Comfort Food

Don't get me wrong: I love the holidays. And by holidays, I don't just mean the Thanksgiving-to-New-Year's marathon that we're in the middle of (well, it's now become Halloween-to-New-Year's, if you go by the switchover that miraculously occurs overnight in drugstores and the like; I was quite stunned to see a Macy's Christmas store presence, complete with enormous wooden toy soldiers, on Union Square on Oct. 15). I enjoy Valentine's Day, Easter, the Fourth of July, whatever excuse man has come up with for a little kitschy iconography in bright colors that can enliven an otherwise beige calendar.

Anthony Pidgeon

Mall Relief: O Chamé's deceptively simple rooms seem seductively warm and cozy.

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O Chamé

1830 4th St.
Berkeley, CA 94710

Category: Restaurant > Fusion

Region: West Berkeley

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Details

Tuna "sashimi" $9.50

Arugula and sea scallops $8.50

Udon noodles with oysters $11.50

Roasted salmon with bok choy $15.50

Roasted black cod with spinach $16.50

Grilled skirt steak with kale $16.50

Sherry custard $4

(510) 841-8783

Open for lunch Monday through Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., and for dinner Monday through Thursday 5:30 to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday until 9:30. Closed Sunday

Reservations accepted for dinner

Wheelchair accessible

Parking: adjacent free lot

Noise level: low to moderate

1830 Fourth St. (at Hearst), Berkeley

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But I cannot deny that both the psyche and the palate can benefit from a little comfort food at this time of year, an oasis of calm and restfulness in the midst of the shopping and planning and cooking that can sometimes seem oppressive, no matter how well-organized or strong you are. (And right now I feel neither: I have purchased exactly one present so far, and had the delightful experience of watching as a friend lent my father The Plot Against America, the new Philip Roth book that I'd intended to give him for Christmas. Back to the drawing board.)

A couple of recent meals gave me relief from both malls and malaise. I've walked past the restaurant O Chamé many times. It's located on Fourth Street, the winsome Berkeley shopping mecca, pedestrian-friendly but never pedestrian, a refuge for lovers of quirky non-chain stores such as the Gardener, with its carefully selected pottery, glass, and decorative objects for the home; the prosaically named but hip Builder's Booksource, stuffed full of architecture and design books; Castle in the Air, a curious collection of pens, journals, toys, and imaginative items; and Cody's Books, which has a blindingly efficient wrapping desk at Christmastime. (Even the chains here -- Sur La Table, Restoration Hardware, a Crate & Barrel outlet store, and Anthropologie -- are useful, especially during this time of year.)

Whenever I passed O Chamé, I was often on my way to one of Fourth Street's many other tempting places to eat: Café Rouge, for oysters and great meat; Tacubaya, with its excellent antojitos; Eccolo, a new seasonal Mediterranean spot opened by veterans of Chez Panisse; and the retro-kitsch Bette's Ocean View Diner, purveyor of homey breakfasts and meatloaf sandwiches.

I blush to admit that I skipped O Chamé; without ever trying it, I assumed it was one of those holier-than-thou aging-hippie places that offer veering-toward-macrobiotic food, salt-averse and heavy on thin tasteless broths, undercooked bitter vegetables, and steamed brown rice. I couldn't have been more wrong.

When my friend Suzanne, who works within walking distance, suggested O Chamé for a quick lunch, I figured I'd humor her. She recommended grabbing a couple of bento boxes, already prepared and stacked on the counter in the back room of the two-roomed place, and taking them outside, to a table on the walled patio. It was a lovely, sunny day, and the brightly colored food we could see through the clear plastic tops of the rectangular metal tins looked quite appetizing: snowy rice, orange salmon, verdant spinach. We were on the early side, and the food was still warm.

Our simple little lunch was a revelation. The salmon, slow-roasted so it was firm on the outside but still a little shaky at the heart, peeled off in succulent flakes. The blanched leaf spinach came dressed with sesame oil. The fluffy rice was perfect. There were also a few slices of a bouncy steamed tofu loaf, seasoned with green onions. Everything was full of flavor, even the nutty rice, and I had the pleasant sensation that this food was doing good as well as tasting good: I felt as though its nutrients were going straight to eager receptors in my body. I had the endorphin-rising feeling that some people (me included) claim they get from chocolate. This is what some call clean food: excellent fresh ingredients, cooked simply so that the true flavor of each foodstuff shines. We could have chosen wine, beer, sake, or the fashionable, high-alcohol shochu from a generous and thoughtful list, but we went with a fragrant jasmine tea and Suzanne's favorite champagne oolong from O Chamé's dozen or so green, fermented, and herb teas.

She recommended splitting a sherry custard for dessert. If I wasn't already infatuated with the place, the custard would have put me over the top: an extremely silky, fine-textured, chilly pudding, with a good tablespoon or more of sherry poured on top (to enhance the sherry in the custard itself). I knew that this dish alone would bring me back to O Chamé, even without the promise of strengthening, juicy salmon and spinach. (The bento lunch also seemed an amazing bargain at $7.50.) I looked forward, avidly, to eating there again.

I returned for dinner with my friend Lee, who works at Cal, on an icy, damp night when the deceptively simple rooms, filled with handcrafted wood furniture, seemed seductively warm and cozy. I was reminded of a long-gone restaurant in San Francisco, Mingei-Ya, a woody Japanese country-style place that felt as if you were dining inside an especially beautiful cedar-lined closet. (I initially thought of a cedar cigar box, but that seemed too pungent and tobacco-y a metaphor, unless you're fond of The Borrowers.) We were given a table in the middle of the second room (the first, lined with banquettes, was nearly full on a Wednesday night). There was plenty for us to choose from under appetizers and salads, but my heart sank when I looked at the other two categories, soba or udon noodles in clear fish broth (with a variety of ingredients), and the three main courses, two fish and a steak: Lee is a vegetarian, and she would be eating two starters if the kitchen didn't also offer vegetable broth for the noodle dishes.