Exploring the Bay Area

Hella Bagels Hella Bagels is a small cafe in Albany that rolls, boils, and bakes fresh bagels in-house each day they’re open. You can taste the freshness in the chewy, buttery bite of the bagel. The bagels are buttery on the outside, dense and chewy on the inside, and very appetizing as a whole. The entire cafe smells like fresh-baked bagels! Like other cafes, they also serve coffee, espresso beverages, and salads. However, this shop specializes in fresh bagels, fresh bagels with spreads, and fresh bagel sandwiches. They offer seven types of bagels, including plain, everything, onion, garlic, salt, sesame, and poppy, as well as eleven types of spread, such as butter, berries and cream, spicy mango peach, veggie, Nova Lox, garlic confit, jalapeño cilantro, chili crisp, and horseradish lemon dill.  They are not skimpy with the amount of spread! A fresh-baked bagel is only $3, and a fresh-baked bagel with spread is only $5 here! They have smoked fish, vegetable, fruit, and egg sandwic...

Scoop N Chill In downtown Berkeley, a delightful coffee, ice cream, and sweets stand is hidden inside Crave Subs , the cartoon-themed sandwich shop that I’ve also written about. It’s called Scoop N Chill, and it serves some of Berkeley’s best ice cream! It's a little-known hidden gem, especially because it is so hard to find. The counter Scoop N Chill occupies inside Crave Subs looks adorable, with waffle-cone like lattice and ice cream scoops on the ceiling to look as if they were thrown there. It's bright white and clearly immaculately clean. Reading the menu, you will see that they proudly serve crepes, croffles, and sushi crepes, in addition to espresso/coffee beverages, milkshakes, and gelato, all at competitive prices. I tried the Biscoff gelato and fell in love. Every detail was thought of and perfected. Everything here (not just the Biscoff gelato) is expertly and lovingly made. (The product comes out looking professional, beautiful, and anything but sloppy every time.)...