We basically ate our way across this town. Stopping only occasionally to shoot the food. We ate AND took pictures in Chez Panisse and Boulevard and Rose Pistola (the Pink Pistol seems to almost be its Italian name, though I saw nothing in the way of firearms motifs, pastel colored or otherwise) and ate twice at a really high art kind of RetroTechno Japanese restaurant named Ozumo
Some times we think we’ve done it all. You know, the blase yeah, yeah been there done that sort of thing. Travel Note: You haven’t really done it all until you’ve chopsticked your way thru a Bento Box full of sushi and wasabi while watching Godzilla vs Mothra on a big flat screen TV. A small thing maybe, but you really know you aren’t on duty when you’re doing this in the middle of the afternoon. Great food, great casual but attentive service. And classy as they were they didn’t mind me taking a few snaps. I do try to be subtle. 
But yet. We got our subtle shutter bug knuckles wrapped in a dippy ice cream shop in the middle of otherwise perfect sunny afternoon in Berkley? Sigh. I may do that story next. We’ll see.
But back to the Boulevard. Boulevard Restaurant was right next to our fun (BAY Bridge view) Harbor Court Hotel. Swell, chic fun to eat food, at Boulevard, amazing really. We dropped in about 10 pm and said Food Please. They shrewedly isolated our roudy late arrivals away from their regular customers in a private room. That room was a barrel valuted and floor to ceiling mirrored wine cellar two steps off the main dining room. The barrel vault appears to be ancient, ancient brick. All very slick and grown up, but still lighthearted. Doesn’t take itself desperately seriously. Food, yes, self, not so much. I don’t know about you but I’m willing to pay more to not be stuffy. Is it just me?
Rose Pistola rocked too. We had so many good Italian appetizers there including tiny zucchinis razor thin sliced and fried like potato chips but green edged and dime sized. Shredded artichoke and parmesan cheese on the next plate over. Aces as a salad, served room temp. And wood oven pizzas. Oh, my. Did we really eat all that? The crowd was somewhat dressy like a lot of people had just ditched the office and forgotten to go home yet. The jazz was cool. The food, like we implied, was to die for.
In the photos at the top here: Desserts, Dates and Clementines at Alice’s, Prosecco with Paulette at Rose Pistola, and appetizers from the deep blue sea at Boulevard shot by our friend Steve, with Martin doing the forklifting.