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.
Category: Restaurants (Page 40 of 52)
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.
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)
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/
A new Chilli’s opened in San Leandro a few months ago, and today they were at the farmer’s market handing out tortilla chips & salsa (and coupons for 1 free kids meal). I haven’t been to Chilli’s yet – but I mean to go, in this town even chain restaurants deserve a review – so I figured I should give the chips a try. They weren’t bad. The chips themselves were very thin and pretty greasy, very similar to those at Chevy’s, though not quite as good. The salsa tasted like the jarred stuff, it was pretty watery, not at all chunky, with a bitter afterstate and an all-around Pace-like flavor. Chevys’ is much better.
There was a fire at Pee Wee’s Pizza this morning. The fire – which we, as normal sleeping people, didn’t see nor hear – had flames shooting through the roof and heavy heat on the inside. They still don’t know what caused it. I daresay that Pee Wee’s will be closed for a while 🙂
Update: Apparently the fire was set intentionally. There were prying marks next to the door and the door was wide open when the fire crews came. The restaurant is now just an empty shell, everything inside burned. So alas, no more Pee Wee’s 🙁 We hadn’t gone for a while, but it’s a real shame given how long the place has been in building. They have no insurance but they’re planning on rebuilding. Apparently they’ve gotten a lot of support from their customers over the years and may get a lot of volunteer labor. If nothing else, the place will look better. So all I have to say is “Go Pee Wee’s”
Not long ago, one of my blog visitors commented that her favorite Los Pericos (apparently there are 5 of them) is the one at the Los Pericos Market on East 14th & Stoaks. Of course that meant we had to try it.
The restaurant is located right inside the small supermarket by the cake section. The people are very friendly and the clientele is almost exclusively Latino. It’s nice to go to a place where English is the second language. Both Mike and I had chicken special quesadillas (~$5), which resemble large burritos sans the beans and rice. Instead they have cheese, meat, salsa, guacamole, sour cream and lettuce (I always order mine without the latter). We found these to be good, but not particularly better than those at the other Los Pericos. The chicken super quesadilla (a small quesadilla with cheese, sour cream, salsa & chicken) we ordered with Mika, however, was very good. The chicken was in large chunks and it was very nicely grilled. We don’t understand how come that wasn’t the case in our quesadillas (the chicken pieces were smaller and less tasty).
In all, we thought it wasn’t better than our regular Los Pericos and we wouldn’t make a point of going there again.
It will come as no surprise to anyone – certainly not me – that Taqueria, the recently opened, well, taqueria, in downtown San Leandro, just couldn’t make it. Though their pricing scheme (charging per item) was innovative, nothing else about it was, and it was competing against a very succesful, authentic, long-time operation (Los Pericos), which, frankly, has better food. So no, I’m not surprised they’re closed.
According to a sign they’re now doing catering only. I wish them well, but I can’t help feeling sad about the possibilities the place had. There is certainly a need in San Leandro for a standard Mediterranean restaurant serving things like quality kebabs, kofta, pilafs, Mediterranean salads/platters and tons of little things in pastries. True, there is Luke’s grill, but their quality is less than stellar, and they’re expensive. And even then they’re often packed. But I think Kolbeh-Taqueria owners just didn’t have the resources to dedicate to a restaurant serving quality foods and they tried to concentrate on gimmicks rather than quality.
I’m still hoping someone will open a new restaurant in downtown San Leandro – we surely need it.
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