Carol Peck's Good News Cafe

I don't think I can express how much I love this restaurant. If it was ever to close, it would be like a death in the family. I look forward to coming here more than to any other restaurant that I've ever been to (and I live in Oakland/SF where there are endless excellent restaurants). My favorite dishes are the gemelli pasta (in the summer) and the baked lentils (in the winter).  A million thanks to Carole, Jon, and everyone else at Good News for making such a huge contribution to the community and to my life and family.

My wife and I really enjoyed our meal here.  The waitstaff was super friendly and all the food was delicious.  

I had the squid salad, which had the perfect amount of parmesan cheese and the arugula was a nice complement to the squid.  The lobster mac and cheese was fantastic.  There was a generous portion of lobster (I think there was an entire lobster in there, maybe even more) to go with the penne pasta.

My wife had the martha salad with the crab on top, which was also very good.  The avocado was fresh and again a very generous portion of crab.  She had the scallops as an entree, and those were excellent, also.

Can't wait to come back and try some of the other dishes.

We had reservations for 6pm, and was pretty quiet.  By 7:30, the place was packed, which really slowed down the service level and it became very loud.

This was our first time back at Carol's in about a year.  The menu has been seriously streamlined from multiple pages to a single page.  The food was, good, but not great for what Carol Peck charges.  

I ordered the Vietnamese-style pork salad as a starter.  I expected cold sliced pork over a tangy salad.  What I received was a warm and greasy crumbled pork sausage over bib lettuce.  I was not impressed, and would have said something to our server had she returned to our table.  Alas, she did not.

My $30 entree of 4 seared scallops followed.  Yes, they were delicious, and while I don't mind paying for good food, I still felt swindled.

Ironically, the part that stings the most is the least expensive item: Carol charges a dollar for filtered tap water at your table.  She could have hidden this fee in other menu items, but chose to put it right out there with a, "I'm charging you for tap water".