We did a toddler paced visit to Cal Campus and Telegraph
Avenue today.
Began with almond pastry and Noah's bagels in the garden of
Caffe Strada, on Bancroft looking right at the Cal
Anthropology Museum. Wandered campus long enough to tire
out the children. Moved the car (two hour meters strictly
enforced), walked over to Naan N Curry on Telegraph, one of
a chain of Pakistani tandoori and curry places. This branch
is not the tidiest of them all but the food is delicious.
Unfortunately the kids won't eat anything but the plain
naan - even the meat naan is too spicy for them. We brought
in milk from the grocery store across the street.
Thoroughly enjoyed the chicken tikka masala (my techie
husband called it CTM - he eats it all the time with his
colleagues and they seem to have programmer acronyms for
this food). Naan N Curry sells spiced tea in some locations
but I drank the free water, didn't think to notice if they
have this. If you are visiting SF or Berkeley and you like
tandoori and naan, you really must visit N-n-C or one of
the other similar Pakistani joints. Many of them are in
SF's Tenderloin, I understand - I've only gone to Pakwan in
the Mission and N-n-C on Irving (near UCSF). Read this for
further info: sfgate.comneigOpen ↗
hborhoods/tenderloin.shtml
After lunch we moved the car again, split up to go to non-
food errands (Rasputin records for hubbie, Berkeley Hats for
me). I then visited Lhasa Karnak Teas, the Telegraph branch.
I could buy up the whole store - they carry herbs and spices
and all manner of ointments, unguents, lotions as well as
every tea imaginable. You leaf through a binder full of
single spaced multi-column pages of herb and tea listings. I
am no connoisseur of tea, I just can taste the difference
between black loose tea from Safeway, cheap Indian market,
and Lhasa Karnak - the latter is much the nicest. I bought a
lovely Darjeeling and some Earl Grey, as well as an ounce of
cardamom pods ($2.50 an oz.
- I didn't check the prices last time I was in an Indian
market - I need to comparison shop)
At home I used a print out of this post groups.google.comgroupsOpen ↗
8&newwindow=1&selm=a5h45s8rmgu442pd6q9m1sb0udb11g0f9l%4-
04ax.com to make chai masala (spiced tea), using
cardamom. So yummy.
Just an opinion here - I don't understand buying chai
masala in a carton or bottle. What could be easier to make
at home? I don't do things that take time or fussing in
the kitchen, but chai masala is too easy to outsource.
Cost benefits over purchased chai masala are extreme.
(Same goes for vinaigrette - I don't even like the taste
of bottled anyway).
A real foodie Saturday in Berkeley would have involved a
stop at the Farmer's Market downtown, a stop at Lhasa
Karnak, and then maybe a dash into one of the Indian markets
on lower University or the Spanish Table on San Pablo. When
the kids get older...
Leila