With the Alameda Post launching "Alameda Stars" and Alameda Peeps unveiling its own "Best of Alameda," this blog is getting in on the racket.

I don't know about you but my head is so full these days that I don't have room left to follow through on an email blast from our kids' dental practice or whichever other business desires my click on an online survey (no matter how much I appreciate their services and their staff).

So instead, let's keep this simple. We've boiled down this shtick to its essence. We aren't accepting nominations — and we aren't even accepting votes.

Now let's proudly announce the categories for the Alameda Bunys for 2026!

Housing

These best-of-Alameda lists almost always seem to have at least two categories for real-estate agents, so the Bunys must begin in with:

• Best REALTOR® to boost the sale price of your single-family house in Alameda by selecting a tasteful palette of colors to refresh the interior, replacing your kitchen without a permit (but with a slim double-oven that will entice your buyer's inner Martha Stewart), quickly building a small raised bed and filling it with vegetable starts in the yard, and scheduling a parent to drive their kid over and operate an adorable lemonade and/or cookie stand immediately next door on the sidewalk exactly during the scheduled open house
• Best REALTOR® to list your house with its rotting porch/old roof/brick foundation as-is or your condo with HOA drama that could make for a hilarious sitcom if they weren't also legally binding with financial implications

We considered adding a category for Least worst property management firm — however, the quality of a property manager is probably no more than a proxy for the cheapness (or care) of the landlord that hires them.

No need to award Bunys to landlords, who can buy themselves a morning bun and deduct it as a business expense.

Lunch (Part 1/2)

Now on to the meat of the Bunys:

• Best super burrito with pastor and black beans on Santa Clara Ave far enough away from Alameda High that the students don't mob it at lunch time
• Best beer battered fish tacos on Santa Clara Ave that should be ordered before the Alameda High students arrive at ~12:35 (but can be finished outside while the students are still lining up to order inside)
• Best regular burrito with carnitas and pinto beans on Park Street unwrapped on a plate with salsa poured over that must be fully consumed before the Alameda High students arrive and fill every inch of the interior making it feel less like a taqueria and more like a gym
• Best super burrito with chile verde and pinto beans on Alameda Ave ordered before the Alameda High students arrive at 12:35
• Best burrito on Webster St at a taqueria with a salsa bar and a rear patio far enough from both high schools for a calm weekday lunch at any hour

Streets, neighborhoods, islands, and "islands"

This blog is named after a baked good, so it's natural that our "best of Alameda" award would focus on food. But since this blog often discusses Alameda's built environment, we'll the categories to also include:

• Best street to live on if you want to host a 4th of July party and/or sue the City of Alameda over the public parking spot in front of your house
• Best neighborhood with a prewar curvilinear street network where one of the more challenging intersections (from a traffic engineering perspective) is anchored by a Spanish revival house whose current owners hopefully use its walled patio and pair of fully separated kitchens to host kosher quinceañeras (I don't recall which REALTOR® was hosting that open-house some years ago, but it was memorable)
• Best artificially created beach named in memory of a state assemblymember killed by a motorist while he was jogging along Otis Drive

In the geographical categories:

• Best land mass that is a tip of a peninsula but named an "island"
• Best land mass formerly a peninsula but now an island
• Best land mass called a "bay" but actually an island
• Best island within Alameda city limits but only connected by bridge to Oakland

Elected offices

Since this is also a blog about politics:

• Best local elected office to run for if you'd like to receive 100% premium coverage for CalPERS Platinum PPO (or your other choice of healthcare plan) for you and an unlimited number of your dependents as long as you have a Certified Public Accountant license ("or a related educational degree") and put in a few hours of effort a year
• Best local elected office to run for if you'd like 100% premium coverage for CalPERS Platinum PPO (or your other choice of healthcare plan) for you and an unlimited number of your dependents as long as you are "licensed as a Chartered Financial Analyst or Certified Financial Planner" and put in a few hours of effort a year

Lunch (Part 2/2)

But enough about that, back to:

• Best order-at-the-counter fast-casual restaurant concept serving Instagram-able "Tahina fries" that is far enough away from Alameda High and doesn't offer a student lunch special, but can be mobbed by their "WFH" parents with "Zoom-able jobs"

In conclusion

Before I continue to hint at every place I eat lunch around here, the final category for this very first (and very last) year of the Bunys:

• Best Bay Area city to move to, start blogging about transportation and housing and local politics, slowly learn that almost everyone else on this island has known each other for decades — and enjoy all of this as an opportunity to meet and chat with a fascinating range of folks