Archive for breakfast

the restaurant at ahn’s burger park

September 18, 2007 at 12:28 am · Filed under american, breakfast, burger

Ahn’s 1/4 lb. Burger
439 Grand Ave., Oakland

photo: M. Sawicki, c. 2002. Courtesy BBG

In high school, BBG and his friends would play wiffle ball at Lake Merritt (who remembers angelfire?). They played on a little grassy patch near Grand Ave. After an afternoon of beaning each other in the head, hitting balls at sunbathers, and generally having some good clean fun, they’d pack up their lawn chairs, score sheets, wiffle bat, and a half a dozen wiffle balls and cross the street to Ahn’s burger.

So as you can see, there’s a bit of personal history here for BBG, and he was particularly excited to take me to the joint. This next bit contains a few inside jokes, sorry.

Ahn’s is 3/4ths of a strip mall front next to Lake Merritt on Grand Ave. The other fourth, if you’re wondering, is a 1-hour photo place that’s never ever open. Ever. I doubt it even exists. I hear it’s a front for cock fighting. Ahn’s exterior probably hasn’t changed since the 70s, along with its menu. You can order off of their small menu from the sidewalk through their small order window, or you can venture inside. There’s a counter and a couple small booths. In general, it’s small and kind of dirty inside, so basically something to avoid. Since you’re literally across the street from the lake, it’s better to walk over there with your grub anyway.

The menu is basic, at best. You can get your usual burger/diner fare: burger, cheeseburger, fries. You can get sandwiches which are probably equally greasy: BLT, chicken, BBQ, or an Ahn-wich (pastrami). Surprise! They have hot dogs, chili dogs, and corn dogs on the menu. There’s also a variety of milkshakes from your basic chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry to your more interesting – boysenberry and pineapple (which some would argue is the third most popular milkshake flavor – I swear!). Apparently you can get breakfast there. Based on what I could see, you can get your standard diner/brunch fare: eggs and breakfast meats, black coffee, and maybe pancakes. That’s admirable.

The burgers are good. Like I’ve said before, when you grind up beef and form it into patties, it’s hard to find fault in it unless it’s really really terrible. Ahn’s is pretty quality and has a nice meaty flavor. Burgers are topped with good ol’ orange American cheese, melted on the patty but not so much that it’s runny or sweaty, which is nice. Condiments include: lettuce, tomato, mayo, pickles, onion, and mustard. Everything comes together nicely, like any quality burger. A bit heavy on the mayo, but not in an overly disgusting way. The veggies are fresh, which is surprising for a hole-in-the-wall kind of place. And I love it when you automatically get mustard on burgers.

The fries are good in terms of texture, but lack a little in flavor. They’re crinkle cut and fried to perfection: very crispy on the outside and mushy on the inside. They come piping hot and with a bit of salt. Sadly, they don’t really taste like much of anything, a sign that they were once frozen fries. I like that they go easy on the salt and then realize they skimp on the salt (they give you extra salt packets) – but maybe going McDonald’s on those babies would make them a bit tastier. Ketchup solved that problem pretty quickly, though.

Although I didn’t try it, I hear the pineapple milkshake wasn’t very pineapple-y. It was like a vanilla milkshake with very few, minute chunks of pineapple at the bottom. At the end of it, the top of the shake was a bit foamy, which tells me it wasn’t a real milkshake. That’s disappointing. Next you’re going to tell me the lemonade is by Minute Maid.

The best thing about Ahn’s is its location. Lake Merritt (despite all the goose poop) is really truly beautiful and a fun place to hang out at. Summer evenings there are the best – as it cools off, people from all walks of life come out and wander around the lake. It’s a great spot to people watch while eating some fries. The geese like the fries, too. Plus walking around the lake a couple times after a meal from Ahn’s would probably do you some good.

The cost ain’t so bad either. Dinner Sunday night for three people was just under $20 (three cheeseburgers, two fries, and a pineapple milkshake). And their turnaround is great. We probably waited 15 minutes for our order, and it looked like there were two orders ahead of us.

The place wasn’t exactly hoppin’, but it was still good times on a nice evening.

Overall: A nice, tasty burger joint if things like your cholesterol and blood pressure don’t matter to you. Sophisticated palates need not apply, just people looking for a good ol’ fashioned fast food meal.

Rating: 6/10

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welcome to japantown

August 22, 2007 at 11:08 pm · Filed under american, asian, breakfast, brunch, hawaiian, japanese, sandwiches, sushi

May’s Coffee Shop08150712352.jpg
Kintetsu Mall, Japantown
1737 Post St. (near Buchanan St.)

So as stated in the last post, I got a new jobbie. Whoo hoo! While I’ll miss working in Chinatown (because, face it, where else will you get a nice lunch for under $1?), Japantown is my new love. I knew going into the area would be dangerous, it always is. You can lose an arm and a leg out there what with the good, expensive food and all the stuff you could buy! Never have I been so sad to have my cell phone – it doesn’t have a place to hook on a charm! And here I am, amongst a gazillion amazing charms. Life is rough.

Anyway, back to the food. Japanese food is a hardcore favorite of mine. When in doubt, Japanese will do just fine. Sadly, it’s almost always pricey. It would be a challenge to find an affordable lunch place…. We’ll see how I fare.

My first day consisted of a tour of the several different office buildings my organization is housed in. On the way from one to another, my supervisor took me on a detour and showed me a few things. We walked by May’s Coffee Shop and it looked less pricey than the rest. Sweet.

At lunchtime, my first official “working” lunch in Japantown, instead of opting for Denny’s (probably the most affordable place in the area, but not, uh, up to snuff for the area), I went back to the mall and checked out May’s menu. Lo and behold – they serve eggs! May’s became my new favorite spot.

The place isn’t really a restaurant.  It’s a little like an eatery with a counter you order at and picnic style tables surrounding it.  It’s nice in that it’s under skylights so it’s bright and sunny.  Not so great when it’s warm out, though.   You get the mall foot traffic walkin by and looking at you, but whatever.  This place is much better than any food court in any mall.  Ok, well, except for maybe the Westfield mall downtown.  It’s quaint and not intimidating at all (compared to the fancy Japanese restaurants throughout the mall).

Let’s back up for just a second. Last week bbg and I went to Mazatlan, Mexico for vacation. While there I had an epiphany: breakfast is my favorite meal. I love scrambled eggs with tons of pepper and a little bit of ketchup. Other than that, who doesn’t love sausage and pancakes and waffles and potatoes and everything else that comes with breakfast? Part of it has got to be sentimental. When I was growing up (and even today, though I don’t live there anymore) my dad would always make breakfast on the weekends. We’d have eggs and fried rice or potatoes and sausage or pancakes or whatever. So it’s a bit nostalgic for me. But seriously, most of it is because it tastes great. And it’s really difficult to mess up, so it’s always gonna be pretty satisfying.

Anyway, so yeah. For just under $5 you can get a combo with the following: eggs how you like them, toast, potatoes as you like them (hash or home fries with peppers and onions) or rice, and your choice of meat (sausage, spam!!, ham, bacon). Pretty amazing, I think, so I order that. The wait is about 10 minutes.

Beyond what I got, there are a variety of other combos to choose from and breakfast is served all day (again, hella awesome). You can order other breakfast items like waffles and omelettes. And of course, there are lunch items, the usual diner fare: sandwiches, salads, and hamburgers. There are Asian things like curries, Asian type sandwiches, hawaiian stuff, different udons, shaved ice (!), and spam masubi! There are specials everyday like spaghetti and stews, so basically it’s pretty hodgepodge (note the plethora of tags).

Like I said before, breakfast is easy, so no big complaints here. It was a bit greasy, so the shop on the whole is more of a diner than anything else. Or I guess coffee shop. Go figure. The eggs weren’t really fluffy, but they were good and cooked well. The home fried potatoes come cooked with slices of bell peppers and onions, which I tend to avoid in general. I tried a couple of the veggies, blah. Skipped the toast and the meat (I wasn’t that hungry), which was probably smart since those items would’ve increased my grease intake. Strangely, I couldn’t find any black pepper around for my eggs. I thought it’d be in the shaker next to the salt, but its contents turned out to be sesame seeds. Huh. Didn’t matter, they had ketchup and that’s just fine with me.

Overall: Probably your best bet in the neighborhood for lots of good-tasting food for a more than reasonable price. The menu’s filled with your basics, plus some Asian stuff, though a little greasy. But hey, I’m ok with that. I’ll be back. A lot.

Rating: 7/10

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sweet or savory, i like ’em all

June 2, 2007 at 5:26 pm · Filed under breakfast, brunch, crepes, french, sandwiches, tea & coffee

Crepevine
*216 Church St. (x Market St.)
624 Irving St. (x 7th Ave.)
2301 Fillmore St. (x Clay St.)
*5600 College Ave. (x Ocean View Dr.), Oakland

*Locations I’ve been to

photo: yelp.com, Oakland location, but they all feature this menu.

I first went to Crepevine because my friend Nancy demanded me to. We went with a group of friends to the one in Oakland, not too far from Rockridge BART. At the time I thought it was a nice little local spot with some good food.

When I moved to the City and started exploring, I discovered a Crepevine on Irving St. and thought to myself, “Hey! They have one in SF, too!” As I made my way to other parts of the City I soon discovered that Crepevine is a small chain, with two additional locations in the Fillmore and the Castro. I felt silly.

But that hardly mattered since Crepevine offers some quality food. The restaurants are usually in busy streets, snuggled between small shops and coffee spots. All of the SF locations make sense: Irving, Castro, Fillmore…. all popular hangouts for city folk, places that you’d probably go to looking for brunch.

Crepevine has a pretty large menu of sandwiches, salads, breakfast foods (pancakes, french toast), and coffees. The draw, though, are its crepes and omelets, so it sells itself as a breakfast/brunch/lunch spot. There are lots of options and the combinations are somewhat predictable for all the food, but I suppose you go with what works. Both times I went I ended up ordering the Santa Fe crepe, and both times it was great.

Crepes come with a side of salad and a large portion of potatoes. The salad is a simple green salad with a light, vinegarette/thousand island kind of dressing that’s good if it doesn’t drench the greens. The potatoes make the meal look good, but fall short of impressing me. The potatoes are warm and soft on the inside, but unfortunately they’re overcooked on the outside, rendering them too tough and chewy. They’re flavored, but it was hard to figure out with what since they had a strange other taste, maybe from the fat or whatever they were cooked with. They’re ok, but I love potatoes and if I couldn’t bring myself to finish this portion, they must not have been so great. What I did manage to eat, I ate with lots of ketchup.

The crepe itself, however, was excellent. The crepe is thin, soft and a little crispy at the edges. The Santa Fe comes with apple sausage, cheese, salsa fresca, and scrambled eggs. Everything inside was well portioned and tasty. The sausage was a nice blend of sweet and salty, very juicy. It mixed well with the cheese. The eggs were also very good and went well with the salsa. Usually I eat eggs with ketchup (it was how I was raised, sorry if it’s strange) and pepper, but since everything mixed so well, I didn’t need any of that, which surprised me.

One of my lunch mates had an omelet and from where I was sitting, it didn’t look that great. I expect omelets to be eggs mixed with its ingredients and then cooked. Apparently here the egg is cooked and the ingredients are folded in, sort of like an enclosed pita. The egg “shell” was thin and wrapped a large serving of spinach and whatever else was supposed to come with it. On the one hand it’s great that the omelet was stuffed to the brim with her favorite things, on the other, the proportion of egg to insides upset me. Maybe I’m just sensitive.

The sweet crepes are difficult to screw up. They serve them large and heavy on whatever it is that makes them sweet: whip cream, strawberries, chocolate, apples and cinnamon, bananas, caramel, whatever. You’ll find the usual sweet crepe combinations here, they all seem good. When I went to the restaurant in Oakland, my dinner mates and I (about 6 of us total) split two of the sweet crepes, and that was more than enough. Very decadent, which is how desserts should be.

The interior is like a large coffee shop, with wooden floors and plenty of tables. You order at the counter and they’ll bring your food to you, so long as they remember to give you your number. Most of the places are on nice main streets, with windows you can look out and people watch. Spacious and homey, a nice place to hang out for some grub.

Overall: Great main dishes, side dishes leave something to be desired. Sweet crepes are excellent. Wide variety, so you should find something you like. Good combinations, nice place for brunch.  But, at $8 a pop, not some place super necessary to visit.

Rating: 7/10

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