Reader Michaele Maurer wrote me about her own experience at Tsuru Sushi, a small Japanese restaurant in downtown restaurant that I wasn’t particularly thrilled with. I’m always happy to publish other people’s experiences, specially well written ones.
Author: marga (Page 81 of 114)
A couple of days ago I got a flyer from a new pizza joint called “Fiestas”. It’s located in Oakland but it serves San Leandro (and other parts of the East Bay)Its menu is pretty standard, basically pizza, salads and chicken wings, and I thought I’d give it a try. I went for their 3 2-topping medium pizzas for $15 deal, which seemed a pretty good deal.
The pizza was fine, one notch above Dominoes. There was a good amount of cheese and toppings. It wasn’t anything special, but I’d order it again. I wouldn’t say the 2-topping pizzas we ordered were “gourmet,” though we didn’t try their specialties.
Fiestas Pizza
6432 International Boulevard
Oakland, CA
510.777.0012
http://www.fiestaspizza.com/
I don’t know if it was the name or the big apple in the flyer but I’ve been ordering food from Big Apple Pizza thinking that it was Red Apple Pizza. Big Apple Pizza is a small chain located on MacArthur Blvd. (not that you would know that from their flyer) that has only recently started sending me flyers.
The first time I ordered I got their fish and chips ($17 for a 10 piece meal). The fish was not coated on a traditional beer batter, but instead had some sort of gritty coating that was neither flavorful or good to eat. The very thin stripes tasted stale and it was clear that the fish had been bought frozen and then dumped into the deep fryer (or it might have been the microwave). It had a dark brown appearance and did not look at all like the picture in the flyer.
The meal came with fries, soda and bread. The fries were also soggy and soft, the type of fries you get at a school cafeteria. Frozen, no doubt, and maybe even microwaved. We probably could have made a better meal out of Safeway’s freezer. The bread was standard sliced bread from a bag.
The mini cheese pizza we got for Mika, however, was pretty good.
Our second time we ordered their pepperoni & cheese pizza, which has a 4 cheese blend ($15 for their “x-large”, probable a 16″ pizza). We liked it. The pizza was on the thin side with a good amount of cheese and pepperoni. We’d order again.
You get your choice of wings, salad or a 2 liter soda with each combo pizza. We had the wings, they were fatty and came in a hot sauce that did not taste good to me. Next time I’ll go for the soda.
Big Apple Pizza
360 MacArthur Blvd
San Leandro, CA
Daily 11 AM – 12 AM
(510) 638-1996
I received the following message about a disappointing experience at the Black Bear Diner in Reno. While I clearly cannot verify what happened, I’m happy to provide a forum for people to tell about their dining experiences – good or bad.
The other night we went to dinner at Grasshopper, and decided to skip dessert there and head to Leonidas instead. Leonidas is a Belgium chocolatier that produces and sells specialty chocolates. There are Leonidas shops all over Belgium, and apparently the rest of the world as well. My friend Adriana who lives in Belgium loves them, and I brought a couple of pounds with me after my last trip there (they are significantly cheaper in Belgium than in the States), but I’m less excited about them. Call me a plebe, but I prefer Sees Candies all the way.
While my friends were getting candy – and Eddie was nice enough to buy a piece for each one of our husbands -, I got some dulce de leche gelato ($3 for a small cup) and I was hooked. The gelato was almost as good as the one back home. It had a light, cool consistency, and yet was creamy and very flavorful. If you’re in Rockridge make sure you get some.
Leonidas
6311 College Avenue
Oakland
Sunday morning we went to brunch at the Pelton Cafe. This used to be a favorite of Mike’s (God knows why), but I’ve always felt the food to be a cut below sub-par. We hadn’t been there in a while, though, and I think in the mean time the place changed owners, though the quality of the food stayed the same. Mike had his usual sunrise combo, or something of the sort, pancakes, eggs, sausage, you know, the usual. It was fine. Mika had themost pathetic happy face pancake ($4!). It was one large panckage with a happy face drawn with whipped topping. It didn’t come out very well, however, and the face looked more frowny than anything.
I made the mistake (yes, memory can be short) of ordering a burger (comes with potato chips, not fries). It was horrible, McDonalds produces higher quality burgers. The burger was dried, fatty and I wouldn’t be surprised if it included an additive of some sort. It wasn’t very large, either, and while it was cheap given its low quality I felt ripped off. In short, don’t order a burger here.
The Pelton Cafe served dinners for a little while, but I think they are back to serving lunch and breakfast only. Good thing.
(San Leandro Restaurant Reviews)
I wanted a quick and easy dinner last night and this kit from TJ’s seemed to fit the bill. And it would have, had it been good – alas, it wasn’t.
The kit is, in theory, a good idea. All you have to do is microwave a bag of ravioli for 3 minutes, and then the bag of sauce for 1 1/2 minutes. I can’t imagine a quicker meal. And while the sauce was pretty nice, albeit a bit mild, the ravioli itself were quite tasteless. Indeed, if they tasted of anything at all, it was of staleness. That’s too bad because I love mushroom ravioli – the Safeway brand portobello mushroom ravioli are particularly good. Even with the convenience, and despite the fact that the kit is supposed to last you a month in the fridge so it could be there whenever you need it, I can’t see myself buying it again.
March 2012 update
We haven’t gone to Mountain Mike’s in several years. While the pizza is probably the best in town, it’s more expensive and the buffet has gotten expensive for our family of four. But last night we were sans kids, but not for long, so we headed back there for their Wednesday night buffet (now about $8.50 per person, including soda). The place and the buffet is pretty much identical as when I wrote my original review in 2006, though they have more video game machines now. Still, other families have probably concluded the buffet is not that great of a deal, as there weren’t any kids there last night.
Once again, I liked all the pizzas. I finally got to taste a bar-b-q chicken pizza, which I never had before because the concept is not that appealing, but it was surprisingly good. So was the pizza (can’t remember what toppings it had) that came with a garlic sauce. It was definitely a winner. The cinnamon dessert pizza wasn’t as good as I remembered, but it was still quite yummy. Finally, they now have mixed greens in the salad bar.
2006 Review
A few weeks ago I got a flyer from Mountain Mike’s Pizza advertising their “all you can eat” buffet Wednesday nights ($6.50, 5-8 PM), and a couple of weeks later it came to mind when I was trying to figure out what to do for dinner. Eda, our friend Arthur’s mom, was in town so we quickly arranged to meet her and the kids there. It was a good plan.
Mountain Mike is a chain, but doesn’t really look like one. It could really be your neighborhood pizzeria, and I think that’s what it strives to be for the Marina district. It has recently undergone a renovation, so the place looks clean and now there is a separate dining area towards the back. There are still a couple of video game machines to keep the kids occupied.
But the pizza is what matters and the pizza was good. All of their specialty pizzas were available – albeit not at the same time -, cut into slivers so that you can taste many of them, and all the ones we tried were very good. The all-meat was too salty for me, but I equally enjoyed the vegetarian, the pineapple chicken luau and the other types. The crust was on the thin side, the cheese was cheesy and the toppings were generous without being overwhelming. Everything tasted like good qualities (relatively speaking, of course) ingredients.
Their “dessert pizza”, a cinnamon-toast tasting pizza, was out of this world, specially as it was served very hot.
The buffet also included a salad bar. There were no fancy lettuces here (too bad, ’cause that’s the only type of salad I eat) but they had pasta salad and potato salad, as well as the fixings for your run of the mill salads. Other people seemed to enjoy them.
At $6.50 for all of this it’s a great deal – and the pizza is good enough that we will order from Mike’s next time we want pizza. Note that they don’t have free delivery, however.
Mountain Mike’s
2150 Marina Blvd.
San Leandro, Ca.
510.352.5954
http://www.mountainmikes.com/
Yesterday, St. Leander, probably the largest church in San Leandro, had its annual festival. It’s a very fun and rather complex affair. They have jumpers and (rather poor) face painting, of course, but also a considerable number of semi home-made, semi-professional festival games where you can win tickets that you can then exchange for cheap toys (and really, cheap toys are best as you can throw them out almost guilt-free – there is still that environment thing – after they’re done playing with them).
There was also food at the festival. There were stands selling Mexican, Portuguese, Filipino food and BBQ, and a stand selling cakes & sweets. For lunch Mika had a plain quesadilla, while Mike and I shared a Portuguese pork-loin sandwich, the name of which escapes me. The pork had been marinated in a vinegary sauce that suited it, and while it was a little tough the whole thing was pretty tasty. For $3 it was a bargain. Also for $3 we got 3 ribs accompanied by 2 slices of white bread, a corn-on-the-cob and a soda. The ribs were quite good, tender and tasty even if not very meaty. The sauce was clearly home made -they had a huge pot of it – but it tasted like it came for a bottle. It was too vinegary for our taste, and I’d say even a bit too sweet. Not a favorite. The corn on the cob just sucked. Even Mika, who is not very particular, wouldn’t eat it.
We had one of those checkers sort of cakes and it was absolutely delicious. The chocolate squares were very dense, almost, but not quite, brownie like, and the yellow squares were moist and sweet. The whole thing had a great white frosting and was much better than we could have expected. Our thanks to the grandma who baked it for the church.
We also actually won a cake in a lottery (you bet on a number and if it comes up you win a cake). I chose the coconut cake but it turned out that the cake itself had a weird pinkish frosting. My best guess is that it’s made of jam mixed with some sort of buttermilk frosting. The flavor is unique and it grows on you.
We also had some lollipops and some cotton candy (yes, we’re pigs).
The festival was a lot of fun and I’m glad we went.
Last night, and agains today for lunch, we had “Rancher’s Reserve” tri-tip, grilled on the BBQ. Rancher’s Reserve is select grade meat (i.e. fit for human consumption) that for whatever reason is supposed to be more tender than it should. And indeed it is. Flavor wise it’s clearly inferior to Costco’s choice meat, but it is probably just as tender. I’d probably buy it again if I couldn’t get Costco beef.
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