The specialty at this colorful, rainforest-themed taqueria in Richmond’s 23rd Street taco corridor is its pollo al carbon: whole spatchcocked chickens grilled over charcoal in a garage adjacent to the restaurant. The chicken comes out supremely smoky and succulent, and the bright, zippy housemade salsas are a cut above. For the perfect takeout family meal, order the whole chicken plate, which comes with rice, beans, and warm tortillas — the building blocks for a whole mess of delicious chicken tacos.

El Garage has been a pioneer of the East Bay’s burgeoning quesabirria movement going back to its earliest days as a home-based driveway pop-up. Now fully settled into its permanent storefront near the Richmond BART station, the restaurant is feeding more people than ever — and, best of all, easy online ordering means it’s no longer necessary to stand in line for hours to get your cheesy birria taco fix. Even as quesabirria has popped up on taqueria menus all over the Bay, El Garage still wears the crown: Its birria is the juiciest and most flavorful; its consommé, whether you use it for sipping or dipping, has few peers. Recently the restaurant has expanded its menu to include a few non-birria specials too: The spicy red pozole, in particular, is well worth seeking out.

Open just three days a week, in a snug, nautically themed space adjoining a smog inspection station, Mississippi Catfish is a somewhat surprising destination for best Southern-style fish fry in the East Bay, and maybe in the entire Bay Area. But the virtues of the catfish and the butterflied shrimp, both fried with lightest and crispest of cornmeal batters, are self-evident, and the small, oniony, Mississippi-style hushpuppies that come with every order are so good, you’ll find it maddening you can’t order a whole basket of them on their own. When it’s available, the creamy black-eyed peas are the best of the side offerings.

This rare quadruple threat excels in Nepalese, Indian, Tibetan, and Bhutanese cuisines, making it a good bet for diners who enjoy sampling a wide variety of South Asian dishes over the course of a single meal: Tibetan hand-pulled noodles and meat pies, the sweet-and-spicy Indo-Chinese fried cauliflower dish known as gobi Manchurian, momos prepared in half a dozen different styles (try the mini chicken ones with jhol sauce), and one of the tastiest lamb curries around. Everything is delicious, and few dishes will cost you more than $10.

It’s debatable whether Cheese Board Pizza technically serves its namesake pie — a more accurate label would be to call it flatbread with cheese. Regardless, Cheese Board is one of the few only-in-Berkeley institutions everyone in the East Bay needs to experience at least once. There’s only ever one pizza option each day, and it’s always vegetarian, often drizzled with garlic-infused olive oil, and features an idiosyncratic thin, sourdough-based crust. True Berkeleyans like to sprawl out with their slices on the grassy median of Shattuck Avenue. In addition offering whole and half pies, Cheese Board will also sell par-baked pizzas all day at its bakery next door.

Some Chinese restaurants fall victim to serving a dish or two that are bound by sugary, gloopy marinades. Not Easterly: nearly everything on its menu, from the smoky stir-fries to their sticky rice, is deftly executed. Chiles, present in a great number of dishes, are numbing yet vivid; sour soups, the base for silky fish fillets, have a lancing brightness; and their sauces are fragrant. This is the place to tease your appetite for more adventurous offerings, like griddled meaty bullfrog, smoked whole bighead carp, beer-braised duck, and Konjac, a type of starchy root vegetable. Multiple locations. 

It’s might be the least accessible of campus ‘restaurants’ in the vicinity of UC Berkeley, but Great China stands on its own, and rightfully so: it continues to serve some of the most elegant Northern Chinese food in the Bay. The Peking duck deserves all the praise it gets, but the menu is also loaded with outstanding seafood dishes and sublime dumplings, as well as a number of Korean-Chinese specialties, including an intensely satisfying version of jjajangmyun (noodles with black bean sauce). Oenophiles will appreciate the deep, well-priced wine cellar focused on Burgundies.

This family-friendly West Berkeley mainstay has garnered a loyal following for chef-owner Anja Voth’s health-conscious and vegetable-oriented approach to German cuisine — which isn’t to say that the food is necessarily light or is in any way lacking in flavor. Come here for the butteriest spaetzle and the crispiest, most satisfying pork schnitzel in town, and don’t skip the various house-baked breads and cakes, including seasonal specials like one of the more excellent stollens in town.

The East Bay has many izakaya-style Japanese restaurants, but none that are as much rollicking fun as Kiraku, nor any that serve food that’s as consistently delightful and well executed. Must-order dishes include the corn tempura with green tea salt, the grilled whole squid, and the mini kaisen don or one of the other rice bowls to end the meal in the traditional Japanese way. When available, the exquisite (and priced to match) chiraishi offerings give more storied SF establishments a run for their money.

What has made Boichik Bagels so iconic in the two years since it opened? Is it their use of locally sourced, unbleached, high-protein wheat flour? The fact that chef-owner Emily Winston hails from New Jersey? The water, perhaps? Or is it the (relative) lack of great bagels in the Bay Area? Likely all of the above. Winston has toiled endlessly with ratios for the right chew and level of malt, producing a bagel that not only has that vinyl-y sheen of a crust, but also great textbook nosh. It’s enough to hop on that bandwagon: Boichik’s bagels aren’t just the best in the East Bay, they’re arguably one of the finest nationwide. 

Although located in a neighborhood that has yielded to progressive fads, Wood Tavern, much like Zuni Cafe not far away and even Gramercy Tavern out East (Coast), has remained stubbornly welded to its own. It serves dishes that are refreshingly old-fashioned — yet still mindful of the seasons — in a comely space to match. Like: nutty and velvety cauliflower soup, steamed mussels in a deeply flavored broth, superbly moist roasted chicken, and a burger that’s properly sized and minimally adorned. While reservations remain notoriously difficult to come by, walk-ins are rarely out of reach. 

This little North Oakland takeout window has been home to what are arguably the Bay Area’s most consistently delicious tamales going back well over a decade now to back when the place was called “Tamaleria Unicos de Cuernavaca.” Second-generation owner Sergio Gomez still turns out the fluffiest, most flavorful tamales in the city, thanks in part to a liberal use of lard in the masa. Azteca’s pork tamal is almost unrivaled in its deliciousness (especially when drizzled with some of the tamaleria’s good red salsa), except perhaps by the sweet corn tamales, which make for a delightful dessert.

This small, unassuming Italian spot in Rockridge is the king of fresh pasta in the East Bay, thanks to the talents of Michel Belotti, the restaurant’s talented northern Italian chef. His rich, egg yolk–intensive pasta dough is the restaurant’s stock in trade, which shows itself particularly well in the stuffed pastas like casoncelli and agnolotti. Other must orders include hand-cut, Piedmontese ribeye tartare fortified with quail egg and five-hour braised flat-iron with nutty polenta.

Among the long stretch of Korean restaurants that line Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, Pyeong Chang is one of the most consistently satisfying, with its small but reliably excellent banchan selection; its shatteringly crisp kimchi pancake; and, most especially, its namesake tofu stews — bubbling little cauldrons that pack a ton of flavor and chile heat (if you request it). Don’t miss their Korean Fried Chicken. Multiple locations.

Tucked into a shipping container in Temescal, Tacos Oscar has some of the best tacos in town. It’s inspiringly vegetarian-friendly, with options like a charred broccoli taco with peanut-arbol salsa, pickled onion, cilantro, and a tostada topped with Early Girl tomatoes, lemon cucumber, sikil pak, fried almonds, Castelvetrano olive salsa, and opal basil. Meaty items like the pork chile verde taco are equally craveable. It’s still takeout only, but stay tuned for expanded seating options.

The East Bay’s only two-Michelin-starred restaurant continues to be Oakland’s fine-dining destination of choice for a big, blowout tasting menu meal. James Syhabout’s contemporary California cooking is precise, gorgeous tweezer food, but classic Commis dishes like the slow-poached egg with smoked date and alliums, served with some of the finest sourdough bread you’ll ever encounter in a restaurant, have plenty of comfort and soul as well. Bonus: an At-Home Dry-Aged Ribeye Steak meal set is available for takeout.

Horn Barbecue has racked up all the love from locals, press, and fellow pitmasters since owner Matt Horn began his pop-ups around the Bay Area a fews years ago. Now, after a lengthy permitting process, his West Oakland location is serving up smoked brisket, hot links, chicken, and all the sides to the throngs that visit each day. Soon, Horn will add a taco truck with brisket tacos to the parking lot, and plans to open fried chicken and burger restaurants in the near future.

Set in a minimalist space full of reclaimed wood, Soba Ichi is the only restaurant in the Bay Area making its buckwheat soba noodles from scratch, using freshly milled buckwheat flour. To best appreciate the noodles’ nutty flavor and light, delicate mouthfeel, eat them cold with the restaurant’s dashi-based dipping sauce. For best results, brave the one-hour-plus lines on weekends and dine-in. Note: the restaurant closes at 8.

Kingston 11’s charms include its bold Jamaican flavors, infectiously upbeat reggae music, and one of the most diverse dining crowds in the Bay Area. Chef Nigel Jones’ food remains reliably great, with jerk chicken and oxtail stew as the biggest crowdpleasers, though the curry goat, made fiery with a few shakes of Jamaican pepper sauce, is the kind of dish you rearrange your schedule around. Lovers of rum-based cocktails, this is your spot.

Everything about this Afro-Caribbean restaurant is wonderfully inviting, from its bright turquoise vintage enamel plates to the smell of its best-in-class skillet-fried chicken wafting out of the kitchen. Chef Sarah Kirnon’s dishes seamlessly fuse together California and the Caribbean, as in a “Oakland Bistro Salad” of cornmeal-crusted fried oysters, soft-boiled egg, and pickled green tomato, or the chef’s version of the Jamaican breakfast favorite saltfish and ackee, which features seasonal vegetables and a blistering Scotch bonnet chile heat that shouldn’t be trifled with.

Concerns about Ming’s Tasty on its operational quirks — it opens at 9 a.m. but closes at 6 p.m.; is not open on Wednesdays; runs out of its most popular dishes by 11 a.m. but never seems to do anything about it — disappear once you try the dishes that make this small, unassuming Oakland eatery so vaunted among those in the know. They include a claypot rice dish cooked with preserved meats of profound depth; excellent Har Gau, i.e. big chunks of shrimp bound by glossy and delicate wrappers; and their crave-worthy snowy baked BBQ buns, which nail that sweet-salty diaspora with aplomb. Make no mistake: Ming’s serves some of the finest dim sum in the Bay.

Even before the Bay Area Filipino food scene’s recent run of mainstream success, this family-run takeout spot had already established itself as an East Oakland mainstay, dealing out XL-size lumpia; meaty, slow-cooked stews; and crunchy-sweet chicken wings, all served with a healthy dose of ’90s hip-hop swagger. Don’t let the steam table setup fool you: This is grandma food through and through, from the oxtail and eggplant stew known as kare kare to the many different permutations of bright, vinegary adobo.

Tucked into a seemingly random residential neighborhood, Vientian Cafe has the kind of greatest hits menu that spans pho, pad Thai, and every other Southeast Asian standard in between. But the truth is, Vientian is a Lao restaurant above all else, and to unlock the restaurant’s true greatness, diners should order exclusively off the separate menu of Lao specialties: nam kao, or crunchy rice ball salad; fermented Lao sausages; catfish steamed inside banana leaves; and an assortment of delicious noodle soups.

Oakland’s only dedicated Trinidadian restaurant is about as bustling and lively a restaurant as you’ll find in the city during the pandemic, between the sound of musicians regaling outdoor diners with steelpan drumming and the smell of jerk spice wafting in the air. A big plate of curry goat or jerk chicken — some of the tenderest and most flavorful in the Bay — over pelau rice makes for an ideal meal, as do the curry-stuffed Trinidadian roti wraps, which are one of the world’s great street foods.

Fruitvale has nothing if not an abundance of top-notch Mexican restaurants of every stripe, but if you’re just talking about tacos, served simply and without fuss, Taqueria El Paisa rises to the top of the heap. This place with a meat lover’s paradise — all day long, the sound of the taqueros chopping up suadero (a brisket-like cut), cabeza, and other cuts, still hot off the griddle, punctuates the air. Best of all is the luxuriously tender slow-cooked tripa, or beef tripe. Ask for grilled cactus and onions with your order, and make liberal use of the salsa bar, but exercise caution: Even the mildest options pack serious heat.

The Bay Area’s only Liberian restaurant has been dishing out some of the Bay Area’s tastiest West African fare since it opened in 2017, and it continued to serve its full menu of quintessential comfort foods — like slow-cooked oxtail stew and heaping mounds of flavorful jollof rice — throughout the pandemic. There aren’t many other restaurants in the Bay where you can find traditional dishes like palm butter stew (topped with a crab leg, no less) or sautéed potato greens — and certainly not cooked with this level of care.

Chef Bill Niles (formerly at Tartine) and partner/wine director Sarah Niles have created an oasis of California cuisine in Livermore, where dining on the patio in the evening doesn’t always call for a sweater. The best produce from around the Bay Area is used in the best ways, from fried green tomatoes from Riverdog Farm served with thousand island, and beef tartare with Full Belly Farm mission figs, pickled ramps, and pumpernickel bread. Cocktails are also garden fresh and creative, like the Lost Coastline, mixing gin, lime, fir tips, yellow chartreuse, and smoked salt. The bar is a great place to grab a bite and chat with regulars, while the patio is a magical destination on a warm summer night.

Daly City is rightly recognized as the center of Filipino-American culture and cuisine in the U.S., but the Filipino food scene in the Hayward and San Leandro area is as deep and varied (and almost uniformly excellent) as it is anywhere in the Bay. Within that landscape, Toto’s is the rare spot that specializes exclusively in smoky, sticky-sweet Filipino-style barbecue meat skewers, all grilled to order while you wait. Offal lovers, this is your spot for chicken heads, feet, and tails; tender pig ears; and all different kinds of intestines. During non-pandemic times, the restaurant features a cook-it-yourself charcoal grill setup — for now, regulars like to set up a little barbecue party on the hood of their car in the parking lot.