Latino

Wait...it's the end of June, right? Is it pouring rain anywhere else in the world?

Anyways, look at how beautiful the weather was just the day before the storm.  It was so nice that Matt and I were able to take a walk up and down Piedmont Ave. in Oakland after work and enjoy a nice outdoor dinner at Latino.  If you've ever been to the Piedmont area you'll know what I mean when I say this is kind of an odd place.  I guess you could say that Oakland took a willful stab at gentrifying parts of a city with a bad reputation and, well, Piedmont was one of those areas that had undergone that soil turning.  Even with all the hipster restaurants, the quaint buildings, and the charming antique shops, there are still obvious remnants of a town wrought with homelessness and Oakland just can't seem to shake itself loose from the "ghetto" reputation.  None the less, I love coming here for the food and some of the really fun shops (like A.G. Ferrari Foods, of course)  And now I can add Latino to my growing list of restaurants that I love in Oakland.

Fried Plantains

You should know about my plantain infatuation by now especially when they're cooked this way--fried and carmelized on the outside, but soft and nectar sweet in the center.

Matt's skirt steak

The sauce got me.  I mean the entire dish was great, the steak was meaty and tender and the "shoe string" onion rings were downright addictive.  But it was the chipotle mango sauce that won me over.

Duck tacos

This made me miss Lola Gaspar a lot. A LOT.

Don't get me wrong these were also very good, but it's definitely hard to beat that feeling I got the very first time I had duck tacos at Lola...I swoon.