Pasture butter and Acme rye bread from the new Berkeley Bowl

Matthew and I are not yet at 100% from our recent illness, but after two weeks we needed to get out of the house.  Since we had not yet checked out the new Berkeley Bowl (or, I should say, its newly-opened second location, Berkeley Bowl West) at 920 Heinz Avenue, we thought we’d head over there since we needed to pick up a few things for the weekend anyway.

This location is wonderful.  Although we were approached by political advocates for signatures, we were not overcome by numerous groups at the same time, nor by panhandlers.  This is Berkeley, so you have to be able to deal with this kind of thing, but I prefer to shop without being approached, so I was very pleased about not having to make a mad dash from my car to the store like I do at the Shattuck location.

It’s a very nice, modern market with wide aisles but very much like the Shattuck location, so Berkeley Bowl shoppers will feel at home here right off the bat.  There is a separate building that serves as a cafe with a Peet’s Coffee, and it is connected to the main store by a covered walkway.  There’s an inside garage (can you believe THAT?), so rain will not touch you whether you shop or have coffee at Peet’s.  Nice.

I got the suspects that Berkeley Bowl excels in:  fresh fruit and vegetables, good bread, pasture butter, sushi (the store-made sushi is really, really good) a couple of pecan sticky buns with so many pecans I don’t know how they make money on them at $1.50 apiece, and a large piece of frozen sashimi-grade albacore at $7.99 per pound.

I’m embarrassed to say how much I spent but I am typing from a home with a full larder.

Matt and I had a thick slice of Acme rye spread with salty pasture butter when we came home.  There is nothing better than a cup of tea with good bread and butter.