The Persian Version: Jeddo Kebab

If you look closely enough, you can trace a similarity in base food items from places like Greece and Turkey eastward into China and its environs. This is hardly surprising, considering the history of the famed Silk Road, a network of passages and roadways that helped foment the trade of spices and other goods from China to Syria and everywhere in between, as well as the number of empires which once claimed this vast geographical area.

Despite the turmoil and the wages of time, the cuisine of the Persians (now modern-day Iran) stood the test of time and the changes in area rulers. Back in the Bay Area, there are several Persian eateries of note, but I admit the cuisine was not on my radar as I beginning my area explorations. It wasn't until I got to Columbus when I started digging into this tasty word via the metro's one and only Persian eatery: Jeddo Kebab.

For The Sake of Sake: The Takara Sake Museum and Tasting Room (Berkeley, CA)

Berkeley, California: where free speech monuments and
sake museums can reside next to each other in peace

My first experience with sake, the Japanese beverage fermented from rice that dates back to roughly 300 BC, was an indirect one, Back in high school at a party hosted by a mutual friend, we found a fairly ornate bottle containing this truly exotic beverage (for us at that time, Corona qualified as exotic.)  One of my friends particularly found the sake to his liking...too much so, as it turned out. That was the first time I had seen anyone so stinking drunk in my presence, and it still ranks well in the top 5 examples of this unofficial and ignominious personal category.

Flash forward to today, where my spouse and I have made craft breweries one of our top targets during our travels. If nothing else, this has led to a pursuit of other forms of adult beverages on a lesser scale, including wines, cocktails and spirits, and mead. When it came to sake, our experience pretty much amounted to combination of nil, nada and zilch. Combine that status with a willingness to try new things and some free time to kill before the holiday family gathering, and we found ourselves in, of all places, Berkeley, California.

Food Truck Dossier: Aloha Streatery

Food Truck: Aloha Streatery

My First Thought: "Oooh, food truck plate lunch?"

Reality: To paraphrase the one and only Sir-Mix-A-Lot, "I like baked buns and a bit of rice/No other brahs can deny." Aloha Streatery has a focused selection of golden baked buns with various fillings and a couple of generally healthier rice-based dishes