Picante

Eastside Road, January 14, 2011—

BACK DOWN TO Berkeley today — we know the road well — for lunch with a friend from Los Angeles, up in the Bay Area for only a few days. We decided to eat at Picante, which turned out to be a good choice. What's not to like about a lunch that begins with a Margarita?

After the chips and guacamole I had this pescado veracruzana, and was instantly reminded that this is something I used to cook fairly often when we lived in Berkeley, and could easily get good fish. Tilapia, in this case, probably farmed, but nice fish, dredged in flour and quickly cooked, with tomato-onion-olive salsa, rice and pinto beans, and yes that's a nice hot chile pepper on the beans, and a little cup of escabeche. Afterward, a chopped Caesar salad.

Sauvignon blanc

• Picante, 1328 Sixth Street, Berkeley; tel. (510) 525-3121

So back home on Eastside Road we needed nothing more than the last bowl of bean-and-barley soup — my; that's a lot of beans today — after the Friday Martini.