to the Bay Area and Northern California. Our first stop was the Starbucks in Tustin off the Red Hill Drive exit; it opens at 4:30 and we got there right when they opened...
This road trip would be special since we were celebrating our 20 year wedding anniversary as a family. For our 1st year wedding anniversary in 1996, Bert planned a road trip to the Bay Area for us. This time, he suggested Northern California to explore Redwood country and the coast which I thought was a great idea. TC and I were all for it.
In Tustin, Bert needed his morning coffee while I needed to use their facilities. Unfortunately, Cream Pan wouldn't be open until 6 am and we weren't going to wait for that. We moved on to our traditional second road trip which in Gorman for gas and snacks.
I drove one "short" leg of our journey northward, fighting off sleep. Kudos to Bert for doing about 98% of the driving during our entire vacation, haha. Seriously.
We would be staying at Thane's home in El Cerrito. So far, we had good timing up until we reached the 580. This stretch was near the windmills and the traffic was bumper to bumper at some points.
Our first stop would be lunch in Oakland's increasingly hipster/gentrified Temescal neighborhood at a mac 'n cheese place of all places. The only reason I chose this place for lunch was for convenience because it was right next to a punk rock record store TC put on her "wish list" to visit. Luckily, a coffee shop was nearby and another lunch stop along the same street.\
Below, the building which houses Homeroom, which like San Diego's Bazinga (but much better) serves mac 'n cheese which TC loves. Me, not so much since cheese and milky foods have not been kind to me recently. Our plan was to have something small here and go to another place down the street afterwards.
It seemed to be a popular place...You can read all of the posts by local Oakland/SF bloggers linked at the end detailing this place's history.
TC ordered the Classic mac 'n cheese with pineapple while I ordered from the Sides menu, the Spicy Cauliflower for Bert and I to share. To drink, Bert selected a lemonade.
drink
Our mini lunch in all of its pale glory.
The cauliflower was soft and easily "biteable" with a noticeable kick to it from the paprika. I liked it but TC found it too spicy for her liking.
As for the TC's pineapple mac 'n cheese, it was served with baked panko crumbs on top when she specifically requested no crumbs. Also a few bites into it, we noticed there was no pineapple at all so we notified our server who brought it back to the kitchen where they added pineapple and rebaked the dish with more crumbs and cheese on top.
This was pre-pineapple placement. While I used to like mac 'n cheese, it's not high on my list of foods to eat. TC loved it and ended up saving the other half for later (we brought our trusty cooler).
Who else went to Homeroom?
The Gastronomer went there back in February 2011 in which she detailed the restaurant's grand opening (the owner is a friend of hers)...plus Bay Area bloggers, BeyondthePlate, ThePracticalCook, The NoochyNoodle, along with FlavorhoodOakland, plus reviews from that four lettered site and tripadvisor.
Articles:
SFGate, April 2011, CaliberMag April 2012 and one of the few anti-Homeroom articles I saw from OaklandMofo which pretty much declared this place a ripoff.
and a few articles about their expansion:
"Homeroom in Oakland rolls out a drive thru option today". SF Gate, March 2013
"Oaklanc mac 'n cheese mecca Homeroom expands", June 2014
Their second location is just one block away...
Would we go here again? Probably not not because the food sucked (it didn't) but because I personally didn't like their offerings. TC on the other hand wouldn't mind a return visit!
Homeroom
400 40th St (Temescal)
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 597-0400
homeroom510.com + their fb page
There were a few more places on this stretch of 40th that we wanted to check out, including the punk rock record store next door...
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