The GrilledCheezGuy

Pride Pop Up Power!

GCG — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 04:58:39 +0000

Words can not describe the chaos that was Second Glasses Wine Riot this weekend. Therefore, I will just leave you with pictures and a few moments.

To the woman who stole all our shirts. You did not go unnoticed. I got an email from someone who saw you. I don’t really care about the shirts as much as I want to know what you will do with them. Re sell em? Give to friends? I can’t wait for the day someone tells me their friend got them this shirt at Wine Riot. I might just slap them so they slap you.

To the kids we fed at the end of the night who were beggin and pleadin. We gave you a lot of high quality scraps in the end. A dollar was not appropriate.

To the guy who lied and conned his way into getting a grilled cheese before the last 16 people were were waiting patiently in line. You are a douche and I am glad I called you out for being a douche. One guy definitely tried to start a mob against you. I would definitely not have stopped them, you douche.

To the lady from NYC pouring wine next to us. Mad props for knowing about Vik’s Chaat in Berkeley and not the Ferry Building in SF.

To the guy who took food and then my fellow GCG pointed you out and I called you out. I am sorry. We were working so damn hard and it was the heat of the moment. I believe you didn’t mean it, only after you brought that bottle of wine, not when you paid.

To the guy at the end of the night that I was teasing. You were cute. You said goodbye with your friends outside by your car.

To the other 500+ people we met and served and chatted and fed and shareed wine and laughs and good times with. Thank you. It was a pleasure. You are a riot.

In case you missed our fun dishes at Wine Riot, we are keeping the momentum going with a popup at Truck this Sunday! Come celebrate PRIDE month with me and my main man & main man co-worker as we put on a fabulous menu for you to enjoy!

Click here to remind yourself about the festivities this Sunday Funday!

Bacon Date

bacon / blue cheese / date

Cold Cocked

big iced homemade dill pickle

3some Cheesesome

grilled cheese trio / soup shot

Bang & Mash

local sausage / cheese potatoes / spring peas

Peaches Christ!

organic peaches / mint infused balsamic / creme fraiche

Puddin’ In

bread pudding / chocolate / vanilla ice cream

A Tale of Two Food Tours: Part 2 ~ Localite Food Tour goes Hog Wild!

GCG — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 05:59:05 +0000

After writing for NOSH about the first Dishcrawl, Serena and Gretchen, the founders of Localite Food Tours, invited me to join them on one of their five tours they have. You can choose between the Pork Tour, The Retro Cocktail Tour, Urban Nature, Handmade Tour, and the Enchanting Dinner Tour. I, unfortunately, have such a busy schedule I was only able to attend the Pork Tour anytime soon. Tragedy, I know. Little did I know I was bout to take a journey through time and pork and would come out the other end feeling like I had just went on the best food tour Oakland has to offer (and possibly better than some of the other recent mentions in the news lately).

This food tour does everything right and nothing wrong. Other food tours like Dishcrawl made me feel like I was constantly trying to find my circle of friends, Localite Tours are maxed out at 14 people (unless you book a private group!), with ours being 8 total for the day. Although it didn’t guarantee a Breakfast Club group by the end, it definitely allowed for us to all becomes at least foodie friends with each other without having to place the social circle game. The other important factor is that this Pork tour did an entire tour, without ever once taking advantage of the Pork Belly craze! Eat that SF foodies, we got no food snobs here!

I arrived promptly on time for the event and was greeted by both founders of the Localite Food Tours. We chatted about their ambitious line up of food tours for the summer and I was excited from the moment I met them. It didn’t take long to realize just how serious this food tour was as Gretchen pulled out a box of pork buns from Bread of Life and begun telling us the story of Broadway and Oakland. They reminded of how Oakland got its name (the oaks, duh) and how Broadway was the first main boulevard in Oakland. I enjoyed gaining knowledge alongside the calories and fortunately this type of storytelling continued throughout the evening.

Broadway remained our focal point as we walked back and forth to various Old Oakland establishments learning the significance of pork to the area. Pork had an impact onthe beginnings of many of the local establishments like Ratto’s, still with it’s old sign, to Swan’s Market, built to handle the long tables full of various meats and cuts of pork that various immigrants of Oakland were craving from their home countries. Ratto’s served up various cured meats paired with white wine while the owner came out to share the history of her establishment, which has been passed down from generation to generation. We followed this with a quick stop at Battambang where the wonderful owner told us how she pickled daily, something definitely noticed while enjoying the fresh and delish pork spring rolls. The next stop was Swan’s Market, which was exciting for me as I have wanted to try Rosamunde since hearing about this Brooklyn transplant. The interesting fact about their meats was their choice to make small, thinner sausages as they believed they capture more taste and juices inside. Our wild boar sausages came as two and were served alongside a plethora of homemade, tasty condiments. From the homemade mustard to the spicy marmalade, I made unique bites each time and never concluded which one was my favorite before finishing. I know it was good enough to bring all the remaining condiments home with me when our group was finished!

Condiments for my boar sausage, and later on various other foods at home

Wild Boar Saussages!

The next stop was fortunately a little bit of a walk to visit Tina Tamale and La Borinquena Mexicatessan in the area that I learned used to be the true spanish area of Oakland. It wasn’t until Oakland decided to put in BART and freeway that the spanish population decided to move (not sure it was quite this simple, maybe ‘made their way?’) south and make Fruitvale the area it is today. Tina Tamale and her family have been serving the local community for generations and Tina is truly the first one of her family to embrace technology and social media and take the restaurant/catering business to the next level. We first started working side by side at the Oakland Art Murmur, where eventually she purchased the truck of the former Guerilla Grub to bring Tina Tamale to the next level . Now you can find her and her truck all over the place including Bites Off Broadway and the Oakland Indie Awards. She took our group on a personal tour of the restaurant and showed us the old stone miller and talked about the insane numbers of tamales that are made during the holiday season. One of the more interesting stories shared took place right outside her spot on the sidewalk where a placard marks the 10,000 steps project (including one in front of Ratto!) The project involves tryign to collect all the stories and history of the Old Oakland area and placards have been scattered throughout to show areas of interest. It is a great idea that reminds me of the current payphone project going on in NYC right now.

We followed up this part by going to an area that is present in every major city, and that is Chinatown. Here I learned that Oakland’s Chinatown is a little different and atypical as it does not have any main gate as most do. I pondered this interesting fact while enjoying pork dumplings from Shan Dong and asking my fellow foodies if they knew if other Chinatowns had the everywhichway crosswalks like Oakland did. Apparantly they do. The guides walked us around the area, one of my favorite places to bike to and get dim sum on Sundays, and concluded the area with a tour of the Asian library in the center of Chinatown. They took us to the back to show us that they actually carried a considerably sized library of Asian cookbooks that were written in English. Definitely a great resource that I would not think to seek out if it wasn’t for the food tour!

As we headed to our final location, our guides gave us a sample of Phat Matt’s BBQ’s candied bacon that was somewhat hard to go for at this point (at least for me). We munched our little snack as we walked past the PopUp Hood area and were told various stories about the people who have made it the place today, including the cobblestone sidewalks the whole way!

We were about to head into El Borgo Italia where a secuirty told us we could not enter due to an “incident”. A steamed employee came oustside while police stood inside and proceeded to vent about the owner shafting him and his staff after he put his family’s recipes and furniture into the place. We quickly diverted to the Trappist to enjoy a refreshing beer and a little cruidite to end the tour. By this point everyone on my tour was full, happy, and fully engaged about the history and stories they had learned about Old Oakland. I felt that at the end of this tour, we had not only become better fooodies of the Old Oakland area, but better citizens and residents who could appreciate all the people had come before us to make this area the porky place it is today.

Trappist Crudite

I definitely felt this tour was the best one I have been on yet for it’s mix of both food and story, both in excess, but just enough that you could walk away without waddling and without feeling you had just sat through a boring lecture. They have 5 total tours for this summer that all focus on different areas and topics and I truly hope to get to hit them all up before summers out!

Check out some additional photos below:

Sincerely,

GrilledCheezGuy

ps – you might be asking yourself, Cheesus Crust, why are there not a lot of pork pictures from this pork tour? The answer my son is that at the times that were porkiest, I was too busy eating. My sincerest apologies. It just means you will have to take the tour!

Scientist. Grilled Cheeser. Shark man. Blogger. And now, writer!

GCG — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:55:36 +0000

In case you don’t follow me incessant posts on Facebook and Twitter, I have made a point of getting my writing out in the ether for all to enjoy and critique and absorb. At the beginning of the year I reached out to a few local papers and online papers to see if someone would give me a chance to do some foodie writing. The only group that did was Tracey over at Berkeleyside NOSH. Fitting considering my first home on the Left Coast was in Berkeley and I still know and eat much more in the East Bay than I do in SF.

So in case you don’t know about NOSH and didn’t realize I was writing for them I am posting here so you can go back and ready all 3 of my wonderful articles about some of the local foodies in the scene.

First is my article about Little Shop Artisan Box and her first pop-up dinner with Chef Peter Jackson of Canvas Underground.

Second is my article about Dishcrawl’s first trip to Alameda with local foodie Fer of Fer’s Bite.

The most recent was covering S + S Gastro Grub’s first round of dinners at their private test kitchen.

I hope to keep up the writing with NOSH as well as here. Already I wrote the Tale of Two Food Tours posts because I was invited on both tours after they read my articles! Ah the power of food! So read up and eat up on my past article and then go back a few blog posts and catch up here too.

Sincerely,

GrilledCheezGuy

A Tale of Two Oakland Food Tours: Part 1 ~ Dishcrawl

GCG — Sun, 12 May 2013 23:49:17 +0000

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I feel like tours fall into that category with other things like plays, musicals, family gatherings, etc where they really teeter towards only one side or the other for some reason. You never have a mediocre time at these things. Maybe because you are trapped and can’t leave till these shows are over no matter what? Whatever it may be, the food tour idea appears to be really catching on and gaining momentum. My article in NOSH about Dishcrawl Alameda covered the first ever food tour for me and I was both happy and full at the end. Little did I know this would be just the beginning. Afterwards I was contacted by the organizers behind Localite Food Tours to come out and join them for one of their five local tours. Where Dishcrawl appears to be out to show a good amount of people four locations within walking distance of each other, Localite Tours brings a handful of people on a very personal tour where food isn’t the focus, but definitely the fuel to keep your feet moving! This week’s tours was a DishCrawl Oakland tour of Temescal, my old home, and a Localite Pork Tour of Old Oakland.

Sample Crawl About Town!

Dishcrawl Oakland was on a Tuesday starting at 7:00pm at Marc 49th on Telegraph. The weather was perfect for a walk and Marc 49 was a perfect place to start the crawl with a drink. Although I have dined at every place around Marc 49, I have never actually step foot inside and truly regret it. This should be the place I am going to have a drink while waiting to get into Burma Superstar instead of the Green Tavern. The atmosphere is beautiful and has a very nice wine selection. Right from the start, I noticed that this Dishcrawl as compared to the Alameda was more of a SampleCrawl then a Dishcrawl. Although I’m not sure how the logistics works for each, the difference between the portions and plating between the two was quite notieceable and mentioned here and there. Marc 49 served a small sample cup of hummus and cerviche next to a piece of caramalized onion and goat cheese bread. The hummus was good but the small bites only got my hunger geared up to eat.

After making some friends at the table, we started our first march which ended up being The Sacred Wheel. I could sense it, as I have such an odd connection to the place. That being that I met Jena and another familiy memeber way back in the day when I was selling grilled cheeses on the streets of the Art Murmur. They told me how they were going to open a cheese shop and we chatted about the life of a cheese man. Years later it is now true that there are two grilled cheese peoples in Oakland named Michael Davidson. That is because I have no middle name and Jena is her middle name. Her first name is Michael. What a world. Although I love them and their shop more than life itself, this was the first time I had their sandwich and was not too impressed the sammy itself, and most definitely the size. I’m sure its not their fault but the small piece of grilled cheese alongside a standard cup of soup did nothing to help with my hunger. Some of the new friends I made made the comment that “I think we got more water than food here.” which is never a good thing to hear. What’s worse, one person mentioned the sandwich was something they could make at home, which I feel is the kiss of death when it comes to trying and maintaining that artisanal and special status in the sandwich making world. If we don’t get a “That was the best grilled cheese of my life” at least once a night, we consider ourselves a failure. Nevertheless, the people seemed to love the shop and walked around buying extra cheeses and oils and foods which was good to see considering they sell some of the finest cheese (Mt. Tam!) and best jams (INNA Jam!) in town.

The samples of cheese weren’t enough to hold my hunger and luckily the last stop was something of substance, but that wasn’t really try for everyone. The third stop of the savory portion was Asmara. It was both amusing and surprising to see many of the diners who slowly admitted they had never really tried Ethiopian and did their darndest to pretend to try it there. One woman left all her Kik Alicha (yelllow split peas) and I truly wanted to take it all from her if it didn’t seem too crass. I happily cleaned my plate and was relieved to find another location besides Cafe Colucci to hit up in Oakland now. At this point it was pretty mixed on whether you were still starving or not and this was mostly based on whether they ate this meal or not, considering it was the only one of weight. We ended the evening back across the street at Tara’s Organic Ice Cream where Kealoha passed out a small variety of samples, which made everyone happy. This ended the tour and some of my newest friends headed right nextdoor to go “actually eat” at Burma Superstar as they were still starving and had never actually tried it. Although I had a good time again with the people and the places, I’m curious to know which event represents the amount of food usually seen. Maybe the Alameda event spoiled me and it is my fault for starving myself a tad in preparation, or vise versa. I still love the concept and hope to try more of them in the future to continue to see how they play out. Either way, this food tour was not my only one for the week and in Part 2 I will cover Localite Tours.

Thank you very much to ambassador Kealoha for inviting me on the crawl!

Join me for Part 2 of this story tomorrow……….

Sincerely,

GrilledCheezGuy

Check out the blog post from the ambassador of the Oakland event here:

http://www.dishcrawl.com/blog/community/10/temescal-round-2-for-the-win

The next Dishcrawl for Oakland is June 19th. Tickets and info for it here:

http://www.dishcrawl.com/oldoakland/

Before we reveal the name, let’s win him a $5,000 prize!

GCG — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:41:53 +0000

The word is out. I DO have a food cart now. It needs work. It needs life. It needs a lot. Like $5,000 a lot. Luckily Intuit is into helping small businesses like me by giving five grand away in a new contest. You can VOTE ONCE PER DAY. So like today, tomorrow, and everyday until May 12th. I can’t tell you how helpful this would be to us and getting this cart ready, wrapped, and permitted to be on the streets. You have always thought and wished I was a truck and although we aren’t there yet, we would love to take the next baby step to food cart.

So please take a moment and click, vote, and share in everyway possible. We can do this. We have done this before. Once again, I thank you for all your support and love in advance.

VOTE VOTE VOTE!

SHARE! SHARE! SHARE!

VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

Thank you for your votes,

GrilledCheezGuy

PS – Stay tuned to hear about how we do at the Grilled Cheese Invitational 2013 this year & the revealing of the cart name!

A Blog for All Things Grilled

GCG — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 01:24:03 +0000

I feel sheepish every beginning to write this like it is actually going to amount to anything you might even call a post. I recently (which means 6-8 months ago in my mailbox) received an email from a fan who wanted to share with me a blog post about grilling. Since I am a griller of cheese, and a perty good ta boot, I figured I would be much obliged to share that very post with you. And it’s not just a post actually, but a post about 25 blogs that have great grilling things going down. So that means that I’m not just giving you one little site to visit but 25 sites, each with it’s own host of recipes and other 25 lists for you to continually search and click and look at until you are bored and finally go out and actually cook or find someone to cook the food you have been drooling over inside.

So without further ado, I send you forth with nothing but a link for you to click on and enjoy. I hope to spend this week leading up to this year’s 2013 Grilled Cheese Invitational actually writing blog pieces that are both cheese related and more recently related to some of the wonderful things that have been going on in the background here at GrilledCheezGuy. (Did you hear we got a cart? I announced this new fact on National Grilled Cheese Day and will be announcing the winning name online today!)

Happy Grilled Cheese Month America & Brieyond!

Sincerely,

GrilledCheezGuy

Before you walk the foodie walk, you must crawl the foodie crawl

GCG — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 04:27:03 +0000

I’m not sure if you are keeping up with all the ways you can try new food places in your area like I am trying to, but it’s getting daunting. I can gather grub or Kitchit. I can savor an Oakland tour or eat urban style with an entire league! I will admit I have tried all the aforementioned and look forward to this new method of madness known as Dishcrawl. Since Pubcrawls are most certainly making a strong comeback, it appears that food has followed the coattails of the drink for once and the tables have turned, if you may. Unlike a pubcrawl however, both sides of this table have food AND drink for you to enjoy with a group of like minded folks.

At the moment I am torn on which tour I should take first as Temescal is starting it off this week and Alameda is going strong on April 9th. I’m concerned that I have eaten at all the Temescal places and am probably going to join the Alameda tour to see what it’s all about. I already have faith in the guide as Fer F. of Fer’s Bite is leading the group on the island that is probably pretty hard to get LOST on. I hope to escape with a full bully, good stories, and some photos and new restaurants to share and review with you following the 4 course feast.

In the meantime, think about getting your tickets today for the Alameda event and just because you are a loyal fan, you get to enjoy a discount that can only be found here! That’s right fans, it’s time to start rewarding you for following me and my foodcapades. Fer & Dishcrawl are offering a GrilledCheezGuy discount so just type in “grilledcheese15″ and come crawl with me through 4 cuisines in one night!

Sincerely,

GrilledCheezGuy

want more news more often? sign up for my newsletter at grilledcheezguy@gmail.com

For additional info about Dishcrawl, read up here:

DISHCRAWL IS BACK IN ALAMEDA

One island. Four restaurants. One night.

Alameda, CA – March 17, 2013 – Dishcrawl, a bay area startup founded on the premise that

communities can be brought together through good food and good company, is rediscovering island living this April. Food lovers are taken on a gourmet Dishcrawl to four distinctive restaurants in one night. It’s like a pub crawl—but more delicious!

Dishcrawl expands into Alameda, one of the Bay Area’s bestkept secrets, with the mission to give food lovers more reason to get out of the city and into this island gem. The goal is to promote community among locals and visiting folks while enjoying great food and helping local restaurants gain exposure.

Reservations can be made at dishcrawl.com/alamedacrawl. Participating restaurants are kept secret until two days before the event, at which time the first location is revealed to ticket holders.

For more information on East Bay’s upcoming Dishcrawls visit dishcrawl.com/eastbay, check out our facebook or follow @DishcrawlEB .

About Dishcrawl Dishcrawl creates dining experiences and events to satisfy anyone’s craving. Our mission is to show food lovers the best dishes in local restaurants. You can find your local Dishcrawl Ambassador leading you through progressive dinners, prix fixe dinners, and other fun food events! Dishcrawlers can enjoy dining experiences in San Francisco, New York, Montreal, Ottawa, San Jose, Toronto, Philadelphia, DC, and more. Visit Dishcrawl.com for a local dining experience.

Contact Information

JP Fernandez 650.534.4910 cell Email/Twitter/Facebook

The GrilledCheezGuy Newsletter is Out Tomorrow!

GCG — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 06:53:31 +0000

Here is a free preview of my new newsletter series that will have different columns, sections, news, and stories with each volume. (and each speaks volumes let me tell you!)

Also we only have little less than a week until the next Behind the Cart so grab your tickets now!

For Facebook has failed us my fans and its time to get personal.

Sincerely,

Michael

Behind the Cart 5: Behind the Truck

GCG — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 07:05:48 +0000

It’s true.

Behind the Cart is finally back and this time we are keeping it real and keeping it real private with a nice and nerdy place for all to hang out and enjoy a meal served like you haven’t seen before. If you don’t pass out from food coma by the end of our amazing line-up, you’ll be encouraged to engage in an open discussion about the life and times of the food people serving you.

Tickets will be on sale via Kitchit starting March 6th, 2013.

The full menu is available on the “A la cart” tab.

Here is a fun little video I just saw for the first time this evening that briefly describes Behind the Cart. Wish I had known about this:

Click to see a woman on a corner talk about me and BTC!

I look forward to seeing you all and thank you to all who came out to Eat My Heart Out last month!

Sincerely,

Michael

Tickets for “Eat My Heart Out” on Sale Tomorrow, FIRST FRIDAY

GCG — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 05:18:15 +0000

It’s true. After almost a freakin year (slight ref to Berkeley’s Rep’s TroubleMaker) of silence I return to the underground dining series with the partnership of west coast Behind the Cart meets east coast Eat My Heart Out. As mentioned, it’s BTC in reverse, with speakers that like to speak as much as the BTC cooks like to cook! We got 70 seats for one amazing night, Feb 23rd.

Tickets to the public go on sale tomorrow. VIP means front row seats. See you there.

Also tomorrow, I make a triumphant return to Oakland Art Mur mur at Feelmore510 from 5-10pm.

Try your old favorite sammy and a new recipe. Plus soup shots. Plus those Eat Real award winning sammies!

Eat My Heart Out. The passion for storytelling gets cooked up into something you can eat!