***June 20, 2006: Guerila Cafe***

Guerilla Cafe
1620 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley, Ca
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I’m always excited by new additions to the Gourmet Ghetto stretch of Shattuck especially when it’s a new restaurant like the Guerilla Café which supports the Mo’ Better food movement (African American organic farmers) and is rumored to serve some pretty good food. As soon as I walked in, I was impressed by how much they did with small space they had to work with. The décor was bright and cheery and decorated with surf board art and tiles with multi colored poke-a-dots. The front has a large sliding window that was open this morning allowing the early summer warmth to pour in.
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I ordered an Africano to drink which I had read was a mix between a cappuccino and a latte made with Blue Bottle beans. After receiving the drink in what was basically a large shot glass, I would describe it as more of a mix between an espresso and a cappuccino. Espresso is a bit too strong for me, but this drink had just enough milk to balance out the bitterness and with a little sugar I really liked it. Next time I want to try their cappuccino, I can only imagine that I would like them even more. My sister (who I had dragged along) had the red, green, and yellow spritzer which contains lemon, lime, and logan berry juice. It was sooo good! I kind of wished I’d ordered one myself so I didn’t have to keep stealing sips of hers.
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Her pine nut and cornmeal waffle arrived first. Neither of us are really big pine nut fans, but the cornmeal gave the waffle an amazing texture and the mixed berries which topped the waffle were sweet and absolutely delicious. I like the outside of my waffles to be a little crispier than theirs was, but I’m not sure if they need to worry more about not over cooking the cornmeal to prevent it from getting too grainy. I’m interested to find out what their other waffles of the day are like!

My Mediterranean eggs took forever; my sister was long done with her waffle before my eggs arrived. The waitress apologized and said there was a problem with the machine. I’m not too sure what kind of machine they were using to poach eggs (I usually just use a pan . . .), but I’ll excuse the lateness as an early kink which will hopefully get worked out soon! The eggs were okay, the yellows weren’t quite as runny as I think they should be in poached eggs and at the same time the white wasn’t totally cooked. So I’m not too sure what was going on in the kitchen, but they were still good and came with great buttered sourdough toast, tomatoes, cucumbers, and feta. It was a filling breakfast but I left feeling healthy and not too stuffed to visit the Cheese Board! On my next visit (and I’m definitely going back) I think I’ll try the polenta with poached eggs with my cappuccino. As soon as they get their egg poacher working, I think Café Guerilla has a lot of potential to become one of my regular stops!