…and more chicken parts.

Miss T and I had been wanting to try out Ippuku, a new izakaya in Berkeley, ever since we saw the construction signs go up for it. Earlier this month we had a chance to try it out.

An izakaya is a Japanese eatery akin to a pub or tapas bar. As such, Ippuku doesn’t have a sushi bar and doesn’t serve teriyaki. What they do serve is dozens of shochu and sake and just about every edible part of a chicken.

What we tried, from worst (in my opinion) to best:

Nankotsu (Breast Cartilage). Pictured up above. Grilled skewers of chicken breast cartilage served with spices and lemon. Despite knowing that the cartilage was the main part of this appetizer I just couldn’t bring myself to crunch up and swallow any of the vaguely triangular pieces of connective tissue. I ended up eating what little meat there was available and unceremoniously disposed of the cartilage. Miss T, on the other hand, liked it. Next time, she gets the whole order.

Bonjiri (Tail). Grilled skewers of chicken tails (butts) served with spices and lemon. Some folks love the “pope’s nose” and prize it as the best part of the chicken. I do not. Crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. I would have liked them a bit more on the crispy side.

Bacon-wrapped Mochi. Grilled skewers of mochi wrapped with bacon. I’m not typically a fan of mochi—too chewy—but I’m definitely a fan of this. Must be the bacon. Miss T is a mochi fan, though, so she gave this higher marks.

Jidori Gyoza. Chicken gyoza dressed with scallions and chili oil. Outside: Crunchy on the bottom and chewy on the sides. Inside: Moist, well-seasoned chicken filling. With the scallions and chili oil drizzled on top, these gyoza were delicious.

Kawa (Skin). Grilled skewers of chicken skin served with spices and lemon. Each skewer is adorned with folded ribbons of luxuriously fatty chicken skin. The exposed edges get smoky-crunchy and the folded inner portions remain silky and chewy. Totally delicious and probably really bad for your circulatory system.

Tori Yukke (Raw Chicken). Chopped raw chicken tossed with spices and radish sprouts, topped with raw quail egg, sesame, and scallions. My favorite of the evening. I was surprised—not that I liked it, but how much I liked it. Mixed with radish sprouts and scallions, the dish has a slight spiciness to it, but the overwhelming flavor of it is chicken. Really fresh, really good chicken. Excellent.

Overall, Miss T and I enjoyed Ippuku and will drop in again sometime to try some of their other unique dishes. The prices are on the high side, though, so our next visit will have to be after payday or the next time I hit a lottery jackpot.

More pics at maxpixpix on Picasa.

…it rained.

On Tuesday, Northern California had its first storm of the fall/winter season—this morning the rain seems to have abated for the most part. Our local news media will report on the “aftermath” of the storm (localized power outages, downed trees, and flooded streets), and will look forward to the next weather-related epic.

In any case, a few photos from yesterday morning, when it was pouring down rain, of an intersection in Berkeley.

I’m laying in supplies for our next major weather event.

…at 5. (Six people at FIVE Restaurant at 5 p.m.)

FIVE is the new restaurant and bar at the Hotel Shattuck Plaza in Berkeley. Six of us stopped by there yesterday evening to check it out. (It was originally supposed to be “Five at FIVE at 5,” but it seemed mean to leave someone out just for the sake of titling the gathering “Five at FIVE at 5,” especially after the person who was going to get bumped begged and pleaded and cried to be included. Yes, that person was me.)

Back to FIVE—we all liked it. I took some photos, but not many of the space (there are some at FIVE’s own photo page).

Next time maybe we’ll try Five for Five at FIVE at 5. Five drinks each. Maybe not.

…in the anime world of Macross Frontier.

File this under “it’s not news, but it’s new to me.”

At the northern end of Telegraph Avenue, Sather Gate marks the original south entrance to the UC Berkeley campus. Along with the Campanile clock tower, Sather Gate is one of the enduring landmarks that symbolizes the Berkeley campus.

I’m not quite sure how the design of Sather Gate ended in the Japanese anime world of Macross Frontier, but in this animated world of 2059, the gate serves as the entrance to Miboshi (or Mihoshi) Academy High School, a performance school for would-be pop idols and space fighter pilots. (In the world of Macross, Japanese pop tunes and space battles go hand-in-hand.)

It’s good to know that in the not-too-distant future, John Galen Howard’s design for Sather Gate lives on, near the center of our galaxy, on a huge traveling space colony, amidst an interstellar war against an alien species.

…with Miss V at Cancun Taqueria, Berkeley.

Why Mexican Coke? (Besides being at a taqueria, that is.)

In Mexico, they still make Coke with sugar. In the U.S., Coca-Cola switched to high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in the mid-’80s.

Whether you think HFCS is the Devil’s sweetener or not, it’s interesting to taste the difference between the foreign and domestic products. (Yes, there is a difference.) At the hut we’re stocked up on el producto de Mexico from our local Costco.

¡Viva la azucar!

…yesterday.

If the rain in the photos looks fake—it is. The rain originally didn’t show up in these pix (it was raining, I swear!) so I Photoshopped some back in.

It looks pretty much the same today. (Fake rain and all.)

…well, for two, actually. (I was having breakfast at my table, too.)

Apparently, Pat Brown’s Grill (at UC Berkeley) wasn’t this morning’s breakfast hot spot. Maybe all the students got their breakfast to go. Or, maybe they were just unwilling to get up before 10 in the morning. I know that when I was a student sometime in the beginning of the last century, I rarely left the house before The People’s Court (the one with Judge Wapner, the real People’s Court judge) came on at 2 p.m.

Or, it may have been this morning’s tooth-shattering jackhammering that was keeping the tables student-free. For some reason, the adjacent building’s demolition–/construction-noise was louder inside Pat Brown’s than it was outside—like the restaurant and the guy with the jackhammer were on opposite ends of a sounding board.

I actually found the jackhammering had a zen-like effect. Nothing could be heard over it—no juvenile conversations or too-loud MP3-player headphones or scraping of tables and chairs on tile floor. There was just the jackhammer and me.

And, breakfast.

…live via satellite (at UC Berkeley).

Like thousands of other large and small gatherings around the world, UC Berkeley provided a public venue for a viewing of the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Students, faculty, staff, and friends gathered en masse in Upper Sproul Plaza to watch the inauguration proceedings on a giant video screen.

The Berkeley crowd was jubilant—cheering for Senator Dianne Feinstein, Michelle Obama, and Vice President-elect Joe Biden—and irreverent—voicing disapproval of outgoing President Bush and especially outgoing Vice President Cheney. The loudest applause was reserved for Barack Obama: during his introduction, when he took the oath of office, and at the conclusion of his inauguration speech.

While the millions in attendance in Washington D.C. may have been more reserved during President Obama’s speech, spontaneous cheering broke out among the Cal viewers at the mention of restoring “science to its rightful place,” the inclusion of “non-believers” as Americans, and the promise to “transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.” Clearly this was a speech that the assembled UC Berkeley community had been waiting to hear from a president they had been longing to see in office.

A peaceful transfer of power appreciated greatly at the University of California, Berkeley.

…of the Downtown Berkeley BART station, Christmas Eve morning.

Slow day today. Got in to work, had coffee, checked email, had lunch, headed home.

Happy Christmas Eve Day!

…at the library.

When I was in school I rarely went to the library. As an adult I’ve continued not going to the library. (Miss T is a regular library user and sometimes she checks out books for me to read—inexplicably they’re always weight-loss books.) I’m not against libraries, mind you, just my going to libraries.

Last month I was at two of the libraries at UC Berkeley for work: the then-not-yet-reopened Bancroft Library, and Doe Library. I took some pictures while I was there (mostly of the Bancroft’s new entry atrium) which you can see at 10 UC Berkeley libraries photos.

Hey, where are all the books?

…on Saturday.

Once a year I have to work on a Saturday. That Saturday was this past weekend. Usually I drive from the Central Valley to the Bay Area, but this year I decided, “Why treat it differently from any other work day?” I took the Capitol Corridor and BART, same as usual.

Slight hitch though; both the Capitol Corridor and BART were not operating the same as usual. There’s this thing known as the “weekend and holiday schedule” where BART trains are 15 to 20 minutes apart (vs. 6 to 10 minutes) and Capitol Corridor trains are 90 minutes to 2 hours apart (vs. 45 minutes).

I missed my morning train (forgot my ticket) and spent a leisurely hour-and-a-half preparing for the next train. I missed my afternoon BART train by two seconds. The next BART train was 15 minutes later, which caused me to miss my connection with the Capitol Corridor by 45 seconds. Oh joy, another hour-and-a-half wasted.

Next year, when I have to work on Saturday—I’m driving.

…Berkeley, California.

Jupiter is a beerhouse in Downtown Berkeley that bears little resemblance to its planetary namesake. The one astronomical nod to our planetary system’s fifth member is in (the beerhouse) Jupiter’s logo: a red spot to match (the planet) Jupiter’s Great Red Spot storm. There’s also (the beerhouse) Jupiter’s Red Spot ale which I’ve tried a few (50+) times—it’s quite good.

For the sake of clarity the remainder of this post will focus on Jupiter, (the beerhouse) about a block from my workplace.

By my reckoning Jupiter has three things going for it: a solid lineup of house brews; a very brief, but good lunch menu; and a courtyard beer garden. When the planets align (ha!) and the sun is out, lunch with a beer in the courtyard at Jupiter is a wundervoll thing. Yesterday was one of those days.

It’s cloudy and cool today in downtown Berkeley (all of Berkeley, actually), but these 5 Jupiter photos will give you an idea of what Jupiter’s like with beer and a sunny day.

When you get down to it, though, beer and a rainy day aren’t so bad either.

…in Berkeley.

One of my coworkers, chocolateCat, recently celebrated a birthday. Our art director, la bel artiste, used this to turn last Tuesday afternoon into a special, gelato-based occasion.

An email invitation was sent out: “Let’s go down to the gelato place at 3:45,” it read. “Also, I think someone recently had a birthday. Anyway, gelato. Gelato gelato, gelato gelato gelato.*”

I went, but didn’t have any gelato. Almost everyone else did, though.

*Not the real email sent by the art director.

…at Valley Life Sciences Building (VLSB).

Now that Cal has started up again for Fall, finding a vacant spot to sit and muse can be challenging during campus high traffic hours (10 a.m.–2 p.m.). I tried out the courtyard at VLSB last week—it was pleasant enough, but table seating is extremely limited. I think there are four large tables with four chairs each. There’s also concrete seating along the north and south ends of the courtyard, but in addition to being made of concrete they’re covered with plant debris and dotted with bird crap. Not that pleasant.

My search continues.

…last Monday a.m.

I like being on campus in the morning. It’s typically cooler, so I can trudge up the (slight) rise in elevation to the University’s grounds without breaking (much of) a sweat.

Also, the students don’t start appearing until well after 9, so you can move about without having to navigate throngs of kids blocking every sidewalk, hallway, stairwell, and doorway.

Those pesky students do get in the way sometimes. But, what are you gonna do? Fire them?

Really, mornings are best.