So, I’m in the East Bay on a Saturday morning with my family for hockey practice in Oakland.  Unfortunately, my practice was canceled last minute. The one-hour drive up there might have been a total waste, but luckily, we decided to spend the day in Oakland and Berkeley and enjoy some delicious East Bay bites.

The East Bay dining experience is diverse and delicious.  The first spot for breakfast was Saul’s Restaurant & Delicatessen, a Jewish deli, on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. Saul’s serves all kinds of food I’ve personally never heard of.  The breakfast menu had a ton of tasty options, but I was bummed out because they only start serving pastrami at 11 AM and it was like only 9 or so when we arrived.  I was really craving some pastrami too.  Also, there are a lot of breakfast options involving fish which is not my favorite thing to have for breakfast (or really ever).  So, I’m looking at my options: Kippers (translation: fish), a bagel with lox (also fish), and a ton of other fishy items.  I’m sure they’re all good but I was sweating it since I really am not big on seafood.  However, I was saved by the Deli Hash at the bottom of the breakfast menu.  The hash consisted of salami, corned beef, and pastrami served with poached eggs and toast.  It was basically a bowl of tasty meats topped with eggs and served with bread, which is right up my alley.  When it arrived at our table, I was in awe of its meaty glory.  The pastrami, corned beef, and salami were blended together to form sort of a singular entity of saltiness and meatiness, and the eggs made it even better – like eggs do with all dishes.  I can’t really name anything off the top of my head that eggs wouldn’t improve.  I’ve never had most of those meats outside the context of a sandwich or served with poached eggs breakfast-style, so it was unique and delicious.

After that, our next stop was the East Bay Vivarium off of Fifth Street in Berkeley.  The Vivarium has nothing to do with food, but it was pretty cool and worth mentioning. The place had some pretty insane reptiles to say the least.  If you want to see a lizard that’s the size of a medium dog, they have like three of those.  In addition to the gigantic lizards, they had a variety of snakes, turtles, smaller lizards, and mice. Although, I don’t think the mice were on display and they were probably living in (what I would assume) Mouse Hell looks like since it was certain they would eventually become some scaly creature’s lunch.  The Vivarium is definitely worth checking out and – speaking of lunch – I was suddenly hungry and ready to eat again.

The next food stop was the Ramen Shop in Oakland on College Avenue.  The Ramen Shop had won us over after we read the description of their Duck Shoyu Ramen on the online menu.  I personally have never heard of duck broth in ramen, but it sounded enticing.  We ordered that, the crispy potatoes, the Hokkaido Miso Ramen, and I had their Cure All drink.  The Cure All was served hot and consisted of lemon, ginger, honey, turmeric, chamomile, a stick of cinnamon, and some other stuff.  I don’t know what exactly the health benefits of any of those ingredients are but just hearing that there could be benefits made me feel good.  Plus, it was actually pretty tasty.  The Duck Shoyu checked off all the boxes for great ramen: salty, uniquely duck-flavored, with a slab of pork belly floating in the broth.  I highly recommend that anyone planning on eating at Ramen Shop order the Duck Shoyu as it was truly a distinct ramen experience.  The Hokkaido Miso Ramen wasn’t bad, but I found myself far more interested in the duck shoyu because of the more flavorful broth.  The crispy potatoes are a bit overpriced for what were basically thick-cut fries with regular ketchup, but if you really need some fried potatoes, they’ll get the job done.  In fact, everything was pretty pricey ($20 for ramen), but overall, the Ramen Shop is worth checking out for that duck broth shoyu.

After leaving the Ramen Shop pretty full, my dad noticed that right across the street is a pizza place with four-and-a-half Yelp stars.  So, I pretended I wasn’t full so we could go eat some post-ramen pizza.  The restaurant was called Zachary’s Chicago Pizza and surprise! – they serve Chicago-style pizza.  Personally, I do not enjoy Chicago-style pizza.  If you don’t know the difference between Chicago-style pizza and regular pizza, the thin crust is tossed aside in favor of a deep-dish crust that can be filled with more cheese and chunky Chicago-style tomato sauce.  This sounds okay so far but they actually make the whole thing the wrong way by putting the sauce on top of the cheese and toppings.  This makes zero sense because now, the sauce isn’t contained under the cheese so it drips everywhere and, on a culinary level, it prevents the toppings from being caramelized in the oven.  The pizza also has to be eaten with a fork and knife.  It’s kind of like if your grandma says you guys are going to have pizza for dinner and then you get all excited but then it’s like a pizza casserole that tastes like disappointment.   Anyways, we tried the pizza from Zachary’s, and it wasn’t SO bad.  It was actually a bit above my expectations since I am not the biggest fan of upside-down pizza.  They also have regular pizza, and it is a solid pizza with an ample amount of gooey cheese between the toppings and a crispy, regular crust.  Overall, if you’ve never had Chicago pizza and want to form your own opinion on it, Zachary’s Chicago Pizza is a good place to go if you find yourself in the East Bay.

So, to follow up our double lunch, we had ice-cream because why not?  But don’t worry, we had organic ice cream, so we felt no shame.  We went to Tara’s Organic Ice Cream on College Avenue in Berkeley to sample their variety of unique flavors.  This place has some ice-cream flavors that I’ve never seen before.  I usually get Mint Chocolate as my go-to flavor which Tara’s didn’t have, but they made up for it with their Garam Masala ice-cream.  I don’t know what Garam Masala is, but the flavor was similar to pumpkin pie.  I also tried their Black Sesame, which reminded me of peanut butter.  Overall, Tara’s Organic Ice Cream might’ve been the best part of the day for me.

Believe it or not, after all that food, I still woke up the next morning ready to have one last East Bay dining experience.  Ming’s Tasty Restaurant which serves Dim Sum seemed like a good choice since the word “tasty” is literally in the name.  And, I was not disappointed.  (Ignore the graffiti on the windows and the bombed-out appearance of the place). We ordered steamed pork buns, which is a safe bet if you are new to dim sum; they are indeed tasty.  We also got custard buns which are a great dessert since they’re really creamy and sweet.  The most exciting thing though, were the chicken feet that I insisted my mother order for me.  They look exactly like how they sound: the feet were cut straight off the chicken, cooked, and covered in a sweet sauce.  Honestly, they looked pretty gross.  The foot tasted like chicken but had the texture of Jell-O. Then there was the added bonus of having to suck the gelatinous foot meat off of the toes.  After eating one chicken foot by sucking each chicken toe individually and then eating all the heel meat, I felt like I had really stepped out of my comfort zone.  I actually went for a second foot.  That’s six toes in all.  My brother ate about half a toe and tapped out.  Even my dad was finished after just one bite of the intimidating foot.  So, I won by five-and-a-half toes if anyone is keeping score.  I recommend visiting Ming’s Tasty because it is as tasty as the name suggests and, if you’re feeling adventurous, try the chicken feet.  Who knows?  Maybe you’ll love it.