I was just here last week with Bert...
but am not sick of this place yet! We even sat in the same spot. It wasn't crowded at 5:15 like it was last week. We rather liked this spot because we could watch the action in the kitchen and see the beautiful foccacia and loaves.
Prickly pear lemonade for her...
Our dinner was a combination late birthday for me and early for her.
We ordered three things - the purple kale salad (the same from last week's outing with Bert), the Tribute pizza for the Berkeley Cheeseboard Collective (we subbed out the feta cheese with mozzarella) and a meat and cheese board, selected by my friend.
This was epic.
The meat and cheese board actually came out first, then the pizza, followed by the salad. Maybe we should have sat at a bigger table. Holy $%#@! The pizza had roasted Hatch chilies, roasted corn, thinly sliced jalapenos, cilantro and the cheese. For a few extra dollars, we added thinly sliced spicy Spanish chorizo.
Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs. But hey, leftovers would be enjoyed the next day. The Berkeley Cheeseboard Collective is a real place in Berkeley, located near Thane's first apartment on Shattuck. That particular are was known as the Gourmet Ghetto. The pizza place is known for having only vegetarian pizzas and only one kind a day. So whatever they made, you had not choice. Berkeley is a pretty granola/vegetarian kind of place so that's not a big deal. The pizza isn't vegan though since it had cheese.
She hadn't tried purple kale before. We both enjoyed the flavors and varied textures of the salad.
We marveled at this "platter" (stump?). For five items (you choose from a selection of charcuterie, cheeses and vegetables), this was $19 which was pretty good considering the restaurant adds assorted nuts (both sweet and savory), slices fruits (so fresh!), a few slices of their daily focaccia, bits of housemade granola bar and even a smear of grainy mustard. This had EVERYTHING great on it.
The two cheeses were Holey Cow, a Swiss cheese from Paso Robles plus the Fiscalini cloth wrapped cheddar (same cheese used on the Rampage pizza from last week). The two vegetables were the roasted cauliflower with breadcrumbs and the roasted Portabello mushrooms with balsamic and Swiss cheese. The meat was sorpressata which had some kick due to the black pepper and garlic.
Bask in its beauty.
Our server was so awesome. She split and boxed our leftovers so efficiently. Because it was May the 4th, aka Star Wars Day, she had on the coolest Star Wars tie fighter earrings! I need to get some Millenium Falcon earrings! And I would wear it even if it wasn't Star Wars Day.
I wanted to take my friend to a couple more places before we headed home (early as in 8:15, ha ha), so we went to Holsem. She tried what I had last week, the Nutella cold brew which she really enjoyed. I had the sparkling Elderflower ginger and vanilla bean drink. This was really refreshing and had real vanilla bean seeds within along with ginger slices.
Our last stop of the night was Caffe Calabria. We sat in the parklet outside to savor our shared affogato. I had my caffeine late in the form of an espresso con panna.
It was a lovely evening spending quality time with a lovely friend celebrating both of our birthdays.
Previous visit to Tribute & Holsem:
Just last week with Bert
Previous visit to Caffe Calabria:
November 2017 with Bert combo'd with dinner at, guess where...Tribute!
There is a more recent visit to Calabria involving espresso with Guinness. That visit will be combined with a drinks post. I'm so lazy to do those random compilations but it'll happen...eventally.
2 comments:
The meat - roasted vegetable board is what we usually order at Tribute CC. The Missus loves the granola. We'll often get a pound to go.
I'll have to try the meat/veg board again but with Bert. I loved the variety on that board. I didn't realize they sold their granola, so that's good to know! Thank you Kirk.
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