Oyster sauce end cap at Shun Fat Supermarket. No MegaChef though.
We had avoided crossing the Bay Bridge on our previous Bay Area food crawl because I did not want to pay the one-way toll when I returned to San Francisco. It’s only $6 but if you are driving a rental car they may add a service charge for the toll tag, then bill you again every day till you turn in the car. But what I did not realize is that you can now make an online payment without using a toll tag. A game changer!
Kouign Amann from B and Rotha. Rotha’s is closer to the original with fewer laminated layers.
As with our earlier adventure, we started with a theme which was quickly abandoned. In this case it was a hunt for MegaChef oyster sauce, a Thai brand users insist is superior to all others. U.S. distribution is spotty, but with the myriad of Asian groceries in the East Bay surely we could find a bottle for a taste comparison.
Our first pin on the map was Shun Fat Supermarket in San Pablo (at the northern end of Alameda County, just before you turn inland) which had shown up in web searches for MegaChef. But first we would stop at Pâtisserie Rotha, a bakery which is said to have taken the mantle of best kouign amann in the bay area from B Patisserie in San Francisco. They’re only open from 7 to 11 (8 to 11 on Saturdays) and quickly sell out. The kouign amann was indeed excellent as was a croissant, a bostock and a version of the Chinese dan tat or custard tart. These pastries were dense, jewel-like and delicious. I was on my way.
No returns on durian! At Berkeley Bowl.
A visit to the eerily uncrowded 99 Ranch Market in Pacific East Mall yielded no MegaChef so it was back on the freeway. San Pablo Supermarket, as Shun Fat calls itself on its sign, had no MegaChef Oyster Sauce but they did have so many other oyster sauce brands that I realized a comparative tasting would be much more ambitious than I wanted. The hunt for MegaChef effectively ended at that moment though we’d continue to check for it at each stop.
Next on the itinerary were Monterey Market and Berkeley Bowl, two old haunts with fabulous fruit and vegetables in the tradition of produce markets run by Japanese-Americans. (Both had a grocery section with oyster sauce; neither had MegaChef.) I also stopped at the original location of the Cheese Board Collective to pick up a pizza and some cheese. (I’ve had complaints that the excellent sourdough baguettes here are simply leftover pizza dough but according to their website the opposite is the case; the collective started making pizza as a way to use up leftover dough and cheese.) Anybody visiting the Bay Area should put these establishments on their punch list, along with Chez Panisse across the street from Cheese Board on Shattuck. (Legend has it that Alice Waters located her restaurant in the “Gourmet Ghetto” specifically because Cheese Board was across the street.)
#10 Bahn Mi at Cam Huong.
Then it was down the road to Cam Huong, which I recalled as a solid bahn mi place from visits two decades ago. It’s moved from Oakland Chinatown to the gritty realm of International Blvd and is doing takeout only at present (as a general rule, Asian food places seem to be much more cautious about re-opening). I normally order the dac biet or special combination, but the best choices here are the #5 shredded pork with anchovy sauce (i.e. fish sauce) and #10 beef wrapped with onion. Really ideal balance of bread and quality fillings.
And now it was time to virtually pay my $6 toll and cross back in to San Francisco, where I picked up a kouign amann at B Patisserie (ordered in advance online, something you can do here but not at Routha) for comparison purposes. Since I still had the rental car, I made three more stops the following day, all in the San Mateo area. Takahashi Market is a small grocery store that gets an air shipment from Hawaii each Friday (not Thursday as on the website); the must-get item is ogo, a crunchy seaweed that commonly appears in poke in the islands but for some reason isn’t normally imported. Suruki, a few blocks down the street, is destination shopping for perfect sushi fish. They also have odds and ends at non-astronomical prices: I picked up about 2 pounds of yellowtail scraps for $4 and they made an excellent fish chowder. And they have MegaChef fish sauce, proof that the brand exists.
Takeout kaiseki from Wakiruya.
The final stop on this odyssey was Wakuriya, a Michelin one-star kaiseki restaurant which is bravely serving its multi-course meal for takeout during the pandemic. The quality and presentation (including the world’s smallest ice pack, nestled in with the sashimi) were incredible and the value ($60 for the whole meal, normally $95 when served for in-person dining) can’t be beat. We were haunted by the rhubarb vinegar served with thin slices of wagyu ribeye, and will be trying to duplicate it on these pages at some point.
At this point we were foodied out, with zero interest in MegaChef Oyster Sauce. But if we have second thoughts, we can always get it on Amazon.
