43 - Wazwan - Emeryville

5959 Shellmound Street, Suite 22, Emeryville, Ca. 94608, 510-655-3398

last visit: December of 2009

Wazwan's Website (which comes with a history lesson about Waza master chefs)

(Image from Yelp.com) This is one of my favorite places for fast food in the bay area. From when I was going to the Emery Bay theater in the 1990's until the emergence of the AMC theatre and Bay street, this little food stand stayed. It's outlived the Escapades Arcade and many of the other restaurants in there. I have a feeling it will be there for a very long time. It used to be cooked and served by Indians and now I see that they got enough money to hire workers of their own. They're always there and they always greet with a smile. Now they have a website and expanded to a catering business. The food is simply good and fast.

I'd have to say they do good Tandoori chicken and their spinach chicken curry is tasty as well. They have four or five different curries and I think I've tried them all. The Chicken Tikka Masala is awesome. They have good rice to go with it too, never too soggy so that it compliments the curry just right. Naan bread is provided with a small extra cost. I have like 20 different vendors to choose from when I'm going to the Emery Bay food court, but 9 out of 10 times I go back to Wazwan.

07 - Vik's Chaat Corner - Berkeley

Vik's Chaat Corner - 726 Allston Way (between 4th St & 5th St), Berkeley, CA 94710, (510) 644-4412

Last visit: June 1st, 2008

Vik's Chaat Corner's Website (with menu!)

It was the first Sunday of June and we wanted some Indian food. Through the freeways we went and stopped by at my alma mater, UC Berkeley. Well, not that far, we were in Berkeley though. My girlfriend said that this Indian place is kind of hard to find, but pretty good. I'm not a big Indian fan, but I do like Tandori Chicken, so I went along.

After turning a corner on a street that I can't remember, we see people eating. They were eating on the sidewalks! It was quite a funny scene, like a streetvender in Asia. A lot of the clientele were college students, but there were quite a few people of the older crowd too. Take out was wrapped in tin-foil and tables were scarce. The place was booming with customers, and the line kept on moving.

We got in and ordered our food to go. I had a chicken plate with a Thumbs-Up Cola and my girlfriend had a lamb wrap with some appetizers. The cola was really good, it reminded me of cane cola. Great for rum and coke, but I had no rum. I'm not too rehearsed with Indian food names, so I will not even try. We ate by my car and went about our way. Next time I want to try the giant puffy naan thingy, it looks tasty.

Now here's the thought: if so much of Hong Kong's Chinese cuisine is influenced by the British, how much of India's cuisine is changed by them also? I mean the British brought their system of government, laws, cricket, and most likely tea. Not a bad deal if you cut out all the years of oppression. But who plays cricket these days? :)

Yelp's two cents