Give Me Some Food

If you hadn’t noticed, I’m an only child. I know, you’re shocked. Due to this fact, siblings are such an interesting phenomenon to me; I’m always interested in how siblings are alike but not, and I’m always jealous that siblings have someone to commiserate with about how their parents are weird. One of my best examples of this is watching my dad and Uncle Rob together. He is like my dad…but not. Uncle Rob was my very first babysitter- I think the story goes that my mom told Rob not to let me cry, but every time he put me down I started crying- so he ended up holding me for like four hours straight.

What a good Uncle!

Rob, continuing the streak of good uncledom, has been offering to take me out to lunch at Bay Wolf in Oakland all year, and now that school has ended, I finally had the time to take him up on his offer.

Oh look. He's an angel in the picture! Look at that halo of light...(he's not the devil on the cellphone)

There is a strain of restaurants in the Bay Area that remind me a lot of Chez Panisse- and Bay Wolf is one of them. This, to me, is an excellent attribute (though I’m sure Bay Wolf would rather me say that Chez Panisse reminded me of them- sorry Bay Wolf- I visited Chez Panisse first). Maybe it has to do with the fact that the restaurant looks a little more like a house than a business, and that the menu is short to keep the choices local and seasonal.  As we approached the hostess, she asked if we wanted to eat outside or inside- I think I hemmed and hawed for about 20 minutes, but then decided to eat inside due to my curiosity. See, we had just walked through the outside dining area to get to the hostess stand and I wanted to see what lurked beyond as well. As we were lead to our table I noticed the interior was Victorian, yet felt warm because of the wooden tables and ample light.

We shared a Caesar Salad to start which was quite good and then I had the goat cheese-stuffed pasilla pepper:

 

Lunch is a great meal because I feel that chefs have more leeway to be creative- they don’t need to fill you up to the point that the elephant trainer has to lead you out; good lunch entrees can be a perfect blend of an appetizer and an entrée. Dinner menus usually only consist of hunks of meat, poultry or fish for your entrée and then some pathetic loser vegetarian option. This pasilla pepper was no loser vegetarian option. It was a robust Lance Armstrong (minus the testicular cancer) option! There was just enough heat for me and the goat cheese stuffing wasn’t too rich or overwhelming for the pepper. Everything blended in nicely and the beans and rice cut all of the flavors so it wasn’t too heavy. This is going to sound lame and blonde but it was kind of like the best veggie burrito innards ever.

Rob had the cornmeal-crusted petrale sole:

 

I got to taste this and it was wonderful. The fish was tender and buttery and the cornmeal crust gave it a delicate crunch as well. The creole rémoulade (the fancy name for the mayo-based sauce on top) had a little zip to it and really enhanced the flavor of the fish.

Then I did something stupid. I already knew what I wanted for dessert but I asked our waiter for recommendations:

“What would you order?”

“Definitely the sorbet.” He saw the look on my face “The crostata is wonderful too.”

“Ok, we’ll have one Caramel Pot du Crème with two spoons?”

“I see I didn’t dissuade you at all.”

“No. Sorry”

Ok, so that was kind of mean. I don’t really know why I asked for a recommendation if I knew I wanted the Pot du Crème. I even knew that Uncle Rob would want the Pot du Crème without asking him since he is related to my father and our family is pretty much gaga for anything made with cream. See, there’s that sibling connection again.

 

We loved our dessert and we each got a latte- the coffee complemented the caramel very well.

As we were leaving, Rob told me he would take me out to any other restaurants in the East Bay that I was interested in trying!

He may be sorry one day he made me that offer…

Bay Wolf
3853 Piedmont Ave
Oakland
510-655-6004