A Weekly Guide to Local Food News
Fri, Apr 17
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Westward expansion is the name of the game for two longtime East Bay restaurants. In this week’s East Bay Express WTF, May Seto Wasem discusses the opening of her and her husband’s third restaurant in Noe Valley. And I’ve started an email exchange with Grégoire’s Chef Jacquet. Since 2002 he’s been making those très magnifique potato puffs in Berkeley. We’re planning to talk this weekend about the restaurant’s brand new location in the Inner Sunset. I’ll say potato; he’ll say pomme de terre.
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TART TO TART
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Customers get three egg tarts per order at Dim Sum Best of Taste. (Photo by Henry Rubin)
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SOME MORE DIM SUM
Dim Sum Best of Taste’s menu includes a modest yet familiar range of dumplings, wontons, spring rolls and buns. Supplemental specials are written in colorful chalk on a sandwich board. It’s one of several small takeaway spots randomly planted around Alameda. Dim Sum’s location is in the middle of a busier block on the part of Webster Street closer to Crown Beach. Inside, there are a few tables but they feel more like tables to sit at while you’re waiting for the kitchen to wrap up your order. It’s a great place to get a real meal deal. Three bbq pork buns and an order of three Portuguese custard tarts both came in at $6.49 each. The beverage menu is very colorful with all kinds of boba drinks, smoothies and fruit teas.
Dim Sum Best of Taste, 1540 Webster St., Alameda; order.toasttab.com/online/dim-sum-best-of-taste-1540-webster-street.
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A bell jar protects all of the pretty desserts for sale at Le Carousel Patisserie. (Photo by @jsedalatpour)
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THE CIRCLE GAME
Every Sunday from 9am to 2pm, Le Carousel Patisserie is one of the many vendors at the Kensington Farmers Market (it’s asparagus season!). Chef Jeremy Mullet and his wife Claire started their bakery as a pop-up. They recently moved into a small shop inside the Tilden Hotel in San Francisco but continue to pop-up around the Bay Area. In addition to croissants—plain, chocolate and raspberry-filled ones in the shape of bow ties—the chef also makes elegant little tarts and cakes protected from the elements by bell jars.
Kensington Farmers Market
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CRIMSON AND CLOVER
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SPICE GIRLS
Diaspora Spice Co.’s Sana Javeri Kadri and Asha Loupy talked about the recipes in their new cookbook, The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook, on last week’s Good Food with Evan Kleiman. Headquartered in Oakland, the company partners with Southeast Asian farmers to distribute their spices. Diaspora Spice prioritizes “flavor and aroma over size, yield and color, ensuring our spices are the most delicious on the market.” Javeri Kadri and Loupy posted two of their favorite recipes from the cookbook on the KCRW site. Look for singju, a Manipuri cabbage salad, and a fava bean chutney.
The Diaspora Spice Co; diasporaco.com.
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COOKBOOK WEEK IN SAN FRANCISCO
Next week from Tuesday, April 21, through Saturday, April 25, San Francisco will be hosting many cookbook-related events. They’re listed in three categories: Dinner Series (Diaspora Spice Co. at Foreign Cinema on 4/23), Book Talks (Queer Voices, Bold Flavors on 4/23) and Community Events (Milk Bar Pop-Up on 4/24).
Cookbook Week
WINNING
I recently stumbled across the new season of Top Chef by accident. Nothing in my doom-scrolling habits had suggested that a new season was underway. Instead, I’ve been inundated with endless images of brides and grooms. The algorithm mistakenly believes that I’m obsessed with rural wedding venues in Utah and Texas, and their wedding photographers. Has my phone been hacked? The Bravo (such a misnomer) show is now airing its 23rd season. Whatever magic it once possessed has been baked, fried and sous-vided into an endless recapitulation of leftover ideas. It’s also harder to connect to a season that doesn’t have any Bay Area chefs. Last year, I was rooting for Anya El-Wattar who left the competition early due to her pine needle ice cream and a sea buckthorn cake. The most interesting episode so far in this season challenged the chefs to make main dishes out of Southern side dishes such as okra and collard greens. But the frantic chaos and clatter detracts from the end results. Several Bay Area chefs have left the realm of that particular TV reality with name recognition—Melissa Perfit, Monique Feybesse, Stephanie Izard and Tu David Phu—so the show has done some good for our local food economy IRL.
FOOD & MUSIC
Several nights a week Room 389 hosts a Food & Music night. Tonight’s pairing is Pho Vy and @chungtech; Saturday night: Jhenifer Ricaurte’s Colombo-Filipino fusion cuisine @jadelumpiabar and Backroom Disco; Sunday night: Bar Chisme and Vinyl Sunday.
Room 389, 389 Grand Ave., Oakland; @room389.
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—Jeffrey Edalatpour 🍴
About me: Eating food in the East Bay since 1991. Writing about food for EBX since 2020.
Feedback, tips, culinary suggestions or questions? Feel free to reply to this newsletter at your leisure or at a leisurely pace.
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