New iBuilding: Extra Innings at the Oakland Coliseum

Baseball is in full swing, and I’ve been lucky to have gone to some great games with pitch-perfect spring weather. As you know, I get to watch two baseball teams in the Bay Area — the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics. Both teams are holding their own, although I do root for the Giants more.

But today I’m giving an update look at the Coliseum, home to the Oakland A’s.

I titled this post “Extra innings” because when visiting the Coliseum, I feel like the A’s are on borrowed time. Some of you know that for years the team has talked about moving (the last word was to San Jose, before then Fremont) and the Coliseum sometimes looks like a ghost town with the shuttered vendor spaces, especially on the plaza level that feeds the nose-bleed seats.

Most of the food can be found on the lower level. Early in the season, I sort of scout out what might be new at the stadium. That’s when I discovered the chicken burrito bowl ($7).

I don’t know if this is new, but I’d never seen it before. I know I ordered burritos before at the Coliseum, but now they offer it in this handy bowl. I actually prefer eating burritos in a bowl than in a wrap (I know, then it’s not called a burrito … calm down people!) because it’s less messy and you get all the good stuff of the burrito.

The burrito bowl was actually quite big, filled with lots of shredded chicken meat, shredded lettuce, tomatoes, beans, rice, cheese, guacamole and a squirt of sour cream. This really can tie you over several innings.

I also noticed a healthy alternative, which was Melissa’s fresh fruit stand. I thought it was a great idea to have these fresh fruits, but I call foul on the pricing: $5.50 for a tiny container of cut fruit. Ouch! You could pay just $1 to get a whole fruit (like an apple or banana), but if I did that I could just bring them from home.

Something that I think is new is the Monster Chicken Nachos ($8). This actually scared me, so I haven’t tried it yet. But this is my Everest, and sometime before the season ends I’m going to try this.

There were also the typical hot dogs, Round Table pizza, expensive ribs plates, Philly cheese steak, and tons of deep-fried things. But really I still gravitate to the pulled pork sandwich ($8.75) from Kinder’s BBQ. Even though these sammies are pre-made and comes out of a hot steam bath to keep them warm, all you do is squirt some Kinder BBQ sauce on top and you forget that Eric Chavez had been missing in action the last two seasons.

Out of curiosity, I also tried the veggie dog, which actually is a great deal at $4.50. When I got mine, it looked like any other hot dog, and after I lathered on the relish and ketchup, it tasted like any other hot dog. The only odd thing was that I felt it tasted saltier than a regular dog, almost like the maker wanted it to taste like a hot dog so they added extra salt. Weird, so now I feel like it’s not so healthy any more.

So that’s my eating adventures so far at the Coliseum. Yeah, slim pickin’s I feel. I have a few more A’s games this season, so if you have any suggestions on what I should get (just no fried foods), please help a fan out!