signs: Bonanza

Bonanza

This sign was just posted by dc over at Fragmentary Evidence yesterday, and I happened across it today. They've got a better picture of it, plus more nice photos from their ride home.

signs: Saturn Records

Saturn Records sign

On my way back from the Red Cross this afternoon, I stopped to snap a picture of the Saturn Records sign. The store may be gone, but the sign lives on, at least on one side. The other has been painted over.

new feature: Oakland signs

Acme Fire Extinguisher

What can I say. I'm a sucker for classic neon signs, and Oakland has a bunch of them. But it's got a lot of other interesting signs, too. So I'm starting a new feature for the blog, Oakland signs. I'm starting with a well-known one, Acme Fire Extinguisher on Fruitvale. It's been photographed by many (Thomas Hawk has a great set of sign photos from Oakland and elsewhere in the East Bay.) It's been portrayed in paintings. It's been touted as where Wile E. Coyote buys his fire extinguishers (though if that were true, they'd probably blow up in his face, or push him into one of his own traps for the Road Runner.) So with out further ado, I present the Acme Fire Extinguisher sign.

36 Hours in Oakland

Amidst all the bad news about the world in general (swine flu paranoia, anyone?), there's a nice travel article about Oakland in the NY Times, titled 36 Hours in Oakland, Calif. It's a short article, but manages to mention Everett & Jones, the Grand Lake Theater, the Fox Theater, Mama's Royal Cafe, the Oakland rose garden, Flora, Luka's Taproom, and more.

too many choices

My wife and I planned to go to the Paramount for their movie classics night (including the mighty Wurlitzer) last night, proceeded by dinner at one of the numerous places in uptown we've been wanting to try, like Flora, or Mua. Or maybe someplace on the way, like Camino. But because of the rain, we decided to skip the movie and stay a little closer to home.

image from The Oakland Berkeley Journal

There aren't any new restaurants for us to try in Montclair (though several we love, like Italian Colors and Montclair Bistro), so we headed over to Glenview. We considered Bellanico, but passed because of the very limited vegetarian options. We settled on Marzano and were fortunate enough to get seats at the bar near the pizza oven, reminiscent of our trip to Sidebar.

Marzano has a very different feel than Sidebar. It's small, and crowded to the point where wait staff must have to take dancing lessons to get around. The food is very good, and there were plenty of non-meat options for me. It's nicely decorated, with big glass bottles serving as lamps, and what I suspect are manufactured beams decorated to look like normal solid wood beams.

We had a nice bottle of wine, the oven-roasted asparagus, and a margherhita pizza. Dessert was especially good, something chocolate. Watching the food be prepped and the pizza oven be tended was fun, and it's a joy to eat surrounded by people who are happy and enjoying themselves. We'll definitely eat there again, but there are too many new restaurants (or in some cases, new to us) for us to try first.