International Food Festival Celebrates Diversity

For students who are contented with the proximity of the Asian Ghetto and the hodgepodge of restaurants along Telegraph, there's little reason to take the 51 down to San Pablo Ave. unless you're looking to procure ingredients for an authentic curry-and even then, the convenience of Naan 'n' Curry is motivation enough to avoid the trek. Factor in North Side's well-known Gourmet Ghetto-home to such institutions as the illustrious Chez Panisse-and it's no wonder the culinary wealth of West Berkeley is easily missed.

Last Sunday's third annual Berkeley International Food Festival presented the perfect opportunity and plenty of incentive to explore this oft-overlooked corner of Berkeley.

The white tents of food vendors and celebratory balloons were spread across several blocks in all directions from the intersection of University and San Pablo Avenues. Appropriately dubbed West Berkeley's "International Market," the relatively small area is densely populated by family-owned restaurants serving cuisine from places as different as Thailand and Jamaica, specialty food markets selling hard-to-find spices and gift shops full of imported novelties and decor.

With most of the permanent eateries offering delicious wares on tables set up right outside their doors and music at almost every corner, the festival took on the lively atmosphere of a sidewalk sale combined with a neighborhood block party. Dancers in be-sequined unmentionables with bright feather headdresses towering above their brows wandered along San Pablo's sidewalks with the rest of Sunday's festival-goers. Outside one of the many sari boutiques, women had their wrists adorned with henna.

Although the festival is organized to showcase this underappreciated neighborhood, it would be inaccurate to say that the West Berkeley establishments were the stars of the festival-they seemed more like pit stops in between the islands of tent villages. Some of the flashiest foods-Ghanian plantains, sticky rice and banana wrapped in banana leaf, Brazilian bean fritters-were sold from beneath tents. However, the merchants proved to offer the best deals and opportunities for sampling. For the most part, the booths required committing to pricey platefuls of unfamiliar cuisine, making them a risky investment. The surprisingly filling three-for-$2 samosas from Priya Indian Cuisine or comparably priced slices of thin crust cheese perfection from Lanesplitters proved much more satisfying and better tasting than the $7 medium helping of lukewarm porcini ravioli from a vendor. Also, it must be advised that navigating the crowded festival sidewalks is a much less precarious enterprise with a sample-sized serving in hand-take it from someone who had their barely-eaten naan knocked onto the ground by a careless pedestrian.

In addition to the array of globetrotting cuisine, the festival also offered an equal serving of non-gustatory entertainment to celebrate the neighborhood's ethnic diversity. The Berkeley Folk Festival was running concurrently at Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse and most of the tent corners had some kind of live dance or music performance.

Since most of the action concentrated in the few blocks on University just west of San Pablo, there was little to draw eaters to the farthest regions of the festival's boundaries and, consequently, these neglected restaurants were noticeably less festive. The empty tables outside of the Temple Bar Tiki Restaurant and Lounge, located at the westernmost edge of the festival, were a sad sight compared to the crowded patio furniture just a few blocks up the street.

While the diverse restaurants surrounding San Pablo and University aren't likely to be regularly patronized by college students living above Shattuck, the Berkeley International Food Festival is at least one day of the year when your stomach will thank you for making the trip.