michaelD: the bay area buzz report

Fat Tuesday in Oakland

Fat Tuesday at Brown Sugar Kitchen: BEIGNETS!! Come for the beignets, stay for the Creole Shrimp and Shrimp & Smoked Chicken Gumbo!

Ozumo Restaurant in Oakland will be hosting their 2nd annual “East Meets West” Mardi Gras celebration on Tuesday, Feb. 16 beginning at 5:00 p.m. Highlights will include live entertainment in the spirit of the occasion, the diverse sounds of New Orleans as presented by DJ Gray, and “Fat Tuesday” food and Brazilian drink specials served in the bar and lounge. More>

Picán Restaurant -- Oakland’s hip spot for dining -- celebrates “Fat Tuesday” Bourbon Street-style on February 16th, 2010 @ 5:30 pm. According to assistant manager, Cynthia Fung, the festivities will include beads, boas, traditional NOLA “bites,” as passed hors d'oeuvres, and “bottomless” Southern Comfort Hurricanes and Bulleit Sazerac, a specialty cocktail made with premium small-batch Bulleit bourbon. Masks are optional but encouraged. Space and ticket availability are limited. More>

Miss Pearl's Jam House - They will be celebrating Mardi Gras with live entertainment by the Craig Caffall Band.  They will also have a raffle in the evening.  Be sure to try their new menu and specialty drinks (Jello shots and Hurricanes). More> and here>

Also, head over to Arizmendi Bakery on Lakeshore or in San Francisco for Fat Tuesday. No cocktails, but they do have something called "King Cake", a "colorful Danish pastry with pecans"! Now, as a word of warning, it seems only the San Francisco Arizmendi has a Fat Tuesday-related happening, but check the Oakland Arizmendi Bakery anyway. They're always full of unannounced surprises!

Okay already...Era is open!

Why is it that certain openings get all the ink, and others come and go without notice?  Era Art Bar and Lounge, another addition to the Uptown Oakland district, fits the former. It opened a little over a week ago, and other than some comments about its lack of sufficient seating that I read on twitter, it appears to have fared pretty well.
Era Art Bar & Lounge | 19 Grand Ave, Oakland | web | twitter | yelp | 510.832.4400

[1.25.10] ERA ART BAR AND LOUNGE | Cubism, Cocktails and Clubbing | San Francisco | SFO | Lake Merritt District | Bar | [Urban Daddy] http://bit.ly/aKvaex
This massive space combines a turn-of-the-century cocktail den with a modern art gallery and nightclub—which at first blush sounds a little schizophrenic. And it is, but it's a high-functioning and nattily outfitted schizophrenic, one from the 1890s who draws a mean cocktail.

[2.5.10] Speaking of bars, tonight marks the debuts for two newcomers on the Oakland nightlife scene: ERA and BEER REVOLUTION. The latter is a fairly standard beer spot, but the former, Era, is an ambitious, two-story 5000-square-foot bar/artsy lounge with a 35-foot steel and concrete bar. 19 Grand Avenue, Oakland; 510-832-4400; website [OT via Eater SF]

[2.09.10] The Beginning of a New ERA | The Chatterbox | Tablehopper http://bit.ly/9Nl0VL
The 5,000-square-foot space will bring together art (expect bi-monthly collections of modern and contemporary art), handcrafted artisan cocktails with house-made syrups and bitters, local small production wines, and a wide range of music (with occasional live performances).

[2.12.10] Night Owl: BEER REVOLUTION and ERA add to Oakland's night life scene - [Inside Bay Area] http://bit.ly/bTsn8X
If you happened to pass by the intersection of Grand Avenue and Broadway last Friday, your curiosity about the throng of would-be barflies wrapped around the block would have been justified. Era Art Bar and Lounge attracted 700 people that night in what may be a recent record-setting opening night ... The opening Beer Revolution created a beer loop between Linden Street several blocks west and The Trappist and Pacific Coast Brewing Co. to the north. The city had to make an exception for Beer Revolution's location because the building is so close to other off-site liquor selling establishments. If they hadn't, the City Council might have had a revolt on their hands.

Oakland: Bar Updates and New Eats (2.15.10)

You take a break, slow down a bit, ease on into the new year, and BAM! The Oakland bar/restaurant scene leaves you in the dust. Time to catch up...

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[11.10.09] Word is that eVE (not to be confused with Eve Lounge in SF) will be a 28-seat Berkeley eatery from husband and wife team Christopher Laramie (executive chef) and Veronica Laramie (pastry chef) who plan to open before the month is up.  The Le Cordon Bleu Paris graduates have created a New American menu that will be "micro-seasonal and locally sourced."  Main courses will include:  quail with pancetta, chestnuts and star anise; seared black cod with miso, carrots and almonds; and corned Wagyu beef with rye bread, sauerkraut and mustard.  The menu is available in a prix fixed format only wherin three courses are  $33, five for $55, and seven for $77. 1960 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA. [Sf Examiner]

[12.4.09] Pican Restaurant, Oakland | Foodnut.com http://bit.ly/902btb
Pican is a restaurant in revitalized Uptown Oakland next door to Ozumo. New Orleans native Michael LeBlanc started this restaurant in 2009. This area is undergoing a transformation from long closed auto dealerships and the like to a modern inner city. It serves California infused Southern Cuisine with lots of fresh seasonal ingredients in a vibrant cosmopolitan atmosphere. They were on the Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand list for 2010.

[12.10.09] SPICE MONKEY is big on portions, community http://bit.ly/aN5bes
That's just the kind of place Spice Monkey is. You couldn't find a sweeter, more sincere, more gratitude-filled cafe on the planet. And that's precisely Kanitha Matoury's intent for the place, which she opened 19 months ago in the space long occupied by Sabina's, an Indian restaurant. "It's kind of like a community restaurant," says Matoury, a native of Cambodia who lives in Oakland herself.

[12.12.09] MERITAGE in Berkeley matches farm-to-table food with wines - Inside Bay Area http://bit.ly/aWGD6u
...His wine-driven food is certainly exceptional — fresh, local, seasonal, inventive and pretty. The menu is an education in food and wine pairing, as dishes are categorized by the weight and style of wine that best matches them. Thomsen has no formal education in wine; just a sharp palate and the kinds of friends who own Napa wineries and invite him up for golf and breakfast burritos, he tells me...

Bay Area museums...all free all day

3rd Wednesday of the Month

• California Academy of Sciences

2nd Sunday of the Month

• Oakland Museum

Always Free

• Triton Museum

1st Tuesday of the Month

• Asian Art Museum
• California Historical Society
• Cartoon Art Museum
• de Young Museum
• Legion of Honor
• SFMOMA
• Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

1st Wednesday of the Month

• Museum of Craft & Folk Art
• Exploratorium
• Mexican Museum
• Museo Italoamericano
• SF African American Museum
• SF Zoo

Courtesy of SFStation.com

Life outside the bubble: Haiti - Never give up

Why is the Bay Area Buzz Report writing about Haiti? BABR is mostly about lifestyle, and you can't address lifestyle without considering the human condition. The human condition in Haiti is something that needs both thought and action. The reality is that what we see in Haiti is a magnification of conditions that exist throughout the world in areas that aren't under the world's microscope every day.

This 5 year old boy beats the odds, generating both feelings of hope and despair.

Life outside the bubble: Haiti is not Katrina. It’s much worse.

My second post of the year, a slow start. I find myself riveted to the news channels as this story of devastation unfolds. I've started to learn more about Haiti, and initially I made the same mistake that I hear a lot of people making, comparing Haiti to Katrina. Not even in the same league.


More Photos - Time | Red Cross | CNN | Huffington Post 

Country & Population

• Population a little over 9 million.
• Nearly 40 percent of the country's population is under the age of 14.
• Haiti ranks as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with 80 percent of its people living below the poverty line and 54 percent existing in abject poverty.
• Most Haitians live on less than $2 a day.
• Haiti has one of the world's lowest life expectancy rates (181st out of 190 countries ranked by the CIA World Factsheet). The average Haitian lives only 60 years.
• Eighty percent of the country is Roman Catholic and 16 percent is Protestant; nearly half the population also practices voodoo.
• Approximately half of Haiti's population cannot read or write.
• The Haiti telecommunications infrastructure is among the least developed in Latin America and the Caribbean.