Adventures with Kelly Part 1: Bakesale Betty in North Oakland's Temescal District

What's a girl to do when she has no idea where to get good food or ...well anything in the East Bay? This girl calls in the expert. My cousin, Kelly, has been living in Oakland for about two years now and graciously offered to act as our tour guide in this strange new land. She texted me Sunday morning to grab lunch, Jono and I were craving sandwiches and she offered up Fried Chicken Sandwiches @Bakesale Betty. While we were hoping for a good old fashioned turkey on dutch crunch, we decided to let the expert chose-even if we were a bit skeptical.  When in the Oakland.

Lunch Rush @Bakesale Betty

Outdoor seating

According to its website Bakesale Betty was founded by Australian, Alison Barakat, in 2002 after she finished her stint as a cook at Chez Panisse Cafe in San Francisco. We arrived at Bakesale Betty, in the middle of weekend lunch rush. There was about thirty people in line and happy customers eating their sandwiches on the ironing board tables that lined the block. It was a choatic ordering process, but Kelly had it down and we got our sandwiches-now the only trick was finding an iron board to eat on.

Fried Chicken Sandwich

Once we found a board and pulled up some stools, we tasted deliciousness! The chicken had a little spice to it but it was balanced out by what Jono calls the "green lettuce crap". These sandwiches are huge-you could probably split one especially if you want dessert and trust me you do! We chose the Strawberry Shortcake-which was AMAZING!  After that we walked around the Temescal District and go the lowdown on all the restaurants in the area as well as stopped by the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse. Its basically a place were people donate a bunch of old stuff like art supplies and cds for people buy and reuse for art projects or something. It was pretty cool. While we walked around the area, we started a running list of new places we need to check out, like Lanesplitter Pub...which we'll get to later.