Elephant Bar Restaurant - 5601 Bay St Emeryville, CA 94608 - (510) 601-1001

February 9, 2013 – Today we are guest blogging outside of Alameda because we needed to go to Emeryville. Greta turns 10 tomorrow, so she got to get her ears pierced! We went to Claire’s at the Bay Street Mall in Emeryville and afterwards we went to Elephant Bar.

 

After Earpiercing



Before Earpiercing



 



Elephant Bar is a chain restaurant mostly based in California. It has a safari theme and a Pan Asian menu. Bay Street was an early adopter on the compost program, so we were interested in checking out their compost situation. We had six in our party – and only room for five in the car – so Fred biked from Alameda to Emeryville.

In Front of the Elephant at Elephant Bar

We had:

• Parmesan-Encrusted Green Beans
• Quick-Seared Ahi Tuna – Greta says, “The ahi tuna tastes wonderful and every bite was sweet and juicy. I would give it 5 out of 5 stars.”
• Quick-Fried Soy-Ginger Calamari – Greta says, “The calamari was nice and soft which is good because I just got my braces tightened.”

• Three Cheese Macaroni – Greta says, “The three-cheese macaroni was good, but there was a type of cheese in it that wasn’t exactly my favorite. I would give it 4 out of 5 stars.”

• Kona BBQ Combo Platter – Fred says, “It was good, especially the ribs – 4 out of 5 stars.”
• Citrus Side Salad – Refreshing and delicious (some of us ordered it without gorgonzola).
• Caesar Side Salad – A fine example of Caesar salad.
• Jr. Explorer Chicken Crispers – Vera says, “The chicken was very crispy and it came with apples – 20 out of 5 stars.”

By the way, the bunny's name is Eggy

• Ice cream sundae – Vera got a sundae with her kid’s meal and Greta got one on the house with a candle because it is her birthday tomorrow. Vera says, “The sundae had a cherry on top and cream on top. Inside was vanilla ice cream with a little crispy cup. 10 out of 5 stars.”

Bicycle Report – Fred says, “It takes 45 minutes to bike from Alameda to Emeryville and it is a nice pleasant ride along Mandela Parkway. The only part that is bad is going through the horrible Posey tube which is crowded, smelly, loud and dangerous. And I had to squeeze my way past three kids who were spitting on passing cars. Emeryville has great biking. It has great bike boulevards and bikes routes, but you can’t get anywhere because of the freeway and the train tracks. I had to carry my bike up two flights of stairs to get over the railroad track.”

Compost Report – We asked the maître d' whether the restaurant recycles and composts. He didn’t know so he called for the manager. It was the manager’s second day on the job and he knew that they recycle, but wasn’t sure about composting. So we had to do our own investigation. After lunch, we went around back to the recycling area and saw that they had a big compactor for trash, a dumpster for recycling and a dumpster for food scraps. Yay! We looked inside and there were food scraps and a few plastic oil bottles. We think we might need to contact Miss Emeryville to retrain the restaurant staff. Actually, we don’t know if Miss Emeryville has recycling and composting in her platform. So we will just call Peter (who we know on the Emeryville City staff).

Food scrap bin in Emeryville