Laurie Thomas—owner of Rose Pistola, Terzo and Rose’s Cafe and also brand new vice president of the GGRA—sits down for a quick Q&A with the Examiner, and reveals that her next project might be to duplicate one of her three restaurants ... but not in the City: "We're starting to look at different opportunities to do one of these three restaurants in another location, maybe Oakland. This year, we've spent time trying to respond to legislative changes in San Francisco, especially the health care changes." Eastern migration, anyone? [SFE]

In another review extolling the virtues of a great neighborhood restaurant across the Bay (we're sensing a pattern in Oakland), Nicholas Boer has a glowing three stars for the offshoot of Potrero Hill's Aperto, Bellanico: "Today's neighborhood restaurants continue to get more sophisticated, just as they become more relaxed. At Bellanico, the combination draws in families, older couples and young foodies from the surrounding Oakland's Glenview neighborhood. We should all have such a place we can walk to, but if you don't, Bellanico is worth the drive ... A neighborhood trattoria needs more than good food, of course, to succeed. It needs warm personalities, and the servers — dressed in black — on both my visits were sparkling: lighthearted and welcoming without being intrusive." [CCT]

Patricia Unterman takes a stroll across the Bay to Flora, and like so many other reviewers before her, find plenty of positives at the neighborhood fave while wondering if Oakland is the new Brooklyn, given Flora's newfound success: "...real estate malaise has not kept the crowds away from Flora. It’s a bona fide hot spot, crashingly noisy at night when the curved bar and all the tables are packed, and pleasantly buzzing at lunch, my favorite time to go ... nothing about this big, airy room seems over designed. Flora feels very East Bay casual, handcrafted and appealing." [SFE]

Josh Sens files his monthly review from his hometown of Oakland, where he's rooting for Flora to overcome its missteps to flourish (bloom, if you will) into a neighborhood gem: "Whether Flora would stand out equally in other neighborhoods is difficult to gauge. Some restaurants are inseparable from their surroundings. As an Oakland resident—frustrated by the city's floundering and personally invested in its improvements (no, I don't own a restaurant, but I'd like the streets to be slightly safer)—I was probably more tolerant of Flora's misses...I'm susceptible to sentiment. But I've also dined at enough subpar Oakland restaurants to recognize when one is doing most things right." [SFM]

Remember that promotion by the Oakland A's that offers all-you-can-eat services with paid admission? Yeah, a writer from the Contra Costa Times discovers that it is not as great as it sounds: "I was as pathetic with my eating as the A's were that afternoon against the Red Sox. My final total was a paltry four dogs, one order of nachos, a bag of peanuts, an ice cream sandwich and a bag of popcorn ... They stop serving in the seventh inning, and frankly I was pleased we'd hit the seventh inning stretch." [CCT]

After stopping by Liason two weeks ago, Nicholas Boer has three stars overall (and 3.5 for food alone) for another East Bay standby of the French ilk in Oakland's Jojo: "Presence of mind...defines Jojo. It's a restaurant fashioned from an old falafel restaurant whose open kitchen is so central to the tiny dining room that Clingman, Thoresen and their one cook feel as accessible as the waitstaff. Dining at Jojo is like sharing a glass of wine in a friend's kitchen. You want to help shuck the peas." [CCT]

The CC Times has nothing but good things to say about West Oakland's Brown Sugar Kitchen, the new soul food hotspot by onetime Food Network personality Tanya Holland: "... a new place in West Oakland is managing something rare: a fusion of African-American home-style and Southern regional, with the skill of an experienced chef with serious chops and an obvious eye. It makes you think of Bette's Ocean View Diner on Fourth Street. Already, just over two months after it opened, it's not hard to imagine Brown Sugar Kitchen (hereafter called "BSK") inspiring the stiff loyalty Bette's enjoys ... Holland's cornmeal waffle and buttermilk fried chicken ($12) is simply the best version of the Harlem classic you're likely to taste." [CCT]

After Zachary's was voted the second best pizza in America—a dubious claim, yes, but that's not the point here—a rep from the Oakland institution is (awkwardly) asked about the polarizing effect and flat-out hate of Zachary's: "I could only speculate as to why anyone would waste energy being passionately against any pizza restaurant let alone Zachary's ... I think that some of this 'passion' you refer to comes from the increasing competition of our industry. The fact is that when we opened 25 years ago, there was very little competition in the SF Bay Area, especially in the 'upper-scale' pizza market. In the last 10-15 years, it has become downright fierce, with good pizza places opening up all over the place. I've learned the unfortunate reality that competition can bring out both the best in people, and the worst in people. Some of the, how should I say, 'less complimentary' comments on some of the pizza blogs are a testament to that." [Epi Log]