Phat Matt’s BBQ is an Oakland favorite for the quality and variety of smoked barbecue served. It’s a family-run restaurant, the type where the owners are happy to guide you through the menu of six standard meat preparations. A rotating special appears every week — it’s smoked pastrami according to their website right now,
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I know very little about Tibetan Buddhism, except that I love their beautiful prayer flags. Is it any wonder High Peaks Kitchen catches my eye every time I walk down College Ave? As the menu explains, High Peaks Kitchen is owned and run by Tibetan exiles who learned how to cook a diverse range of
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I’ve been eyeing this little corner spot since it opened in the home of a former bakery about 2 months ago. I love banh mi, so I was excited to have somewhere serving it that I could easily walk to from home. Inside are just a counter, kitchen, two tables, and a painting, so it’s
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Ah, it feels good to write a restaurant review! I’ve been so focused on wine following the annual Wine Bloggers Conference that dining and dishing has been low on the blog priority pole. So I’m happy to be back with my thoughts on an Oakland foodie landmark: Bakesale Betty. I expected to blog about this
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My next Localwise blog post is up! On the menu this time? Different types of burgers to be found in the North Oakland area. Your teaser: North Oakland has as many different types of hamburgers as there are cravings for them. Any burger lover knows an upscale restaurant’s offering is a different creature than what
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A few weeks ago, I promised you a more intensive–dare I say sneakier?–sneak peek into Oakland’s the Hive development. Over at Localwise, I wrote a quick article summarizing all the retail businesses onsite, but I took a lot more pictures than the published ones, and they’re sure to entice you in.  And what better time is
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Darling readers, I neglected to inform you that I had a new Localwise post go up a couple of weeks ago! I guess that’s what happens when you’re traveling the majority of October…oops. This one is all about the retail businesses now opened and opening soon at Oakland’s newest redesigned city block, the Hive. I
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In case you missed it, my next post is now live at the Localwise community blog! This one is on cheese shops in the Elmwood, Temescal, and Rockridge neighborhoods, which just so happen to be the closest neighborhoods to me…okay, they are conveniently the closest neighborhoods to me. I am blessed with amazing cheese options
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  Grocery Café has been receiving a lot of press lately, so I was thrilled when one of my Meetup groups announced a lunch meeting there. It’s a Burmese restaurant tucked away on a corner in the Clinton neighborhood of Oakland. First thing you notice coming in is a giant bush of Carolina reaper peppers—
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It’s been a year since I undertook my quest to try all the mac & cheeses on 7×7’s list of the best in the Bay Area. I haven’t regretted a moment of this carb-slurping, dish-sharing, cheese-inhaling adventure. My friends, and long-suffering husband, who’ve joined me for most of these nights out, may hold different opinions… …Naw. Who
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