Berkeley and Betelnut

One week ago, I was frantically packing my stuff up back in Illinois. My mom, perched amidst the wreckage to provide moral support, asked me what excited me most about my move to the Bay Area.

"The fact that I can wear WHATEVER I WANT and nobody will care!" I crowed, brandishing a pair of hand-knit legwarmers that hadn't seen the light of day since their completion last winter. True, last time I checked there were no Singapore-style laws in Chicago governing dress, but the city seems far less interested in self-expression through fashion than San Francisco does. This doesn't mean that I'm going to start wearing a leopard-print jumpsuit to get the car washed or anything, but hey, I like to have the option, you know?

I recalled this conversation yesterday when I embarked on my first grocery run. Nothing like shopping at the Berkeley Whole Foods to make you feel like a conservative, uptight Midwesterner. Even the range of muffin options was eye-opening: wheat-free, dairy-free and low-fat were just starting points. "I should develop an intolerance to something," I decided. Now that I live in California, I need a niche. Should I go vegan or soy-only or macrobiotic or fruitarian or eat only local foods? As I plodded down the aisles reading labels, I could hear echoes of the enraged voices of my fellow co-op members in college, people who practically came to blows arguing about honey exploiting bees and whether a microwave would zap us with cancer rays. My fellow customers included a woman in her sixties with shocking blue hair and a goth girl who had tattooed stocking seams up the back of her legs.

I'm sure I'll quickly become inured to it all, but for now, I found everyone at the checkout absolutely fascinating. I couldn't stop looking: the woman who stuffed fluffy neon green socks into her pumps, the bespectacled professor with long grey hair down to her waist and orthopedic sandals, the barechested guy wearing a tiny cropped vest and huge, swashbuckling samurai pants and a headscarf. Who are they, and where did they come from? Dayton, Ohio? Plano, Texas? Or are they Berkeley born and bred? Somehow I doubt it.

Thus it was with some amount of confusion that I found myself deposited onto the streets of the Cow Hollow neighborhood of San Francisco on Friday night. It was the day before my friend Alison's birthday, and we were going to have drinks and dinner at a trendy place called Betelnut. All of sudden, I was surrounded by beer-soaked BlackBerries and wasabi-tinis and dry-cleaned clothing and more of those goddamned pointy shoes, which I keep hearing are going out of style but never actually seem to disappear.

Despite my initially frightened response to San Francisco yuppie culture, Betelnut was fun. I wasn't too keen on my drinks (they tasted strong but weren't), but our food was really delicious. We started with a bowl of garlic and five-spice edamame, which were completely addictive and utterly satisfying. Then a parade of small plates arrived: mango and asparagus salad, pork dumplings with Sichuan peppercorn dipping sauce, glazed short ribs with Thai basil, and the crowning glory of the evening: Sichuan green beans. These reminded me of the belacan string beans from my beloved Malay Satay Hut in Seattle; they had that same wonderfully salty, rich flavor that comes from dried shrimp paste.

Have I mentioned how much I love the small plates craze? I've had so many delicious appetizers in restaurants only to be grossly disappointed by the bland flavors and hulking portions of my entree. Small plates are ideal for commitment-phobes; we can flit and flirt with a wide selection of things but don't have to risk wasting an entire meal on something underwhelming. I suppose the trend will burn out soon enough, but personally I wouldn't mind seeing it stick around for good.

Hmm, maybe I just found my dietary niche. Perhaps I could petition Whole Foods to offer a bin of mini-muffins of every flavor and persuasion for us, the beleaguered small platers, a group continually oppressed by the constraints of typical three-course restaurant dining.

So next time you're in Berkeley, look for a girl wearing a leopard jumpsuit and comfortable shoes, clipboard in hand. If that doesn't narrow it down enough, just look for the hand-made legwarmers.