Yesterday was the first Wednesday of the month, so we went out to eat for the San Leandro Education Foundation Eat out for Education program. Basically, on the first Wednesday of the month, participating restaurants donate 10% of the bill to San Leandro schools. You do need to bring up a coupon, though - so make sure that you print one next month!

Anyway, even though Ernie's Seafood Original Restaurant (open since 1953) is only a few blocks away from my house, we hadn't been there in many years. I'm not sure why, as we both love fish and chips, I guess it just doesn't come to mind. That's too bad because we had quite a satisfying meal there last night.

Ernie's is not much to look at. The small dining room features formica tables and metal/leatherette chairs. It looks like a diner and the walls are only decorated with 50's like posters and a big wooden fish. Don't come here for the atmosphere.

The menu is quite limited and includes basic seafood (prawns, scallops, cod, clams & calamari) as well as burgers, seafood and chicken sandwiches. For some reason they also have a NY steak sandwich and gyros. Prices are moderate, with most sandwiches in the $7-10 ratio and combination seafood platters in the low teens.

We all shared onion rings ($4.25) and a shrimp cocktail ($6.25) appetizer. The onion rings were just fine, I didn't care for the overly salty but not very flavorful breading. They were not oily, however. The tartar sauce wasn't that great either. The shrimp cocktail was, in the words of my husband, "awesome". There were plenty of small tasty shrimp and cocktail sauce. My 8-year old also liked it a lot. She was also very pleased with the clam chowder she had for dinner ($3.75 for a quite large "small" bowl). Nobody else tasted it, so I can't give you the adult review of it, but she was happy to take the leftovers for lunch at school today. Camila, my 5 year-old, had the chicken strips from the kids menu ($5.25). The portion was a good size and the strips were OK, good enough for a kid.

Mike and I shared the large fish & chips platter ($12.75) which comes with 8 sections of fish (cod). I found the fish and the breading to be quite tasteless - I don't think they were at all seasoned, and I didn't like the tartar sauce either, I think it lacked acidity. BUT, the fish was actually quite good when salted. The pieces were warm and plump, nicely cooked and not at all oily, and very satisfying. I'd definitely would order it again.

The fries, on the other hand, were quite mediocre.

Service was probably the low point of the evening. Despite the few people at the restaurant, the waitress seemed distracted and she forgot to bring Mika's clam chowder until we asked for it. She also never brought us the vinegar we asked for. But she was otherwise competent.

In all, it was a good meal and I'd return - probably on the first Wednesday of some month.

On a final note, according to their menu Ernie's has a banquet room for up to 40 people.

Ernie's Seafood Original Restaurant
13775 East 14th St.
San Leandro, CA
510-357-2246
M-Th 11 AM - 8:30 PM
F 11 AM - 9 PM
Su CLOSED

San Leandro Restaurant Reviews

I don't usually make burgers so before a few days ago I hadn't perfected a "recipe" - but a few days ago I actually made some and then repeated them yesterday, and I have to admit they were very good. Here is what I did:

- I chopped London broil (the first time) and chuck (the second time, eliminating the external fat) in the food processor. The results weren't as soft as a regular burger but fine anyway. I liked the texture of the London broil better, but the flavor of the chuck was nicer.

- I mixed the chopped meat with some salt, ground cumin, garlic powder and Worcestershire sauce. I eyed the quantities - my eye seems to be pretty good as both times they were well seasoned. I think the Worcestershire sauce is key.

- I cooked them in the pre-heated Foreman grill until medium-rare. I put a slice of cheese on them and then closed the grill for a minute or so.

And that was it.

I'm a moderate tea drinker and mostly a fan of Twinings English Breakfast Tea, which I buy at the supermarket when it's on sale or at Santos Spice Products, where a 50-tea bag box is only $5 or so. But it's not always possible to get it at either place, so when I found myself with no tea last week, I decided to give the Barrington Tea I found at Grocery Outlet a try. At about $1.50 for a 20-tea bag box, I figured I wasn't gambling much. And to my surprise, I ended up liking this tea quite a bit.

I usually like plain black tea mixes - like English breakfast, though I'll have the occasional cup of Earl Grey. I drink my tea with milk and sugar.

Only "Pure Ceylon Black Tea" is listed as an ingredient on the Barrigton English Breakfast tea box, but I could swear the tea has some sort of flavoring in it. I can taste hints of mint and something else which makes the tea taste particularly sweet. It's not as robust as the Twinings, but it stands well to milk and sugar, a bag is strong enough for two mugs and it doesn't seem to over-brew very fast (I don't usually remove the tea bag while I'm drinking the tea). In all, I'm quite happy with this tea and I'll probably go and, given the price, I'll probably go and pick up a few more boxes of it to keep in case Grocery Outlet stops carrying it. The tea expiration date is 11/12, so it should be good for quite a while.

A final thing that I like about this tea is that the bags come in plain paper covers. Twinings' come in sealed waxed/metallic paper bags, which I don't think I can recycle/compost.

Finally, I haven't found much about the Barrington Tea company online - which makes me assume it's quite new. According to its website, their corporate offices are in Palo Alto. The tea comes from Sri Lanka.

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Update

I just got a box of their Ceylon tea and I've enjoyed it very much as well. It's a robust black tea, with some hint of flavoring but not as strongly as in the English Breakfast. It's very nice with milk & sugar. I'd buy it again, though now I'm curious about trying the Trader Joe's tea, which is even cheaper.

I've also tried the Earl Gray tea and this one has disappointed me. It's very weak and it doesn't really have a different spicing than the other teas - it's just weaker. I won't be buying it again.

As everyone who reads my blog knows, I'm a big fan of Grocery Outlet. For one, it's just across the street from my house - which makes it very convenient to grab those items we are out of or have just forgotten. It's also a good place to get cheap treats and I enjoy seeing what's new on each trip. You have to be careful, though, they are not always good about keeping expired products off the shelves - so you do need to check expiration dates carefully. Also, their prices are not always the best - sometimes you can get better deals at the supermarket. But in general they are cheaper to much cheaper than regular stores.

What I really like about the San Leandro Grocery Outlet, however, is how dedicated the manager is to make the store pleasant and family friendly. They moved here to San Leandro from Seattle, and it's really clear that it's their baby. The store is always clean, there are always people around to help and the lines are MUCH shorter than at the supermarket. They strive to never have more than 3 people in line, and today I saw the manager open a new line when the others started getting over that. There is also always a dedicated person to bag your groceries, so you can get out of there quickly.

I also like that they seem to make a concerned effort to hiring people with disabilities and minorities. My only concern is that they are not unionized, but I don't anything about their labor practices. I'll ask the manager at some point.

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So I finally asked the manager about their labor practices. Workers are started at $8.50 an hour (50cents over minimum wage in California) and they are not provided with any kind of benefits. The manager say they can't afford it. GO managers have a base pay of $90K a year, which is not bad - but the manager at San Leandro's GO works there 6 days a week most of the day, so clearly they work hard for what they make.

The question for me are just how high the profits are for the owners - GO is a privately held company so I wasn't able to find out how well they do. Are wages so low because they have a small margin on their products, or because the owners are reeking in the profits? I'd like to know.

Last night it was a friend's birthday and we went to Tanjia for dinner, a Moroccan restaurant located in Oakland. It was a good experience, though somewhat ruined by what we found out at the end of the evening.

Even though it was Saturday night, Tanjia was rather empty - there were only four or five parties other than us. I'm not sure why that is, it's reasonably priced ($23 - $25 for a 5 course dinner), and it serves reasonably good food. The belly dancer is not very good (nobody bothered to look at her), but with so few Moroccan restaurants in this area, that doesn't seem like a strong reason to keep away. Anyway, the place is definitely not popular.

Reviewers in Yelp have repeatedly complained about the bad service - but I thought the service was fine. The waitress was sort of sullen and at one point she was rude to the birthday girl - but we didn't have to wait for service, water was refilled promptly and the dishes came at good intervals.

The menu was pretty much the same as the one they had when I visited in 2006. It's a set menu that consists of a small bowl of lentil soup (which I enjoyed), pickled vegetables and an eggplant dip (yummy, but more about this later), bastilla (not the best, but good enough), an entree of your choice, and a dainty piece of fried banana as a dessert (very good, though oily). I had the lamb with honey, and I enjoyed it a lot. The lamb was tender and had a subtle sweet flavor that complimented it very well. Nobody else raved about their entrees, but I didn't ask them how they liked them so I can't quite comment. Desiree did say that she wasn't happy that the bird advertised as "chicken" was actually cornish hen (which is much more bony and hard to eat). I don't know why they aren't honest about what they are serving.

The whole menu is supposed to be eaten with your hands (they bring warm water at the beginning and the end to wash them with), but as some of our group objected, they brought forks and knives. Much easier for the bony lamb and chicken.

The low point of the evening was to find out that the half-eggplants, used as a base for the brochettes/kebabs, are actually re-used into other dishes. We asked if we could take them home, and the waitress was quite honest in saying that they chop them up, cook them and serve them. That, of course, is illegal and quite gross. They could have fallen on the floor or been licked by previous guests, for all you know. This practice make me question what else they do in the kitchen to save costs. Well, perhaps I don't want to imagine it. It's sufficient to say that I would not go back.

Tanjia
4905 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland
(510)-653-8691
http://www.tanjias.com/