Welcome back to Good Taste, a place to learn about the delights of eating in the Bay Area. This week, we’re jumping into a water cooler conversation (or whatever the social media equivalent of that is these days) about a TikTok food influencer’s highly scrutinized local visit.
With 15.6 million followers, former MMA star Keith Lee, 27, is the food voice of TikTok, and he’s been the talk of the Bay Area social media community and traditional media for some weeks, before, during, and after a highly publicized visit to the region to analyze takeout food that he eats in the car with his family. Although he has family members order food so that he’s not recognized inside restaurants, Lee doesn’t operate as a food critic in the classic journalism sense. But he is considered a food critic by a general population under 40.
“We do not know the full extent of whether Lee is actually all the things he says he is, or what restaurant owners and his social media followers hope for him to be. But on some level, it doesn’t matter,” the national edition of Eater wrote in a December explainer of Lee. “He has the power to command customers, make businesses change their practices, and cause entire cities to question how their restaurant industry looks. Perhaps he is the establishment now.”
The Detroit native’s critical visits to Atlanta and New York City restaurants generated national attention and got people here all riled up when he said he was headed this way. Unfortunately, according to him, he cut his Bay Area visit short after accidental exposure to shellfish, which he’s allergic to, sent him to the hospital. Before that happened, he ate burgers at Double Decker in San Francisco, tried tacos by Chef Green and a fish sandwich from Mama T’s in Oakland, and blessed Oakland soul food restaurant The LuxeBox with a $2,000 tip.
Lee assessed that the dire conditions he witnessed on the street in various Bay Area cities wasn’t something that tourists should want to see. He confessed that he went to several restaurants that he didn’t enjoy, but he didn’t want to share video reviews of them in case they would have a negative impact on business.
Alan Chazaro’s KQED article, “What Keith Lee’s Sudden Exit From the Bay Area Says About Our Struggles” is brilliantly penned and needs to earn several awards. It’s the essential piece to read out of the avalanche of stories that have come from local media the last couple weeks.
I didn’t believe that I had anything else constructive to add to this already talked-through conversation, until I got to thinking: I know a thing or two about what would be delicious to devour in the car around here!
So, these are the places that I would have taken Lee and his family to grab food to eat in their car, had anyone asked me to ride along for a day.
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San Francisco
Teranga Foods
After the closure of the La Cocina Municipal Marketplace, Nafi Flately’s Senegalese restaurant Teranga Foods opened at 4 Embarcadero Center as part of the city’s Vacant to Vibrant program that has breathed some life back into a largely empty business and shopping complex. But she needs some more foot traffic, and Lee could have really helped her out, had I convinced him to pick up some life-affirming baobab juice and a flatbread Pulaar with butternut squash, feta, caramelized onions, bird’s eye chili, and pumpkin seeds.
New Eritrea
A lot of Bay Areans are upset that he didn’t even stop for a burrito and he didn’t appear to stop at any Ethiopian or Eritrean spots in the Bay Area. Oakland and Berkeley have several acclaimed spots that he could have explored. In San Francisco, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Sunset District OG, New Eritrea. At pretty much any place he could have tried, the teff flour-based injera serves as its own edible plate, which is very convenient for takeout. New Eritrea in particular offers a lot of beautiful and mild options for meat eaters and vegans alike, which may have also appealed to the younger members of the family.
Gumbo Social
As long as there are napkins, gumbo and po’boys would be easy to eat in the car, and Lee might have really enjoyed stopping through Chef Dontaye Ball’s Gumbo Social (5176 Third Street), which opened in the Bayview District in June. He could have ordered a flight of the restaurant’s three different gumbos, one with chicken, one with smoked turkey, and a vegan one with veggies. Lee could have also had a juicy meat sandwich; would only have to skip the Big Black Brunch po’boy, since that contains shrimp.
Oakland
Crumble & Whisk
Lots of people gave Lee suggestions in Oakland, and I hope that Chef Charles Farriér’s cheesecake bakery and patisserie Crumble & Whisk (4104 MacArthur Blvd.) was among them, should he decide to come back one day. In addition to cheesecake, I would have suggested that Lee try some of C&W’s savory pot pies.
Cupcakin’ Bake Shop
With locations inside SF’s Chase Center arena, Berkeley, Oakland, Walnut Creek, and now Atlanta, Lila Owens is letting people across the Bay Area and beyond know how incredible Cupcakin’ Bake Shop is — her double chocolate and key lime cupcakes are definitely in my personal cupcake hall of fame.
Come back, Mr. Lee, and call me for tips next time!
Tamara is the self-publisher of the California Eating zine project, the free Creative Jobs newsletter, and the brand-new Music Book Club.
