Table & Travel

More and more lately, Cal foot­ball games seem to be start­ing at 4 p.m. Food wise, it’s an awk­ward time, far from lunch and too early for din­ner. What we’ve been doing is pick­ing up a sand­wich at Gen­ova Del­i­catessen on Tele­graph Avenue then eat­ing it when we get to Memo­r­ial Sta­dium an hour or so before the game starts.

Gen­ova is an Oak­land insti­tu­tion. It was opened at 50th and Tele­graph by Ital­ian immi­grants Lorenzo Balbi and Peter Tira in 1926. Orig­i­nally, it was a gro­cery store and ravi­oli fac­tory, which catered to this pre­dom­i­nantly Ital­ian area called Oakland’s Temescal dis­trict. In 1951 Dominic De Vicenzi came to work there and mar­ried the owner’s daugh­ter. In the mid-1960s a sec­ond store was opened in Wal­nut Creek, which is now run by De Vicenzi’s nephew. Due to “ fam­ily dif­fer­ences,” the two busi­nesses are sep­a­rate enti­ties with Dominic own­ing the Oak­land deli and another in Napa. In 1995, the deli moved from its orig­i­nal loca­tion to Vern’s Shop­ping Cen­ter, a strip mall on Tele­graph near 51st Street. It’s across the street from Piz­zaiolo, which cooks fab­u­lous pizza from local ingre­di­ents in their wood-fired oven.

Along with fan­tas­tic sand­wiches, the deli also sells imported Ital­ian foods, pasta, and wine. In the back is a bak­ery and salad/antipasti bar. The sig­na­ture sand­wich is the Ital­ian Combo—a freshly baked roll filled with mor­tadella, galentina, cotto salami, dry salami and pro­volone cheese and cov­ered with fresh veg­eta­bles. Molto bene!

This week­end Vicki and I went down to the Big Game, Cal vs. Stan­ford. On the way down we made our favorite mid-point stop at the Flour Gar­den Bak­ery in Auburn, CA where we bought sand­wiches and cook­ies to eat at the game. I got a mar­velous black for­est ham on foc­ca­cia and Vicki, chicken salad—a good alter­na­tive to game food.

After a sat­is­fy­ing game that saw Cal win, 36–16, we checked in at our hotel, Mar­riott Court­yard, at the Oak­land air­port. We had a nice big room with two queen beds—Vicki thought it looked like it was brand new, though accord­ing to Trav­e­loc­ity it was built in 2001. We were tired and for din­ner were eye­ing Yoshino, a Japan­ese restau­rant across the street from the hotel; no dri­ving. We ral­lied, how­ever, and got back in the car for a fifteen-minute drive to Sahn Maru restau­rant on Tele­graph Avenue in Oakland.

SAHN MARU

Located in north Oakland’s Temescal area in the Korean dis­trict, Sahn Maru is one of the out­stand­ing Korean restau­rants in this area. We entered a well lit room that was about a quar­ter full of din­ers and were imme­di­ately greeted and let to our table. The atmos­phere was large and open, the walls on one side dec­o­rated with beau­ti­ful Korean art­work. The tables are very unique, the tops con­sist­ing of a sin­gle piece wood, cross cut from a large pine log.

We started with Duk Bok Gi, a sauteed rice cake served with a sauce of soy and scallions—delicious! We’d been led to Sahn Maru by a short review in Oak­land Mag­a­zine, which touted its Black Goat Stew, Heuk Yum So Tang, so I ordered that for my main course. It came in a bowl with sesame leaves and a mus­tard and bean paste broth, and a sesame, mus­tard, and chili dip­ping sauce. The meat was excel­lent, ten­der and fla­vor­ful, really great with the sauce. Vicki chose braised pork with sweet pota­toes and dates and it was also out­stand­ing. It takes a lit­tle get­ting used to pick­ing the pork off the bones, but the fla­vor of the pork with the sweet pota­toes was excellent.

Black Goat Stew

As always, our meal came with ban­chan, those lit­tle side dishes. Here’s what we had:

Kim­chi, sweet­ened yams, mar­i­nated bean sprouts, sauteed spinach, anchovies, pick­led radishes, broc­coli, tofu.

By the time we left, about eight, the place was pretty full. It was gen­er­ally a young crowd and most of the din­ers were asian, with a sprin­kling of ang­los. Every­one was enjoy­ing themselves.

Sahn Maru has excep­tional food and a great atmos­phere, it’s a great part of the East Bay restau­rant scene.

Sahn Maru. 4315 Tele­graph Ave. Oak­land, CA 94701. (510)653‑3366.

Last Octo­ber, my son Matt and I ate at an awe­some Korean restau­rant in Oak­land after a Cal foot­ball game. Sura is located in Oakland’s Temescal Dis­trict (4869 Tele­graph Ave, Oak­land, CA 94609) an area where there are many eth­nic restau­rants. We entered an ele­gant din­ing room, which was very open, airy, and filled with Asians. As we walked by a table occu­pied by two din­ers, I couldn’t believe the num­ber of ban­chan side dishes that were in front of them. We sat down and were imme­di­ately brought a bowl of Korean egg whites, which was tasty, but not like what was to come.

The menu is sub­stan­tial and fea­tures many inter­est­ing tra­di­tional Korean dishes, most of which I’m not famil­iar with. Matt was born in Korea and has eaten at many good Korean restau­rants so he was able to explain a few things. We set­tled on the all-you-can-eat bar­beque, which fea­tured beef, chicken, and pork belly. Each table has a dome-shaped cooker that is heated by a gas flame under­neath it. The meat is cooked on this dome until it siz­zles and is done. 

The drill is to place the meat on the grill in the mid­dle of the table with tongs, then turn it and cut it into more man­age­able pieces with the scis­sors you are given. When the meat is done it is placed in a piece of let­tuce along with some gar­lic, jalapeno, and gochu­jang, rolled up and eaten—fantastic! All of the meat was great, but the pork belly was won­der­ful when just done—don’t let it cook too long! The thin pieces of beef and chicken were also superb; I ate until I was very full then watched Matt put away about twice the meat I had; poor, starv­ing, col­lege stu­dent! Together we did a pretty good job, though, there wasn’t much left. 

Ban­chan. Photo cour­tesy Shan­non I.

Sura is a won­der­ful restau­rant and I highly rec­om­mend it. A good indi­ca­tion of how good the food is was that it was filled with so many Asians—I imag­ine mostly Korean. Glanc­ing around the room after we sat down assured me that I was the only cau­casian in the restau­rant. All of the staff that helped us were very pleas­ant and we had a nice chat with our Korean host­ess who, it turns out, was born in the same Korean city as Matt, Jeonju City.

Sura is a very classy Korean restau­rant and a lit­tle pricier than most oth­ers I’ve been to, but the food is worth it and I’m look­ing for­ward to going back very soon.

Sura. 4869 Tele­graph Ave. Oak­land, CA 94620.
(510) 654‑9292