Check, Please! Bay Area, season 21, episode 3, airs Thursday, May 7, at 7:30 pm, on KQED 9. See other television airtimes.

In San Francisco’s SoMa district, Merchant Roots invites diners into an intimate, theatrical and seasonally rotating tasting experience. Our guests where guests “foraged” for playful bites like the Shiitaco, savored dishes like the porcini amaranth tamal with mole negro, and uncovered candy cap canelés. Over in Old Oakland’s Swan’s Market, T’Chaka celebrates Haitian cuisine in a bright, communal space, serving deeply comforting plates like braised oxtail stew, crispy citrus-marinated griot with crispy tostones, jerk shrimp, and akra, all best enjoyed with Haitian beer. The episode wraps up in Novato at Creekside Bakery, a longtime neighborhood favorite overlooking Novato Creek, where locals line up for buttery ham-and-cheese croissants, smoked salmon toast on house-baked bread, princess cake slices crowned with marzipan roses, and impeccably gooey chocolate dot cookies.

Host Leslie Sbrocco joins guests Jean Star, Yev Pusin and Ciarra Barron from KQED in San Francisco.

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Host Leslie Sbrocco sipping wine (Courtesy of Leslie Sbrocco)

My name is Leslie Sbrocco, and I’m the host of Check, Please! Bay Area. Each week, I’ll share my tasting notes about the wine, beer and spirits the guests and I drank on set during the taping of the show.

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Lynmar Estate 2022 “Summit Block” Pinot Noir
Russian River Valley, Sonoma County, California, $93
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Roblar 2023 “Gold Collection” Cabernet Franc
Santa Ynez Valley, California $80
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Episode Transcript

Sbrocco: Immersive fine dining in San Francisco.

Pusin: You don’t know what’s going to inspire these folks from menu to menu.

Sbrocco: Classic bakeshop creations in Novato.

Barron: I think I got like 20 items. [ Laughter ]

Sbrocco: And Haitian hospitality in Oakland.

Star: Big chunks of pork that are really crispy.

Sbrocco: Just ahead on “Check Please! Bay Area.”

Pusin: The Shiitaco was great.

Sbrocco: And it’s a great name, too — the Shiitaco. [ Laughter ] [ Indistinct conversations ]

Sbrocco: Hi, I’m Leslie Sbrocco. Welcome to “Check, Please! Bay Area,” the show where Bay Area residents review and talk about their favorite restaurants. Now, we have three guests, and each one recommends one of their favorite spots, and the other two go check them out to see what they think. Joining me at the “Check, Please!” table today are pediatric dentist Jean Star; calm, clarity and purpose strategist Ciarra Barron; and head of communications Yev Pusin. Welcome, everyone! Are you ready for a fun show?

Barron: Absolutely.

Star: Yeah.

Sbrocco: Okay. Yev’s restaurant offers a true culinary adventure where every meal tells a story and every course is part of the theme. From fantastical flavors to playful presentations, diners are taken on an immersive journey that changes according to season. Located in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, it’s Merchant Roots. ♪♪

Shelton: Merchant Roots is a multicourse fine-dining restaurant. We want, within each of those courses, to create as much opportunity for surprise, drama, magic, laughter, the fireworks that are possible within a dining experience. We definitely try to incorporate a lot of whimsy into what we do.

Woman: This is so cute!

Shelton: A lot of it is drawn from childhood stories and fantasy.

Woman: That’s a little fairy house.

Shelton: I actually got my culinary degree from an art school, and we have a workshop on-site that we can use to not only make some of our tablescapes, we do make a lot of our plateware as well, when what we want just doesn’t exist out there. First up, in these seashells, we have our nod to the sea fairies. It’s a very participatory environment here.

Chef: Plate them this way so they’re more like a crown.

Shelton: All of the staff gets to weigh in on what’s the experience like, how do we serve it, what the food is. And that’s three months of work, followed up with three months of recipe testing. And that’s where the menus come from. Tonight, we’re super excited to present the Feast of Moss Woods. The original inspiration for this theme was the idea of coming upon a secret feast in the forest, left behind by sprites and other forest creatures. And what magical treasures of the woods would they have been feasting on but mushrooms? It’s based on the idea of foraging for your food. We have to hide 84 plates of food within the tablescape before people sit down. There’s actually a secret bite that they don’t discover until considerably later in the menu, and they have to actually use a compass to find it.

Woman: [ Gasps ] Ah! [ Laughs ]

Shelton: These are royal trumpet mushrooms. This is the lion’s mane mushroom. These are oyster mushrooms. Mushrooms are so diverse. We’re trying to take each mushroom and showcase it to the best of our ability for its look, its flavor, its texture — the qualities that it has that make it unique. You have so much opportunity, even in, like, a specific bite of food, because not only do you get to kind of create, like, a special firework, but there’s sort of the law of diminishing returns. Like, once you eat it, it’s gone.

Man: Wow. Yeah.

Woman: Yeah, that’s really good.

Shelton: People go, “Oh, I wish I had six more of those.” And that’s why sometimes a single bite of food can be the most fun. There is a lot of trust. You don’t know what’s coming. You have to just kind of go for it. We appreciate the trust our guests put in us, and we try to, in exchange, give them something really unique and really special.

Diner: Cheers!

Sbrocco: Before we get into the food and the atmosphere of this very unique spot, right…

Pusin: Yes. Yes.

Sbrocco: …I want to talk to you a little bit about — you are into it so much, right, you change your wardrobe?

Pusin: Yes. Absolutely.

Sbrocco: According to the theme.

Pusin: Absolutely. Depending on the theme, I try to dress up in whatever the theme is.

Sbrocco: Right.

Pusin: So, for example, when it was, like, eggshells and broken things, we got a little egg hat.

Sbrocco: [ Laughing ] Is that, you know, over hard or over easy?

Pusin: I’m an over-medium guy.

Sbrocco: Okay. Okay. And the theme for… What’s the theme that you went to?

Pusin: It was Feast of the Moss Woods.

Barron: Yeah, I did that one, too.

Pusin: So it was all, like, mushroom-based, right?

Star: Yep, and fairies.

Pusin: Yeah, fairies. And I think every dish had some form of mushroom in it, including the desserts.

Barron: Mm-hmm.

Sbrocco: It really is an experience, isn’t it, Ciarra?

Barron: Absolutely.

Sbrocco: I mean, this is not just about going out and eating a few courses. This is what, 16 courses?

Barron: 16.

Pusin: Yeah, it varies, but it’s always a lot.

Sbrocco: Alright. Tell me about your experience at this experience.

Barron: Okay, so it was very cute, very tucked away, so I liked that a lot. It was very intimate. What I really enjoyed is how we started out with the welcome tea. It reminded me a lot of miso soup, so that was really nice.

Star: I also loved the mushroom tea. It had the taste of, like, cream of mushroom soup. It was delicious. One of my favorite parts of the restaurant was that everybody there gets to work cooking the dishes, the front of house and back of house. So you get to see creativity from so many different chefs and people that work there.

Sbrocco: And what are other dishes then, after the consommé?

Pusin: One of my favorite ones — there was a Two Rivers trout.

Barron: That’s my favorite.

Pusin: That was your favorite?

Barron: Sierra Trail. Yeah.

Pusin: It had, like, bubbles? Foam?

Star: Yeah, foam.

Pusin: Would you call it foam?

Barron: Foam. Foam.

Pusin: It was like foam in the middle of it. It looked just like a river. It had the trout on one side.

Barron: Yeah, trout two ways.

Pusin: Trout two ways. That’s right.

Barron: One trout was smoked with skin on top. It was cooked perfectly. Very, very tender. And then next to it was the trout mousse. And so that’s where you had your trout roe, and you can dip your cracker in there. It was just very cute.

Star: My favorite dish was the chanterelle toast. It was like this little mini grilled cheese, and then it had a mushroom chanterelle sauce on top. And it was small, but it was just so rich and delicious.

Barron: Yeah.

Sbrocco: Where was that placed in the, you know…?

Star: You know, halfway through.

Pusin: Yeah, it was somewhere between the tea, the amuse-bouche, and, like, the wild boar sausage.

Barron: Yeah.

Star: Right before the wild boar, I think, yeah.

Barron: Oh, that was one of my favorites.

Pusin: That was my favorite.

Star: Yeah, it was really good.

Pusin: That one was my… That one was one of my favorites.

Barron: Anything wild.

Sbrocco: Alright. You go, Jean. We’ll go around the table with the wild boar.

Star: It was a wild boar sausage. And I’m not, like, someone who eats wild boar all the time. But I thought that the sausage was, like, a little bit spicy, but not too spicy. And it just went really well with some of the little mushroom accoutrements they had.

Barron: Another one that was an immediate favorite — it was towards the beginning — was the shiitake taco.

Pusin: Yeah.

Barron: It was basically a shiitake mushroom taco. It was, like, the size of your pinkie.

Sbrocco: A tiny taco.

Barron: Yeah, a tiny taco. I don’t know if you guys can tell me — was it cold? Because I feel like when I…

Pusin: Mm-hmm.

Barron: Okay. It was invigorating. It just turned my senses up. I loved it. It kind of gave off like an oyster or like a shrimp type of texture. And you will definitely want more than one.

Pusin: Yeah. You want like a 12-pack.

Barron: Yes, I need a 12-pack.

Sbrocco: Was this a favorite of yours, too?

Barron: 14.

Pusin: I loved the Shiitaco.

Star: One of my other favorite dishes that we had was the chawanmushi. So, it is a steamed custard, comes in a little cup with a black trumpet mushroom. Really smooth custard, served warm. Every little bite is just very delicate.

Pusin: That’s another nice thing about the Merchant Roots, is, like, you don’t know what’s going to inspire these folks from menu to menu, and so you’ll get, like, these little pops of other cultures.

Star: Probably the only dinner I’ve had a taco and a chawanmushi at the same time.

Pusin: There you go. [ Laughter ]

Sbrocco: What was another favorite?

Pusin: Yeah, there was a mole dish with a porcini mushroom. It was wrapped in a leaf. It was delightful. All the flavors are great, but that one was a standout.

Barron: Yeah.

Star: From the whole meal, I was thinking, what are they going to do for dessert? How are we going to have a mushroom dessert?

Pusin: Mm-hmm.

Star: So, we were drinking this small milkshake and I was like, what is this? This is so delicious, this mini milkshake, and it sort of tastes like maple. And then we come to find out that this is a milkshake that’s made with a candy cap mushroom, which I learned about that evening. So, the dinner ended with a mushroom milkshake, which was unexpected.

Barron: Yes. By the end of dinner, I was very, very full, but I enjoyed the fairy mound. So, the fairy mound is dusted to look like a mound, but inside is coconut. So, who doesn’t like coconut? I love coconut. Very chewy, not too sweet. And then the candy cap cannele — you have to forage it out of the little fairy house. And so that was really fun to find. It had a, like, French toast, bread pudding almost kind of texture, and also very fragrant.

Sbrocco: And did anybody get the wine pairings?

Pusin: I did get the wine pairing. They had a wine from Greece that is aged on the bottom of the ocean.

Barron: Yes!

Pusin: Like, it was super cool. It came in an amphora.

Star: Wow.

Pusin: So, it’s always, like, just weird stuff, which is why I come back every single time.

Sbrocco: Well, it isn’t an inexpensive place. Did you feel like, for the experience, you got value from that?

Barron: Absolutely. I couldn’t wait to see the person who suggested the restaurant. I was like, oh, let’s see. It’s probably, yeah, over the top. But I am so grateful that you suggested this place. The experience was very immersive, and it was nice to have someone that’s just cooking from their passion and sharing that dish with you. So I really appreciate you for inviting us there.

Sbrocco: Love it. Alright. If you would like to try Merchant Roots, it’s located on Mission Street in San Francisco, and the average multicourse tab per person without drinks is around $300. Ciarra has uncovered another rare find — Oakland’s very first Haitian restaurant. It’s a vibrant spot offering crackling griot, hearty stews, and other traditional dishes that are tough to come by in the Bay. Tucked into Swan’s Market in Oakland, it’s T’chaka. ♪♪ ♪♪

Felix: I was born in Haiti, but when I came here, I missed something — the culture, the food. So I said to myself, “I have to become an ambassador for my country.” So I have to create something where Haitian people are going to come and sit, drink, eat, and having fun. T’chaka was my mom’s favorite dish. So I said to myself, “I think I’m going to call the restaurant T’chaka.” T’chaka is made with corn, beans, and pumpkin soup, and you can add either turkey neck or salted pork. So, this is a dish people used to make back home when we were colonized by the French and Spanish people. So, when they go to work early in the morning, they spend the whole day at work, and when they get back at night, they had to cook something very healthy that will give them the energy to get back to work the next day. Whenever you have a bowl of it, it’s like you’re full of energy. [ All cheering ] Whenever you have, like, a party, like a festival back home, the first dish Haitian people are going to have at the table is going to be griot. You get, like, a pork shoulder to marinate. And you always have to have the green onions, the garlic, and the thyme. They got to be there. That will give you the taste that you’re looking for. The next day, you boil it and fry it. So you’re going to have that crispiness on the outside, and the inside is going to be so moist. You cannot have any Haitian dishes without pikliz. It’s shredded cabbage, carrots, and a lot of Scotch bonnets, because pikliz got to be spicy. And the best way to eat it is with the plantain. Every time I put a piece in my mouth, it just tastes — boom! So good. At T’chaka, people that come to the restaurant, they have an experience. Feels like they are in the Caribbean. I’m happy to see so many faces at night enjoying the food, enjoying the drinks. And when they’re leaving, they say, “Hey, you know what? We’ll be back soon because that food is just amazing.” [ All cheering ]

Man: That’s crazy.

Sbrocco: Alright, Ciarra, now, this is really unique, isn’t it? We talked about the uniqueness of Merchant Roots, but Oakland’s first Haitian restaurant.

Barron: Yes, Oakland’s first Haitian Caribbean restaurant.

Sbrocco: Okay. Okay.

Barron: So, when it comes to culture, I’m just so open to trying different foods.

Sbrocco: Absolutely.

Barron: But I also love spice. So I hope you guys love that spice as well.

Sbrocco: Bring on the spice! Right?

Pusin: Oh, it’s good. We started with empanadas.

Barron: Yes.

Pusin: And we also had the… name who I will butcher, but it was the taro root that was deep fried.

Star: Akra.

Pusin: The akra. Thank you.

Star: Akra.

Barron: Yeah, you got it.

Star: Also one of my favorites.

Pusin: Thank you. I loved that one. Fried taro root, right, which was new to me. I haven’t had that texture before, but it was like a very nice, kind of, like, melty, gooey, but also kept together by the frying. And then it had pikliz on the side. And that was also new to me, but it’s like a spicy coleslaw.

Barron: Yeah.

Pusin: So, for folks that are going there, know that it is not coleslaw. It is spicy. So, like, that’s an important… That’s an important caveat.

Star: Yes.

Sbrocco: And when you go, what do you start with?

Barron: Well, first I start with the drinks and… [ Laughter ] Nonalcoholic, but I start with the passion fruit or the ginger sorrel. So, I believe in the benefits. It’s very refreshing. It feels very tropical. It gets me really excited and just ready to try all the next, like, hot flavors. And then we start off with the jerk chicken wings. So, these are smoked, very, very spicy. And the skin is crispy, but it has, like, a little sweet texture from the jerk. And you can’t just have one order. So we left with about two extra orders for the way home. So, I also had the chicken and beef patties as well. So, I call them patties, but they call them empanadas because the place also has, like, I think Spanish and Haitian because, like, Creole, right? And so those are very, very good, and so I really love starting with those dishes.

Sbrocco: Yeah.

Star: My favorite thing was the loaded tostones.

Barron: Ooh!

Star: So, that was one of the appetizers. So, a tostone is, like, a little, round, twice-fried green plantain.

Sbrocco: Mm-hmm.

Star: And then it has some shredded pork on top, and then a little bit of that pikliz on top, and then some pickled onions as well. So, it was like a delicious, like, one bite where you get the tostone and the pork and the cabbage all together.

Sbrocco: Fantastic.

Star: I also had the passion fruit, and it went well with the spicy meal, because I got the spicy shrimp, and they were so spicy that I needed the passion fruit juice to cool it down.

Sbrocco: And it’s fruity and lovely and sweet, but it has such a nice core of acid.

Star: Yeah, they worked well together.

Sbrocco: Yeah.

Pusin: So, for mains, we had the oxtail stew and we got the curry goat. And so we were trying both of them, and I ordered the oxtail stew. My friend Hillary ordered the curry goat. We ended up switching after a bite because I love goat, right? And so, like, to get a goat dish that’s, like, that deep and flavorful… And it’s almost like the stew in a way, but, like, the flavors are so pronounced inside of the goat themselves. Fantastic.

Sbrocco: And what was it about the oxtail stew that sort of made you say, “Let me switch”?

Pusin: Well, nothing. [ Laughter ] No shade against the oxtail stew. I was just, you know… I was with somebody and they’re like, “It’s too goaty or, like, too grassy.” I’m like, “I love it.”

Sbrocco: Herbaceous.

Pusin: Exactly. So, we switched for that reason. But we were both helping each other towards the end.

Sbrocco: Have you had the oxtail?

Barron: Absolutely. That is a staple. That is something that you have to get. You can’t share. I mean, I tried to share as well. I literally was sitting there like, I need to bring this by myself.

Sbrocco: Yeah.

Barron: So, in this dish, you get very big, chunky pieces of oxtails, but it’s also served with a very aromatic, fluffy rice and beans. And because I love spicy, I get the habanero hot sauce and I top it off in my oxtails.

Star: My husband got the griot. So, that’s like the fried pork, kind of similar to chicharrones. Delicious. Big chunks of pork that are really crispy, and then some parts are a little more tender.

Barron: Yes.

Star: Super savory. So, we loved the griot as well.

Pusin: The place itself, like, tropical is a good way to frame it. Like a tropical diner, almost, is like how I would describe it.

Barron: Or, like, tiki.

Pusin: Yeah, that could fit.

Star: It was very family-friendly, too. I invited my friend who has a 4-year-old, and they don’t have a kids menu that I saw, but the kid that I was with thought it was really great.

Pusin: Yeah, my nephew would like this place because it doesn’t have a lot of green stuff in it.

Sbrocco: Right.

Star: Actually, that’s very true. Nobody forced us to eat too many vegetables, except for some of the pikliz.

Pusin: Yeah, exactly.

Pusin: Yeah, yeah. Also reasonably priced. Like, I would go, like, if I’m in that area — Old Oakland, I think, right?

Barron: Yes, it’s called Old Oakland.

Pusin: It’s so good. Yeah. I want to go back.

Sbrocco: Alright, if you’d like to try T’chaka, it’s located on Washington Street inside Swan’s Market in Oakland. The average multicourse tab per person without drinks is around $50. Jean’s hometown favorite has held a special place in her heart ever since she was a child. A mouthwatering assortment of pastries, croissants, and breakfast dishes have kept locals lining up for over 40 years. Nestled in a quiet corner of Novato since 1983, it’s Creekside Bakery. ♪♪

Danny: The interesting thing about Creekside is that there’s a lot of tradition and lineage here. We really care about what we’re doing. It’s a huge passion for us. Hospitality is probably more important than the food. How you doing?

Woman: Good, good.

Danny: Yeah? Fam’s good? ¿Cómo están, chicas?

Woman: We’re good.

Danny: Hey, babe. [ Laughing ] Oh, my gosh! The bakery’s been open for 43 years continuously.

Cindy: Tony Albini was the first baker here, and owner. And then one of his bakers, Glen Sullivan, had it for seven years. And then we bought it in 2005. We love to have variety. We just love the cases to be brimming full.

Danny: We try to stay rooted in tradition, but also expanding where we can and really trying to push the boundary on flavor and technique.

Baker: I’m just laminating the croissant dough. It starts with three layers and it ends up being 24.

Danny: We have an incredible Viennoiserie program. You’ll see a lot of classic French pastries, like Paris-Brest, classic sort of American Danish that you don’t see anymore. Things like butter horns, bear claws, and then a lot of cool savory items. We have certain recipes we’ve been using for 43 years because they’re not broken.

Cindy: These are a lot of Tony’s handwritten recipes. My favorite, I think, of all is the Swedish Dream. When I bake it, every time I bake it and I can smell it in the oven, it’s just…

Danny: We have a sprinkle cookie that kids have been getting here since forever, and now they’re not kids anymore, and they’re getting them for their kids. We keep them in the same place in the case. It’s at eye level for the kids. It’s a good sell. The Princess cake is a classic Swedish cake. Maybe I’m biased, but I think ours is really, really, really special.

Cindy: I think it’s just the sleek look of the marzipan. It’s just a light dusting of powdered sugar with a marzipan rose, and it’s just pristine.

Woman: Mmm! Oh, my God, it’s delicious.

Danny: My mother is the hardest-working person in the food industry that I’ve ever met. She’s an incredible chef to be mentored under. She’s always here. I’m always here. My sister’s always here. It’s pretty amazing to have someone who’s been making it for 40 years still make your cakes. And you can really taste that difference in quality in the cake. We have every generation here. I have people that are literally just born, a couple days old, to people that are over 100 years old, picking up their birthday cake. Obviously, we cook to nourish people and to take care of people. That’s why we cook and bake, and to make sure people are having a great time and enjoying it is the best thing for us.

Sbrocco: Alright, Jean, this is kind of one of those places — if you know, you know, right? I mean, it’s a hidden gem.

Star: A hidden gem, for sure.

Barron: Yeah, it is.

Star: I grew up in Novato, so I have been going to this bakery since I was in second grade.

Sbrocco: Yeah.

Star: It’s in the back of this shopping center, right on the Novato Creek, right by this beautiful bridge that you could walk across to go to the library. So, I actually feel like I may have eaten every single thing on the Creekside menu. But one of the best things, I think, is the breakfast sandwich. They make their own brioche bun in-house, so the bun is, like, super, super soft. And then it has a really soft-cooked scrambled egg and it has a little bit of a spicy aioli. I also like to get bacon and avocado on it. And I just think it’s a wonderful breakfast sandwich.

Sbrocco: Yeah.

Star: And my husband and I always talk about how good the ham & cheese croissant is there. And we kind of go different places all across the world, and we’ll compare the ham & cheese croissant at Creekside to other places.

Barron: It’s a plethora of things. When you go in there, it’s a feast for your eyes. I ended up getting the apple pecan chicken salad, and it was very delicious. It was served on two milk buns, very fluffy. And you know how they kind of say, like, they have “slap your mama” sauce? Well, this is kind of like “slap your mama” chicken salad. [ Laughter ] So it was really, really good. Like, you wouldn’t want to share. And so, we also ended up getting the vegetarian sandwich, and it was a nine-grain and loads of veggies. So, cucumbers, avocados. But one of my favorite aspects of that dish was the Toma cheese.

Star: Mm-hmm.

Barron: But, yeah, it was so smooth and soft. I enjoyed it so much.

Pusin: I got the salmon toast.

Star: Mm-hmm.

Pusin: The bread was a showstopper. I wanted to take some home with me, but, like, I’m not allowed to have bread in my house. Otherwise I will eat all the bread in my house. But it was so good. It has little dill on it, herbed chive cream cheese.

Barron: Ooh!

Pusin: It’s very sumptuous.

Barron: It was huge. I seen someone order one, so it was a decent size.

Sbrocco: Right.

Barron: Yeah.

Sbrocco: And what about the pastries?

Barron: Oh! Princess cake! [ Laughter ]

Both: Oh, you got the princess cake!

Barron: Yes.

Star: Okay.

Barron: That princess cake caught my eye as soon as I walked in the door. It’s just beautiful. They have a green and pink, and it has marzipan.

Star: Yeah.

Barron: And so, on top, there is a rose as well. And then it’s chewy. And so, it was really nice. I also had the raspberry almond shortbread cookie.

Star: The cookie? Cookie. Yeah.

Barron: Ah! And so, in the middle was a tacky almond drop.

Sbrocco: Mm!

Barron: And it paired very well with the raspberry.

Star: They have so many good cookies. And you buy them by the pound, and so every year at Christmas, we go and get a big box of cookies that we keep at our house and eat on Christmas morning. And there has actually been an incident in our family once where we ate all the cookies before Christmas, and so my mom had to go back and get another box of cookies.

Sbrocco: I was gonna say, Santa was pretty mad he didn’t get a cookie, right?

Pusin: I did notice, like, they were weighing the cookie that I bought.

Star: Yeah.

Pusin: I bought two of them and I was like, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cookie weighed before.

Star: Yeah.

Pusin: Like, it was such an interesting experience.

Sbrocco: Cookie by the pound.

Star: It’s a cookie by the pound. My personal favorite is the chocolate dot cookie.

Barron: Ooh!

Star: So, it’s a shortbread cookie that has a really good chocolate dot in the middle. The chocolate is tempered perfectly, so it’s like the perfect gooey chocolate center.

Pusin: The cookies were great. We also got the seasonal tarts. I just like fruit tarts — my mom’s favorite. So I always order one just to like, okay, let’s see how this one goes. Super tasty. They had blackberries and I think one had some raspberries on there. All the things there were absolutely top-tier. And a pro tip is if you do get a black coffee, they will just refill it for free, so that was really nice.

Sbrocco: Oh, there you go.

Barron: Great tip.

Pusin: I learned that.

Barron: I also had the Japanese milk bread cinnamon roll. And so, that’s very different. So, in the Bay Area, a cinnamon roll is a staple. I love cinnamon rolls for the greasy and all that type of jazz. But at this place, I really appreciated all of the homemade ingredients that went into all of the dishes. Actually, a local recommended it. He — I could tell he was there for two days in a row because he said, “Yesterday it was so packed,” and he was there again with his son. And so we just had to try the cinnamon roll, and it was amazing.

Sbrocco: What did you drink alongside? You know, when you have…

Barron: Yeah. We went through the menu.

Pusin: Mm-hmm.

Barron: I had the pumpkin pie latte.

Star: Wow.

Sbrocco: Mm.

Barron: You know, I’m against violence, but another “slap your mama” drink. [ Laughter ] That drink was really nice. And then the espresso — that was actually my highlight. I really like royal treatment, and so the cup was, like…

Sbrocco: The princess treatment.

Barron: Yes.

Sbrocco: Okay.

Barron: The cup was, like, Tiffany blue, and it had a heap of brown sugar on the side with a gold stirring spoon, so…

Pusin: I feel like I just got a black coffee and, like, now I — now I gotta…

Sbrocco: Now you’re jealous, aren’t you?

Pusin: I’m like, I’m usually not in Novato, but now I have an excuse to go back.

Barron: Oh, definitely have an excuse. Yeah.

Pusin: 100%.

Sbrocco: And did you feel like it was affordable?

Barron: It was extremely affordable. I think I got like 20 items, though. [ Laughter ]

Pusin: Yeah, I mean, like for me, coming…

Sbrocco: You took your assignment seriously. I like that. I like that.

Barron: I took my assignment seriously.

Pusin: Very affordable.

Sbrocco: Alright. Now they can create their own memories, Jean.

Star: Yeah. Glad you guys went.

Barron: Absolutely.

Pusin: Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for recommending it.

Sbrocco: Alright. If you would like to try Creekside Bakery, it’s located on Grant Avenue in Novato, and the average multicourse tab per person without drinks is around $25. Looking for more Bay Area bites you’ve just got to try?

Phillips: [ Laughs ]

Sbrocco: Check out “Cecilia Tries It” online at kqed.org/checkplease. I have to thank my amazing guests on this week’s show. Jean Star, who shared her nostalgia for Novato’s Creekside Bakery. Ciarra Barron, who introduced us to Haitian delights at T’chaka in Oakland. And Yev Pusin, who enjoys each and every culinary adventure at Merchant Roots in San Francisco. Join us next time when three more guests will recommend their favorite spots on “Check, Please! Bay Area.” I’m Leslie Sbrocco, and I’ll see you then. Cheers, everyone. Cheers! Whoo-hoo! [ Glasses clinking ]

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Shelton: The welcome tea — it’s a really fun setup. It gives people a little opportunity to sort of build suspense before the menu begins. People get a little dose of our outdoor patio while they watch the mushroom tea literally anti-gravity infuse in these really cool coffee machines that we have. When that gets served, we bring a little truffle-buttered crumpet along the side. So it’s really just a very warming, delicate, but at the same time, rich mushroom experience to kick-start the menu.

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Check, Please! Bay Area reviews: Merchant Roots, T’Chaka, Creekside Bakery