Sweet & Savory

Grégoire Takeout

A and I made a trip up to Berkeley to meet up with some friends for a much anticipated tour of the Scharffen Berger Factory. We arrived at 1:30 pm in Berkeley, a good 2 hours ahead of schedule to meet up with my brother for some good eating from the excellent selection of restaurants Berkeley has to offer. I even brought along a camera to take pictures!

We've been meaning to visit this particular restaurant on the northwest side of campus, named Le Poulet, whose storefront is filled with chicken artifacts. Unfortunately, we seem to always visit Berkeley on Sunday, the one day of the week they are closed.

Instead, my brother suggested this tiny hole-in-the-wall place off Spruce by the name of Grégoire. And what an adorable place! There is room for maybe five people inside the restaurant at the kitchen counter, but the best seats are the picnic benches just outside, right by the kitchen window where the piping hot food come sailing out in octagonal corrugated boxes lined with black and white checkered paper.

My octagonal box contained the tomato and onion quiche with greens. It was a mild eggy and tomato-y quiche with faint traces of sweet onion, reminiscent of the soft scrambled tomato egg dish my mom used to make. Normally, I would include a picture of the delicious quiche here but would you believe I left the camera in the car?! Unfortunately, I was neither diligent nor fearless enough to brave the wind and rain to make the 10 minute walk (with hills) to the car and the 10 minutes return trip just to fetch the camera. Plus, my food would be cold and soggy by the time I'd have returned.

A had the traditional pork rillettes and cornichon on baguette. The rillettes were, surprisingly, only slightly salted. The cold fat, in combination with a large ratio of shredded pork, formed stiff rillettes which were placed, rather than spread, on the baguette. The petite pickled cucumbers were also lightly flavored, and were a bit overwhelmed by the pork rillettes. A said it reminded him of a sandwich he had when on vacation with his family in Paris long ago, but I didn't particularly like the flavor combination myself.

My brother had the smoked salmon on banana fingerling potato salad which he didn't seem particularly pleased with. The fingerling potatoes were seasoned with mustard and a variety of spices but most potently by the strips of smoked salmon. Eating cold fishy potatoes out in the blustery wind and rain probably wasn't all that much fun.

The highlight of our excursion would have to be the piping hot potato puffs, delivered directly from the fryer to our table (and to our mouths). We tried to eat them as quickly as possible without burning ourselves. The potato puffs were balls of savory mashed potato dropped into a fryer to form a crispy golden brown outer shell, filled with soft tasty potato-ey goodness on the inside. Warm. Toasty. Totally satisfying.

To top it off, we shared the coffee bread pudding with crème anglaise. Coffee bread pudding wasn't my thing but A and my brother seemed to enjoy it until the last crumb.

When all the food was consumed and our tummies were fully satiated, we start the trek back to the car, simultaneously planning of our next trip to Berkeley, and of course to Grégoire. And next time, we will definitely remember to bring the camera. :)