Impression: CU Sushi: Recommended

2152 Center Street, Berkeley

I stayed late at school the other night, and on the way home I decided that I was in the mood for sushi. I pass CU Sushi every day on the way to and from school, so I thought I’d give it a try. It’s a cute little space, and the staff is friendly. I ordered four orders of sushi: tuna nigiri ($2.75), albacore nigiri ($2.25), tuna roll ($2.98), and cucumber roll ($2.25). (As you can see, my taste in sushi runs simple.) I also got an order of gyoza ($4,25), because I was hungry. And a can of soda ($1.25).

CU makes a big deal of all its sushi being 50% off; that seems a little weird, seeing as you never pay full price. I guess it’s a way to be reasonably priced without coming off as a place for cheap sushi. They do make a fine piece of sushi, too. The nigiri were nice and hefty, with a hint of wasabi. The rolls held together well, but I’m thinking I need to move on from tuna rolls; they’re sort of boring. The gyoza were good, but not exceptional.

I also appreciated the little extras; I got a complimentary bowl of edamame, which was nice. There was also a cute little ritual where my server put a little tablet that looked like an earplug on a dish in front of me, then poured hot water over it. It promptly expanded into a tightly wrapped hot towelette, which I thought was pretty darn cool.

Originally published on Tournedos

The Examined Life: Pregret

I’m a simulator. It is in my nature to model the world in my head and make hypotheses and predictions based on them. A lot of the time, this serves me well, but it also means I spend more time than is healthy fretting about what might happen, or, as I have termed it just now, pregretting things.

For example, a couple of folks tried to console me when I didn’t get into Stanford this summer (Go Bears, I should note in passing), and it perplexed me, because I didn’t feel at all bad about it. Not because I didn’t want to go, but because I’d lived through that particular rejection several times already in internal simulation. I was disappointed, but I’d worked through most of any sadness or bitterness I had.

This, I have concluded, is ridiculous. Yes, it’s sort of nice to be able to be sanguine when life dishes up misfortune. But it really sucks to suffer through misfortunes that never actually happen. I pregretted not getting any callbacks from law firms this year during on-campus interviews; that didn’t happen. Then I pregretted not getting any offers; that didn’t happen either. Which reminds me I have something else to post about, but I’ll do that separately.

Originally published on LiveJournal

Impression: KoKo Express: OK

2433-F Durant Avenue (inside Sather Lane)
Berkeley, CA

I had a review half-written about a really dismal hole in the wall called Sumo Burger which made some mighty grim teriyaki chicken worthy of my second Not Recommended label. However, it folded before I finished. Its storefront is now filled by KoKo Express, which has a similar menu, but better decor.

I had a cheeseburger ($4.00), with onion rings and a drink ($1.99; it’s a combo special). Their cheeseburger is fine, but not exceptional. They use shredded cheese instead of a slice, which is unusual, and they use a lot of it. The onion rings are pretty good — very oniony, with a light crunchy breading.

They have a happy hour deal, whereby you can get various snack-type things for $1.99 — chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, and “macaroni noodle with ham”, among others. I haven’t tried them, but it looks interesting.

Originally published on Tournedos

More Birthright

Something that irked me about Birthright, to the point that I had edited it out of my memory until I reread it last night, is the way they handled their gods. The big event that establishes the setting’s status quo is a legendary battle in which all the gods die and their divine essence flows out and into the mortals present at their demise. This is a pretty cool premise.

However, the lion’s share of said divine essence flowed directly into each god’s most favored lieutenant, turning them into gods. And basically the same gods. This is kinda lame.

It would be niftier, to my tastes, had they done something Unknown Armies-style, wherein a regent who enhances his or her bloodline sufficiently could ascend to divine status, possibly displacing the current holder of that status. (Among other things, it would add some depth to the quest to enhance one’s bloodline.)

Alternately, they could have gone totally hardcore and had no gods remaining, with clerics worshipping the most powerful regents and deriving their powers from them.

Then it occurred to me that Dark Sun was set up a little like that, with its templars who draw magic power from the sorceror-kings. Somewhere out there, someone has run a Birthright/Dark Sun crossover. I bet it was awesome.

Originally published on LiveJournal

Birthright and the Canonical Adventure

I’ve been mulling over some gaming stuff lately, because my brain has been slipping its chain and actively fleeing the world of law, what with the interviews and the journal and the gah my head.

Birthright was one of TSR’s 2nd edition AD&D settings, and one I’m very fond of. I have a weakness for that realm that lies somewhere at the junction of roleplaying, wargaming, and political science simulation. There have been a number of forays into that realm over time; most of them aren’t so good. Birthright is one of the better ones. It postulated a world where the gods are dead and their power has devolved to the ruling families of the world, who acquire thereby a mystical attachment to the lands they rule and the ability to do all sorts of awesome stuff with their divine right. It also has very clever mechanics for handling diplomacy, intrigue, war, and other incidents of kingdom-scale play. And yet, Birthright never really took off. I suspect this is because of its failure to articulate a canonical adventure.

For those of you who haven’t encountered the term before, a “canonical adventure” is a basic model of adventuring for a particular game that a group can always fall back on. It’s the simplest answer to the question, “What do you do in this game?” Not all games have them, but many classics do. The canonical adventure in D&D, for example, is “Go into a dungeon; kill monsters; take their stuff”. You can do many other things with the game, but you can always fall back on going into dungeons, killing monsters, and taking their stuff. The canonical adventure in Traveller is “buy low, travel in space, sell high”. Transhuman Space, as a counter-example, doesn’t really have one.

Birthright never really explains how to use all the neat kingdom-scale stuff it introduces. The set spends only a couple of pages on how to deal with party composition and adventure design, and its advice is unsatisfying. At times, it seems to assume that one PC will be a temporal ruler, with the other PCs being either noble characters with no kingdom or commoners, and the party will go on relatively ordinary adventures in between (or as part of) kingdom-scale events. At other times, it seems that each PC should have his or her own kingdom. Obviously, both are possible, but it means that “a Birthright game” doesn’t have an unambiguous meaning. The various resources and concerns that attach to rulership mean that the basic AD&D canonical adventure is, if not unavailable, at least complicated. It makes it harder to imagine exactly what to do with the set.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the designers tied their kingdom-scale mechanics fairly strongly to the setting; you can’t simply transplant the mechanics to a different setting where you want intrigue and political shenanigans. If you don’t want a world where nobles have powers by virtue of divine right, some significant kit-bashing is required.

The upshot of all this is that the stuff in Birthright makes me pretty excited to do something, but it would clearly take a fair amount of work. Which is a problem, compared to something easy to do out of the box. On the other hand, I do have these brain-cycles begging me not to make them think about patent licensing.

Originally published on LiveJournal

Impression: Goood Frikin’ Chicken: Recommended

10 29th Street
San Francisco, CA

I really like GFC. How can you not love a sassy Mediterranean rotisserie chicken place? Last night I stopped in to pick up a chicken meal ($15.75). I got the rotisserie chicken, but they also have chicken cooked over an open flame and a variety of other shawerma, kabab, and falafel options. The meal comes with olive oil pita, salad, and a side; I chose the macaroni and cheese.

The chicken is indeed pretty frikin’ goood. The meat is tender and easily stripped from the bones, and the seasoning is great — a little spicy, with a fantastic depth of flavor. Apparently a garlic lemon marinade is responsible. The whole chicken fed my wife and I for two meals; you can also get a half if you want.

The olive oil pita is also really tasty, though I wouldn’t have called it a pita if you had asked me. Jen kept calling it naan. The salad was fine — not ragingly delicious, but the lettuce was fresh and the tart, bright dressing was a good counterpoint to rich chicken. The mac and cheese was disappointing, though. If you just wanted a scoop of starch by the side of your plate, it would be fine, but it was bland. Like bad Salvadorean food, life is too short to eat bad macaroni and cheese.

That one blemish aside, however, it was a terrific meal. I will definitely be returning to try the open flame chicken or some kabab. And that time, maybe the pilaf.

Impression: Los Panchos: OK

Mission past Valencia, San Francisco, CA

I waited for my food with considerable trepidation at Los Panchos. I had set out to get a burrito or something similar, but decided on the spur of the moment to go into the first place I passed, because I need to get to know the neighborhood. The Burger King doesn’t count, so it was the Mexican/Salvadorean place. The omens, however, were not encouraging. It’s not really clear when you walk in whether you order at the counter or sit down until the staff instruct you to sit anywhere. The service is friendly, but really slow; I think they have one waitress and one cook back there. I ordered the pollo encebollado ($7.95), which I’d never heard of, but assumed that chicken and onions would be involved.

During the long wait, I ate my chips. The chips were a bit oily and bland, and the salsa hot while uninteresting, but I was really hungry, so I ate them anyway. My neighbors’ plates looked sort of grim, and as I waited I worried. Life is too short to eat bad Salvadorean food.

When my plate arrived, it seemed that my fears had been realized. My pollo encebollado was a bone-in chicken breast covered in sauteed onions, meat-down in a mess of pale rice and refried beans, with a side of iceberg pieces in generic pink dressing and an order of thoroughly institutional-looking tortillas. I typically don’t care for bone-in chicken (I know the arguments, I just don’t like fiddling with bone and ligament), and I really don’t like refried beans.

I’m pleased to report, however, that appearances were deceiving. Although some fiddling with bones was indeed required, the chicken was really tasty, and the onions were delicious. I don’t know what they did with the onions, but they were the best sauteed onions I’ve had in a while. The tortillas were also really good, and even the beans won me over for the first half of the meal. Everything got a bit less delicious as it cooled off.

In a vacuum, the pollo encebollado would probably earn a Recommended. The service, the chips, and a certain amount of caution make me hold that back to an OK, though. I will probably go back, maybe to try the asado encebollado (or maybe I’ll finally get around to eating a pupusa). Perhaps an upgrade will be in order at that time.

Originally published on Tournedos

Impression: La Burrita: Not Recommended

2530 Durant Avenue

La Burrita has two locations, one on either side of the Berkeley campus. I’ve seen it for years, and yet never went in. This, it turns out, may have been for the best.

I got a large burrito with grilled chicken on a wheat tortilla ($4.59), and a large soda ($1.25). I had some chips and salsa beforehand. The chips are pretty good — light and crispy — and the salsa is tasty if unchallenging. The burrito, however, was disappointing. For one thing, large is really not that large at all; I don’t expect wonders for $4.59, but most places I like call a burrito that size regular. I give them some points for having a wheat tortilla, but the fillings were lousy. The rice was mealy, the beans lifeless, the grilled chicken bland, and the salsa was cloying and overcooked-tasting. There was some cheese in there too, I think, but it made no impression at all. The salsa really was distressing; it was the flavor of microwave burritos worked up into a restaurant salsa.

I might go back for a bowl of chips, and I might be persuaded to try the nachos, but I think I’ve had my last burrito at La Burrita.

Impression: Henry’s: Recommended

2600 Durant Avenue
Berkeley

So the focus of this blog is going to be shifting again, because I am no longer going to school in the Tenderloin and living in Redwood City. Now I’m going to school in Berkeley and living in the Mission. Thus, I’ll now be writing about cheap food in the Mission and Telegraph areas. This completely destroys the cleverness of the blog title, but such is life.

I had an interview at the Hotel Durant today right before lunchtime, so I decided to try the hotel restaurant, a pubby sort of place. I had a turkey, avocado, and bacon sandwich ($8.95); it came with salad or fries, and I chose salad. I also had a soda ($2.00), which is ludicrously expensive but comes with refills. In general, the prices may keep me away. Twelve dollars for lunch isn’t unreasonable in a nice place with table service, but there are so many cheaper options around here.

The sandwich was good. Avocado can be a problem in a sandwich; it can squirt out of the sandwich or squish all over everything. The avocado here, however, was just the right amount of ripe. It stayed put, but still had some body. Also, the cook recognized that the richness of avocado calls for discretion with the mayonnaise. The bacon was also good. I don’t like bacon that’s been cooked to crunchiness; I think it tastes burnt. This bacon was crisp but still chewy, and went well with the smoothness of avocado. The turkey wound up being something of a bit player, but that was fine.

The salad was fine. A nice assortment of greens with some shredded carrot, and some honey mustard dressing. I could have done without the red onion, though. I think red onion in a salad is like a tuba in a band; if you have enough else going on, it works, but you wouldn’t want an ensemble to consist of, say, a snare drum and a tuba.

Impression: Dog House: Not Recommended

80 S. 1st Street, San Jose

At this point, the Tenderloin focus is blown all to hell, so whatever — food reviews. The Dog House is a small joint in downtown San Jose devoted, as the name suggests, to hot dogs. They have a whole array of dogs, as well as some sides and salads. I had a Classic Dog ($2.95), an order of seasoned curly fries ($2.95), and a soda ($1.75). I was disappointed.

I chose the Classic Dog because it was inexpensive — the higher-end dogs run as much as $5.95 — and because, as with Burger Joint, I think the true quality of a dish like a burger or hot dog is best displayed when you go simple. The Classic Dog, unfortunately, was bland and a little small. I suspect it’s the kind of dog best consumed in bulk, like a White Castle hamburger. I felt, after eating it, like I’d eaten nothing at all. Similarly, the curly fries were underdone and barely seasoned. A coworker got the shoestring onion rings, and they were similarly terrible — cold, and with that off flavor of cooking oil that needs changing.

Now, another coworker opted for the Boss Hog, a bacon-wrapped bratwurst with cheese, BBQ sauce, and the aforementioned onion rings, and pronounced it good. I suspect that the higher-end dogs, which feature more exotic sausages and toppings, may be generally better. Bacon-wrapping alone improves many a sausage. Still, I doubt I will return.