{"id":338975,"date":"2026-05-30T11:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T11:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/338975\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T11:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T11:23:07","slug":"snail-bar-in-oakland-makes-incredible-french-fries-with-steak-frites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/338975\/","title":{"rendered":"Snail Bar in Oakland makes incredible french fries, with steak frites"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each week, we share some favorite recent bites, the dishes and snacks and baked goods that didn\u2019t find their way into a full review. Want the list a few days earlier? Sign up for our free newsletter, Bite Curious<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My group chat has been lighting up with one particular restaurant question: Now that Oakland\u2019s Snail Bar has a new chef, how\u2019s the food? Once it got the stamp of approval from my colleague Cesar Hernandez<\/a>, I decided to revisit. The steak frites were especially transformative. I don\u2019t know what magic chef de cuisine Zachary Breaux works to make french fries\u00a0\u2014 paired with silky, peppery beef\u00a0\u2014 so crisp on the outside, yet ethereally fluffy on the inside.<\/p>\n

To celebrate the news that Loquat, one of the Bay Area\u2019s best bakeries, is opening a second location<\/a> more focused on savory dishes and bread<\/a>, I tried one of the few non-sweet items on the current menu. Pick any of that day\u2019s boureka varieties\u00a0\u2014 I went with green garlic and ricotta\u00a0\u2014 and staff will split the pastry open to make a sandwich. It\u2019s stuffed with haminado (slices of hard-boiled egg), hummus, tahini and amba. Flaky and messy, it made me that much more excited about the expansion.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m obsessed with\u00a0canel\u00e9s, the bell-shaped French pastry that\u2019s hard to find in the Bay Area, and even harder to make well\u00a0\u2014 they\u2019re traditionally baked in special copper molds and require precise temperature control. My favorite version right now is at Goodthing Coffee on the Peninsula<\/a>, which is known for its single-origin coffee<\/a> but really should be recognized for its baking prowess. This canel\u00e9 has a sturdy but still delicate crust and a custardy interior with deeply caramelized, slightly vanilla notes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each week, we share some favorite recent bites, the dishes and snacks and baked goods that didn\u2019t find…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[332,413,143,145,144,412],"class_list":["post-338975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-east-bay","tag-food","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-restaurants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}