A little east-bay history
Max Hauser
of interest) led to something that might illuminate the mystery ll
<lksl...@REMOVEcomcastTHIS.net> cited on ba.food about restaurant history
differences in Palo Alto vs. Berkeley. The first paragraph doesn't concern
restaurants.
Oral history
When I was a child in Berkeley I used to buy bird seed at Brock's Bird
Store, one of the small shop fronts on Shattuck just north of University
(east side). The congenial Brock brothers were locals and were, I'm not
sure, maybe 70 years old about 1968 when I heard this from one of them. He
said that when he was a small child he had a local relative who was "OLD," I
take that to mean older than Mr Brock at the time he told this. This
relative could remember Spanish times (that is, pre-gold-rush, 1840s or so).
The bit I remember from Brock's account was that the east-bay hills were
alive with colorful wild flowers in those days, later killed off by
introduced plant species as large numbers of people came into the area and
"seeds falling off the fur of sheep," as Brock told it, took root.
Restaurants
Brock's was just about opposite, again if I remember, the Potluck
restaurant, a partnership of Hank Rubin, Ed Brown, and Narsai David. Closed
in 1969 I think and one of the partners, Narsai David, then opened the
elegant Narsai's in Kensington. Both of these places were known for the
breadth of their wine inventories at all price levels (I still have a Narsai
's menu from 1977 with the wine list in fine print inside).
Potluck and Narsai's in the late 1960s and early 1970s were, as far as I can
remember, the destination Europeanoid restaurants in the Berkeley area (that
is, that people might come for from out of town). There were always many
more modest, and sometimes very good, independent family-owned places also,
and those were where we ate out if we did so. In 1971 an upstart
French-bistro-type restaurant opened in a house at 1517 Shattuck and
gradually developed a following. But when my parents or grandparents in the
east bay ate out for fancy occasions in the 1960 or even 1970s they tended
to go to SF. San Francisco has long been the de-facto downtown for the
surrounding counties (this comment is from a food-literate friend at
Stanford who is a later arrival, 1967, but an observant one). That may be
one way SF sustains such a high restaurant count per-capita.
It seems possible then that the comparison of Palo Alto and Berkeley before
the recent PA restaurant influx was itself a temporary comparison. Berkeley
wasn't "known" much as a restaurant town either, until circa 1980. Along
with other independent openings, the house at 1517 Shattuck (sounds like a
title of a 2nd-world-war spy movie) catalyzed in the early 1980s a nearby
"Gourmet Ghetto" on upper Shattuck (rendering my childhood neighborhood
unrecognizable) as well as various spin-offs, cookbooks, and celebrities.
Max W. Hauser
(Copyright 2004)
to...@well.com
<maxR...@THIStdl.com> wrote:
>Narsai's in the late 1960s and early 1970s were, as far as I can
>remember, the destination Europeanoid restaurants in the Berkeley area
Ah!.. fond memories of looking forward to the special menus he used to
send by mail... different meals planned around specific dishes...
T.
========================
Tony Roder, speaking his mind....
Louis Cohen
about several of the pioneers of the Berkeley foodie scene - Alice Waters,
etc.
I haven't been to Palo Alto much (I can't remember going there except for
World Cup soccer games), but somehow I would not expect to find places like
The Cheeseboard or The Phoenix there. I guess I would expect more expensive
ambience on the Peninsula.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Louis Cohen
Living la vida loca at N37° 43' 7.9" W122° 8' 42.8"
"Max Hauser" <maxR...@THIStdl.com> wrote in message
news:106en9g...@corp.supernews.com...
Dennis Suchta
Dennis
Anne P. Mitchell, Esq.
Dennis Suchta <dsu...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > The bit I remember from Brock's account was that the east-bay hills were
> > alive with colorful wild flowers in those days, later killed off by
> > introduced plant species as large numbers of people came into the area and
> > "seeds falling off the fur of sheep," as Brock told it, took root.
While I can't speak to the verity of this, we just acquired a small bit
of land down on the Carrizo plain and so have been reading up and
visiting and such, and one of the things for which this area (marked by
1000s of BLM and Nature Conservancy acres) is the abundance of otherwise
now hard-to-find California wildflowers. There's a nice website with
info at:
http://natureali.org/carrizo.htm
Anne
Max Hauser
> How about scanning and posting the menu/wine list?
That's a thoughtful idea. (I'd better not mention all the other menus I
have ... ;-)
I might need some help though, as (a) I have no scanner and (b) the format
is unusual. It's a large sheet of card paper, around 20" high by 30" wide,
folded in the center so that the diner would see the outer leaf containing
the menu of 10 or 15 offerings. The interior was the wine list, with
hundreds of wines in about 3-point type. Might take an unusual scanner. (I
don't want to chop it up.)
>
> Dennis
>
Alison Chaiken
"Anne P. Mitchell, Esq." <shed...@aloss.nospam.net> writes:
> one of the things for which this area (marked by 1000s of BLM and
> Nature Conservancy acres) is the abundance of otherwise now
> hard-to-find California wildflowers.
A great place for unusual wildflowers is Henry Coe State Park east of
Morgan Hill and Gilroy:
http://www.coepark.org/wildflowers/flower-album.html
Right about now is the best time to go and see them and there's an
(ObFood) upcoming Mother's Day Breakfast:
http://www.coepark.org/mothers-day.html
--
Alison Chaiken "From:" address above is valid.
(650) 236-2231 [daytime] http://www.wsrcc.com/alison/
With how many things are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if
cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our enquiries. -- Mary
Shelley, _Frankenstein_
Kent H.
be almost impossible to scan it so it would reproduce in legible
fashion. We had an early 60's Leoville las Cases for a very reasonable
price. Narsai is quite a wine collector, even today, I am told.
Blazing Laser
<maxR...@THIStdl.com> wrote:
>When I was a child in Berkeley I used to buy bird seed at Brock's Bird
>Store, one of the small shop fronts on Shattuck just north of University
>(east side). The congenial Brock brothers were locals and were, I'm not
>sure, maybe 70 years old about 1968 when I heard this from one of them. He
>said that when he was a small child he had a local relative who was "OLD," I
>take that to mean older than Mr Brock at the time he told this. This
>relative could remember Spanish times (that is, pre-gold-rush, 1840s or so).
>The bit I remember from Brock's account was that the east-bay hills were
>alive with colorful wild flowers in those days, later killed off by
>introduced plant species as large numbers of people came into the area and
>"seeds falling off the fur of sheep," as Brock told it, took root.
In John Muir's book (I forget the name) he talks about the Central
Valley that way. He took a boat 'round the horn', got off at San
Francisco, walked south to Gilroy then east through the Pacheco Pass
and across the valley to Yosemite. He said the Central Valley was a
vast 'bee garden', that you couldn't walk in it without crushing
hundreds of little flowers in each step.
I understand you could also take a boat up as far as Redding before
the rivers got silted up with sludge from hydraulic mining.
evergene
>It was a huge wine list on a huge heavy paper menu like folder. It would
>be almost impossible to scan it so it would reproduce in legible
>fashion. We had an early 60's Leoville las Cases for a very reasonable
>price. Narsai is quite a wine collector, even today, I am told.
I came to California long after Narsai's heyday, so I have no idea
what his food was like. To hear him on KCBS radio these days, he
sometimes sounds like he's shilling for local wineries and other
enterprises. I don't know whether he's compensated in any way by the
businesses he's touting, but his gushing effusive praise comes across
that way.
http://www.kcbs.com/pages/kcbs/external/narsai/wine/index.nsp
ObGuiltByAssociation: his son was recently convicted of 19 felonies
related to a pay telephone scam.
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82~1726~2010500,00.html
ObFood: On Sunday I made Oysters Rockefeller with Hog Island
Sweetwater oysters. I almost always eat oysters raw, but this dish
was so good, I could easily advance from the raw to the cooked.
Kent H.
especially when he was with Hank Rubin, there were few that reached
above him in delivering a good product to the dining consumer. This is
especially true considering that most restaurants are trying to appease
that disgusting numbskull named Michael Bauer. Restaurants were much
better in those days, and more true to their ethnicity.
Kent
Max Hauser
> No matter what you think about Narsai today, when he was a restaurateur,
> especially when he was with Hank Rubin, there were few that reached
>
> evergene wrote:
> >
> > I came to California long after Narsai's heyday, so I have no idea
> > what his food was like. To hear him on KCBS radio these days, he
> > sometimes sounds like he's shilling for local wineries and other
> > enterprises.
It would be hard to perceive Narsai's role just from his radio spots. He
was a Bay Area food and wine innovator and popularizer preceding Alice
Waters and the many good people associated with her. Narsai's son, IIRC,
also set up a specialty foods business preparing good-value exotic seafood
for restaurants, I don't know where that went.
Incidentally, Narsai's role as commentator includes a mainstreaming
function, spreading tricks from subcultures (or the merely alert) to the
mainstream. Many others have done this too, such as Corby Kummer at _The
Atlantic._ As illustrative examples, those who perceived many years ago to
use protective gloves with Habanero peppers, or to buy, as non-Indians,
Spanish saffron by the ounce at Indian spice shops (5-15 times cheaper than
by the gram at gringo merchants), may have learned that such techniques were
"novel" much later when Narsai suggested them on the air, and other people
even attributed them to him.
But mainstreaming of good ideas is a tradition for popular media. Alice
Kahn's incisive 1982 parody essay "Yuppie!" in the _East Bay Express_ (I
still have a stack of originals somewhere, and it was reprinted elsewhere)
coined or popularized a buzzword, but the demographic sightings behind it
had already happened repeatedly in print. (She did give them
personality -- Dirk and Bree, both aged 32.2.)
MH
"Max Hauser" <maxR...@THIStdl.com> wrote in message
who never gives the prices of the restaurants he reviews and drops famous
folks' names quicker than anything. "Dining Around" is getting harder and
harder to listen to these days.
I've forgotten his name, but I miss the restaurant show on KGO- AM of many
years ago. I think his first name was Rick (???). The host focused on good,
reasonably-priced food. Burns seems to think that the more expensive the
restaurant is, the better it is.
Martha
>
Reg
> I've forgotten his name, but I miss the restaurant show on KGO- AM of many
> years ago. I think his first name was Rick (???). The host focused on good,
> reasonably-priced food. Burns seems to think that the more expensive the
> restaurant is, the better it is.
I think you're referring to Russ Riera. As I remember it he had a restaurant
on Solano Ave Albany. I used to listen to his show and call in now and then.
--
Reg email: RegForte (at) (that free MS email service) (dot) com
Max Hauser
> MH wrote:
>
> > I've forgotten his name, but I miss the restaurant show on KGO- AM
> > of many years ago. I think his first name was Rick (???). The host
> > focused on good, reasonably-priced food. Burns seems to think that
> > the more expensive the restaurant is, the better it is.
>
> I think you're referring to Russ Riera. As I remember it he had a
> call in now and then
> --
> Reg
Yes that's what I recall also. The tall guy. Riera's (?), fairly
down-to-earth Northern-Italian-styled restaurant mid-Solano-Avenue, around
1500. Used to make slow-cooked "ragu" sauces and use them in dishes.
Chatty radio show, 1980s. I'd be interested to know what became of the
restuarant and Russ Riera.
I don't know the Gene Burns show but I should mention that Connie Hoffner of
Connie's Cookbooks, that vast used inventory on the peninsula that I
mentioned a while ago, recommends Burns's show to me, even calling to
recommend certain episodes. Connie often argues for economical and
approachable restaurants so I don't envision that she is listening for
restaurants "the more expensive the better." But I just don't know the show
at all.
Max
Reg
> Yes that's what I recall also. The tall guy. Riera's (?), fairly
> down-to-earth Northern-Italian-styled restaurant mid-Solano-Avenue, around
> 1500. Used to make slow-cooked "ragu" sauces and use them in dishes.
> Chatty radio show, 1980s. I'd be interested to know what became of the
> restuarant and Russ Riera.
Not on radio anymore AFAIK but he did write a guide to BA restaurants.
I hope he gets another show. He was knowledgeable and unpretentious.
Arne Adolfsen
Julian McCassey and the snarky tooth -- or whatever he wants to call
himself -- tell me that the bestest Arby's is out in the Richmond. OK,
that's a joke. But are they as full of shit about Bay Area restaurants
as they are about LA restaurants when they post their non-LA-resident
advice about LA restaurants to la.eats?
Thanks so much.
Arne Adolfsen
adol...@earthlink.net