Dan brought me home a double chocolate cupcake from Berkeley Bowl. I love how it’s iced to look like a Hostess cupcake. heehee* (Of course, it tasted much better than a Hostess!) It’s been raining cats and dogs all week in the East Bay which has made the daily commute to work all the more tiring and unpleasant… so this was a delightful little pick-me-up. 🙂
I love going out to eat and exploring new delicious dishes and then seeing if I can make them myself at home. It’s usually pretty hit or miss — a long time ago, when I was obsessed with P.F. Changs chicken lettuce wraps, I tried to recreate the appetizer at my college apartment and failed miserably — all we could taste were the crunchy water chestnuts. (I’m hoping to redeem myself by trying again someday.)
One of my absolute favorite dishes is linguine frutti di mare, which is essentially mixed seafood pasta. Linguine tossed with “fruits of the ocean” and loose red sauce — just thinking about it makes my mouth water. I have a hobby of trying the seafood pasta every time Dan and I go to a new Italian restaurant for the first time, and going around comparing. So far, some of my personal favorites have been Luciano’s in Oakton, The Cellar in Blacksburg, Buca di Beppo (various locations in California), and The Milanese Caffe in Berkeley. There were many other good ones, but we try to support unique, non-chain restaurants, so we don’t often dine at the likes of places like Olive Garden (although theirs is not bad, either).
The other evening, I was having a strong craving from more seafood pasta, and decided to try to make it myself. We made a quick run to Berkeley Bowl to gather some ingredients and I produced this delightful dish (while Dan made salad, because that’s what he’s good at). It was très délicieux! Just like the ones at some of the restaurants. I’m so excited that I can now whip this up in the comfort of my own home; I just wish I’d attempted it sooner!
Here’s my recipe:
Linguine Frutti di Mare
(serves 2)
Ingredients:
1.5 lbs linguini
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1 cup (8 oz) marinara sauce
1 cup (8 oz) clam juice (sold in cans)
10 oz mussels and/or steamer clams
4 oz squid, cleaned
10-12 medium shrimp
(Note: The mussels, clams, and squid can easily be bought all-in-one if you buy one of those frozen seafood mixes)
Directions
1. Heat the olive oil in a pan, and add the chopped garlic and sauté until garlic starts to turn brown.
2. Add the mussels and/or clams and squid and sauté for 2 minutes.
3. Add marinara sauce and clam juice, sauté until mussels and/or clams open.
4. Boil the pasta, drain and toss cooked pasta in with the sauce.
5. Mound pasta with sauce onto plates and place the mussels and clams around the pasta. Garnish with lemon wedges and enjoy!
The famous Berkeley Bowl is nothing short of a foodie mecca, garnering national coverage and regularly gracing the pages of newspapers like The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. We live only about a half mile away from its location on Oregon Street, and it is definitely one of the biggest perks of living in Berkeley. Some people travel several miles to do their grocery shopping here, because it seems to carry just about everything, including obscure international ingredients. I was psyched when I found that I could buy mostly everything for my Japanese cooking needs instead of having to make the hour-long trek down to Mitsuwa in San Jose. While the produce is the freshest in the area and the selection is unmatched, the shopping experience there is a whole different story and was the only thing keeping us from coming back every weekend. As the SF Gate reported, “The parking lot is a gridlocked swamp of road rage, a demolition derby of Priuses and rusty old Volvos vying for parking spots… The produce section is often described as the ‘Cairo of shopping carts,’ as dozens of very focused and aggressive gourmands fight over the purple potatoes and fresh water chestnuts. The checkout lines can be staggering, like something out of East Berlin.” The zoo that is Berkeley Bowl provides you with the most exhausting — although rewarding — shopping experience ever.
Berkeley Bowl was in desperate need of expansion with the shortage of parking spots and cramped aisles, and our prayers were answered with the opening of Berkeley Bowl West in early June of this year. Located near the intersection of San Pablo and Ashby Avenues, right off the freeway, it features a parking garage and double the number of parking spaces of the Oregon Street store, more checkout lanes, and significantly larger aisles and produce sections to accommodate the swarming crowds of shoppers. It also boasts a cafe, expanded kitchen, and community room where people can take a seat and immediately enjoy any prepared food they purchase.
Dan and I took a trip out to the new Berkeley Bowl West early last month when it had just opened, and we were super impressed! We’ll let the photos do the talking:
I commend you if you have gotten this far in this photo dump of a blog entry, and I hope you enjoyed our dorktastic photo tour. All hail Berkeley Bowl West, the new foodie paradise! We’re sure we will be seeing much more of you.