Restaurants in Pleasant Hill

While it was thoughtful of your body to grow all those extra arms and legs, you might want to make “healthier lunches” your New Year’s resolution this year. Today’s Groupon gets you started with $20 worth of fresh, healthy, all-natural meals from Amanda’s Restaurant in Berkeley for $10. After treating her humble pantry to plenty of water, sunshine, and love, Amanda’s food closet has blossomed into a full-fledged Best of the East Bay restaurant.

Tomatina's chefs rotate their menu three times a year to include the freshest local and seasonal ingredients. Diners can size up appetites with starters such as parmesan-crusted polenta ($6.75) before sinking teeth into more substantial fare on the extensive menu. The culinary wizards ensure freshness and quality by making sauces and dough from scratch and interviewing every tomato before baking an array of specialty pies, including the thin-crusted Pizza Vineyard with oven-roasted seedless red grapes, baby arugula, and gorgonzola ($17 for a large). Similarly, the restaurant's signature piadine dishes cover warm flatbread with cool salads and a bevy of toppings including steak ($10.95), salmon ($11.50), and hummus ($9.95), all of which can be easily imbibed via fork or face-planting.

In West Africa, a "chop bar" is a roadside gathering place serving food and drink, over which community members exchange news and ideas and compare findings on the validity of the axiom set theory of mathematics. Oakland's Chop Bar fosters the same sort of fellowship, right down to its neighborly use of items from local vendors in its dishes. Breakfasteers can opt for a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich ($6) or oatmeal ($3), among other offerings. The taste buds of brunch-goers are invited to trot the globe with the Italian omelette known as the frittata ($7) or an order of chilaquiles ($9), a Mexican dish tossing crispy tortilla strips in salsa, cheese, and scrambled eggs.

Every day, San Francisco Soup Company’s chefs craft 12 soups from scratch. Soups showcase organic and locally sourced ingredients such as cage-free eggs from Glaum Egg Ranch and organic milk from Clover Stornetta, and cast tendrils of steam from biodegradable containers. San Francisco Soup Company’s commitment to conscious dining extends to the nutritional realms: each recipe comes with nutrition stats, and the menu even designates which soups are gluten-, meat- and dairy-free, and which soup spoons best shield noses from affectionate pinches.

Rotten City gives a green-thumbed go-ahead to chow down on any of its organically infused creations. Tip your cap to the funghi pie with roasted cremini mushrooms tossed about toasted garlic chips under a blanketing trio of mozzarella, provolone, and parmigiano cheeses ($23 per pie, $3.50 per slice), or fall mouth first into a marinara pie featuring garden-rich basil, fresh thyme, and toasted garlic splashed with extra-virgin olive oil and salted by the sea ($19 per pie, $3 per slice). The bianco verde is a fan favorite, with its potent combination of fresh mozzarella, ricotta, parmigiano, arugula pesto, chili flakes, and olive oil. Carnivores can hang a fang on hand-crafted salami, crater-laden sausage, and salt-cured anchovies for an extra $3 per ingredient.

Meridian's seasonal menu draws inspiration from global bar bites made from all-natural and locally grown ingredients. Start with an order of bacon mac ‘n’ cheese with buttered panko ($8) or the almond-breaded cod fingers served with jalapeño tartar sauce ($12). For a refreshing post-triathlon meal, opt for the togarashi ahi-tuna niçoise salad with capers, tomatoes, Humboldt fog, and sesame-orange vinaigrette ($14) or quell carnivorous cravings with an all-natural beef burger served with cheddar or blue cheese ($9). The grilled bangers and mash ($13) will evoke sweet childhood memories of playing hopscotch outside the smoky pubs of Bangladesh and also will serve as a delicious stomach stretcher for a third course of sticky toffee pudding ($6) or a house-made ice-cream sandwich with mocha sauce ($6).