truffles or crab in East Bay this weekend?

[Ruth Lafler]

A friend is taking me to dinner in the greater Oakland/Berkeley/Alameda area on Saturday. Is there any place in particular that is featuring either crab or truffles? I don't want a whole elaborate menu, just one good dish (of either). I'd go for Chinese crab, but we did that last year and I don't think he really cared for it.

[nicedragonboy]

Isn't Oliveto doing the truffle dinners this weekend?

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Oliveto Cafe
5655 College Ave., Oakland, CA 94618

[Michael Rodriguez]

Yes.

[Ruth Lafler]

Yeah, but: "I don't want a whole elaborate menu, just one good dish (of either)."

[Melanie Wong]

It is ala carte. You can order just one dish.

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Oliveto Restaurant
5655 College Ave, Oakland, CA 94618

[Robert Lauriston]

Not only is it a la carte, the white truffle shaving is optional. We went to one of Oliveto's truffle dinners in 2009 ended up not ordering any truffles.

http://oliveto.com/dinnermenu.pdf (changes daily

)

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Oliveto Cafe
5655 College Ave., Oakland, CA 94618

[Ruth Lafler]

That does look delicious. I haven't been to Oliveto in years. What are the portion sizes like on the pastas? That is, can two people share a starter and a couple of pastas and have a reasonable meal?

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Oliveto Cafe
5655 College Ave., Oakland, CA 94618

[rubadubgdub]

I haven't been recently either, but I recall going to a past truffle dinner and getting the plain pasta with butter and truffle (shaved until you say stop). For some reason my brain could not do math while the snowflakes fell. That pasta was $75! It was mortifying but really good. Under Canales, pastas were on the small side. In other words, a starter and pasta might leave you a tad hungry.

[Ruth Lafler]

Yeah, this is not the kind of dinner invitation where I can rack up a $75 tab for a plate of pasta. I think maybe the truffle idea was a bit of an over-reach!

[Robert Lauriston]

Two people sharing one starter and a couple of pastas sounds like lunch or a before-dinner snack to me, but a few weeks ago two of us (both hungry gluttons) shared five pastas, two salads, and two desserts. One less pasta would still have been a pigout.

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/7539...

[Robert Lauriston]

It's two or three chefs ago, but Absinthe used to do a wonderful cold cracked Dungeness with warm white truffle butter. I'd like to find that again. There were no truffle shavings, so it was probably 2,4-dithiapentane, but whatever.

[Ruth Lafler]

Good for you, Robert! I don't care if it's artificial truffle flavor if it tastes good!

[ML8000]

Chez Panisse has dungeness on the menu for tonight. BTW, one of my best truffle experiences was at CP downstairs. I didn't want what was on the set menu so I asked for a sub, they brought out a dish of simple hand rolled pasta, butter and black truffles. Don't see truffles on the menu worth checking on.

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Chez Panisse
1517 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94709

[Dawgmommy]

I got a Market Hall e-mail and black burgandian truffle is $40 an oz. Have you consider just getting a small one and making your own pasta dish with lots of good butter, parm and the truffles... I've gotten ones that are @ an oz and made 4-5 meals (there are 2 of us) with them over the course of a week.

[Robert Lauriston]

That's a good price, though black truffle is a completely different thing. Personally I find raw black truffles kind of unpleasant, and if you're going to cook them, preserved are as good as fresh.

White truffles, on the other hand, have to be raw and if they're not very fresh they're no good at all.

[Dawgmommy]

Same notice from Market Hall said that white ones are @$350 an oz, a "bit" more than I want to spend. When I use the black ones, I typically add them in during the last "couple of minutes" to pasta, polenta, eggs, etc., so they're not really cooked, cooked.