Cuisinett interior

French food tends to have the stereotype of being pretentious, formal, and expensive. But the owner of the newly opened Cuisinett in San Carlos, Geofforey Raby, and former Executive Chef of Menlo Park’s shuttered Marche, Guillaume Bienaime, want you to believe otherwise.

“The kind of food we serve here is the kind my Mom would make,” says Raby. “I’ve been working in restaurants since I was 15 in Lille, France. I've learned that there's importance to making people happy. But there's a fine line between being attentive and being annoying. I wanted to create a casual, family-friendly restaurant with beautiful, simple design and great quality French food at a good price.”

Coq au Vin with Buttery Peas, Carrots and Pearl Onions

They call it “French Comfort Food,” and their main focus is to change the common perception that French cuisine is stuffy and complex. Think Pasta Pomodoro or Crepevine. “We wanted things to be understandable and uncomplicated. We’re not doing extravagant plating here. We want you to have the food you order from cashier to table in 10 minutes without compromising quality and taste.”

Enter Chef Bienaime. The two met in May through a mutual contact in the restaurant industry. Chef Bienaime spent over seven years at the acclaimed Marche, two of those years heading up the kitchen before it closed earlier this year. So why would his next project involve a casual restaurant that doesn’t even have waiters?

“For me, it’s an opportunity to do something new. There are some very old school menu items like Coq Au Vin that are very difficult to cook quickly. So it was a challenge for me to do something more contemporary with these dishes while maintaining their classic quality. The more I got into it, the more I believed in the concept,” recalls the Chef.

“Marche went through a bunch of phases. It started as a casual concept and got more and more complicated through the years. So when it closed, I had the desire to approach more people with my food,” says Chef Bienaime. “What I love about cooking is how it makes people happy. I’d rather make more people happy than less.”

Despite being open for a relatively short amount of time, the Chef’s confidence in his dishes shows. They’re solidly delicious and are expertly, albeit simply, prepared.

Diners can chose from a variety of side dishes like french fries, sautéed spinach, or buttery peas and carrots. The specialty of the house is their Roasted Chicken, which you can have with a mushroom or mustard cream sauce, or in the style of Coq au Vin. It doesn’t disappoint with its moist meat and buttery flavor. The sauces are rich, distinct, and tasty without overpowering the chicken’s flavor.

Moules Frites w/White Wine, Shallots and Herbs

The most popular dish on my multiple visits, however, seemed to be the Moules Frites (Mussels with Fries) with shallots, white wine and herbs. The Chef uses Mediterranean mussels which are bigger, plumper, juicier and sweeter, and were cooked to perfection. There wasn’t a rubbery mussel in the bunch. And the accompanying french fries were perfectly golden crisp and tender inside. This was a straightforward yet wonderfully executed dish.

Ratatouille

For vegetarians, their Ratatouille is quite good and is served with a simple salad of mixed greens. The buttery Parmesan breadcrumbs on top contrast nicely with the nutty, toasty flavor and the mix of yellow and red bell peppers, various squash and eggplant make for a hearty dish.

“French food isn’t just centered in Paris bistros, so we’ve divided France up into 6 regions. Now people can see the different varieties of food there are in France,” says Raby.

With the restaurant now open and the menu developed, Chef Bienaime doesn’t plan on being in the kitchen on a daily basis. However he’s constantly adjusting the existing menu and plans to add more items for children. In the future, he will serve as culinary consultant and head of operations.

It’s their hope to create multiple locations over the next few years. And in the shorter term, Chef Bienaime is hoping to entertain the idea of having some special 6-course reservation only dinners for about $100 per person on Sundays, since they’re not usually open that day. They’ll also be offering a Family Meal for four people that’ll include a whole roasted chicken, choice of sauce, two sides and a baguette for under $30 that people can take to go.

“Guillaume is about serving fantastic food, I’m about helping to creating the experience,” says Raby. “It’s like Starbucks. There have always been coffeehouses, but Starbucks they worked on the experience. To a certain extent, that’s what I want to do with French food and make it and experience that’s accessible.”

And Chef Bienaime agrees. “I believe more and more in the concept every day.”

Cuisinett
1105 San Carlos Ave., San Carlos
(650) 453-3390
Mon-Sun, 11am-9pm, Lunch & Dinner Service
Dine-in or Takeout available
Facebook: Cuisinett
Twitter: @cuisinett

Guests and host Leslie Sbrocco taping episode 611 of Check, Please! Bay Area at KQED. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

Check, Please! Bay Area Season 6: episode 11 airs Thursday October 20 at 7:30pm on KQED TV 9. View other airtimes and channels.

You can watch individual restaurant segments as well as view the entire episode online. The website also provides restaurant information not specified on the show, written reviews from the guests and restaurant recipes. If you have opinions on the restaurants featured please feel free to share your thoughts. This season, Leslie Sbrocco will be sharing wine tips with each episode.

The eleventh episode of the season features these restaurants: Café Aquarius (Emeryville), Tanguito Argentinean Grill & Empanadas (San Francisco) and VEGA (San Francisco).

Leslie Sbrocco: Wine Tips -- Pairing Dessert Wines

When it's a beautiful, summer-like Friday night in October, it's probably one of the most challenging times to try and get a table anywhere in the Marina without a reservation. But while some folks are willing to stand in line and wait for hours for the new iPhone 4S, I was committed to getting into the new location of Umami Burger, the famed mini-empire from Los Angeles. As I'd never had the opportunity to try one of their much-ballyhooed burgers down in SoCal, I was looking forward to finally sampling their fare. They had opened their doors on October 7, much to the delight of the Bay Area foodie crowd which has already packed Yelp with their reviews with its first week.

I rounded up some fellow colleagues from KQED (one who jokingly refers to herself as a "meatoutatarian," which means she'll only eat red meat when out dining) to join me in line. I'm glad I had the company of my colleagues as the wait was long: over an hour and a half long. Granted, as mentioned before, it was Friday night and the hype factor was in full effect, but some seating snafus at the front of the house had our party of three overlooked and not called when we were next in line. The hostesses were cheerful for the most part -- as cheerful as they could be while wrangling the horde milling about the front door -- and we were finally seated in the back of the restaurant. (If you're a lucky duo, you'll get one of the sidewalk tables that's out front while this lovely weather lasts.)

The Union Street location of Umami Burger is housed in the former location of Jovino. (According to one of my KQED colleagues who lives in the neighborhood and had dined their regularly, they were also known for their excellent burgers during its run.) The interior space itself has a spare, Asian aesthetic with wood accents and muted colors. The noise isn't overpowering, even when packed to full capacity was it was tonight.

After we settled in, our server asked if this was our first time dining at the restaurant, then gave us an explanation of the meaning of "umami" and their mission statement. We ordered an array of burgers to share: the Greenbird ($12), the Umami Burger ($11), and their priciest, most decadent item, the Bacon-Wrapped Scallop Burger ($15, topped with crispy pork belly and only available at this location). I was curious about their Cali Burger and its "house-made American cheese," and apparently there's some cheese alchemy involved as they create their own special blend of cheeses in the kitchen (which are not made from scratch). Sides are ordered separately, and during our wait I had spotted other diners eating tater tots. Our server explained that these "cheesy tater tots" were now a secret menu item since they often sold out but were available for the asking. We ordered those along with a side of truffled cheese fries.

The fried items arrived first, and we dipped them into the Asian soup spoon filled with their house-made Umami ketchup. They were both delicious, especially the tater tots, which were crispy on the outside and the texture and flavor of creamy mashed potatoes on the inside. Later on we also asked for their complimentary jalapeño ranch sauce (which wasn't really appealing to any of us as it was reminiscent of cheap nacho chips) and the garlic aioli (fantastic).

Then the burgers came shortly thereafter, and they were impressively plated on large white dishes with a "U" stamped on top of their brioche-like buns. The medium-rare, juicy Umami Burger was definitely our favorite, as the shiitake mushrooms, caramelized onions, roasted tomato, parmesan crisp, and umami ketchup toppings delivered a wonderfully savory combination as promised.

Bacon-Wrapped Scallop Burger on the left, Umami Burger on the right.

I was partial to the Greenbird next; the Shelton Farms turkey had been seasoned with a blend of spices that made it taste unlike any other I'd ever had. It was truly original and delicious, and accompanied with avocado, green cheese (more house-made cheese magic from the kitchen), butter lettuce, green goddess dressing and sprouts. My colleague was curious about these sprouts as they had had black seeds; our server had assumed they were alfalfa sprouts, but after some inquiries were made to the kitchen it was determined they were onion sprouts.

Sadly, I wasn't as impressed with the Bacon-Wrapped Scallop Burger, which had two lean slices of somewhat tough pork belly dressed with a sweet chili sauce and yuzu-garlic aioli on top of the scallop patty (which reminded me more of a fried egg than scallops). The blend of flavors just didn't match up to the Umami Burger and I was disappointed with the quality of the pork belly; I'll have to try it again in the future to see if it holds up on another occasion.

Although we were stuffed, we ended our meal with one of their house-made ice cream sandwiches as the peanut-butter cookie made with salt-and-pepper ice cream (the flavor of that day which are rotated regularly) piqued our curiosity. The cookies were quite crisp and thus made it difficult to share (I think it's better as a solo dessert) and the ice cream had a vinegar tang to it instead of a peppery quality we were expecting. Not outstanding, but definitely not the main draw of the restaurant, either.

So did I find it to be worth the wait? Yes, although I probably won't head back anytime soon unless it's during the presumably quieter hours of the weekday. And our bill ended up at $34 each (we'd also ordered one drink apiece), so it's not like a cheap run to In-N-Out. But I'd love to try some of their other items off the menu, especially the Cali and Veggie Burgers, which are only available at the Union Street location. If you don't have the stomach to wait for too long, walk up to the bar and order to-go. We saw one lucky resident who lived right next door walk in, pick up his order and slipped right back upstairs for private dining in his apartment.

Umami Burger
2184 Union St at Fillmore map
415-440-UMAMI
Twitter: @UmamiBurgerSF
Facebook: Umami Burger
Hours:
Sun-Thurs: 11AM-10PM
Fri and Sat: 11AM-10PM

Guests and host Leslie Sbrocco, having fun taping episode 610 of Check, Please! Bay Area at KQED. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

Check, Please! Bay Area Season 6: episode 10 airs Thursday October 13 at 7:30pm on KQED TV 9. View other airtimes and channels.

You can watch individual restaurant segments as well as view the entire episode online. The website also provides restaurant information not specified on the show, written reviews from the guests and restaurant recipes. If you have opinions on the restaurants featured please feel free to share your thoughts. This season, Leslie Sbrocco will be sharing wine tips with each episode.

The tenth episode of the season features these restaurants: La Mexicana Restaurant (Oakland), Kabuto Sushi (San Francisco) and Pazzia Restaurant & Pizzeria (San Francisco).

Leslie Sbrocco: Wine Tips -- Making Vinegar from Leftover Wine

Gosh the Brits know how to do misery, don't they? Miserable weather, miserable class distinctions, miserable food, circa 1960s at least. (The Anglophiles among us need not get their knickers in a twist: Word that there's now fab fare to be found in Britain has leaked out.)

But the grim, gray food of an earlier generation is on full display in the autobiographical film "Toast," based on the memoir of the same name by popular English cookbook author, food writer, and TV show host Nigel Slater. (Regular readers may recall a recent review of his latest tome, Tender, an homage to the humble veg, in a delightful Stephanie Rosenbaum post.)

There's no sugar coating it: Slater's early years were incredibly sad and lonely. The untimely death of his beloved mother, a simply awful cook who adored her boy and he her. Her only culinary saving grace: Toast with lashings of butter served up for dinner after another canned-food failure. Slater had a difficult relationship with his father, who made cheese sandwiches for days on end after the death of his wife. Something of a bully, the father also made it clear his son was a huge disappointment to him. Add to this equation the evil stepmother, played with trollopy gusto by Helena Bonham Carter, who wormed her way into their lives, first as an obsessive cleaner and then with her culinary (and, we're given ample evidence to believe, sexual) prowess.

The woman may have been cheap as chips but she knew how to cook -- and bake. Oh my, that lemon meringue pie!

In the film, with screenplay by Lee Hall who wrote "Billy Elliott," the adolescent Slater (Freddie Highmore) is locked in a culinary clash with his despised stepmother for the attention and affection of his father. He loses, of course, and blames his stepmother for the early death of his father. Moviegoers will get the sense she literally fed him to death; the cakes, pies, and roasts just keep coming out of the oven.

Victoria Hamilton as Nigel's mother and Oscar Kennedy as young Nigel Slater.

The role of food in families -- as both a comfort and a weapon -- is at the heart of this movie, which makes great use of the anguished music of Dusty Springfield for its soundtrack. Dinner time in the Slater household was a desperately unhappy affair. Still, the young Slater finds refuge in food, sneaking cookbooks under the covers to read up on recipes, excelling in his Home Economics class, and triumphing over his stepmom by perfecting his own lemon meringue pie, which pops off the screen as a bright yellow gelatinous mass with a mound of white peaks expertly browned on top.

As in many children's fairy tales, his stepmom also provides his liberation: Following his father's death he simply walks out of her life and flees to London, where a future in food is his for the taking, and he never sees her again.

In a sweet end note, Slater appears in a cameo as himself, reassuring his younger self, who is desperate to find a kitchen job (at the Savoy Hotel, no less) that everything will be fine.

Fortunately for the food world, it is. Slater is the author of ten books, many bestsellers, including Real Fast Food, Appetite, and The Kitchen Diaries. A food columnist for The Observer for almost two decades, Toast the memoir, which won several major awards, including British Biography of the Year, began marinating as a column.

Ken Stott as Nigel's father and Oscar Kennedy as young Nigel Slater.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the adult Slater is not fond of fussy food, he prefers simple suppers made with care and thought, using quality ingredients. And despite his upbringing, he believes that making something good to eat for yourself or for others can lift the spirits in the way little else can.

(In an interesting twist, the daughters of Slater's now deceased stepmother denounced his portrayal of her in the British press earlier this year. The very different accounts of their childhood years serves to remind us that every person's version of the truth can vary wildly. On this much, though, all parties seem to agree: Slater's early years were full of rejection and loss. Indeed the subtitle of his book "A Boy and His Hunger" is both a nod to his need for real, nourishing food and genuine, nourishing love.)

When asked what's missing from the movie, Slater responds without missing a beat: The sex. "Toast is a sexy little book, there's a lot of adolescent sex in those pages and they form an integral part of the story," he said in an interview yesterday. "It doesn't really matter in the movie but honestly I would have liked to have seen a bit more of it. "Toast" was made for prime-time viewing in Britain at Christmas, and I think they wanted a film that the whole family could watch, not something adolescent boys might squirm at."

The movie only hints at the teenage Slater's emerging sexuality; it reveals his crush on a family gardener and a first kiss in the woods with a local boy.

Fans of the food writer's memoir should not hold their breath for Toast: The Second Slice. Here's why: "I'm a very private person and tend to keep to myself, in part because I don't think I'm that interesting," Slater said. "That memoir was the most intimate of memoirs and to this day I don't really know why I did it. But I was writing as a little boy and I was somehow able to differentiate it from my adult self. I stopped at 18 and I've protected myself ever since, I went back into my shell."

There's more. "In practical terms, if I were to do a second book, it would be more a conventional memoir," he said, adding, "and I'd have to write about other people's lives, people who are still alive, and I don't want to intrude on their privacy."

At a time when many of us wax on about the pleasures of the table (this writer included), "Toast" reminds us that food can cause major misery in many people's lives. Audience goers will likely find themselves reflecting on their own childhood food memories while watching the film. Thankfully, this being a decidedly British film, there's a lot of black humor amid the sorrow.

Just as well, too, because this writer, who wanted to rush home and bake her teenage son a cake after seeing the film, found herself wincing at the pain of it all at times.

"Toast" opens in Bay Area cinemas this Friday.

Guests and host, Leslie Sbrocco taping episode 609 of Check, Please! Bay Area at KQED. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

Check, Please! Bay Area Season 6: episode 9 airs Friday October 7 at 1pm and 8:30pm on KQED TV 9. View other airtimes and channels.

You can watch individual restaurant segments as well as view the entire episode online. The website also provides restaurant information not specified on the show, written reviews from the guests and restaurant recipes. If you have opinions on the restaurants featured please feel free to share your thoughts. This season, Leslie Sbrocco will be sharing wine tips with each episode.

The ninth episode of the season features these restaurants: Pork Store Café (San Francisco), Pizzaiolo (Oakland) and Zarzuela (San Francisco).

Leslie Sbrocco: Wine Tips -- What to do with Leftover Wine

When a world-famous and beloved chef gathers together sixty years of the recipes he "love[s] the most" and stuffs them in a hearty cookbook that measures two inches thick, it's time to make room on the bookshelf. This fall Jacques Pépin publishes his newest cookbook, Essential Pépin, and gives his hungry fans over 700 of his favorite recipes culled from his six decades as an apprentice cook, professional chef, and cooking school teacher.

Always the perfectionist in and out of the kitchen, Jacques didn't go easy on himself when putting this book together. In his introduction, Jacques admits that he could have simply sent off all 700+ recipes to be published with no additional changes, however, he instead decided to reconsider each one and "adjust, correct, and retest [them] for a modern kitchen to make them usable, friendly, and current for today's cook, while retaining the spirit and flavor of the originals." Essential Pépin is essentially Jacques, and the recipes reflect his life in food from the fanciest French dishes to the homiest American comfort foods to his personalized approach to "fast food" cooking.

I don't know what Jacques' original recipe was for Onion Soup Lyonnaise-Style, but this one did me just fine on a pre-Autumnal evening. As I swim my way through a practically tangible haze of slowly simmering onions and browning mountain cheese, I will say that I wish Jacques had been a little more specific about what port is "sweet port." To me, all port -- ruby, tawny, vintage -- is fairly sweet. It's not like sherry where one is clearly sweet and one is clearly dry. I went with ruby for this recipe, but might try tawny another time just to experience a taste comparison. Also, I didn't use canned stock. What with all the scary news about what is going on with canned foods these days, I buy cartons of stock not cans. Of course, that's an even better excuse to make your own stock, which is Jacques' primary suggestion.

Onion Soup Lyonnaise-Style

Serves 6 to 8

15-20 slices baguette, 1/4 inch thick
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 medium onions, thinly sliced (about 4 cups)
8 cups homemade chicken stock or low-salt canned chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 cups grated Gruyère or Emmenthaler cheese
2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sweet port

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Arrange the bread slices on a cookie sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until browned. Remove from the oven and set aside. (Leave the oven on.) Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the onions and sauté for 15 minutes, or until dark brown.

Add the stock, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes. Push the soup through a food mill.

Arrange one third of the toasted bread in the bottom of an ovenproof soup tureen or large casserole. Sprinkle with some of the cheese, then add the remaining bread and more cheese, saving enough to sprinkle over the top of the soup. Fill the tureen with the hot soup, sprinkle the reserved cheese on top, and place on a cookie sheet. Bake for approximately 35 minutes, or until a golden crust forms on top.

At serving time, bring the soup to the table. Combine the yolks with the port in a deep soup plate and whip with a fork. With a ladle, make a hole in the top of the gratinée, pour in the wine mixture, and fold into the soup with the ladle. Stir everything together and serve.

I also tried one of Jacques' pita pizzas -- the one with red onion, tomatoes, Herbes de Provence, chives, and Gruyère cheese -- and it's definitely something I'm going to try out on my toddler. In fact, my husband was so taken with the pizza that I had to make another one right after we scarfed down the first one. I was out of tomatoes, so my second rendition was done up with slices of red onion, Herbes de Provence, chives, Gruyère, and a handful olive oil-dressed watercress I tossed on the pizza after it came out of the oven.

If I recall from my work on More Fast Food My Way, Jacques' pita pizzas are part of his "fast food" oeuvre, and clearly the onion soup smacks of his classical French background, so I decided to round out my Essential Pépin sojourn with his roast chicken recipe, a classic American entry.

My experience with this recipe was somewhat rocky. While I loved Jacques' tip about not covering the finished chicken with foil (because the steaming that ensues makes the chicken taste reheated), I did struggle mightily to keep the stubborn bird on its side during part of the roasting process. I ended up lacerating one of the drumsticks during the balancing act, but since the drumsticks go to my toddler, it wasn't a huge loss.

As my husband and I stood over the warm chicken, tearing off crispy skin and strips of juicy breast meat with our fingers, he mumbled through a mouthful, "Best roast chicken you've ever made." I then whisked some Grey Poupon into the pan of unstrained juices, warmed it slightly, and poured it off into a bowl. We continued feasting, this time dipping our fingerfuls of chicken into the sauce. In this book, there's Jacques the Chef.

I leafed through the rest of the book, scanning other recipes, and suddenly realized I wasn't even reading the recipes because I completely enthralled by the illustrations. In this cookbook, there's no glossy photography showing rivulets of garnet juices running down a slice of steak, no crooked fingers of steam rising from hot-from-the-oven rolls, there's just a gratin pan here, a curly head of Boston lettuce there, an occasional plump chicken pecking in the dirt -- all lovingly rendered in watercolor by the chef himself. In this book, there's Jacques the Artist.

Early in the book is a 3-page "General Information About Eggs" section, which is seeded with smidges of new-to-me information. Here Jacques shares a great tip about freezing individual egg whites in ice cub trays and how raw unbroken egg yolks should be covered with cold water for optimal refrigerator storage. However, the egg tip I find most fascinating is the idea that it's not it's necessary to bring eggs to room temperature before whipping up their whites. The master chef's opposing opinion is that the texture of egg whites is "tighter, smoother, and better if the egg whites are cold, even though the volume after beating is slightly less." Tucked among the 700 recipes are other snippets of advice, like how to make your own proof box for baking and ways to improvise your own fish smoker out of an old pot or roaster and a screen.

The next recipe I'm most looking forward to trying is the Grilled Squid on Watercress. Grilled squid is a dish I always order (sometimes in multiples) if I see it on a restaurant menu, but I've never had sufficient courage to try at home. With Jacques by my side, guiding me through each step, I think I'll finally be able to attempt it. In this book, there's Jacques the Teacher.

Packaged with the book is a 3-hour DVD of Jacques' techniques, which really deserves its own review. The very first technique Jacques demonstrates is the proper way of tying your apron to insulate yourself against burns, and attaching your towel to your apron for attractiveness and ease of retrieval. Genius. There are other worthy techniques, of course, and some are difficult -- making butter roses and gilding them with paprika for color -- and some are easy, like peeling broccoli stems for cooking.

Also not to be missed is KQED's 26-episode TV show, Essential Pépin, which starts airing on October 15th. KQED's specially designed website will feature 2-4 printable recipes from each episode along with delectable photographs of the finished dishes. The website also enables you to watch full episodes online a week before they air on TV.

In under a month, newcomer Local Cafe is already charming Piedmont Avenue neighbors and luring Oaklanders for a morning coffee or a quick bite to eat. Owners Megan Burke and David Crombie joined up with Colin Etezadi, formerly of Boot and Shoe Service, Pizzaiolo and Camino, to craft a menu that is seasonal, well-crafted, and relies on many local ingredients and products.

For breakfast, they serve drip coffee and espresso beverages from Graffeo along with fresh-squeezed juices, housemade granola, breakfast sandwiches, toast and INNA Jam, and pastries from Starter Bakery. I have yet to get over there in the morning, but I've heard rumors that the espresso drinks alone are worth the jaunt. I can attest that this is certainly the case with the salads and sandwiches.

Interior of Local Cafe

When you walk in for lunch, you're met with warm, modern decor (think Adesso with a cooler color palate), oversized lighting fixtures, chalkboard menus and a lovely community table. Walking up to the register, you'll see a cold case full of fun bottled beverages including lemonades, root beers, small bottles of Dr. Pepper and juices and teas. We were seated and given paper menus although I noticed a few couples ordering right at the counter, so it looks like it could go either way depending on how busy it is at the time.

Cheese Platter at Local Cafe

We began with a few housemade iced teas and the Cheese Platter which featured fresh pears and a few different kinds of soft cheeses. I have to say that I do like a firm salty cheese with my pears as well; this would be a nice addition. Other than that, the pears and cheeses are accompanied by thinly sliced, toasted bread and it makes for a nice nibble while you're waiting for your lunch to arrive.

Chef's Salad

My handsome dining partner and I split the Chef's Salad and the Egg Salad Sandwich served on an Acme roll. I always associate Chef's Salads with bad, corporate cafeterias but I hadn't tried one in so long and it was the most substantial salad on the menu so we went for it. The lettuce was nice and crisp and the salad itself was lightly dressed and seasoned. This is a good one to split with someone in conjunction with another dish--I think on its own it might be a little on the not-all-that-special side.

Egg Salad Sandwich

The Egg Salad Sandwich, on the other hand, veers to the other end of the spectrum: it is a very special sandwich. So often the problem with egg salad sandwiches is that the eggs can be over-boiled and turn into a crumbly mess only held together by gobs of mayonnaise. Not at Local Cafe. Here the eggs are soft boiled and mayonnaise is used only sparingly. There are capers and watercress and great crusty bread. While I did share this sandwich, I probably wouldn't again--it's one you're going to want to enjoy all on your own.

After lunch, there are a few cookies and simple desserts along with Tara's Ice cream. When we were finishing up lunch, we asked about the root beer they sold and how sweet it was compared to more commercial root beers. Co-owner David Crombie was working the register and checking in with his customers but he took the time to actually pour us a sample and chat about our favorite brands. It's apparent from the beginning when we walked in and were greeted quickly by the inviting interior and the friendly waitstaff that this was a promising spot on Piedmont Avenue. It became even more apparent as we were leaving and chatting with David about soda, sunshine, and Oakland in general. Isn't this how all good lunches should end?

Local Cafe
4395 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland CA
(510) 922-8249
Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 7am-3pm

Guests and host, Leslie Sbrocco taping episode 607 of Check, Please! Bay Area at KQED. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

Check, Please! Bay Area Season 6: episode 7 airs Thursday September 22 at 7:30pm on KQED TV 9. View other airtimes and channels.

You can watch individual restaurant segments as well as view the entire episode online. The website also provides restaurant information not specified on the show, written reviews from the guests and restaurant recipes. If you have opinions on the restaurants featured please feel free to share your thoughts. This season, Leslie Sbrocco will be sharing wine tips with each episode.

The seventh episode of the season features these restaurants: The Peasant & The Pear (Danville), Spork (San Francisco) and Ristorante Ideale (San Francisco).

Leslie Sbrocco: Wine Tips -- Wine Gadgets

Check, Please! Bay Area Season 6: episode 6 airs Thursday September 15 at 7:30pm on KQED TV 9. View other airtimes and channels.

You can watch individual restaurant segments as well as view the entire episode online. The website also provides restaurant information not specified on the show, written reviews from the guests and restaurant recipes. If you have opinions on the restaurants featured please feel free to share your thoughts. This season, Leslie Sbrocco will be sharing wine tips with each episode.

The sixth episode of the season features these restaurants: Rhea's Market and Deli (San Francisco), Sauce (San Francisco) and the girl and the fig (Sonoma).

Leslie Sbrocco: Wine Tips -- Think About Texture when Pairing Food + Wine