InBerkeley

Richard Mancuso asked our Twitter feed for the best places to eat and go within walking distance of Cal. I don’t pretend to true expertise for the university neighborhood, so I wonder what our readers think. I do have a few suggestions, however.

On the south side of the campus, I like both the dining room and the outdoor courtyard at Adagia. The food is good, but not great by Berkeley standards. But it’s a nice place. Across the street, Strada is one of the most pleasant places for coffee or tea near Cal. Good for professor spotting if that’s your thing.

On Telegraph Avenue, I haven’t found any place for a meal I’m that enthusiastic about. Yogurt Park on Durant is very popular, and I do like its frozen yogurt. Nearby, Papamingo on Channing Way offers more seriously gourmet frozen yogurt, but it doesn’t satisfy my sweet tooth as much.

West of the campus, there is a serious concentration of inexpensive restaurants and cafes on Center Street. It’s worth having a wander. Stray into downtown and the best restaurant is Downtown.

On the north side of the campus, the offerings right next to the university strike me as being comparatively uninteresting. I could be wrong. If you go a little further north, however, you get into the Gourmet Ghetto and the choices become wonderful and bewildering.

The truth is that much of Berkeley is walking distance of Cal. More than half of the restaurants that Dave and I wrote about in our north/south posts are walking distance in my terms. And Berkeley is a great bicycling town, so that would bring absolutely everything into your orbit.

Food

Next door to Ajanta, a fine Indian restaurant, this was a furniture store.

It’ll be more fun to report the Grand Openings when new businesses launch when we’re through with this recession.

Retail

Ryan Tate writes: “Berkeley Bowl West is larger, easier to navigate and better organized than the original. When I went, 6PM on a weekday, there were also (shockingly) no checkout lines (checkers competed for customers!) and plenty of parking.

“But you just can’t replace good staff: The lady at the meat counter could not distinguish baby back ribs from pork loin from pork chops. She understood I wanted ribs (repeated it back) but kept pointing to the wrong thing until she finally hit one I nodded my head to. Agh. Then when she wrapped it the meat was still sticking out.

“Needless to say we were careful to select a checker we recognized from the original store.”

Food, Retail

Phew. I’m glad the world’s best psephologist, Nate Silver, has explained why the Zagat’s survey that rated Starbucks ahead of Berkeley’s own Peet’s is probably fatally flawed.

Photo by Phineas Gage on Flickr

Food