Our E’ville Bites blogger Calvin Rouse has moved on (The casualty of an expired lease) but he left us a parting gift: A neighborhood spot review courtesy of his current gig as an employee of the SF Chronicle and proprietor of his own food blog, CookFoto (greener pastures indeed). We’ll miss Calvin, but we’ve lined up food blogger Jenn B. from Bellybound.com to take over the prestigious role. 😉
The community-minded Sal Bednarz’s Actual Cafe has become a hub of the Golden Gate neighborhood and its success a symbol of its reemergence. Sal & his fiancé, Liba Falafel food truck owner Gail Lillian, both live in the Golden Gate neighborhood and vested in its improvement. Additional photos can be seen on the original SFGate.com post.
Oakland’s Actual Cafe keeps it local with food, beers
You can’t get much more neighborhood than Actual Cafe. With a large communal table in the center of the space, local art on the walls, local beers on tap and local ingredients as much as possible in the kitchen, Actual Cafe walks the talk.
A sister establishment to Victory Burger around the corner, the signature burger of Five Dot Ranch beef on an Acme roll ($8.50) makes it onto the dinner menu here, along with a burger of the week ($10.50) and a house-made veggie burger ($8.50).
Other evening choices include arepas, with the pork and egg version ($9) a hearty offering of slow-roasted pork in tamarind sauce, carrot-jicama slaw and a fried egg over a grilled arepa.
There’s mac and cheese ($8) and a farm salad of the week ($6/$8) such as Dirty Girl Farm Japanese turnip – Dirty Girl Japanese turnips, Riverdog Farms black radishes, candied pecans and mixed kales. Add an organic egg or crisp bacon ($2 each) and you’ve got Actual’s version of a Lyonnaise salad.
Sandwiches and salads are on the daytime menu, while weekend brunch brings offerings such as biscuits, mushroom gravy and eggs ($8.50), or Waffle Supreme with two poached eggs and bacon ($9.50). And there’s no laptop in sight: The cafe’s laptop-free policy on weekends is another nod to the neighborhood ethos.
The cafe offers a daily 3 to 7 p.m. happy hour. And at dinner, $2 brings a small draft beer with any plate.
Now that’s real neighborly.
Phone:
(510) 653-8386
Web:
Hours:
M-F: 7 a.m.-9 p.m.
Sat: 8 a.m.-9 p.m.
Sun: 8 a.m.-8 p.m.
Address:
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