isn't a sit down restaurant with table cloths and servers, it cafeteria setting. You walk in, grab a tray and watch as the guys behind the counter slice up your meet and assemble your sandwich. I got the Hot Turkey Sandwich, which was basically a small thanksgiving dinner on a plate complete with gravy and mash potatoes-and boy was it good! I think the "holy" rays of light in the picture below is appropriate. Since turkey dinner is my favorite dinner, I will defiantly be hitting up Brennan's very soon-it doesn't hurt that the prices are really reasonable and it has a full bar either. 

Too busy eating to smile for the picture!

Movie Magic in Oakland

Extra Ticket to get on the Moneyball Set

Emily 1 and Emily 2 getting ready to check in

2 hours later-Emily 1 is so over this

Brad's Out There! Emily2 Got So Excited-which is why its blurry!

On Tuesday, my dad told me he heard on the news that they need extras for the new Brad Pitt movie, Moneyball, which was filming at the Oakland Coliseum. Well, he actually told me that there was a Johnny Depp movie filming in Oakland and I figured out the rest from Google. The movie is called  Moneyball, and follows the Oakland A's 2001-2002 season. I guess the owner put together a team on "shoe string budget" by baseball standards, they managed to win the division and set the record for consecutive wins with 20 wins-which still hasn't been beaten. It stars Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.They are filming at the stadium for the next two weeks, and I signed up for Thursday from 4:30 pm to 11:45 pm for three people. I took the "Emily's"-Emily 1 is my friend from high school and Emily 2 is Andrew's sister.  We figured it would be a lot of sitting and standing around but we had no idea what we were in for. It took two hours to get checked in and after that we just sat around in the stands for awhile before we got to see anything interesting. Once filming got started it was pretty exciting-we were filming the scene from the 20th game of the streak when the A's gave up a 10 run lead-in the 9th making the score 11-11-then Scott Hatteberg hits a homer in the 9th and the crowd goes wild-we were that crowd. We filmed the scene were the disgruntled team enters the dugout and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (the coach) gives some sort of "just do it" speech to Scott Hatteberg, who goes out to win the game. I'm pretty sure we are in the shot where he goes to get his bat-we might be a little blurry but we should be there.  I think Emily 1 had enough of all of the waiting and was over it pretty early in the evening, but she got more into it when BRAD and ANGELINA showed up! Brad wasn't filming any scene's while we were there, but he came out and waved to us-just us not the rest of the extras that were there.

Picture of the "Set"

A Beer Tasting @ Pyramid Brewery

Ryan, Me, and Andrew doing our Pyramid Tasting Challenge

The Challenge

After feeding our bellies, we thought we'd wash some of that BBQ down with some beer-so we headed to Pyramid Brewery. Nathan and Rachel took the more sane route of ordering a single beer, while Andrew, Ryan, and I each ordered a flight of beer. Our mission was to sample all the different beer that Pyramid Brewery had on tap, which was 13. It was a tough mission and challenged us-especially when we hit the IPA's. While we didn't take copious notes, I think we enjoyed the Hefeweizen, the Apricot Ale and the cider. There was also one that had essence of chocolate that Miss Rachel loved. They do serve actual food at the brewery and have a brewery tour once a day at 4 o'clock, we missed it because our trip to Lake Merritt took longer than expected-maybe next time....

Andrew, Nathan, Rachel and Ryan @Pyramid Brew

BBQ in Berkeley: Everett and Jones BBQ

Everett and Jones: 1955 San Pablo Ave @University Ave

Inside Everett and Jones #2

Chicken Dinner = Good

Nathan was too busy enjoying his food to stop & take a picture with Rachel.

Everett and Jones was started by Dorothy Everett, her eight daughters and son-in-law (which is where the "Jones" comes from) in 1973. What started off as a small family business has now expanded to four locations throughout the east bay. We hit the second location in Berkeley, which opened in 1974. It's a very basic and some might say "rustic" looking but we hoped that meant the food would be awesome. The inside is just a basic counter and a the back wall featured a menu with a few different options including beef brisket, ribs or chicken. I didn't know what I wanted, so I decided to get the inside scoop from the guy behind the counter. He said his favorite meal was the Chicken dinner-because you got potato salad-so I didn't question the expert and ordered the chicken dinner with Mild BBQ sauce (they have three levels of spice for their famous BBQ sauce: Mild, Medium, and Hot). Nathan and I both got the chicken dinners, while Andrew and Rachel got the beef brisket. We all switched meals halfway through the meal, all of us preferred our original choices to the others but agreed it was some good eats. Seating is limited at the this location so either go on a nice day to eat outside or take it to go- but wherever you eat it make sure you get plenty of napkins! Next time we are going to have to try the ribs maybe at the original location that has live music on the weekends...

Happy and Full Everett and Jones Customers

Lake Merritt

Chapman Gang (Me, Andrew, Nathan, Ryan And Rachel) @ Lake Merritt

Getting ready for adventures @ the lake.

Who knew there was a huge lake in the heart of downtown Oakland? Not I. Jono and I drove around Lake Merritt one night and it looked really cool-so I decided it would be the perfect place to take my college friends who were visiting for the weekend. So first a little history: Lake Merritt is technically an estuary that was formed by creeks and rivers that flowed into the San Francisco bay. In 1870, it became the United States first wildlife preserve and is still home to dozens of different species of birds. It there is a 3.1 mile walking path that borders the lake which covers over one hundred and fifty-five acres of land in east Oakland.

Ryan trying to feed the birds Nathan's Frisbee.

There were quite a few people out enjoying the lake on Saturday walking their dogs and chilling on the grassy areas around the lake. During our jaunt around the lake we discover "the birds of Lake Merritt", which is a large section of the lake where most of the birds hang out. It was like a little zoo for bird-except that they were all wild. There were many different types of birds including the Canadian Goose, the American Coot, Mallard Ducks, Pelican and, of course, Pigeons. If you like birds then you should defiantly bring some old bread to the lake to fee the birds, I didn't know there would be so many birds so we were breadless. :( We tried to get the birds attention by pretending that we had food for them, they did not appreciate that very much.

Ryan, Me, Andrew and Nathan exploring the Bird Habitat

Rachel, Nathan and Ryan getting ready for the kayak adventure.

Taking a break from rowing to enjoy the view.

We could walk around Lake Merritt any day, but it was such a nice day in Oakland that we decided to explore by sea...or by lake? Whatever-we rented some Kayaks for $10 and paddled our way around the lake. We paddled around the lake for about an hour listening to Pandora on the droid and trying to push the other boats into the fountains. And ended our time on the lake with an epic race to the buoy-Andrew and I dominated! I'm definatly going to spend a lot more time in the Lake Merritt area. I still have to walk around the other half of the lake, maybe do a pinqic or thing. There's also a really cool Farmers Market next to an old movie theater and some good restaurants I want to check out.

The Buoy Race Champion!

E'ville Farmers Market

Jon @ E'ville City Hall

So Jono can officially say he has been to a Farmer's Market and I can officially say that he is the worst person to go to a farmer's market with. He doesn't like fruits or veggies so it's not really his thing, but he was a good sport about it. It was small as farmer's markets go, but it had a lot of veggies. There were a ton of tomatoes and blueberries, as pictured. I sampled some blueberries and bought a pint thinking they would be a healthy snack. Even though I'll probably just make blueberry pancakes and smoother them with syrup defeating the whole "healthy" concept. The one other thing I bought at the Farmer's Market was two chocolate chip cookies from The Bread Project. The lady at the booth told me that The Bread Project is a school that teaches culinary skills to people from low-come neighborhoods to help them find employment.  At the fair they were selling bread, cookies, brownies, and pie. The cookies were pretty good-but you definitely want to eat them with a big glass of milk. 

                                 

Emeryville Farmer's Market : 

Every Thursday: Noon - 5ish, Haven Street just east of City Hall, 1333 Park Avenue

Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe

Jono and I decided to be adventurous last Thursday and go to the E'ville Farmer's Market. Before we hit the market we decided to grab lunch at Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, winner of the Best in the East Bay: Best Diner award, featured on Dinners, Drive-ins and Dives and late night E'ville hotspot (that's open til 1am!).  Rudy's is co-owned by Mike Dirnt the bassist/back-up singer for Green Day and gets its name from a song off of the Clash's London Calling album. It might not look like much on the outside-but don't judge this book by its cover-the food is delicious, if you can decide what to order. They have every-salads, sandwiches, burgers, daily specials and breakfast is served all day.

Jono trying to figure out what to get @ Rudy's

We decided to stick with what they were famous for and get burgers. Jono ventured outside his comfort zone tried the Cajun Burger, and I decided to go outside the box with a classic burger with topped with Goat Cheese. I know a cheese burger might not sound exotic-but have you ever thought to put goat cheese on a burger? I haven't and I love goat cheese so I had to try it.

Classic Burger with Goat Cheese

Me, the Cajun and the Classic

And it was incredible! I don't know how to describe it but it gave the burger a completely different taste. It was super good. Jon said his Cajun burger was "bomb" too. We were stuffed but we HAD to try the dessert that we saw on the way in. Jono tricked me into ordering apple pie thinking we'd split it, but then he blindsided me and order chocolate cake. His evil plan was to get me to order my own so I couldn't eat any of his dessert...The cherry pie was really good-it needed some ice cream to get a super good. I can't say how the chocolate cake was because Jono didn't share. Lets just say it was a good thing we were going to walk to the farmer's market because we ate way too much at Rudy's...so much for the gym. We'll probably be heading back to Rudy's very soon...

Jono with the dessert and he's not sharing!