Berkeley Social Club

A(nother) breakfastary roadtrip:
Berkeley, CA

"We are out of rice... how about spaghetti?!"[1]

https://www.berkeley-socialclub.com/


Place: Berkeley Social Club

Location: 2050 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA 
(near the corner of Shattuck Avenue)

Hours: open at 9:00am Monday - Friday and 8:00am Saturday - Sunday 

Meal: Mascarpone Blueberry stuffed Crunch French Toast; a side of Crispy Yukon (that would be potatoes, not Cornelius); and, to drink, a glassa Fresh Raspberry Lemonade


Thus concludes Episode 7...

(I think) with today's road-trippable breakfastary journey (all the way over [Hey! I will have you know that it was a four-hour roundtrip via buses and BART.]) to Berkeley Social Club, that finally wraps up all of the restaurants in the Taylor Street Coffee Shop-family mini-chain tour. This mini-link in their mini-chain has been open now since November 2016. After extensive research on these-here World Wild Webs (okay, so maybe I just looked up when the earliest reviews were posted on yelp*, but still... ), I can also conclude that this particular restaurant was #6 to be opened (just a little before their newest restaurant, #7, Surisan, in December 2016).

Size-wize, I would have to guesstimate that it ranks at probably #2 or #3, maybe a little behind Sweet Maple and Surisan.  I sat at one of the four round two-seater tables that are along the front window facing out onto University Avenue. (I had to ask one of the Thai waiter-server guys if the "University" in question was "Leland Stanford Junior University"... Sheesh! The looks some people will give you!)

As far as any other viable options for st*pid vegetarian-types go, this location also offers many of the same items as some of the other restaurants. There were two items that I do not remember seeing on the past menus, though:

Strawberry Avocado Toast ~ strawberry, avocado, goat cheese, Balsamic glaze (they have this one listed under "Small Bites", but I would probably order a side of Crispy Yukon and a poached egg to make it into a "Full Bite"; and, yes, I know that strawberry and avocado does sound like a strange combination, but I would try it; plus, an avocado is botanically a berry, whereas, strawberries are not)

and

Morning Pizza ~ doughless, potato, bacon (to be nixed), chorizo (ditto on the nixture), mushroom, tomato, cherry pepper, onion, Mozzarella, egg, arugula (this was going to be my back-up choice just in case the restaurant was out of "bread" this morning... ).

They had me at the "Mascarpone... stuffed... French Toast" (which was what I basically had on another visit to Kitchen Story [see previous 'blog-entry from Saturday, June 10, 2017], anyway). All the rest was just more glitter, but more than welcomed. This was basically a French toast sandwich, encrusted with corn flakes (trust me, it works), with Mascarpone cheese and some blueberries in the middle, and a few blueberries and strawberry slices on top. There really were not that many extra blueberries in between the slices of French toast, probably about as many as were already on top of the pile.

For condimentary supplementation, 
Berkeley Social Club offered both Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (Original Red Sauce) and Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce. I had schlepped a few bottles of my own hot sauce (all the way over to Berkeley), so I made sure to use at least a little H*ll's Kitchen Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on the potatoes and also a couple of shakes of McCormick® Grill Mates® Smokehouse Maple Seasoning (I figured that would be a nice juxtaselection along with the maple syrup that I poured all over the French toast). However... oooops! I went a little heavy-handed with the hot sauce this morning. Even if this particular Ghost Pepper-based sauce is "tempered" with Tabasco and aged red pepper chillies, it still has a bit of a kick to it; thankfully, the main meal was overly sweet and helped to balance it out... somewhat...

I guess I could say that this was a very crispy/crunchy kinda morning!

... and I was very happy to hear that they were not out of rice this morning ~ I asked! (Plus, I saw one of the worker-guys eating a big plate of what looked like some kinda fried rice dish for his own breakfast at the bar/counter-area.)


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Mascarpone Blueberry stuffed Crunch French Toast ~ 7.1;
nebby li'l Chinese restaurants that run outta rice ~ 5.4

___________________

1. Completely un-breakfastarily related ~ but still food-based (mostly) ~ rant:

I do not want to sound overly Trumpian-racist here, but it goes without saying that when eating at a Chinese (and Asian in general) restaurant that a verisimilitude will be that they offer rice in some form or another (either as "plain steamed" or in a multitude of "fried rice" dishes on the menu). However, such was not the case when I ate at a local Chinese restaurant last night. After I had already placed my order (simply Curried Vegetables with a side of "rice"), the waitress/server-lady person came back to my table and said the above titular [footnoted] question.

I was more amused and bemused (and probably a little ceemused, too) than enraged or outraged (or even above-raged), so I just went with the only other option that they had (on a busy Friday night, I must add). I would probably have enjoyed it a bit more if the noodles that they served were actually Chinese chow mein or chow fun noodles, but this was just your run-of-the-mill, straight-outta-the-box, plain ol' Italian-style spaghetti stuff... and I am not an anti-pastite b*stard in any way.

Can you imagine going to a KFC and being told that they are out of the dead, decaying poultry flesh: "Well, I'm afraid we don't get much call for it around these parts."

or

Mickey D's Rainbow Room: "Sorry, we are all outta French fries... how about some steamed br*ccoli?"

or

any good Italian Pizz'aria: "Scusi, we are all outta the Pizza-dough, eh?!... howza about-a nice-a bowl-a quinoa instead?!"

(Okay, so maybe the generalization that all Italian-Americans "speak-a like-a this-a" is a bit racist, but you all know you were picturing ol' Guisepp' saying this with both of his hands flailing.)

I did make sure to ask the waitress/server-lady person 
if the name of the restaurant was not actually 
"Ye Old Chinese Emporium" and if the owner did not happen to be named "Henry Wongsleydale".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz1JWzyvv8A

Does anyone know if cats eat rice?!