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San Leandro Bites: Horatio’s

July 22, 2024 / / 1 Comment

This local steakhouse is still chill decades after our first visit.

Horatio’s seems frozen in time – very similar today to when I first reviewed it 24 years ago. The bar has been remodeled and an extra dining room added, and new, less whimsical chairs added, but the nautical theme remains as does the basic architecture of the place. What has changed is the San Leandro marina, at which Horatio’s is located. The impossible cost of continuing to dredge this part of the bay has long made it unworkable and there are no more sailboats to see through the window. The mooring columns on the piers, bare and alone, reminded me of the Berlin Holocaust memorial. Alas, all grim thoughts were pushed aside, as I watched a raft of ducks pass by and then return and got into a good natured argument with my husband about whether a particular creature was a duck or a goose.

Horatio’s has always been a surf & turf sort of restaurant. I think once upon a time it might have been independent, then joined a local chain that included other marina-based local restaurants such as Skate’s, and is now part of Landry Inc., which owns massive chains such as Bubba Gump Shrimp, McCormick and Schmick’s and Morton’s. Still, Horatio’s seems to be operated as a stand alone restaurant and, as mentioned above, its feel hasn’t changed.

We went to dinner there on a Wednesday evening as part of the San Leandro Restaurant Week. Horatio’s had a 3-course menu for $40, which included 3 choices of salad, 4 choices of entrée and 3 of dessert. It was a very good deal, particularly as one of the entrée choices was prime rib, usually $46.5 by itself.

The meal started with bread. Horatio’s bread has gone through several iterations throughout the years, and the current is a light, country style bread smeared with garlic butter. It’s delicious. We couldn’t resist eating it all, though we managed to reject the offer for a second serving.

I started my prix fix meal with the Romaine Caesar salad (regularly $11.50). The crisp torn pieces of romaine come with croutons, parmesan and house made dressing. Mike found it generic and was happy he didn’t order it, but I enjoyed it. I felt that the long pieces of shredded parmesan really made the difference. The portion was rather large, so I wouldn’t complain about the regular price.

Mike also felt that his New England clam chowder (regularly $10 for a cup) was pretty generic. He enjoyed it, but didn’t feel there was anything special about this version. He’s have it again, however.

We both had the prime rib (regularly $42) and enjoyed it. It was served with a scoop of mashed potatoes and little cups of horseradish sauce and au jus. The prime rib was perfectly cooked medium-rare as we ordered it, it was tender but with some pull and pretty flavorful. I’m not the biggest fan of prime rib per se – I much prefer a pan-seared rib eye steak – but this was a nice steak, even if not comparable to the one from the House of Prime Rib which we visited recently. I did like their mashed potatoes, which were flavorful and not dry.

Mike ordered the crème brulée (regularly $12) which was as delicious as ever. Horatio’s has always had a very good crème brulée, I’m not sure what their secret is but it’s always been a favorite. It’s a large portion, good enough to share, and it’s now reasonably priced. When we first visited, over two decades ago, I was appalled at paying $9 for their desserts, almost half the price of a dinner entrée. Now they’re less than a third. In any case, I’d order it again.

I was way too full to eat my own dessert, a molten chocolate cake ($12 regularly), so I had it to go (extra 25-cents charge) and gave it to my daughter. I did have one bite, however, and it was absolutely delicious. This flourless cake has an intense, but not overly sweet, chocolate flavor and rather a light and melted consistency to not have any flour. The somewhat sour cream it was served with, as well as the fresh berries, helped cut through the richness. Once again, I was very impressed.

Service at Horatio’s was very good. Our waiter, Charles, was efficient, convivial, friendly and helpful. It reminded me us of what good service should be like. He refilled water and Mike’s soda ($5) repeatedly, offered us extra bread, and settled an argument over which were the prettiest ducks (mallards, I won) .

Reservations were easy to make and we were promptly seated.

We used to go to Horatio’s quite a bit back in the day, given the dearth of “date” restaurants in San Leandro, but we hadn’t returned in years. San Leandro Restaurant Week did their job of reminding us about Horatio’s, and I think we’ll be returning back – probably just walking in and eating at the bar as we used to. They have a happy hour from Mondays through Thursday from 3:30 to 5 PM that might be worth checking out. 

Horatio's
60 Monarch Bay Dr 
San Leandro
(510) 351-5556
SUN - THU: 11:30 AM - 9:00 PM
FRI - SAT: 11:30 AM - 10:00 PM

San Leandro Restaurant Reviews

Ben & Jerry’s Marshmallow Sky & PF S’more Review

July 22, 2024 / / 0 Comments

These marshmallow flavor ice creams are too sweet and lack flavor.

Ben & Jerry’s introduced two new limited edition marshmallow ice creams and we should all be thankful they’re limited edition. While I bought them on sale at Safeway (regular price is now $7, or 40% more than the $5 they were before the pandemic), I disliked them so much that I feel ripped off – enough that I won’t buy another limited edition flavor without first reading reviews.

Marshmallow Sky consists of marshmallow ice cream with marshmallow swirls and gobs of chocolate chip cookie dough and chocolate chocolate chip cookie dough.

The ice cream itself has no discernible flavor. It was sweet and that’s all I can say about it. It didn’t even taste like sweet cream – just sweetness. The marshmallow swirls were very thin and just added extra sweetness – sweetness upon sweetness and no flavor. The cookie dough globs tasted like what you would expect them to. I’m not a huge fan of cookie dough, but here they were welcomed as they broke through the otherwise tasteless ice cream.

This bright blue ice cream seems to be geared towards children, and I can see them liking it. Adults should give it a pass.

PB S’more is a toasted marshmallow ice cream with peanut butter cups, graham cracker pieces and a marshmallow swirl. It suffered from the same basic problem as Marshmallow Sky, the base ice cream was sweet but otherwise mostly flavorless. The burn marshmallow flavor did give it the occasional caramel note which I did enjoy – as it broke with the monotony of plain sweetness -, so it made it slightly better than the other one, but not much. The marshmallow swirls were thicker, but all they managed to do was added extra sweetness. I like marshmallow fluff, but I think it’s better used on an ice cream with more bitter notes – chocolate, for example. The same can be said about the graham cracker swirl – the tiny crumbs can’t be call pieces. Still, they did add a new flavor. The peanut butter cups were good, as they always are, but discordant with the rest of the vibe of the ice cream. Peanut butter smores might be good – I’ll have to try them – but this ice cream did not make you think of smores at all. It made you think of putting it back in the freezer and drinking something to wash the sweetness away.

San Leandro Bites: Habibi’s Birria

July 19, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Don’t miss Taco Tuesdays for great if oily tacos

This week is San Leandro Restaurant Week and I saw Tuesday as my opportunity to try Habibi’s Birria. I’d been wanting to try this Middle Eastern influenced taqueria for a long time, but Mike had had a couple of meals there and he hadn’t been impressed. He couldn’t (or at least didn’t try to) say no to their $2.50 taco deal, so we headed there last Tuesday night and had the tacos.

Like most taquerias, Habibi’s Birria is a casual place. You order at the counter and then you wait for your food to be brought to you either at the dining room or in the waiting area by the counter.

Most people we saw that night were getting food to go, but the restaurant has a clean, simple dining room with well spaced tables as well as some outdoor eating. Like most people, we got our tacos to go.

The $2.50 deal is only for birria, al pastor, asada (grilled beef) or chicken tacos. I got a couple of each. They are packed five to a box and each box comes with a lemon wedge and little cups of salsa verde and red pepper sauce. The salsa verde tasted just like Herdez‘ and the the pepper sauce was so spicy that after just a little bite of tortilla dipped in it, my mouth and throat were burning. As it turned out, the tacos were flavorful enough that they didn’t need anything added – not even lemon juice.

All the tacos comes with double fried tortillas. The tortillas are freshly fried and warm and, as one can expect, pretty oily. It’s best to eat these with napkins. While I liked the flavor of the tortillas, I found it too strong as it competed with the flavor of the meat. Ditching one of the tortillas in each taco helped a bit.

The tacos only have meat plus a little bit of chopped onion, if they were cooked with it. That was OK, as the meat was all delicious. They are served in street tacto tortillas, so they are very small. I can’t imagine paying the regular price for them. You basically need 3 for a meal.

My favorite were probably the carne asada tacos. The chopped beef was nicely spiced, only slightly spicy and was very flavorful. I really liked it.

The chicken tacos were also very good. I think they had the same spicing than the beef, they were also chopped and he chicken wasn’t dry.

I was almost as fond of the birria tacos. The shredded meat (and I really don’t know what meat it was) was tasty, juicy (undoubtedly from the broth the meat was cook in), though the cinnamon flavor was a bit too strong for my taste. These tacos had more filling than the others, making them a better deal. These are my daughter’s favorite tacos.

I was also happy with the al pastor tacos. The meat wasn’t as sweet and fruity as other al pastor meat, though it was acidic and it had been clearly caramelized. I still preferred the other tacos to these, but my husband really liked them.

In all, we were quite happy with Habibi’s Birria’s tacos. Even Mike liked them. It would seem by the sign that Taco Tuesday is a regular occurrence, not just a product of San Leandro Restaurant week, and if this is the case, I’m planning to return.

Habibi’s has a second location in Hayward. The one in San Leandro is right next to Koolfi ice cream and in front of the Oriental Tea House. Habibi’s doesn’t have a website, though you can follow them on Instagram and you can order delivery through other delivery services. 

Habibi's Birria
403 Lewis Ave 
San Leandro, CA
(510) 935-8611
Mon-Fri 11am-8pm 
Sat-Sun 12pm-8pm

Copper Cow Coffee Review

July 19, 2024 / / 0 Comments

My second Shark Tank purchase was a disappointment

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I’m totally new to Shark Tank, a TV shows where budding entrepreneurs pitch new products to potential investors. I saw the pitch for Copper Cow Coffee, a DIY Vietnamese coffee kit and I was intrigued. While I’ve seen coffee offered at many Vietnamese restaurants I’ve never actually ordered it – I’m someone who only consumes coffee for breakfast and never with a meal -, and I was curious about it. I still am. Vietnamese coffee might be great, but this make-at-home version was a bust.

Copper Cow Coffee comes in boxes with individual pouches of coffee and creamer.

The coffee is in a filter bag with paper wings. You rip off the top and then spread the wings around the sides of your cup. This probably works best with a mug, my cup was too wide and the sides kept falling off.

You then pour hot/near boiling water over the coffee pouch. This works best if you have heated your water in a kettle. I, however, have gotten out of the habit of using a kettle and didn’t remember where I’d put mine, so I heated the water in a mug in the microwave – only to realize that I would not be able to pour it into the filter. I transferred it to the a creamer and that worked well. I could have heated it in the creamer originally – but having to use two cups, even if one didn’t need to be washed afterwards, was annoying.

Brewing the coffee was a slow process. It takes a while for the beans to absorb and then let the water through, so there is only so much water you can pour into the filter at the time. As the filter was unstable in my cup, I also had to hold it with my hand.

Removing the coffee filter ended up being pretty messy, and I ended up with coffee beans everywhere. I am a very clumsy person, I will admit it.

You then open the creamer pouch and squeeze it onto the coffee and mix.

Finally, you have your cup of Vietnamese coffee. I did not enjoy it.

First, let me say that I messed up. I brew about 8 oz of coffee instead of the 4 oz that is recommended for Vietnamese coffee per se – the 8 oz instructions were for American coffee. That may be why the coffee was just so weak. I’m not someone who is in the least picky about coffee – I was an instant coffee drinker for decades, before Keurig came into my life. But this was too weak even for me. I also did not enjoy its earthiness – that’s something that I particularly dislike in coffee and while the earthy tones weren’t too strong, as the coffee was that weak, they were still there.

The creamer is just condensed milk. I have used condensed milk in my coffee before – when I run out of another creamer – and it’s not my favorite, as I tend to prefer a sweeter but darker coffee.

At Target, the box with five coffee pouches and five creamers was $12, which makes it $2.40 for a cup of coffee. Even if I had enjoyed it, it wouldn’t have been worth it. You can brew a much better cup of coffee with your Keurig and add your own condensed milk for much less.

Trader Joe’s Spizzico di Pizza Review

July 17, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Convenient and tasty pizza bites

Trader Joe’s Spizzico di Pizza are frozen two-bite pizza rounds that you can be heated up in the oven or the microwave – and, presumably, the air fryer. They are pretty basic: dough, sauce and cheese but my younger daughter really liked them – even more than regular frozen pizza. I wouldn’t go that far, but they were tasty enough. The sauce was slightly bittersweet, the cheese had flavor and they were surprisingly crispy even when cooked in the microwave. I’ll buy them again, because my daughter liked them. She ate the whole 9 oz package for lunch, which included 12 pizza rounds. The package was $4.

The whole package had 670 calories, 75g carbs, 8g sugar and 1390mg sodium. They’re made in Canada.

Trader Joe’s Cheese Blintzes Review

July 17, 2024 / / 13 Comments

Good flavor, bad texture

Trader Joe’s does many things well, but cheese blintzes is not one of them. These little crepes are sold frozen and meant to be warmed in a skillet or an oven, though I used the air fryer instead – which worked pretty well.

The crepes themselves were slightly sweet, soft and elastic, and I liked them. The problem was the cheese filling. They use a combo of farmer’s cheese and cottage cheese which tastes fine, but has an annoying, gritty texture. Both my husband and I hated it. The cheese is lightly sweetened, so you don’t need to add anything to them, but this actually bothered my husband, who would have preferred them less sweet. We wouldn’t order them again.

The blintzes are around 6″ long, they have 105 calories each, with 16g of carbs and 6g of sugar, all added. The box of 6 blintzes sells for $4.50. The package doesn’t indicate where they’re made, so I assume it’s in the US.

Signature Select Cranberry Walnut Salad Review

July 16, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Convenient and Tasty

I get Signature Select salads when they’re on sale at Safeway. My daughter likes the Caesar Salad, and I always go for the Cranberry Walnut one. The mixed greens come in a plastic bowl with a mini plastic fork an they are covered with a plastic insert with divisions for dried cranberries, chopped candied walnuts, feta cheese cubes and a raspberry vinaigrette. It’s easy to mix it all together in the bowl and not too messy. The proportion of greens to dressing and other ingredients is quite good and it makes for a tasty, if very light lunch as the whole bowl is just 4.5 oz (though the version sold at Vons is 4.75 oz for some reason).

Regular price right now is $4.50, which seems insane to me (as all grocery prices do), but they’re often on sale for $3 if you buy 3. If you order online, make sure to indicate a substitute as they will charge you the full price if you order 3, but they don’t have your choices. You can order more than 3 at the discounted price, however.

Bubbies Mochi Review

July 16, 2024 / / 1 Comment

The Ube Purple Yam flavor made me a fan

I’m not the biggest fan of mochi, a Japanese pastry made from glutinous rice, so I surprised myself when I added these Bubbies mochi ice cream treats to my cart after I came across them while online shopping at Safeway. I was also surprised at how much I ended up liking them.

The treats consist of flavored ice cream wrapped in a thin layer of mochi. The mochi is chewy and gelatinous, but thin enough that it actually complements the ice cream.

Ube, a purple yam from the Philippines, has a difficult to describe flavor, which to me is utterly forgettable – probably for this very reason. It’s sweet and somewhat fruity, pretty subtle and filled with umami.

The results were for a very enjoyable, not very sweet, treat. It actually made me think it’s something my grandmother would have enjoyed – which only confirms the fact that I’ve gotten old.

The treats come in a wide variety of flavors, though only a couple where available at my local Safeway. I’m totally intrigued about some of the others – blood orange, milk tea and passion fruit sound particularly interested – but I’ll have to wait to find them elsewhere. The package of 6 was $4 on sale at Safeway, but they usually sell for $7.50

Update

I also tried the matcha green tea mochi and I was surprised at how much I liked them. I’m not a huge fan of matcha, though the flavor has been slowly growing on me in the last few years. Here, I actually appreciated it. Once again I liked the consistency of the thin mochi and the light ice cream, but also appreciated how lightly flavored and sweetened the ice cream was. It was quite refreshing in a summer day. I won’t rush to order it again, I’m still not a matcha devotee, but I’ll finish the box.

The Pizza Cupcake Review

July 15, 2024 / / 3 Comments

I finally tried this Shark Tank product and it’s good.

Shark Tank, a show where budding entrepreneurs pitch investment opportunities in their companies to five billionaires, has been on national TV for fifteen years – but as I never watch TV per se, I didn’t really become aware of it until a few weeks ago, when YouTube started pushing episodes of it on me. After trying one, I got hooked on it – not so much for the pitches, but because it introduced me to some cool products, some wacky ones and some that everyone could see were destined to be failures. Several of the products pitched to the sharks have actually become popular since their appearance on the show, though so far, there is only one I’d actually bought myself prior to becoming acquainted by the show. I have been intrigued by some of the products featured, however, and when I saw that the Pizza Cupcake was available at my local Safeway, I thought I’d give them a try.

The pizza cupcakes are not cupcakes per se, but they consist of a pastry dough baked in a smaller-than-usual muffin tin, hollow in the center and filled with pizza sauce and cheese. They come frozen and you bake them in the oven. The secret of the cupcakes is the dough, it’s described as a mixture of brioche and sourdough and it’s light, airy and yet still chewy. It’s quite tasty and I loved he consistency. The pizza sauce was on the sweet side, it bordered on being too sweet an acidic – but as there isn’t much of it, it wasn’t a big deal. The cheese is just cheese, it could have used some Parmesan for a shaper flavor. The problem is that there isn’t enough sauce/cheese for the whole cupcake – only the shallow center has it. Fortunately, the bready borders are good dipped on ranch sauce, but you have to have some around to enjoy them that way.

I cooked my cupcakes in the air fryer, using the directions in the Pizza Cupcake website: preheat the air fryer to 350°, and then cook for 5-7 minutes (I did 6). That left me with some burnt spots on the top and cheese that was bordering on cold. Next time, I’ll try not preheating and doing 8 minutes, or maybe cooking it for 10 minutes at 300° – but I imagine all air fryers are different.

The package of 6 pizza cupcakes was $10 on sale at Safeway ($13 regular price), which seems way too expensive – though I find pretty much all food at Safeway too expensive nowadays.

Chain Restaurant Reviews: Ike’s Love and Sandwiches

July 15, 2024 / / 1 Comment

They’re tasty but repetitive and expensive.

Ike’s Love and Sandwiches is a chain of sandwich shops that started in San Francisco in the mid-aughts and which has since expanded to over a hundred locations, mostly in the western US and Florida. They popularized sandwiches made with Dutch crunch bread, their garlic aioli based “dirty sauce” and sometimes unusual ingredient combinations. They opened a location in San Leandro in late 2023, and we’ve had them several times. Their sandwiches, while expensive, are substantia, good for a couple of meals and pretty tasty – though I feel they all taste pretty much the same. They do have plenty of vegetarian and vegan options featuring fake meats. Unfortunately, they’ve gone up on price, about 12% over six or seven months, though that’s true of restaurants in general.

It’s easy to order online and you can customize your sandwiches, but they don’t have a “make your own” sandwich starting from scratch – so if you want something plain, you have to find the closest sandwich to what you want and then ask them to hold whatever ingredients you don’t want.

The last sandwich I ordered was the Big Lee-bowski ($17), which comes with “all beef meatballs, bacon, mozzarella sticks, red pesto, ranch, habanero.” It’s tasty enough, but all the flavors and textures of the ingredients blend together into one. At almost 1900 calories, it’s just not worth it – though one sandwich is definitely large enough for two meals.

I have tried several sandwiches by now, though most of them seem to taste very similar – I’m guessing it’s the dirty sauce. My favorite is the  Hollywould’s SF Cheesesteak ($14.50), which comes with beef slices, mushrooms, provolone cheese and dirty sauce. I loved it the first time I ordered it, it had plenty of mushrooms and I really like mushrooms, and I enjoyed the dirty sauce. I may try it again without the sauce, now that I’ve grown tired of it.

I’ve also had the Ike’s ($16), which comes with pastrami, gouda, purple slaw and “mack sauce”. It was good, if unremarkable. I don’t think I can remember the sauce being any different than the others.

I had the Nacho Boy Supreme ($17) once, which comes with roast beef, bacon, mushrooms, avocado and Swiss cheese – it was fine, given that the predominant flavors are mushroom and sauce, I prefer the  Hollywould’s SF Cheesesteak which is cheaper and has fewer calories.

Finally, I had the Damon Bruce ($17) and was disappointed by it. This sandwich comes with steak, onion rings, provolone and steak sauce. It tasted like all the other sandwiches, however, and the onion rings were nowhere to be found. OK, I did find them once I opened the sandwich and looked for them, but they are basically crushed with all the other ingredients, and they don’t really offer anything but moisture to the sandwich.

In all, as I said above, I feel all the sandwiches pretty much taste the same.

My husband has often had the Jaymee Sirewich ($13.50), a sandwich with fried chicken, pepper jack, yellow BBQ sauce and ranch. When I asked him why he prefers it, his answer is a simple “it tastes good.” He’s trying to watch calories now, so he had something without fried chicken last time he went. He liked it, whatever it was, but can’t recall what he ordered. Not surprising given that, as I said, all the sandwiches taste the same.

My youngest daughter likes her sandwiches plain, all she wants is bread, roast beef, cheese, lettuce and the dirty sauce. So we order her the Dirty Reuben ($16) and substract the purple slaw. She does like it, more than other roast beef sandwiches, a fact she attributes to the dirty sauce (apparently, unlike me, she’s not gotten tired of it).

My oldest daughter usually goes for the Helen Keller ($17), which comes with vegan steak, American cheese, onion rings and BBQ sauce, though last time she got the Jaymeetless ($14.5) with vegan fried chicken, pepper jack, yellow BBQ sauce and ranch. Like me, she feels all of Ike’s sandwiches pretty much taste the same. Like me, she orders them because my husband likes them and he’s going there anyway, but wouldn’t order one otherwise.

My husband, though, does like the sandwiches and finds Ike’s convenient. That said, maybe next time I’ll skip ordering a sandwich for myself.

Ike's Love and Sandwiches
155 Parrott St
San Leandro, CA 
(341) 344-4201
M - Su 10 AM - 9 PM
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