Taste of the Town

TREAT YOUR TASTE BUDS

Take a Culinary Tour of the Alameda Marketplace

    Whenever I venture over to the Alameda Marketplace, I feel virtuous, but my diet suffers tremendously. This mall of culinary delights is filled with shops run by local merchants selling delicious, organic and ultimately healthy foods to taste and eat, but I have such a difficult time choosing that I usually end up overeating—with joyful, reckless abandon.
    From the Alameda Natural Grocery Store, with its fine selection of locally grown, organic produce and healthy packaged food, to the grilled-vegetable panini and Greek salad made by Season to Taste’s culinary school–trained cooks, to the artisan Crater Lake blue cheese and Devon cream at Farmstead Cheeses & Wines to go with the scones or apple turnovers made at Feel Good Bakery, I am like a kid in a candy store. It’s virtually impossible to restrain myself.
    Alameda Natural Grocery (510-865-1500) anchors the Marketplace, which occupies the corner of Park Street and Buena Vista Avenue. Formerly a health-and-supplements store several blocks down the street, the grocery store is helmed by Donna Layburn, owner and manager of the Marketplace. It was Layburn’s vision to open a haven for those she calls “like-minded independent people who are passionate about living their dreams and have a high standard for food and ingredients.” An Alameda resident dedicated to giving the locals high value and good products, Layburn has kept the big chains out of the Marketplace and managed to “create a complete shopping experience.”
    Layburn succeeded in realizing her dream. In addition to shopping for fresh produce, meats, fish and packaged goods at the grocery store, Baron’s Meats & Poultry (510 864-1915) or Patricia’s Pantry (510 769-5424), Alamedans—and anyone else who ventures through—can find a selection of ready-to-eat foods to please a wide range of palates. Because the Marketplace’s hours extend from the early morning into the evening, it’s possible to enjoy breakfast, lunch and dinner (plus snacks and dessert) there. Start your day directly across from the grocery store at The Beanery (510-521-8800), an Internet-connected coffee shop with excellent pastries, bagels and some of the best free-trade organic coffee in town for your morning latte. Come back later for a taste of fine chocolate and a scoop of Dreyer’s Grand ice cream.
    For a spot where you can stretch breakfast into lunch and then into your afternoon break, the Feel Good Bakery (510-864-2733) delivers the goods. It’s an artisan bakery with cases of delicious, hard-to-resist pastries, including popovers, brownies and tarts. Feel Good is famous for its breads and baguettes, but three favorite desserts stand out: Rabbit Cakes—round carrot-cake sandwiches with a dollop of cream-cheese icing in the middle; banchos—small banana breads dotted with chunks of chocolate; and Chocolate Orgasm, a brownie-like pastry that lives up to its name. A lunchtime option is the pizza, with various gourmet toppings—such as pesto, caramelized onions, walnuts and Gorgonzola cheese—on the bakery’s signature cornmeal sourdough crust (made with organic flour, cornmeal and extra virgin olive oil).
    Feel Good has been a tenant of the Marketplace from the emporium’s beginnings. Bakery owner Rick Kellner (the “Dough Dude”) describes his recipe for success. “The passion of the bakers is apparent in everything we do,” he says. These exquisite breads and pastries are shaped by hand from 100 percent organic ingredients and baked in steam-injected hearth ovens right on the premises.
    Next to the bakery, Season to Taste (510-522-3663) is a great spot for lunch. Sandwiches ($6–$8), including the afore­mentioned grilled-vegetable panini (egg­plant, zucchini and squash with pesto, provolone, roasted peppers and sun-dried tomatoes) find fine accompaniment in a full selection of salads, from Greek (with tomatoes, onions, olives and feta cheese) totossed baby greens with tender chicken in chimichuri, a southwestern-style green sauce.
    While you’re there, you can order your dinner—the roasted Rocky chicken ($15 for a whole chicken with two 16-ounce side dishes, $10 for a half chicken with two 8-ounce sides). Owner Lynn Styne created the chicken special for the family on the go. “We’re trying to simplify things for people,” she says. “It’s for people just coming off work, tired, needing a quick, healthy dinner.” Styne shares the passion for food evident in the other independents in the Marketplace. “We want to offer a level of service and quality product that you can’t get anywhere else in town,” she says.
    Next in the line of Marketplace shops sits Sushi King (510-523-9888), the tiny sushi bar with the king-sized menu. The eatery offers reasonably priced, freshly made sushi, sashimi and rolls, such as the signature Sushi King Rainbow, a crab and cucumber roll topped with shrimp and unagi ($5.99). Pick up a Special Combo A bento box ($7.25)—a great meal with cold buckwheat noodles, five pieces of sushi, soup, salad and rice.
    In addition to its fresh seafood counter, JP Seafood Company (510-865-3474), right next to Sushi King, serves up crab sandwiches on ciabatta bread, hearty soups such as clam chowder and pumpkin, delicious shrimp and macaroni salads, tangy Monterey Bay calamari and gravlax—salmon mixed with Kosher salt, organic lemon zest, pepper, dill and crushed juniper berries. Alison Pucci, co-owner with her husband, Joe Pucci, says JP Seafood occasionally serves up lobster bisque, as well.
    Heading to a picnic in the park or at Crab Cove? Farmstead Cheeses & Wines (510-864-9463) has the largest selection of cheeses on the island; grab some Smokey Blue from Oregon’s Rogue Creamery and a bottle of chilled white wine. Pick up additional snacks and fruit at the grocery store, which also boasts a fine bakery section, with artisan cakes and pastries from the TortaBella Bakery in Pleasanton. Crowd pleasers are the “unbirthday cakes,” colorful confections that come in lemon, chocolate and pink-frosted chocolate raspberry (my family’s top choice), and the princess cakes, dome-shaped chocolate delights. Both are $9.99. And, finally, no tour of the Marketplace is complete without mentioning the emporium’s latest tenant, Ching Hua (510-522-8777), the tony sit-down Chinese restaurant that does bang-up business with its Beijing- and Sichuan-style cuisine.
    If there’s a downside to the Marketplace, it’s the short supply of comfortable seating. But that shouldn’t deter the hungry diner. In addition to ensuring an excellent meal, eating at the Marketplace shops supports not only independent merchants but also local artists, whose works hang throughout the building, sponsored by the Frank Bette Center for the Arts.
    And remember, you don’t need to overeat; you can always come back another day.