Food at 4th street - Berkeley, CA

4th street is an awesome place to hang out. My wife and I love to go there. She loves the shops there, particularly Anthropologie and Restoration Hardware. I do enjoy going from shop to shop with her, but I'm usually anxious to get to the restaurants and markets (surprise, surprise). My favorite spots are The Pasta Shop, Cafe Rouge, and Tacubaya

The Pasta Shop

The stuff at The Pasta Shop are awesome. We usually leave with some cold cuts and bread. We've also tried a lot of their specialty jams and salsa dips and we've never been disappointed. They are definitely not Safeway, Trader Joes, nor Whole Foods. They are more like a specialty food shop. One thing to be mindful of is they are a bit on the pricey side so watch your wallet when shopping here.

Cafe Rouge

Cafe Rouge is a restaurant that has it's own meat market. All their meats are organic. They butcher it themselves. Needless to say all things meat are excellent. Here are my recommendations:

• Steak frites with red wine shallot butter
• ½ lb. Rouge hamburger and French fries
• Housemade charcuterie plate

The Rouge hamburger completely blew me away the first time I tried it. If you love a good burger go get one from this place now, but be warn after you've had this burger most other burgers become meaningless to you. The Housemade charcuterie plate is an appetizer plate of rabbit rillettes, veal pate and chicken liver pate served with olives and cornichons. In general, I love rillettes and pate and Cafe Rouge doesn't disappoint here. If I had to choose one thing to get from this restaurant I would go with the charcuterie plate


Tacubaya

Tacubaya is an excellent taco place. The portions are appetizer size so you can order a whole bunch of different stuff in one sitting. We actually went there this weekend and this is what we order:

• Taco al Pastor
• Taco de Lengua

The Taco al Pastor is a spit-roasted Niman ranch pork in adobo marinade with avocado salsa. This is very similar to the pork "gyro" thing you see everywhere in Mexico. I'm really glad they have this here because eating it brings back a lot of fond memories of the good eats we had there. The Taco de Lengua is a Niman Ranch beef tongue with tomatillo salsa. Now don't get turned off by the fact that it's beef tongue. If I didn't tell you it's beef tongue, you may actually think it's filet mignon chopped into cubes. If your in a mood for some good tacos park yourself at Tacubaya, order 2 to 4 tacos, and just eat. Lastly, don't forget to wash down your food with a fresca. I'd recommend the Kiwi fresca.