.Mid-Week Menu: Buma’s Pizzeria and Rumbo al Sur Close in Oakland, Modu to Bring Cal-Asian Fare to Temescal

Welcome to the Mid-Week Menu, our roundup of East Bay food news.

1) Buma’s Pizzeria (325 19th St.), Jon Kosorek’s East Coast-style pizzeria in Uptown Oakland, rang in the new year by announcing that it has closed for business. Kosorek posted the announcement last night on the restaurant’s social media accounts, citing the rigors of the long commute since the chef and his family moved to Napa 2011. Buma’s — an excellent pizza shop and winner of the award for “Best Pizza for Umami Lovers” in the Express’s most recent “Best of the East Bay” edition — was the second restaurant that Kosorek ran out of the tiny 19th Street storefront. I still miss the first, a whole-animal sandwich shop called Marrow.

Kosorek is currently seeking a manager or buyer for Buma’s, which leaves open the possibility that the pizzeria might eventually reopen in some form, with someone new running the show.

[jump] 2) In other disappointing Oakland news, the Glenview neighborhood’s pan-Latin nightspot Rumbo al Sur (4239 Park Blvd.) has closed, Inside Scoop reports. The writing may have been on the wall for a while for the À Côté spinoff, which has kept extremely limited hours — just three nights a week — for the past several months.

3) One last downer: The Chronicle reports that local Dungeness crab won’t be making an appearance in grocery stores and restaurant menus anytime soon, as tests show that many crabs still have levels of the toxin domoic acid. It sounds like a late-January season opening is the earliest that diners — and, more importantly, devastated local crab fishermen — can hope for.

4) The first West Coast location of Ippudo, a Japanese ramen chain that has many international locations — including one (quite good) ramen shop in Manhattan — will open in downtown Berkeley. Berkeleyside Nosh reports that Ippudo will be located at 2011 Shattuck Avenue, in the same building as a new Blue Bottle coffee shop.

5) Kushido (4828 Telegraph Ave.), the Temescal yakitori joint that’s currently closed for renovation, will reopen early this year as Modu (“together,” in Korean), a Cal-Asian small plates restaurant. Owner Jonathan Moon — who also owns nearby Blackwater Station, the subject of my restaurant review this week — will turn the kitchen over to chefs Albert Ok (who had been testing out recipes for Modu at an earlier popup incarnation of Blackwater Station) and Quang Le, both of whom cooked previously at Berkeley’s Iyasare. Johnathan Saelee (BDK Restaurant, Hawker Fare SF) will be the general manager. One of the dishes that may make an appearance on the menu? More ramen — tonkotsu style, but with a Korean slant.

6) The 40-year-old Berkeley collective Nabolom Bakery (2708 Russell St.), which closed this past summer, will reopen under new ownership, Inside Scoop reports. New owner Julia Elliott previously worked at Arizmendi and The Cheese Board.

7) Oakland’s Terrace Room (1800 Madison St.) has a new chef who may be a familiar face to longtime East Bay diners: Former BayWolf executive chef Louis Le Gassic now heads up the kitchen and has revamped the menu with such French classics as coq au vin and duck a l’orange — the kind of throwback dish you don’t see on a lot of East Bay menus these days.

8) AlaMar (100 Grand Ave., Oakland) will team up with Pinx Catering to host brunch popups on two successive Sundays, January 17 and 24, with a $30 prix-fixe menu served 10:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.

9) Finally, Hopsy, the beer growler delivery service I wrote about a couple months back, officially debuted its service this week.

Got tips or suggestions? Email me at Luke (dot) Tsai (at) EastBayExpress (dot) com. Otherwise, keep in touch by following me on Twitter @theluketsai, or simply by posting a comment. I’ll read ‘em all.


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