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East Bay Express

News, arts, and dining coverage for Oakland, Berkeley and the greater East Bay.
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21/03/2025

This year marks the 35th year of the James Beard Awards, which “recognize exceptional talent in the culinary industries.” Because of its size, California qualifies as its own regional category for “Best Chef.” Before the finalists are announced on April 2, the preliminary list of 20 Golden State semifinalists includes one East Bay chef, Gaby Maeda, for her work at Friends and Family.

Under challenging pandemic circumstances, Blake Cole opened Friends and Family in 2020. Last year, she hired Maeda to run the kitchen after Alli Li left. Cole’s cocktail bar and restaurant is a unique business, even here in the q***r-friendly Bay Area. Friends and Family was created as a safe space for q***r folk and their allies to share a meal and to drink some fancy craft cocktails together...

Read more by about , and at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress.com or pick up this week’s print issue! 🍽️🥂👩🏻‍🍳

Photos by 📸

20/03/2025

This week’s Social Eyes: March 20-26 features , , , , , , , , and .

Read all about these East Bay events at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress.com or pick up this week’s print issue at EBX boxes and stacks throughout Oakland and Berkeley! 🎶📚

Photos:
1) Nani Vazana, by Victor Lacken
2) Anda Union, by Julia Rensch
3) Katie Gee Salisbury, by Jmar Teran
4) Hinds, by Dario Vazquez

19/03/2025

This week’s issue is out today! 🎉

Flip through the e-edition at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress.com or pick up a print copy at EBX boxes and stacks throughout Oakland and Berkeley (there’s a map on our website)! 📰 👀

19/03/2025

Briana Loewinsohn’s “Raised by Ghosts” begins with a note to the reader: This is not a love story. It is a love letter.

In the Oakland-based cartoonist’s latest book, a semi-autobiographical young adult graphic novel set in early 1990s Oakland, notes are a kind of currency for young Briana and her high school classmates, a way to connect with friends and disconnect from the sober realities of homelife…

Read more by about at the link in our IG stories or visit eastbayexpress.com. 📚💕

Photos courtesy of Fantagraphics

Briana Loewinsohn will appear for a book signing and talk at 5pm on Thursday, March 20, at in San Francisco.

18/03/2025

The sign below BH Wood-Fired Grill’s roofline still reads “Bounty Hunter,” an unfortunate name that conjures chase scenes in B movies. Since it’s embedded in the façade, removing it would require the City of Walnut Creek to get involved. For the time being it will stay put, despite the rebranded and refurbished interior. Reincarnated by the Hi Neighbor Hospitality Group, BH exudes the look and feel of a former gentlemen’s-only dining club that recently went co-ed.

Inside, a series of light fixtures designed to hang at an off-kilter angle and a horned stag’s head removed in the makeover share an odd visual correspondence. Designer sconces, not stuffed animal trophies, are part of this era’s status symbols. The deletion of a beer-can chicken entrée from the previous menu also lessens the amount of alpha-male testosterone in the dining room...

Read more by about at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress.com or pick up this week’s issue today! 🍽️🍷🥩

Photos by Hardy Wilson 📸

17/03/2025

Embroidery on Paul Einbund’s baseball cap reads “chartreuse” in yellowy-green letters. It serves a dual purpose, announcing his profession as a sommelier and his upcoming travel itinerary. The restaurateur behind The Morris in San Francisco is about to embark on a trip to France to restock his wine cellars.

All morning, he’s been meeting with people who are involved with the launch of Sirene in Oakland, his second restaurant with chef Gavin Schmidt. Between meetings, Einbund greets every guest who walks in the front door with a welcoming hello. His hospitable manners are second nature. Einbund’s public performance as a host is in service to his business, but it doesn’t come across as forced or disingenuous.

Weekdays, Sirene operates as a cafe with an espresso bar. Elaine Lau, the former pastry chef at Sunday Bakeshop, is making a small cross-section of the laminated baked goods that customers used to wait in long lines to try. Lau’s croissants are crisp, buttery treats. She’s also making desserts for the dinner menu, including a chocolate layer cake...

Read more by about at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress.com or pick up this week’s print copy! 🍽️🍷

Photos by Cat Fennell .fennell.photo 📸

14/03/2025

The retrospective film series “Todd Haynes: Far from Safe,” currently up and running at the Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive, is now more or less into its discovery phase, screening some of filmmaker Haynes’ lesser known works alongside a few of his most wide-ranging provocations...

Read more about the Todd Haynes retrospective film series running now through April 12 at at the link in our IG stories, pick up this week’s print issue or visit eastbayexpress.com. 📰 🎥

Photo courtesy of Zeitgeist Films

13/03/2025

Even if you do nothing, just reading Social Eyes: Week of March 13-19 will make you feel more cultured. This week (like all the weeks prior) offers an impressive lineup of East Bay’s eclectic arts, featuring and friends, , William Kentridge’s “The Great Yes, the Great No,” , Kathryn Seabron’s “Angry Black Woman 101,” ‘s “Spring’s Awakening,” and , , , and and Rachel Z.

Read more at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress.com or pick up a print copy of this week’s issue. 🎶🎭🙌

Photos:
1) Comeback Kid by Aaron Schwartz
2) Bitch by Jim Frohn
3) Colin Urwin by David McClean

12/03/2025

This week’s Taste of Spring issue is here! Look for the print copy at EBX boxes and stacks throughout Oakland and Berkeley (there’s a handy map on our website). Flip through the e-edition at the link in our IG stories or visit eastbayexpress.com. 📰 👀 🍽️🍷

Cover photos courtesy of and
Cover design by .design

10/03/2025

The seed of this story was planted years ago, as I waited for my morning coffee, listening to my neighbor in line. The sweet, diminutive, white-haired older woman spoke glowingly about “my Siri.” There was no mistaking that she thought of Siri as a friend, in a strange and charming way.

The moment triggered memories and questions—questions that led to new experiences.

I had no idea of the rabbit hole I was going to enter as I explored the world of digital companions...

Read more by John Koenig about AI companions at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress.com or pick up this week’s print issue! 📰🤖👀

Photo courtesy of StockPhotoPro Adobe stock

07/03/2025

When artist Annie Owens lived in San Francisco, she shopped in the middle of the night. Yet the aisles were far from deserted. Many other people clearly preferred the relative quiet and deep shadows of the night to the pandemonium of the day.

This preference is reflected in her art, and in her current solo show at Nielsen Arts Gallery () in Berkeley. As she expresses it, the show is “a playful nod of solidarity to those who prefer quiet over loud, dusk over high noon and solitary activities to group sports.”

The 12 watercolor paintings and four graphite drawings are collectively titled “Vampire Summer.”

Read more by Janis Hashe about at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress.com or pick up this week’s print copy today! 🖼️👀🌌📰

Artwork by

07/03/2025

Sheena Dham’s recent album, “Familiarity Heuristic,” investigates the intricate patterns of behavior that define our emotional and political lives. “The songs are about slowing down and paying attention to what’s happening, internally, in every moment,” she said. “It examines the mental shortcuts we take when dealing with ourselves and others, in order to break away from patterns that don’t serve us...”

Read more about .wav by j. poet at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress.com or pick up this week’s print copy. 📰 👀 🎶

Photos by Akiko Sampson 📸

06/03/2025

This week’s Social Eyes (March 6-12) 👀 features expertly curated calendar picks of local events, including:

Brad Barton, Skeggss, Pallbearer, Jason Joshua, Yasmina Reza’s “Art,” Dee Mosbacher’s “Radical Harmonies,” The Koffin Kats, Bill Cunfille, Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Delfeayo Marsalis, and Crush of Souls. 🤣🎶🎭🎥

Read all about them at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress.com or pick up a print copy of this week’s issue!

Photos:
1) by Jack Moran
2) by Larry Niehues
3) courtesy of the band
4) by Eric Waters

05/03/2025

This week’s issue is here! 🩵💛🎉 Flip through the e-edition at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress.com, or pick up a print copy at EBX boxes and stacks throughout Oakland and Berkeley. 📰 👀

Cover art by

04/03/2025

The German novelist Thomas Mann once defined love as essentially “our sympathy with organic life.” In that sense public transit needs love as much as its riders do, so one Bay Area Rapid Transit rider made the logical suggestion: Why not find it together?

On Valentine’s Day, the agency ran a sold-out social experiment. The plan was simple enough: A three-car train picks up 18-to-35-year-olds looking to mingle at the Downtown Berkeley station and pairs them up in three-minute “speed dating” rounds on the ride to 24th St. Mission station. Everyone gets name tags bearing “Looking For” checkboxes to indicate preferences. On the ride back, raffle prizes and a mixer. No stops in between, no booze, no standing past the yellow line...

Read more by Diego Aguilar-Canabal at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress (search for “Valen-train”) or pick up this week’s print copy today! 💕🚆

04/03/2025

The “thoughtfully curated” Albany gift store .shop hosts pop-ups on its front doorstep every weekend—atmospheric rivers notwithstanding. Earlier this month, two white tents appeared side by side on a Saturday morning. Two men with robust 9 o’clock shadows stood next to each other, eyeing the small jewel boxes containing Topogato Chocolates and answering customers’ questions in tandem.

Andrew Hong displayed his baked goods a stone’s throw away. Hong has spent the past four years establishing his own identity apart from Van’s, the bakery his parents first opened in Southern California in 1985. Hong and his sister currently manage the Van’s San Jose location.

Known online as , Hong has garnered a Bay Area following for his creative take on mooncakes and his baking skills in general. For each one of his Droo pop-ups, he curates about a half-dozen items…

Read more by at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress.com or pick up this week’s print issue today (last day on stands)! 🍰🥮😋

Photos courtesy of .dessertshop and .shop

03/03/2025

Yoshi’s is one of the premier jazz clubs in the country, internationally known for the quality of its sound system, the diversity of the music it presents and the delicious menu. The club’s current location in Oakland’s Jack London Square is its third home, a far cry from the 20-seat establishment that opened on Euclid and Hearst in Berkeley in 1972.

“I started Yoshi’s so I could eat Japanese food,” Yoshie Akiba, the restaurant’s namesake, said. “I was a student at UC Berkeley, working at a dress shop. I borrowed money from people I knew. My friend, Hiroyuki [Hori], was a good cook; Kaz [Kajimura] did carpentry and maintenance; and I was the waitress, along with another Japanese woman I hired.” Yoshi’s slowly grew bigger and moved to Claremont Avenue in Oakland.

Akiba grew up in an orphanage in Zushi, Japan. Read more about her journey and the history of at the link in our IG stories, visit eastbayexpress.com or pick up this week’s print issue today! 🎶🍣❤️

Photos courtesy of

26/02/2025

This week’s Issue is here! 🎊

Flip through the digital edition at the link in our IG stories. Visit eastbayexpress.com for all of the online articles. Or pick up a print copy at EBX boxes and stacks throughout Oakland and Berkeley! ❤️📰🙏

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