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Adventures in Dining

Comfort Food

     “Let’s see. They have mac’n’cheese. And mac’n’cheese. And mac’n’cheese,” says my 8-year-old. “It’s like a kid’s paradise!” Indeed, the menu at the newly opened restaurant Homeroom reads like a kid’s playbook on dinner, though with adult twists.
     The restaurant is the creation of Allison Arevalo and Erin Wade, two women who’d known each other less than a year before they decided to open a restaurant together. And though both had worked in the food industry in New York (Arevalo in the front of restaurants; Wade as a pastry chef and line cook), neither of them had ever owned a restaurant before. And why focus on macaroni and cheese? “It was something that we thought was very comforting,” says Arevalo. “It reminds people of their childhood, and it makes people smile when they eat it.”
     And people must be smiling a lot. Homeroom opened Feb. 14 with a special mac’n’cheese and beer pairing, which was sold out. A week later, they started serving dinner, and there’ve been lines out the door every night with sometimes as much as a two-hour wait. “We can’t complain,” says Arevalo. “It’s been great.”
     We went for dinner on a rainy Thursday evening and got there just as Homeroom opened, at 5 pm. Full disclosure: I live nearby and was thrilled to see a restaurant taking shape in the empty commercial space on the corner of 40th and Shafter in Oakland. The corner location has wall-to-wall windows and is cheerful even on the dreariest of rainy nights, though when Arevalo and Wade found the space, it had neither plumbing nor electricity nor walls nor a kitchen.
     “Our husbands helped build most of the restaurant,” says Aravelo, mentioning their spouses built the tables, bar and anything else that needed construction. With an architect, contractors and elbow grease, they worked for a year to bring the restaurant to life, scoring banquettes for free, building glass-ball chandeliers, making a succulent wall garden and posting vintage library cards along one wall, over a card catalogue drawer (remember those?) containing loyalty cards, where guests earn stars toward a free entrée.
     Along the back wall is an enormous chalkboard with a map of California showing where the artisanal cheeses and beers are made.
We weren’t the first to arrive at 5 pm. Already seated were a father with his two sons; shortly thereafter a minivan pulled up, disgorging several children while their mother parked. By the time we left, there was indeed a line out the door, even in the rain.
     First up: non-alcoholic drinks — organic limeade and homemade root beer — in mason jars. “It tastes just like a lime Popsicle! Mmmmm,” my son exclaimed of the limeade. The root beer was more cream soda than root beer, though there are plenty of local beers—from a Fort Bragg Scrimshaw Pilsner to an Acme IPA—to choose from. And a good selection of California wines (by the glass or bottle, not jar) to keep you happy.
     The main dishes are all variations on mac’n’cheese, made with local, sustainable ingredients. One, called the Exchange Student, features an out-of-country cheese — pecorino from Italy. Since there were four adults and one child at our table, we got to try five of the 10 kinds of mac’n’cheese on the menu: Vermont white cheddar; Mac the goat (fresh chèvre, scallions and breadcrumbs); bacon, egg and cheese (think breakfast and lunch); and vegan (cheese-less with crushed walnuts on top). The entrees are about $8.50. It’s 50 cents extra for breadcrumbs or $1.50 for gluten-free breadcrumbs).
     What was surprising was how different — and good — they all tasted. Mine was gooey with sharp, white cheddar; the bacon version was infused with smoky, delicious bacon flavor throughout. “Mine is the creamiest,” said my son, who ordered the Little Mac ($5). For extra credit (sorry, I couldn’t resist), we ordered the roasted carrots and broccoli with homemade ranch dressing ($3 each) on the side. Both were tasty, though I didn’t expect them to be served so cold. Yet perhaps the cool temperature appeals to kids, as my son gobbled up the broccoli before I could even say, “Eat your vegetables.” Now I know where to take him when I want him to eat something green.
     My favorite  — and hands-down the favorite at our table, surprisingly — was the vegan for its creamy sauce and interesting flavor, which I couldn’t quite place. We wondered, “How’d they do that without dairy?” And so we asked our server, who reported that the dish was made with soymilk, yeast and tofu. The interesting flavor was the yeast.
     Though we were stuffed from the mac’n’cheese, duty called, and we ordered the homemade desserts: Oreos topped with sea salt ($2) and a creamy peanut butter pie with graham cracker crust ($4), my favorite, which I’ll save plenty of room for next time.
     And there will be a next time, not only because I live so close. Homeroom is the restaurant you didn’t know you needed. It seems like such a simple concept and one that might have gotten laughed out of a fund-raising meeting, but the warm vibe, fun decor, comfort food (I’d recommend splitting an entrée between two adults unless you have a kid’s metabolism), and the school theme all put a smile on your face. After all, who didn’t like homeroom as a kid?
 

Homeroom, 400 40th St., Oakland,
(510) 597-0400, homeroom510.com