Thing for September 15: A Typology of AC Transit Buses

I admit it, I’ve got nothing for you guys today. Tuesdays are long, tedious, and boring.

I do think it’s interesting that AC Transit has so many different kinds of buses in its fleet. Let’s have a look, shall we?

Thing for September 14: Caffe Mediterraneum

what: yet another cafe
where: Telegraph, between Haste and Dwight

The East Bay really likes its superlatives. Everything has to be the best – I’ve seen a dozen variations on “Voted Best Pizza,” a sign proclaiming “World’s Greatest Burger,” even “Best Hotdog in the Known Universe.” Seriously. In the known universe? Have you guys actually verified that the hot dogs on Alpha Centauri aren’t up to par? All this competitive self-promotion has left me a little skeptical when restaurants around here make outlandish claims. For example, Caffe Mediterraneum (yes, that is how it’s really spelled) claims to be the home of the latte. Reeeally? Ok, so they’re not claiming that they came up with the drink itself, but that they came up with the name, way back in 1957. There’s a plaque on their wall with the “origin story” and everything, so it must be official! Right.

I’m going to totally ignore that for now, because for some reason I didn’t even order a latte when I went there. I had every intention of doing so – I wanted to verify their claims to greatness, after all – but by the time I got there I was starving (it was Cal game day and so traffic was atrocious) and completely forgot. Instead a friend advised me to order the pancakes. Pancakes? For a late lunch? Yes. Pancakes. Two huge, dinnerplate sized, light and fluffy pancakes. For two dollars. That’s one dollar per pancake. One dollar for a HUUUUUUGE pancake. I also got a nice teapot service with looseleaf Earl Grey. The tea was nice and inexpensive and they do the hot water refill thing, which is of course always appreciated. I did see someone else get a latte – it was served in a wide-mouthed mug and had those cool designs drizzled on the top. So I’ll bet their lattes are good too, and I’ll go back when I’m not in a dazed, starvation-induced delirium and actually order one. Other things drawing me back: very large with plenty of table seating including an upstairs (great for long study sessions), free wifi, pleasant service.

HUUUUUUGE TRACTS OF PANCAKES.

Thing for September 11: Recycle Bicycle

what: bike shop
where: Sacramento and Woolsey

When I was shopping for a bike, I found a great commuter posted on Craiglist down in South Berkeley. So I went, met with the woman who was selling it, and ended up getting it. It’s a great bike – super comfortable and well-suited to the area – but it didn’t come with a rack or a kickstand. And the front light was a bit wobbly. This was easy enough to fix, as I’d walked right past a bike shop on my way to meet the bike seller. So I brought my newly acquired bicycle by total chance to Recycle Bicycle, and I’m really glad I did. They specialize in used bikes and obviously really know their stuff. Besides the shop crammed full of bikes and parts, they have a wonderfully helpful and kind staff who were polite enough to overlook my obvious unfamiliarity with pretty much absolutely anything bike-related. I bought the rack, saddlebag baskets, and kickstand from them and one of the employees immediately put my bike up on a mount to install everything for me. They were extremely busy, with customers constantly coming in to buy accessories, drop their bikes off for a tuneup, or simply to say hi. It’s clear they’re well-established and well-liked in the sometimes strangely snobbish Berkeley bike scene. A whole squadron of teenage boys were hanging out front, trying out bikes and spinning in the endless circles and popping wheelies as boys that age are wont to do. I thought this was a really nice gesture for the community – the shop could have easily shooed the boys away as they clearly weren’t going to be buying the bikes, but instead they gave them a place to hang out and occupy themselves. After installing my new accessories, the store employee thoroughly checked my bike over and even fixed my wobbly light. He really put a lot of time and effort into it, despite the fact that the store was kind of swamped. I certainly didn’t expect that level of service – I was just planning on buying the rack and being done with it. So thanks, Recycle Bicycle, for going the extra mile!

Thing for September 10: The Musical Offering

what: classical CD shop and cafe
where: Bancroft and Dana

I’ve written before about the sometimes bizarre musical selections you can hear in various cafes around Berkeley. Cafe Saint-Honore may have their Edith Piaf and flute concertos, but as far as music goes, The Musical Offering gets top billing. According to their website, they very well may be the last all-classical CD store in the United States. Given the way physical music stores are failing in the wake of Amazon, iTunes, and BitTorrent, it’s impressive that The Musical Offering has managed to survive. Their proximity to the UC Berkeley campus, with its highbrow, highminded professoriate, undoubtedly has something to do with this. Not only are they an excellent music store – they specialize in early music, something I’ve come to appreciate thanks to a flute teacher who introduced me to the baroque flute – they are also a downright lovely coffee shop. As I mentioned in my Amanda’s post, it’s clear that the successful businesses here really know their clientele. Obviously combining CDs and coffee isn’t a totally novel concept – after all, big retailers like Barnes and Noble and Borders figured it out – but the two in combination here are exquisite. The food matches the music in taste and class (and sometimes, alas, in price). I’m a big fan of the quiche in particular. Professors love to come here – I’ve known some to hold office hours here, even. The cafe is appropriately themed and decorated in accordance with its classical connections and offers fancier dinner specials when there are evening performances on campus. It’s not somewhere I’d go on a regular basis (Cafe Saint-Honore is still my favored cafe hangout) but it’s definitely worth your while.

Thing for September 9: Yelp

what: review website
where: right here

Some of you may have noticed I recently added a links section to my blog sidebar. In it I’ve attempted to link to the relevant website for every Thing I’ve posted (and will post). Sometimes, though, companies don’t have their own websites. That’s where Yelp comes in.

I will grant you that Yelp is not a Berkeley Thing. The company is actually from San Francisco, which makes it close enough to count. But I did learn about Yelp right when I moved to Berkeley, and it’s been an enormous help since then. Basically, Yelp is a local reviews website where users can post their opinions of various retail stores, restaurants, and so forth. The website lets you search based on various parameters including neighborhoods, price range, type of food, that sort of thing. Given that Yelp is from this area it’s pretty huge here; many places sport a little “People love us on Yelp” sticker in their storefront windows, and the automatic reaction to finding somewhere new or different to eat is to look it up on Yelp. There’s, unshockingly, an iPhone app for Yelp. Have I mentioned how much people here love their iPhones? They’re everywhere! In Berkeley, it’s totally normal to decide you want to eat, check out a place based on your GPS-detected location using your iPhone Yelp app, and then hop on the BART or bus (as determined by 511.org and nextbus) to your newfound destination. Isn’t it just so painfully hip?

Thing for September 8: Amanda’s

what: another “healthy fast food” restaurant
where: Shattuck and Center, next to Wells Fargo

Amanda’s advertises itself as – wait for it – healthy and fresh fast food. Sound familiar? That’s pretty much the exact same angle Smart Alec’s is going for. Thus this review is going to be as much about Smart Alec’s as it is about Amanda’s. I mean, they’re practically begging for the comparison. Of course, one main difference is that Smart Alec’s is a well-established restaurant on Telegraph by the UC campus, whereas Amanda’s is pretty new and located next to the BART station downtown. In my mind these two areas are not that far away from each other, but Berkeley-scale they’re very different neighborhoods.

So, Amanda’s serves your basic American fare: burgers, fries, sodas, some salads. (Salads? Well, it is *Berkeley* American, after all.) I ordered the basic veggie burger with avocado, which was a couple dollars less than Smart Alec’s monstrous veggie avocado burger. Accordingly, it was smaller and came neatly presented in a little cardboard holder. It was a lot easier to eat than a huge Smart Alec’s burger, and given my generally small appetite, it was a better-sized proportion as well. Their take on the veggie burger was pleasant and light; a definite and welcome departure from the standard Gardenburger/soy burger stuff. I haven’t tried them yet, but Amanda’s also has baked sweet potato fries. Now, I love sweet potato fries, but I really love fried sweet potato fries, preferably with honey mustard sauce. I just don’t know if these “good for you” fries are going to live up to my preconceived expectations of what a good sweet potato fry should be. That said, I’m going to give them a shot. Amanda’s is worth returning to; it’s cleaner, brighter, and more nicely furnished than Smart Alec’s. Smart Alec’s feels like a cattle call with its huge line snaking through the middle of the restaurant and the tables crammed together. You can’t even use the bathroom without asking a cashier to buzz it open for you. Amanda’s feels a bit more refined – you can tell they’re catering to the business commuter crowd whereas Smart Alec’s knows its student demographic. Amanda’s doesn’t have the amazing soups and cornbread that keep me coming back to Smart Alec’s, but when I’m on my way to my BCC evening class down the street, Amanda’s is where I’ll be stopping for my perfectly-sized and perfectly-priced veggie burger.

Another Bonus Thing for Labor Day Weekend

In case you haven’t guessed, I’m taking a 4 day weekend off for Labor Day. Following up on my previous bonus post, here’s a cool time-lapse video of the empty Bay Bridge by captin_nod via SFist:

Of course, given the recent news that they found a large crack in one of the support beams, it looks like the bridge will be closed longer than expected. More chances for cool empty Bay Bridge pictures, but more traffic woes…

Bonus Thing for Labor Day Weekend

Here’s an extra, cool Thing for the upcoming weekend. The closure of the Bay Bridge – which is for the most part pretty obnoxious and seems to be messing with the bus system in addition to mucking up commute plans and traffic patterns – does have one pleasant side effect.

From inBerkeley, a photo of the empty Bay Bridge:

from baybridgeinfo.org, via inberkeley.com

Kind of gorgeous, isn’t it?

And greetings to my visitors from inBerkeley! Someday I’ll get my own blogroll section going, I promise…

Thing for September 3: Berkeley City College

what: community college
where: Center St, between Shattuck and Milvia

Today your humble nameless grad student reporter has to give mad props to the local community college, Berkeley City College. As I’ve alluded to in the past, I’m a first year grad student at UC Berkeley, that huge campus with the mega reputation up the street. UCB is a major driving political and economic force in the area, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that BCC may actually hold far more importance for a lot of the local residents here. UCB draws students from all over California, the United States, and the globe. BCC draws students from the East Bay and,  yes, even that – ahem – OTHER side of the bay. (You know, the one with the crazy hills.) I have always been a big supporter of community colleges – I’ve been taking classes through them since I was a 15 year old high school student. Affordable continuing adult education is a wonderful thing, both for people who want to simply enrich their lives and learn something new and for those who are looking for a career change and upward mobility in life.

My favorite aspect of community colleges, however, is the sheer diversity of students. I’m currently taking a course at BCC in American Sign Language, and my classmates range from high school students to retirees. The course is actually easily my favorite (but don’t tell that to my UCB department!) because it is such a joyous change of pace. We have fun in class, we laugh a lot, we tease each other – all without ever speaking a word. ASL is taught immersion-style at BCC, meaning that after the first day of class no English is allowed in class. Only ASL! BCC is a major player in ASL education – their curriculum has served as a model for schools across the country and the predominant ASL textbook (Signing Naturally) was developed right here at BCC.

BCC, and its associated other community colleges in the area (it’s part of the Peralta Colleges network), offers an impressive and substantial range of classes. It’s not just limited to degree-seeking and transfer students, and the resident tuition rate is a bargain deal at $26/credit. That’s awesome!

Thing for September 2: Berkeley Bowl

As some of you may have noticed, I haven’t posted the past few days. This is because school is finally getting into full swing and I have an overloaded schedule – some days I’m busy from literally 9:30am-9:30pm, and that’s before starting my homework. So I’m switching my schedule from a Thing every day to a thing every weekday, which will hopefully be a bit easier. Think of it as a Thing a (week)Day. I may have to take some time off now and again, especially around exam time, but I’m looking to line up some guest posts to fill in there.

And now, today’s Thing!

what: grocery store
where: corner of Shattuck and Oregon

Imagine, if you will, a sea of produce. Tomatoes and carrots and melons and mysterious leafy green things, as far as the eye can see. Now, double that sea of produce. Onions tumbling out of the sky. Entire torrents of potatoes. Bushels of berries! This is (approximately) what one sees upon entering Berkeley Bowl, a grocery store with such a reputation that I’ve had people living on the East Coast ask me if I’ve been there yet. Yes, yes I have, and when I walked through the door, it was like the heavens opened up, the sun shone down, and a choir of vegetarian angels burst into a harmonic refrain. If you can manage to get past the produce section, you’ll find that the Berkeley Bowl just keeps on giving. For one, there’s the dairy section – oh goodness, the dairy! I’m a big yogurt nut and there is more yogurt there than I could eat in a lifetime. And the cheese! Such a good cheese selection, and it’s inexpensive too! And then. Oh yes. The BULK GRANOLA. The first time I saw the bulk granola section, I stopped. I stared. I blocked traffic. An aging hippie laughed at me. I didn’t care. When I said it was like the heavens opened up at the produce section – this was like the heavens decided to come on down and install themselves on earth. There are enough types of granola and museli in their bulk bins to last me into the next world, which I am assuming is going to consist of nothing but granola, yogurt, and conveniently bite-sized fruit pieces. Sure, you can get lots of other stuff in bulk at Berkeley Bowl, from your standard cereals and pastas and grains to…cat food? Whatever. An entire aisle full of bulk granola: this is heaven, to me.