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!

Telegraph District in Berkeley

After we digested our Fried Chicken Sandwiches, we moved on from Oakland to Berkeley. Jono hit up a bunch of music stores, while Kelly and I meandered our way down Telegraph Avenue. Which offered us a bunch Hippie stands selling jewelry on the sidewalk and stores to shop at-high lights include Avant Card (a store that is best described as a card art gallery). When we were done window shopping we wandered around the UC Berkley campus until Jono called us to meet up.

Raleigh's Pub

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We decided it was time for a drink so we headed to Raleigh's pub and discovered they had a beer garden-just like in Munich! Okay not 100% like in Munich, but they call it a beer garden-so it still counts. Raleigh's has a "Kill the Keg" special after 5-a pitcher of the beer of the day for $11. So for research purposes we had to partake..

Jono and Kelly @ Raleigh's Pub

When we got halfway through the pitcher, the beer garden experience became complete with our own set of Germans. About five seconds after they were seated at the table next to us, we all us just started cracking up without explanation. This hysterical laughter continued for about 10 minutes and was made worse every time those silly Germans got in bilingual debates. I can't stay how the food is because we were there to quench our thirst-I guess I'll just have to return....after 5 o'clock to catch that special of course!

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.

This is a Grown Up Apartment

Like all baby birds it was time for Jono and I to fly away from the nest. When baby birds are ready to leave the nest they imitate their parents and fly away, if they don't leave the nest of the their own free will their parents kick them out of the nest to fend for themselves. I'll give you one guess as to which "bird" Jono was and which one I was. We decided to live in Emeryville because it was close to the bridge for me to go into San Francisco and it was close to Jono's work. Our apartment is really awesome, we live above great shopping, have a swimming pool and gym. I'll post pictures soon.