Breakfast at Picante's

As a reward for making it through a long week, we made our pilgrimage to a favorite eatery of ours in the industrial section of North Berkeley. I first "discovered" Picante's while interning for Tom Bates, who at the time was representing the Berkeley campus and much of the East Bay in the California State Assembly (and is now serving as the mayor of Berkeley) and whose local offices were not far from what was then a dive taco and burrito hangout. Much has changed since college. Picante's is now a haven for fresh, authentic Mexican dishes in a transformed space, now a plush and voluminous setting - the outdoor patio complete with a tile fountain and Mexican greenery is especially nice on a sunny day. The new Picante's is owned by members of the Alice Waters family, who also run another local favorite of ours, Cafe Fanny, the casual cousin of the venerable Chez Panisse. As usual, I had my favorite breakfast dish, huevos rancheros, along with a cup of cafe de olla, a fragrant, spiced Mexican coffee. Huevos rancheros is a dish with its origins in the Mexican/Native American communities of southern New Mexico. I can attest to this as our family used to travel from Dallas to Ruidoso, New Mexico during the winter months to ski at the "southern most ski resort in the U.S.", Sierra Blanca. We would stop and have the special huevos rancheros every morning on our drive up the mountain, and the memory of it stays with me more than sixteen years later. Ever since then, I have been on the lookout for a comparable experience; the one at Picante's is probably the closest I will ever get outside of New Mexico.