My week of noshing

Last week was all about the nosh.

Yes folks, it does not take a genius to deduce that

overseas + generous friends + visiting colleagues = dinner opportunities = Nat looks like this:

Verily, it was a Tour de Force of gastronomic indulgence.

Let's begin with Sunday. After the Aquarium jaunt, Petra and I ended up at Olitas, which is a popular Mexicana-esque joint on the Santa Cruz wharf. The wharf is a lovely spot, and we were just in time to catch the beautiful evening light falling on the Boardwalk amusement park. Usually I find amusement parks tacky, but because this one has been around since 1865, it's an integral part of Santa Cruz and it's pretty. And I love the hills behind the city.

At Olitas, we were given a window seat so we ate overlooking the water and West Cliff Drive. I ordered duck meat tacos with three styles of salsa. YUM!! And because it was Mother's Day (love you, Mum!) there were pink cocktails for $6. Awesomeness.

 

Petra impressed me by ordering the Super Burrito. Sean managed to nail one of these last year, and Petra went close. It is a massive undertaking:

Moving on to Monday.

Monday night I was going to take Petra to the Asana Tea House for a, ahem, light meal. However, we discovered that Monday is the one day of the week Asana is closed. Undeterred, we ended up at another favourite of mine, Chocolate, on Pacific Avenue. As the name suggests, the fare here is not on the light side - but it is GOOOOD.

Chocolate is also amazing because a) it's right next door to Book Shop Santa Cruz, and b) it has a beautiful heated al fresco garden area, so you can sit cosily and read your new book.

We each had a shittake mushroom soup, and shared some dips and olives. The food comes on funky coloured plastic plates, and the cutlery is wrought iron. Tres funky.

 

And should I mention the Italian hot chocolates that keep you awake for the next 5 hours, and the incredible chocolate cake? I guess I should.

Tuesday Petra and I had dinner at MoBo with Marc and his wife Susan. I've already talked about MoBo earlier, and I didn't have my camera with me, but as always the sushi rocked on.

Waddling into Wednesday. Val and Mike came over and we had a lovely walk along East Cliff Drive. We were also supposed to hot tub, but someone neglected to check the water level a priori, and, even allowing for Archimede's Principle, the tub had to be re-filled via hose. And then the water didn't heat up in time.

Ostensibly I was making dinner, and I did make a stove top risotto, but Mike and Val are amazingly generous and brought wine, cheeses, incredible home made pesto (using home grown basil from Val's Mom) and bread.

And spirits.

I've never been a fan of spirits, but Val and Mike had recently toured a distillery and had become wise in the ways of Spirit Imbibement.

Because I'm a magnaminous type, I'll share the secret with you. Just don't go and poison yourselves when you find out how good spirits can be if you drink them in the correct manner. Be kind to your liver, okay? Okay!

1) You breathe in deeply.

2) You hold your breath.

3) Without breathing out, you swallow the spirit.

4) You slowly breathe out. At this point you should get the full flavour of the spirit without the burning.

Wow!

So here are Val and Mike at my little kitchen table on Wednesday evening. You guys rock!

On Thursday my friend Erin and her friend Brenna invited me to the weekly Vegetarian Dinner, a gathering of largely Ecology and Environmental Sciences students who take it in turns to host a weekly meal. Erin and Brenna put on a Mexican style feast with black bean burritos and incredible guacomole and salsas, and fried plaintains for dessert. I got to slice up the plaintains, and they are like extra-large, unripe bananas. But tasty when fried! Erin's Mom had a lot of influence on the menu, and I'd like to say, she must be an awesome cook. These were not your cheesy-queasy burrito - they were super healthy and absolutely delicious. Recipe please!

Here I am with Brenna and Erin at the end of the evening. You two are AMAZING! Thank you for such a yummy and fun night.

Which brings me lumbering into Friday.

On Friday morning Petra and I had breakfast at Zachary's, a Santa Cruz breakfast institution on Pacific Ave. The omelettes were so good, we didn't need any lunch. More importantly, we had to save room for dinner. It was Petra's last night in town, so on the recommendation of one of her colleagues, we headed to Gilda's on the Wharf.

Walking up the wharf, we spotted a mother and baby sea otters swimming immediately below the wharf. So wonderful to see them this close as opposed to as blobs in the offshore kelp. Sorry for the bad pic, I didn't have the Nikon with me. The baby is on the left with its head to the bottom of the shot, and the mother is on her back - the light fur is the top of her head.

But I digress. The main point in heading to Gilda's was for the Friday night special:

Seafood Cioppino - $13.84Crab, clams, prawns, scallops, calamari, cod
Includes bread and butter

Neither of us had tried a Cioppino before, but we were game.

It was obviously going to be a "serious" dish, because next thing the following arrive at our table:

Okay, so we have a finger bowl thing, presumably for all the crunchy exoskeleton parts, some weaponry with which to crack claws etc., some lemon and crackers to add to taste, a refresher towelette for one's fishy fingers..........and what looks to be a folded little plastic bag.

We figure it's to sit in the bowl for more tidy collection of the exoskeletal parts.

And then the following arrives:

And Petra is all "Oh, no, I'm wearing WHITE!"

And that's when we took a closer look, followed by a casual glance around the room at our fellow diners.

And we worked out what the "plastic bags" were actually for.  (That was after we'd looked like dills by tucking our paper napkins into our collars).

No dirty clothes for US!!!!

And the Cioppino was sublime.

Thanks Petra, Val, Mike, Erin and Brenna for a great week of nosh in excellent company!

Itadakimasu!!!