So, I was looking through the Chowhound’s Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area, and I was wondering, where’s all the Oakland restaurants? And then I got to thinking, what is it about Oakland I *like*, anyway? So, I figured I’d see if I could write down some stuff, maybe figure it out:

• Restaurants
• Geta – cheap, good sushi
• Gregoire – expensive French takeout
• Cuvae – Asian fusion tapas, but good
• Le Cheval – upscale Vietnamese
• That place across the street from Merritt Bakery – downscale Vietnamese
• Merritt Bakery – best waffles ever, by leaps and bounds
• The Belgian Waffle Guy, at the Farmer’s Market – second best waffles, and totally different.
• Jade Villa – good, inexpensive, accessible dim sum
• Cactus Taqueria – best Cali-Mex food around, with an extraordinary tres leches cake
• Pearl Oyster Bar – a nice, upscaley seafood-oriented tapas place, with great, friendly service
• Angelfish – best sushi I’ve ever had
• ici – bizarre, but delicious gelatos
• Lamyx Tea Bar – local tea bar with a wide variety of stuff, open way late
• Flavors of India – new local Indian food, surprisingly good
• Zachary’s Pizza – best Chicago-style pizza I’ve had (never eaten pizza in Chicago, tho)
• Other Random Crap
• The Saturday Farmer’s Market under 580 – A great, bustling group of people shopping for fresh veggies, fruits and other various foodstuffs. Grows every week.
• Lake Merritt – it’s a lake, with some parks around it, and right now, a whole mess of Canada Geese
• Chinatown – it’s… uh… Chinatown. Close enough to get to easily, though not great to park near.
• Point Isabelle (not technically in Oakland, but relatively easily accessible) – A really scenic dog walk by the bay where I can let Mobius off-leash, and he can interact with the hundreds of dogs that are always there
• The Parkway – A second-run theater that serves beer and pizza, and where half the seating is couches
• The Grand Lake Theater – A local old-school movie theater that’s unabashedly lefty
• Liberal political environment – the kind of place that’d support an unabashedly lefty old-school movie theater
• Great weather, most of the time – not that humid, not that cold most of the time. Could use warmer evenings, but overall, the weather’s usually awesome.
• Bike-friendly – You can get pretty much anywhere you want in the East Bay by bike. From our house, you can get to anywhere in Oakland, Berkeley, or Emeryville within 45 minutes.
• Joaquin Miller Park – A nice place to go mountain biking on trails, less than 20 minutes away.
• Anthony Chabot Park – A place to actually go camping and feel like you’ve gotten away from it all, less than 30 minutes away
• Things I’m Looking Forward To
• Trader Joe’s in walking distance – less than a mile from our house – easily walkable
• Whole Foods in scootable distance – three or four miles away – I could easily scoot there and pick up awesome meats, fishes, etc.
• The new restaurants on Grand Ave.
• Neecha Thai – a highly regarded Thai restaurant we’ve yet to go to. It’s been around for a bit, but we haven’t tried it yet
• Camino – A new restaurant on Grand by some ex Chez Panisse folks
• Cafe DiBartolo – another new, sort of mid-upscale type place on Grand – sort of in the no-man’s land between “upscale” and “cheap-ass” – it hits the wrong price point for me, but I’ve heard reasonably good things.

I dunno – it’s not like Oakland’s got *everything* like say, NYC or SF, but some of the things it has, it’s hard to get in the city. Parking anywhere you’d need to drive, (relatively) affordable housing, friendly neighborhoods, relatively little crime, trees, parks, and more or less everything you’d need in walking (or short driving) distance.

What can I say? I like it here.