Ippuku

Location: Berkeley, CA

Food: Japanese, Yakitori

Close To: Berkeley Rep, The Marsh

Conveniently located next to a BART station in the middle of downtown Berkeley, Ippuku provides a quiet refuge from the bustling Bay Area. The seating in the long, narrow space – consisting of both booths and traditional low tables – is partially enclosed by walls, creating intimate eating spaces. Within these areas, diners are treated to yakitori, charcoal-grilled skewers that form a cornerstone of Japanese tavern cuisine.

Skewers (prices range from $7-$9) arrive in pairs; one could expect to eat three or four plates as part of a meal. Various chicken skewers, as the core of yakitori cuisine, feature prominently within Ippuku’s menu. Common varieties like chicken breast and thigh are available, along with more unconventional cuts like heart, which possesses a rich flavor accentuated by its time on the grill, and satisfyingly chewy gizzard. For $16, you can get an omakase (chef’s choice) plate of five different skewers; this is a great option for people who want to taste a variety of offerings, as well as for those who can’t decide.

Chicken isn’t your only card to play at Ippuku. Mochi, pounded rice cakes, are more common as dessert items in the West, but their neutral flavor and sticky texture work just as well as an entrée. Some of Ippuku’s best menu items make use of small mochi cakes, including mochi skewers wrapped in bacon and grilled mochi wrapped in nori. Other skewers might contain asparagus or mushrooms; some slightly larger options include a warm and satisfying zosui rice porridge with chicken on top ($10), grilled rice balls ($8), and a small selection of desserts.

Ippuku’s appeal is twofold: Its peaceful, quiet atmosphere in an otherwise hectic city center, and its unbelievably high-quality skewers. Spending an evening eating yakitori here is a great way to burn off the stress of a big week. If you don’t find yourself in Berkeley particularly often, I recommend making a visit to Ippuku a high priority. The restaurant’s wide menu, high quality, and inviting atmosphere create a peaceful, satisfying eating experience that one would be hard-pressed to find anywhere else.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

See our comprehensive 2017 Oregon Shakespeare Festival coverage.

Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

The Marsh Berkeley: East 14th

Don Reed. Photo courtesy Aaron Epstein.

A sparse wooden chair and a beaten-up red vinyl seat sit on opposite sides of the stage of Don Reed’s autobiographical one-man show East 14th. These chairs, we soon learn, are a visual metaphor for Reed’s identity as he grew up in Oakland in the 70’s, torn between an early upbringing under his strict, religious stepfather and teenage years with his laissez-faire, fun-loving dad, who he realized years later was one of Oakland’s biggest pimps. East 14^th, now running at The Marsh Berkeley, is a masterfully written show recalling a funny, complex, and, most of all, unique coming of age.

There are a sizeable number of stories that end by saying it’s important to be yourself, but East 14^th is one of the few that approaches this message with nuance and charm. The teenage Reed becomes surrounded by smooth-talking players as he spends time with his father and half-brothers, but it’s obvious that he doesn’t quite fit in. Yet Reed’s character arc isn’t simple and neat; he doesn’t realize that his stepfather was right after all and go back to his stark religious life. Instead, he learns that he has to find his own path in the world, one that draws from both sides of his family.

Like many solo performances, Reed portrays dozens of characters over the course of the show, ranging from a sour-faced neighbor kid who burned down a garage to a poorly dubbed actor from the classic kung fu movie The Five Fingers of Death. Reed primarily uses physical tics, posture, and word choice to define new characters, which makes them recognizable without dragging them into the realm of caricature. Some of these changes are remarkably subtle, most notably Reed’s stepfather – Reed merely stands a little straighter and slightly alters the inflection of his voice to transition from nervous preteen to self-confident Jehovah’s Witness.

East 14^th is mostly a comedic play, and its structure reuses jokes to powerful effect. Reed will introduce something funny  – say, that he used to blink constantly as a child – and, just when the audience has forgotten, return to it using increasingly complex setups. It’s fairly similar to the work of Eddie Izzard, a cycle of humor that increases in both complexity and payoff the later it gets in the play. But within all the comedy lie genuinely painful and frightening parts of Reed’s life; he transitions into these with lightning speed and snaps out of them with a well-timed joke. These tense moments, tightly woven into the show, remind us that this isn’t a series of comedy sketches – this is Reed opening up and showing us a strange and sometimes difficult childhood.

Don Reed’s East 14^th at The Marsh Berkeley is an astonishingly well-crafted piece of theatre and one of the best shows I’ve seen in years. The solo performance combines a bittersweet look at life growing up in East Oakland in the 1970s with a nuanced exploration of personal identity and a barrage of excellent comedy. 

East 14th runs through June 4th.

Eureka!

Location: Several places; location reviewed is in Berkeley, CA

Food: American

Close To: Berkeley Rep, The Marsh

In many ways, the small chain of Eureka! restaurants scattered across the West Coast resembles the Ashland eatery Smithfield’s, which I reviewed here. Both restaurants elevate classic American dishes with upscale ingredients and bold flavors, sport a minimalist, masculine atmosphere, and feature a wide selection of whiskies at the bar. But, while Smithfield’s concentrates on a variety of meat dishes, Eureka! focuses on the classic American meal: The hamburger.

Eureka!’s enticing hamburgers range from the classic setup of lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles to the Bone Marrow Burger, topped with a bone marrow porcini butter that’s so popular it usually sells out by the end of the day. My personal favorite options are the Bison Burger, which combines hot jalapeño jam with the complex sweetness of grilled bell peppers on a lean bison patty, and the Cowboy Burger, an indulgent delight with bacon, cheddar, and barbecue sauce. The restaurant will accept most substitutions, so feel free to ask for different ingredients on a burger if what’s on the menu don’t quite suit your fancy.

Though burgers are the main focus at Eureka!, there are many other excellent options. Appetizers include Eureka!’s signature mac n’ cheese balls, Polish sausage lollipop corn dogs, and even ceviche. Other entrée items are also available, like orange-chili pork ribs and a selection of tacos. Not to be missed is a unique ginger-lime soda that provides the perfect combination of tartness and heat. Sweet potato fries are available with your burger, but Eureka!’s unique version comes covered in cinnamon and honey, accentuating the sweet potatoes in a way that’s almost dessert-like. And speaking of desserts, there’s only one on the menu: A warm, moist, unbelievably rich bourbon barrel cake served with caramel sauce and a big scoop of ice cream.

Most Eureka! restaurants are open late enough for you to catch dinner either before or after a show, and several are walking distance from theatrical venues. Eureka! is refined comfort food at its finest: The favorites you grew up with, given just enough of a twist to make them a new experience.

Berkeley Rep: Treasure Island

Left to right: Steven Epp, John Babbo. Photo courtesy Kevin Berne and Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

The images in Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 book Treasure Island – the map with a big X over the buried treasure, the menacing pirate with the peg leg and parrot, the deserted island where lie the skeletons of a treacherous crew – have been irrevocably burned into the Western cultural consciousness. There have been dozens of adaptations in the past hundred years, yet it takes the touch of a director like Mary Zimmerman – a specialist in adapting larger-than-life tales to theatre – to make Stevenson’s work come to life on stage. Berkeley Rep’s production of Treasure Island cuts to the core of this swashbuckling adventure, creating a tense, riveting, and, above all, exciting play.

When reviewing an adaptation of Treasure Island, one must first discuss the most important element of the story: Long John Silver, the scoundrel who singlehandedly created the pop culture pirate. Actor Steven Epp emphasizes Silver’s trickster qualities, playing him as a veteran who compensates for his age and missing leg by being five times craftier than the rest of the characters. He is also fascinatingly ambiguous, switching sides multiple times in a single scene in an attempt to balance his own greed with escaping both justice and his mutinous band of ruffians. One particular piece of social gymnastics near the end of the play is more impressive than the multi-story gunfights.

The rest of the ensemble keeps up with Epp’s larger-than-life performance. Former Broadway actor John Babbo plays Jim Hawkins, teenage cabin boy and viewpoint character, with the pluck and courage one would expect from a Victorian-era protagonist. Castaway Ben Gunn (Steve Pickering) uses a boisterous physicality to punctuate his performance, dancing and leaping with joy when given his sudden redemption. My personal favorite supporting character, Squire Trelawney (Matt DeCaro), is the perfect aristocratic fop, whose loose lips and naiveté create trouble for the protagonists while the audience laughs at his bumbling demeanor.

Like many of Zimmerman’s works, Treasure Island uses music, visuals, and movement to further engage the audience the way only live theatre can accomplish. Traditional sea shanties punctuate the action, furthering slow parts of the plot and adding an eerie sense of adventure to the story as a whole. Todd Rosenthal’s set, consisting of a broad curved “floor” combined with lots of rigging, serves as a blank canvas while simultaneously suggesting a connection to the British nautical tradition in every scene. The costumes, designed by Ana Kuzmanic, separate the clean and crisp British loyalists from the grimy, practical pirates, making everyone’s allegiances identifiable on sight.

The most impressive part of Mary Zimmerman’s Treasure Island at Berkeley Rep is its utter sincerity. The plot is familiar to us, the characters effectively archetypes, but Zimmerman respects the source material and, except for a throwaway line where Long John Silver breaks the fourth wall, plays everything completely straight. To survive in the modern era, theatre needs the occasional injection of fun, goofy or not, and Treasure Island provides the excitement that we crave.