Vu: Gonna mix all this in.

Sbrocco: A bohemian hangout with globally inspired cuisine in San Leandro.

Man: She's beautiful.

Sbrocco: Authentic Southern barbecue in the heart of the wine country.

Woman: Oh, my God.

Sbrocco: And a modern Arab bakery in San Francisco.

Just ahead on "Check, Please!

Bay Area."

Because you were dipping.

Dorsey: Yes.

It's a dunk.

Sbrocco: Hi, I'm Leslie Sbrocco.

Welcome to "Check, Please!

Bay Area," the show where regular Bay Area residents review and talk about their favorite restaurants.

Now, we have three guests and each one recommends one of their favorite spots, and the other two go check them out to see what they think.

Joining me at the "Check, Please!"

table today are marketing manager Sarah Behrens, SMART Train Superintendent DeAndre Bess, and surgical technician Mark Dorsey.

Welcome, everyone.

Are you ready?

Dorsey: Yes.

Bess: Oh, yeah, I'm ready.

Sbrocco: As a proud resident of San Leandro, Mark is on a mission to bring attention to the city's under-the-radar dining scene.

His hip eatery offers rustic Cal-Vietnamese fusion fare in a unique setting -- a cleverly repurposed tap factory.

Tucked away in a sleepy San Leandro neighborhood, it's Top Hatters Kitchen and Bar.

♪♪ ♪♪ Vu: The name of the restaurant is Top Hatters Kitchen and Bar.

We decided to keep the name as a nod to the history of the restaurant and the neighborhood.

This used to be a hat shop.

There's locals here that still don't know that we are a restaurant.

They'll walk in and go, "What is this?"

[ Laughs ] I have a lot of respect for staying true to your roots when it comes to cooking.

But I think my style takes in a lot of my experiences.

My family and I are Vietnamese boat people, and when my mom and I escaped from Vietnam, we were stationed in a Singapore refugee camp.

So the tissue bread is in homage to Singapore.

The oxtail and grits is a tribute to my dad.

He taught me how to braise, and I feel like braising is just the root of peasant cooking.

You know, you take something that's really humble and make it really fantastic.

I mean, we eat with our eyes, so putting edible flowers and microgreens and amping up that dish and making it pretty is really important to me.

Living in a co-op when I went to college in Berkeley, and cooking there, and then meeting my husband, his side of the family's Italian, so that's a lot of different experiences that has shaped the way I cook.

And that's why the food here is so eclectic.

My husband's family is from Italy, and I would hear these stories about these doughnuts, and nobody kept a recipe in the family.

And so my son and I started trying to come up with a recipe, and for a whole year straight, every Sunday, we would tackle this task of making nonna's zeppole.

And ultimately, it's just a good doughnut.

It may not be nonna's doughnuts, but it is our version of zeppole.

The thing about peasant food is that it crosses all cultures.

I love hearing when I make something and they say, "This reminds me of my grandma's cooking," or, "I've had this, have you had this?"

That's when I stop and I listen, and that's just the kind of stuff I live for.

Sbrocco: My hat's off to you, Mark -- I had to say that, I had to say that -- for picking this spot.

Tell us a little bit about your journey of discovering this place.

Dorsey: Well, actually, this place started out as a food truck that would go to Workday out in Pleasanton.

My wife found the place, absolutely fell in love with one of the dishes.

As soon as she found out that she was going to open a brick-and-mortar store so close to where we live, we were all over it.

One of our go-to dishes is the tissue bread.

It's a great way to start off, as with many of the other things that comes out in family style, so you can share, you can take off a little bit, the sauce with it.

It's kind of a smoky feel to it.

Sbrocco: It looks good and tastes good.

Now, tell me what you started out with.

Bess: We start out with the savory doughnuts.

We went into that thinking savory doughnut, so I imagined, like, this big glazed doughnut with a lot of glaze.

Sbrocco: And a lot of bacon.

Bess: And a lot of bacon.

But the savory doughnuts, they're more like a hushpuppy, and they have nice seasoning and they have nice flavors.

Behrens: The Parmesan.

Dorsey: Parmesan, oh, yeah.

The dusting is awesome.

Bess: Yeah, it was awesome.

Sbrocco: And what did you start with?

Behrens: We started with the oysters with the mignonette.

It had peaches and shallots, which was delicious, with a little bit of vinaigrette.

Sbrocco: Mm-hmm.

Behrens: We also got the octopus, which was really good.

It had this chimichurri, herby along with a peppery maybe aioli with microgreens on top.

And the octopus was very tender, and all of the plates had edible flowers on them, which was really a beautiful touch.

Dorsey: Yeah.

The pork dumplings -- I'm pretty sure they're illegal in some states.

[ Laughter ] These things, they come out, and the pork inside is seasoned outstanding.

And the thing is it's almost like a soup.

So they have a toasted bread from As Kneaded, which is also a local woman-owned bakery.

It's outstanding, toasted with tons of butter.

You just take the bread, finish the dumplings, and then it's dunking time for the bread.

Vu: There you have it.

Dorsey: I had never actually had oxtail and grits before.

It is incredible the amount of meat that she can produce out of those tails.

Behrens: And so tender.

Dorsey: Oh, yes.

And the grits are smooth, they're creamy.

Behrens: Creamy.

Dorsey: Exactly, they're creamy as all get out.

Sbrocco: You're both like, "Creamy.

Oh, smooth!"

Dorsey: And it's not overpowering.

She doesn't add a lot of cheese, and there's a great gravy that goes over the top.

Bess: My first time having oxtails, as well.

Thought they were delicious.

Behrens: Really?

Your first time?

Me, too.

Bess: I was a little scared when I first saw the dish come because they have the carrots, like, sticking up a little bit, and I was like, "Are those oxtails?

I don't know if I want that."

But the carrots did taste awesome.

Behrens: Yeah.

Bess: And I also got the trout, which came out very well dressed with a lot of edible flowers on them and leaves.

It looked like a work of art.

Behrens: And do you feel like the vibe of this place, you know, the atmosphere... Bess: I really liked it outside.

So we sat outside in the patio.

They have a lot of miniature trees around.

The tables are organized in a way that just gives you that nice social-like vibe.

Behrens: Mm-hmm.

That tree that is above -- Bess: Right in the -- Yeah.

Behrens: Yeah, it's so pretty.

Dorsey: They did really well in designing the place to make you feel like even though you're only yards away from 580, you'd never know it.

Sbrocco: So would you drive to go back to this spot?

Bess: Yes, definitely.

Behrens: I will definitely go back.

I was so pleasantly surprised by the vibe and just the friendly staff and the delicious food, so... Sbrocco: Alright, if you would like to try Top Hatters Kitchen and Bar, it's located on MacArthur Boulevard in San Leandro.

When DeAndre and his work buddies go out for lunch, they're constantly competing to see who can pick the tastiest spot.

Well, he thinks he's hit the jackpot with his latest find.

It's a carnivore's dream offering just about every style of American barbecue you can imagine.

Located in the charming wine country town of Healdsburg, its KINSmoke.

♪♪ Barmore: KIN, obviously, in the literal sense is your family, your direct family.

But for us, it's family in a much more conceptual sense.

We want this place, when you walk in the door and you sit at a table, you feel like kin, you feel like family.

So people ask me if I grew up in the South, where did it come from?

And I always say yes, but just south of here in San Jose.

We like to call ourselves nondenominational barbecue.

We didn't want to be pigeonholed as Texas barbecue or Carolina barbecue or Memphis or anything, so we just make it the way we like it.

Everybody identifies barbecue with smoking, but for us, it was really about the concept of live-fire cooking.

So we don't have any gas.

We use three parts California white oak to one part cherrywood.

And we like the oak because it's a very mild smoke and it's really dense, so it holds its heat for a long time.

And then the cherrywood gives it a little bit of a sweeter smoke.

It's a little bit more intense.

It shows up great on pork and chicken.

Man: Beautiful little bark right here.

No rub rubbing off.

Yeah.

Barmore: We love the ribs, that perfect bite that comes out where it doesn't fall completely off the bone, but it's super soft.

You know, there's just something ethereal about that experience.

So we just do St. Louis cut ribs.

They're the meatiest ones, we find.

They take the best amount of smoke, and then you have your option to order them dry, sauced, or glazed.

What we call our KIN barbecue sauce, which is our house barbecue sauce.

That's actually my wife's family recipe.

So when I went to my father-in-law before we opened, I felt more nervous asking him for that secret recipe than I did when I asked him if I could marry his daughter.

Brisket is essentially two muscles together.

So a restaurant should ask you do you want it cut from just the leaner end, or they will tell you, unsexy as it is, you want to cut from the fattier end?

You try and tweak and say juicier end, but they know what you mean.

And for us it's simple.

It's just salt and pepper.

We've had more than our share of people come through and say, "Hey, we were over at such and such tasting room.

We couldn't help but smell you from outside on the patio.

We had to come over and check it out."

Man #2: Alright, you two, our Tomahawk steak.

Barmore: And if you can't find the address, just follow your nose.

Woman: I'm really glad we did this.

Man #3: Yeah.

Sbrocco: Okay, DeAndre, we have to get to the meat of the subject.

[ Laughter ] You know, I had to do something.

I had do something.

Alright.

You're a barbecue fan.

Bess: Yes.

Sbrocco: So how did you win the competition with this place?

Bess: So this was a surprise.

We were driving back from our Cloverdale station, heading back to the operating control center, and we're like, "What do you want for lunch?"

"Oh, I feel like some barbecue."

So, KINSmoke's one of those places that you smell before you see it.

We we're looking for a park, we were smelling what we're going to get, and he's like, "Alright, something smoked.

I want to have it."

Sbrocco: I call it pork perfume.

Bess: Oh, yeah.

[ Laughter ] So as you follow your nose to the restaurant, you're greeted by this rustic, modern setup.

There's monitors up with different various sports, whatever you're liking.

The people there are real welcoming, and the menu was great.

Sbrocco: And so there's a lot to choose from, but what's your top pick?

Bess: It's difficult, but if I had to pick at least one, I would go with the ribs.

They're well flavored.

They're like a nice dry rub on it.

Fall off the bone, you can tell they were smoked for a while, and they don't even need any sauce.

I do like the sauce, but -- Behrens: They really don't need it.

Bess: So I just ate them dry, yeah.

Dorsey: They had a nice smoke ring on them.

They weren't too dry, they had really nice flavor to them.

Sbrocco: And you got those as well?

Behrens: Yeah, and I'm from Texas, so I have high standards when it comes to barbecue.

But I also loved the ribs.

That was my favorite, along with actually the white smoked chicken sandwich.

It had this white Alabama sauce that I had never actually had before.

Yeah, it's very interesting.

It tasted like gravy, but it was more of an aioli.

Sbrocco: Mm-hmm.

Behrens: But it was just really delicious and smoky and peppery with the sweet pickles.

That's very good.

Dorsey: We also had the Alabama sauce.

Behrens: So good.

Dorsey: Well, you're from Texas.

I'm from Kansas City.

Behrens: Okay.

Sbrocco: And I went to school in St. Louis.

Dorsey: There you go.

Behrens: All the different.

Dorsey: So, all the barbecue.

Sbrocco: Right.

So you love the ribs, alright, but then your second go-to was... Bess: The brisket.

Sbrocco: Okay.

Bess: So the brisket has a well-earned smoke ring.

I mean, you can visibly see the pink, and it's awesome.

Behrens: Right.

Bess: It's really tender, flavor's great.

Again, don't need to have any sauce.

It's great on a sandwich.

I usually get it with the platter, but they also have a brisket sandwich, which is a quick go-to lunch item, and I love it.

Sbrocco: So what else besides the ribs did you have?

Dorsey: Actually, my wife had the salmon.

I wasn't sure how a barbecue place could do the salmon, but it was very good.

It was nice, it was flaky, and again, it wasn't dried out.

Bess: Did your salmon come with Brussels sprouts?

Behrens: Yes.

Dorsey: Yes.

Bess: The Brussels sprouts are grilled, so they look like they're charred.

When you bite into it, they had good flavor and they were juicy.

Dorsey: They dressed it lightly, so you tasted the Brussels sprouts.

And they do the bourbon sauce baked beans -- outstanding.

Bits of nice, big bits of meat inside of it.

Behrens: Mm-hmm.

The sides are probably the best part of barbecue, so I actually really loved the coleslaw.

They had a more vinegar.

I don't like a real mayonnaise-y coleslaw.

Dorsey: My wife is a fried pickle fanatic.

She had to try them out.

Behrens: Yeah.

Dorsey: The fried pickles are outstanding.

Breading is really good.

I'm not a giant fan of them, but they did them very well.

Behrens: We can't forget the cornbread with the ancho chili butter.

Dorsey: Yes.

Behrens: The cornbread was very sweet, but the ancho chili butter had the savory element to it that really, combined, was very good.

Dorsey: And it was so good because this held up to the baked beans.

Behrens: Definitely.

Dorsey: Outstanding.

Sbrocco: 'Cause you were dipping.

Dorsey: Yes.

Behrens: Yeah.

Sbrocco: I get the theme now that you dunked.

Dorsey: It's a dunk.

Behrens: But one thing that I really appreciated being from Texas, it's very hard to find Shiner Bock on tap, and they had it on tap, so... Dorsey: I had never had that one before.

Behrens: What?!

Dorsey: It was outstanding.

I like my beers darker.

Behrens: Yeah.

Dorsey: If you can see through it, it's not worth drinking.

Bess: For me, I like sweet tea with barbecue.

Behrens: Mm, smart.

Sbrocco: I'm detecting a little sweet theme.

Bess: I like everything sweet and smoky.

That's my go-to.

Sbrocco: That's a good motto.

I like it sweet, I like it smoky.

Behrens: After a day of wine tasting, I think soaking it up with some barbecue is a good idea.

Dorsey: Exactly what we did, yes.

Sbrocco: Or to win the work competition for the best place to eat.

Bess: Yep.

Sbrocco: So what, did you get a prize for that?

Bess: No, just bragging rights.

Sbrocco: Oh.

Dorsey: Good enough.

Sbrocco: I like it.

If you would like to try KINSmoke, it's located on Center Street in Healdsburg, and the average lunch tab per person without drinks is around $25.

Man: It's beautiful.

Cooked all the way through and through, just by smoke.

Sbrocco: Sarah's pick is a colorful bakery.

Step inside, and the first thing that greets you is the aroma.

From anise to za'atar, traditional Arab spices, along with the smell of freshly baked flatbread, fill the space.

Located in San Francisco's bustling Mission District, it's Reem's California.

Woman: This is yours.

Woman #2: Oh, my God.

♪♪ Assil: Then this goes in the oven.

So the recipes at Reem's are really sort of a culmination of me.

[ Laughs ] Moment of truth.

They're inspired by my Palestinian and Syrian upbringing, but also being an Arab in the US.

♪♪ Everybody loves bread, right?

So Reem's is really about the bread, creating that feeling of warmth, not just the hot bread coming out of the oven, but that just warmth of connection.

Our signature product is mana'eesh, which is plural for man'ousheh.

They're just flatbreads that are enjoyed in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine.

They're slathered with this amazing spice mix called za'atar, which is a wild thyme, sumac, berry, and sesame seed mix.

And we blend it with California olive oil, and it's the base for our flatbread.

In the Arab world, wherever you go walking down the streets, you see people eating this.

It's just like a signature staple food.

And then you can add a little California love.

So we do all sorts of different toppings.

Some are straight-up traditional, but some are more playful.

It's healthy, and I really wanted that to be sort of the next street food here in the US.

Alright, we got a muhammara for you guys to share.

And then the other part of our menu is really things to eat with your bread.

So a big part of the Arab table is called mezze, which is basically small shared plates, similar to tapas.

And we have hummus, you know, things that people are familiar with, but we also have different dips that really sort of showcase the breadth of Arab cuisine.

It's like an art piece.

I made little divots.

The bread is the tool.

[ Laughs ] Forks optional.

You know, the generations before me of Arabs, when they opened restaurants, they'd hide behind Mediterranean or Middle Eastern.

They wouldn't say where they were from, so I really wanted to turn that up on its head.

Mmm.

Arabs are a part of the fabric of San Francisco and we're multi-generation here, and I wanted that vibe.

How've you been?

So when you walk into Reem's, similar to Arab bakeries in the homeland, you always run into someone you know, or you run into someone you ought to know.

People are connected by two, three degrees.

You know, that's really our mission at Reem's.

If we help people make a connection, we've done our job.

[ Laughs ] Sbrocco: Sarah, now, this place is unique because it's not just the food that draws you there, right?

But it's Reem's personal story, her background?

Behrens: Yeah, she's part of La Cocina, which is a incubator for women and BIPOC restaurateurs and chefs.

I think her whole theme of her restaurant is community oriented.

So when you want to go to Reem's with a bunch of friends, I think that's what it accommodates best, or with a very full appetite.

So what we love doing is getting a big plate of the sourdough pita bread and several dips.

So I love labneh.

Their labneh is excellent.

It comes with, you know, herbed olive oil on top.

The muhammara, which I had never had until I had it at Reem's -- have you guys -- Dorsey: Yeah.

Oh, and the funny thing is I don't actually like nuts in my food.

I'm a little weird that way.

Sbrocco: You don't like nuts?

Dorsey: No, I love nuts, just not in my food.

Sbrocco: Okay.

Dorsey: Not mixed together.

They have their space, they have their space.

Sbrocco: Okay.

Dorsey: But I loved this dish.

Behrens: Yeah.

Dorsey: The way that they were able to put those together was great.

It added in the great opposing flavor to the sweet peppers inside of it and dipping in this pita bread.

First off, we got to talk about this pita bread.

Behrens: Sourdough.

Dorsey: This sourdough pita bread, it has a great crispiness on the outside and it's thick enough that you have the pillow inside.

Behrens: Yeah.

Sbrocco: And are you agreeing?

You're shaking your head.

Bess: Yeah, I like the pita bread.

I actually like it by itself.

So I just bought a bag and took it home and cooked it up in my home.

Sbrocco: Amazing.

Behrens: Yeah, so you got to start with all the dips and the pita breads and then hopefully you've saved room for the mana'eesh.

So the mana'eesh, it's a little bit thinner flatbread than the pita bread.

And we got the sumac chicken, which again, I feel like the whole theme of Reem's is balancing the sweet and the savory.

So the sumac chicken's very savory, and then they kind of have these caramelized onions on top and then the pickled onions on top.

It's a lot of flavor, and I also dip that in the labneh.

Bess: So I had the mana'eesh, the Cali Pali chicken sumac.

The pickled onions were a little bit too much for me, so I took those off.

Sbrocco: Mm-hmm.

Bess: So it's like a thin crust pizza with chicken on it and sumac, so the flavor for me was pretty good after I got through the pickled onions.

Yeah, so my wife got the fava bean stew.

I didn't get the chance to taste it because she gobbled it up incredibly fast.

It came out first, and apparently it goes really well with the bread because she ripped the bread up and she sopped it up, and before my dish came out, it was almost gone.

So, yeah, looked delicious.

Dorsey: We also had the shakshuka.

It's an incredible little dish.

They serve it in a little cast-iron skillet.

It's tomato based.

It comes out with this nice poached egg on the top.

And it was so funny because our friend, who's not a great egg fan, asked us if we were going to finish it.

We said no, took the whole thing.

Behrens: One of my most favorite things that we've had at Reem's is the knafeh.

It has this really delicious, gooey, mild cheese, and then a phyllo pastry on top with pistachios in this rosewater syrup, and it's just very light.

Dorsey: The phyllo was very finely done.

Behrens: Yeah.

Dorsey: And the syrup that they put on it made it -- Behrens: Light.

Dorsey: Yes, exactly.

Bess: So I also tried the Damascus lemonade.

That came with this orange blossom and mint is included with it.

So there's another balance of your savory with the sweet.

It was unique, and I like it a lot.

That was surprising.

Dorsey: The other desserts that we had were outstanding.

We had this cookie, and it's a little chocolate tahini, sesame seed cookie, things that you wouldn't think worked together.

That was mine.

I kept it all.

My wife actually had the baklava, and it was great because so many times you get baklava and it's so tough on the bottom, they've overcooked it, but this one was perfect because we could divide it.

You could cut it up, and it didn't just crumble away.

Sbrocco: And did you like the feel of being there?

I mean, again -- Bess: We ate outside, so they had the heaters there, the waiters are friendly.

You get all the normal street vibe, traffic and things.

Sbrocco: Would you go out of your way to get it?

Would this put you on the top of the lunch list?

Bess: That's a little bit too far for us for that, but it is something I will stop by and get some more bread, 'cause that was my favorite part.

I love the stack of -- the loaves of bread.

Sbrocco: If you would like to try Reem's California, it's located on Mission at 25th Street in San Francisco.

The average tab per person is around $35.

Assil: Amazing.

Sbrocco: And now our trip to the Mission continues as reporter Cecilia Phillips visits a one-of-a-kind food hall, La Cocina.

♪♪ Woman: [ Laughs ] Phillips: Can you tell me what this place is all about?

Valtierra: The La Cocina Municipal Marketplace used to be an old post office, and with the support of the city and our Tenderloin residents, we've created a food hall that is for this community.

It's very difficult to find affordable space to launch a business.

A lot of these women already know how to cook, and so our team provides them with the technical assistance to be able to deliver delicious food.

Phillips: It's delicious.

Thank you.

[ Laughs ] Carter: Oh, Boug Cali is really just everything that I love to eat.

It's a fusion of food that I grew up eating with my family being from the South, and just me being a California girl.

We try to keep it as much and authentic as we can.

It's not my grandma and grandpa.

It's not your grandmother, either.

Nobody's.

Phillips: Smoked gumbo?

Carter: Oh, it's smoked.

You know, we got to keep it real Frisco.

Phillips: Okay, you don't skimp on this at all.

Look at these chunks of meat and sausage.

Carter: Yeah, we don't skimp on anything.

Phillips: Alright, here we go.

Carter: Cheers.

Phillips: Cheers.

I'm done.

Carter: [ Laughs ] Phillips: Why do you cook pupusas?

¿Por qué pupusas?

Flatley: Teranga means hospitality, friendship, camaraderie.

It's a way of art, it's the way the Senegalese people live their life.

It's how you welcome people to your home.

Baobab comes from the tree of the baobab tree, which is also called the Tree of Life.

It's nutritious and very, very flavorful.

So you can just put it in your mouth like eating candy.

Phillips: Okay.

Flatley: And you're gonna feel great.

You're gonna be running around High Street like 10 times.

Phillips: [ Laughs ] Bahloul: Some cilantro on the top, and it's, like, ready.

Phillips: So, Kayma, this is the only Algerian restaurant in San Francisco.

Is that true?

Bahloul: Yeah, that's true.

Our baklava, it's different.

You taste, like, the orange blossom, the honey.

You feel like something going on, like, over there.

Phillips: The orange blossom that it's soaked in is so good, so sweet.

But it's also really light.

What is fluid all about?

Ty: Fluid, we're a transgender owned and run coffee shop.

Our newer drink, the Chagaccino, has been a favorite.

So, chaga's a mushroom.

It's an alternative to coffee.

So it's just a chaga powder, and with a chaga, there's also, like, some cacao, some vanilla, and a mushroom sweetener.

Phillips: I'm assuming it's going to be earthy.

Ty: It's pretty sweet.

Phillips: It's nice and creamy.

Ty: It takes people by surprise because mushroom, people always think of savory.

But for mushrooms, like, many forms, different shapes.

Phillips: Fluid.

Ty: It's fluid, literally.

[ Laughs ] Phillips: What does it mean for you to be inside of La Cocina Municipal Marketplace?

Lugo: Being here in this space, working with different kind of women from all over the world, it's amazing.

Trying food from different parts.

We really cook from the heart here.

Carter: Thank you.

Sbrocco: I have to thank my guests on this week's show, Mark Dorsey, who's zany for zeppole at Top Hatters, DeAndre Bess, who dreams of the smoky ribs at KINSmoke, and Sarah Behrens, who shared her love for all things warm and wonderful at Reem's California Mission.

Join us next time when three more guests will recommend their favorite spots right here on "Check, Please!

Bay Area."

I'm Leslie Sbrocco, and I'll see you then.

Cheers.

Dorsey: Cheers.

Behrens: Cheers.

♪♪ Sbrocco: Alright!

♪♪ Flatley: Bon appétit.

Phillips: Thank you.

Be still my baobab.

That was amazing.

Carter: Voilà.

Flatley: Right now, we are making our hibiscus baobab drink, which is also called a love potion, and it works.

[ Laughs ] Phillips: Ooh, a love potion.

Great.

♪♪ Mmm.