Author: marga (Page 68 of 112)

El Novillo is only a few yards from my house but it’d been years since I had eaten there. I remembered the food not being particularly good and expensive in comparison to our staple, Los Pericos. Plus, I don’t like the fact that the place sells and advertises beer right in front of our elementary school. Still, today I was starving and I had practically no food at home, so I decided to give it a try again. Bad choice.
I had a burrito with sour cream and cheese, but without rice and beans (about $6). It just wasn’t very good. The meat didn’t have much flavor and was overwhelmed by the cheese. It also came with no salsa or anything beyond meat, sour cream and cheese, so it was on the dry side and pretty boring to eat. It was average size and I think still overpriced. I can get something much better at Los Pericos for less.
I ordered a cheese quesadilla for the kids ($3.50, I think), and it was just a plain tortilla filled with cheese. Nothing exciting there. The kids sort of ate it, but they are finicky.
On the plus side, their chips are quite good. Still, you won’t see me going back any time soon.

There was a sign on the window of Emil Villa’s saying that they are changing ownership. They are being bought by some corporation whose name I can’t recall. Stay tune for possible changes in the quality of their product.

Last weekend we went to brunch with Regina and Boris to the Palomares Cafe in Castro Valley. We’d been there once before, in our pre-kid stage, but I had no memory whatsoever of the place. These lapses of memories have become very frequent in my post-kid stage.
Palomares Cafe is a pretty nice place. It’s located in a strip mall, but it clearly has higher ambitions. It’s nicely decorated and open to an outside patio with seating, which I’m sure would be pleasant in a warmer day. As it was, the open door made it be a little chilly, but as the patio provided a place for the kids to play after they were done with their meal, we weren’t complaining.
The brunch menu is pretty extensive both its egg and non-egg offerings. They serve coffeehouse quality coffee drinks and real maple syrup. Offerings are generous without being outrageous. And what’s more important, the food is actually good and not overly expensive.
I had the sweet cheese crepe with raspberry sauce ($7), and very much enjoyed it. The dish was not overwhelmingly sweet, often a problem. I accompanied it with a mocha, which I also liked.
Mike had the chorizo omelet ($9) and was pleased both with the taste and size of it. Regina and Boris also liked their scramblers, though I don’t recall what they got (I want to say that Regina got the Neapolitan one). The kids shared a short stack of pancakes ($5) which consisted of two plate-size pancakes served with honey pecan butter and maple syrup. They were delicious – a bit on the dense side, with a very nice homemade taste – none of the bitter aftertaste that comes from using a mix. Indeed, almost everything at Palomares is home made.
Service was very friendly and efficient, which would make sense as we were one of three parties in the whole restaurant (and the place is pretty big). I don’t know why more people don’t go there, as so far I’d say it’s the best place for brunch in the area. I’ll definitely go again. And who knows? Maybe someday I’ll try it for dinner.
Palomares Cafe
580 Market Place
3779 E. Castro Valley Boulevard
Castro Valley, CA
510-733-5852
www.palomarescafe.com
(More info on restaurants at my restaurant review page)

Let me start by saying two things. First, I really, really, really want whichever restaurants settles in the old Casa María space to succeed. We need more restaurants in San Leandro. That site is on walking distance from my home. It’d be great to have a restaurant there we like. Second, I don’t like Salvadorean food. I don’t dislike it altogether, but I find it boring and unexciting. So I was apprehensive last evening when we went to La Cocina de Raquel, but I was also hopeful. I thought, perhaps La Cocina could convert me. Alas, it did not.
La Cocina de Raquel hasn’t changed its decor since its andy & joe’s incarnation. That’s not a problem, as Andy and Joe had done a good job decorating the restaurant. The murals of a Mediterranean villa do not necessarily go with Salvadorean and Mexican food, but they make the place look cozier. That’s needed because the restaurant consists of one big square room with flat office-like ceilings.
La Cocina de Raquel features both Salvadorean and Mexican specialties – something not uncommon for Salvadorean restaurants. There are plenty of places in San Leandro where to get Mexican food, so we wanted to try the Salvadorean dishes. Our general impression was that the food was merely OK and somewhat overpriced.
We sat ourselves and the waitress promptly took our drink order and brought tortilla chips and salsa. The chips were pretty good, thin and not too oily. They had a subtle corn flavor and they could have used more salt. The salsa was very watery and tasted mostly of roasted chilis. Drinks available include American ($1.50) and Mexican ($2.50) sodas. They don’t have juices or milk, though the kids shared an apple soda they liked.
I started my meal with a cheese pupusa ($2). I had meant to order a cheese and chicken pupusa (also $2), but I got confused and ordered it with cheese alone. As it was, it was quite boring. It was full of stringy cheese, but the cheese didn’t have any flavor. I would not order it again, though I might try a chicken pupusa.
I also ordered the Bistec Salvadoreño ($11.50). The top sirloin steak came in a humongous plate with large portions of refried beans, rice and an iceberg lettuce salad. The steak was pretty much what I expected: thin, somewhat tough and overcooked. It was completely covered in a tomato/onion/green bell pepper sauce, which tasted homey and very Salvadorean. I’d say that this was a good bistec as far as Salvadorean food goes, but I didn’t really like it. The rice was pretty tasteless but was helped by the sauce. I found the beans to be pretty good as far as refried beans go, but Mike thought they were just OK.
Mike had the Tamal de Pollo ($6.25) and he was disappointed to find that it had both chicken skin and bones. He didn’t find it particularly tasty.
We ordered a cheese quesadilla for the kids, and while it wasn’t great, it was more flavorful than the pupusa. It was unbelievably expensive at $6.50 for two small slices. I would definitely not order it again.
There is only one choice for dessert and that’s the Empanadas, plantain envelopes filled with custard or beans ($5.50 for 2). We had the ones with custard and I thought they were OK, but Mika thought they were really yummy, she ate all of hers and wouldn’t share with her sister. Still, I thought they were very expensive for what they were.
Dinner came to about $41 after tax – a lot of money for what was a mediocre meal. We will not be rushing back BUT, I’d like to remind you once again that we are not fans of Salvadorean food. If you like Salvadorean food, you should certainly go and give them a try.
La Cocina de Raquel
1562 E. 14th St.
San Leandro, CA
510-357-3305
lacocinaderaquel@att.net

The following is a review from one of my readers. My review of Ozeki Teriyaki is available here.

Ozeki Teriyaki / Sushi is located at 14701 E 14th St. We went there on an
impulse at about 7 pm tonight (11/13/07). The decor is plebeian, but never mind that.
The cheery waitress waved us to a table, and at length we got the house
salad: mostly iceberg lettuce, with a sweet-and-sour creamy dressing which
had a faint savor of peanuts. That was accompanied by a very satisfactory
(and plain) miso soup, which made me resolve to make it at home every day.
It’s all probiotic and stuff.
The menu is humongous, because they use the same one for lunch specials,
appetizers, dinners and a la carte sushi. My husband had chicken katsu – and
their tonkatsu sauce tasted better than Tsuru Sushi’s, for some reason. The
chicken was sliced after frying, and was piled attractively on a big chard
leaf. The meat was fresh and cooked in oil that had not been over-used, so
he was happy.
I had trouble deciding, but eventually settled on “Chirashi A,” which
differs from “Chirashi B” only because it’s a smaller dish. I asked the
waitress to describe it. “Sushi rice,” she explained, “and sushi,” gesturing
that the rice lay under the sushi. That seemed a little carb-heavy for me,
but I said OK.
What she brought me was a great big bowl of rice covered with what must have
been half a pound of *sashimi* – raw fish! Mind you, it was excellent fish,
cut into slabs about 1/2-inch thick – but there was much more than I wanted
to eat. Some of it was gorgeous, like the “super white tuna” (as the
waitress called it), which I would happily eat every day. It is almost as
white as typing paper, and shows little or no muscle structure at all, and
it is sheer savory tenderness. There was also an end of octopus tentacle,
sliced lengthwise – good flavor, but very tough. I didn’t eat it, but it was
something to write home about, definitely. There was also a generous helping
of raw salmon, some raw tuna (the usual cherry-red, muscle-striated kind), a
few pieces of halibut (I think), and some white, tough, fishy-tasting bits
garnished with flying-fish eggs. I love flying-fish eggs; they are such a
pretty shade of orange, sparkle like diamonds, and crunch pleasingly in the
mouth. The plate was garnished with big mounds of pink pickled ginger and
wasabi paste – probably colored with spinach and spiked with horseradish, as
the paste kind tends to be, but there was a little sweetness in it that
helped everything harmonize. Nevertheless, I brought home a lot of sashimi.
We are definitely going back – after all, this adventure only cost us $25
for two people – but next time I’ll order something that isn’t raw. Well,
maybe a little side order of “super white tuna.”
Michaele Maurer

Hi Marga,
I’m still religiously reading your reviews. Thanks for keeping us up to
date on the best of the best in San Leandro. 🙂
One of my readers e-mailed me to recommend “Sushi Avenue” in San Leandro. She says they have very fresh fish, large size sushi rolls with generous portions and excellent service staff. “The teriyaki dinners are so large and comes with so many sides that it’s
impossible to finish Prices are pretty reasonable (especially for the portion sizes) and it
has ambience (a plus for San Leandro)” It also has easy parking.
I’ll give a try and let you guys what I think.
Sushi Avenue
1042 Marina Blvd
San Leandro, CA 94577
(510) 352-5536
Enjoy!
peggy