Eating my way through LA.

In preparation for my yearly visit down south, my niece who knows me so well, sent me an email with a list of possible dining experiences. I was thrilled and excited, what better way to spend time in SoCal that wandering from one intriguing eatery to another.

Our first meal out was at Wurstkuche: an exotic sausage grill. It was casual and loud ( I found many of the places we ate at to be high in decibels, maybe I am just getting old ;-) The menu divided the sausages into three categories, classic, gourmet and exotic. The classic offerings included bratwurst, and hot Italian, with three veggie options. Under the gourmet heading you could sample mango jalapeno, sundried tomato and mozzarella or Louisiana hot links. The exotics were truly exotic, rattlesnake with rabbit and jalapeno peppers, pheasant with herbs de Provence or duck with bacon.
Too many amazing choices if you ask me...and once you made your selection you had to choose two of the four toppings: sauerkraut, caramelized onions, sweet peppers or spicy peppers. And I haven't even gotten to the dipping sauces for the fries: TEN CHOICES !! Too many to list here, go to their website if you want to drool.

My host insisted I try two of the sausages, I chose the sun-dried tomato with smoked chicken & turkey and the buffalo, beef and pork with Chipotle peppers. What a great taste extravaganza  !!

 Luckily they put all five kinds of mustard on the tables so you don't have to choose.
I am not a beer drinker but they have extensive menu of both draft and bottles beers. I had my first ever cucumber soda, what a perfect foil for those sausages, crisp and not too sweet.


Father's Office calls itself a  gastropub, a term that reminds me of some indelicate intestinal issue.
It was another place with a large beer selection and orders taken at the bar. I found the counter help a bit snooty when I asked for something non-alcoholic.
I did enjoy these smoked eggplant dumplings, at least that's what I think they were. I couldn't find a menu on their website. My fellow diners, enjoyed burgers, ribs and the beer.

The Aussie Pie Kitchen in Santa Monica was an unexpected treat. First off, the charming Aussie manager made us feel very welcome and explained their whole premise and set up. First you choose a pie.

Then you choose from a variety of add-ons: minty mushy peas, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, stuffing and mashed sweet potatoes. He gave us samples of all of these, they call them stacked pies when you add all these tasty sides.

I chose a vegetable pie with stuffing and sweet potatoes. Oh and they pour their creamy thyme gravy over the whole thing.

 Talk about comfort food !!

After a spa afternoon, Sara and I choose her favorite Milo and Olive for our dinner. I had been there for breakfast but never for dinner. We wanted to eat fairly lightly and I have to admit I was skeptical when Sara wanted to order a pizza with roasted potatoes, rosemary cream and caramelized onions.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the crisp crust, rich flavor but lightness of this pizza. I was especially surprised by how well the potatoes worked. We added a light arugula salad and were sated and happy.

My last breakfast was at one of Kirby's favorite spots, Abbot Kinney Kafe and Juicery, home to Kreation Juice. The juice and drinks we sampled, while pricey were exquisite. In fact their spice almond drink inspired me to start making my own almond milk.

Sara's smoked salmon platter looked fabulous !

My omelet while pretty to look at, was under-seasoned and a bit disappointing.

I would definitely go back for the juice and try a different breakfast selection.

So there you have my trip to LA...it's all about the food ;-)

Burma Superstar, Clement St. and art in SF.

The other day my lovely friend, Susan and I went to The City for an art date. We do this several times a year usually taking in special exhibits at the De Young and the Legion of Honor both in the same day. We drive up highway 1 to 35 to the Great Highway, it's a beautiful, stress free drive.

Both museums honor the same ticket which is great. Last week we saw the Botticelli to Braque exhibit from the national galleries in Scotland.

At the Legion we enjoyed the High Fashion exhibit from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection.

Susan had a recommendation for our lunch spot, half way through our day we are ready to sit and rejuvenate. Burma Superstar was the perfect place.

It was between our two museums on Clement St. and lucky for us it wasn't crowded when we arrived about noon. The decor is unassuming but easy on the eyes. The waitstaff efficent and pleasant. I knew I would be happy here when I discovered their house special tea was an rose tea, just tiny rosebuds in a pot.

We ordered samusas as an appetizer, similar to the Indian samosas, they were stuffed with a nice potato filling, wrapped in a thin wonton like skin and deep fried. They paired well with my rainbow salad, which you can see in the right of the photo below.

I wish I had been quicker to photograph my salad. It has 22 ingredients, including four kinds of noodles and a tamarind dressing.The plate comes to your table with many little piles of ingredients and the server tosses it, as you watch. It was light, crunchy and full of interesting flavors.

Susan had the lunch special, a tea leaf salad and samusa soup. That's right they put samusas in a light broth for an satisfying and very unusual soup.

After lunch we were delighted to find that Clement Street is full of interesting places to window shop, Asian markets and eateries, cool bookshops and more. We found it so interesting we agreed to come back this summer just to explore more, hopefully another lunch at Burma Superstar.

As we left Santa Cruz that morning, Susan's husband Steiny had one word for us : "Schubert's". It's a bakery that's been around since 1911, just down the street from Burma Superstar. Luckily our lunch was light enough we could indulge in one of their famous mousse cakes, the small ones, of course.

 It took us a while to choose...as you can see it was a feast for the eyes as well.
We both brought home treats for the husbands, as well :-)

We both agreed it was a very successful day, feeding all our senses.

Your Place, a restaurant review.

Your Place seems an odd name for a restaurant...the subtitle, Farm to Table helped to me to understand what the owners were trying to say. Their webpage states that they are inspired " by the rich availability of local organic produce, sustainable seafood and naturally raised beef..." Sounds good.

I have been wanting to try this place since it opened and one of my clients recommended it.
Last Saturday was wet and cold, so our usual yard sale date was a bust. The perfect chance to try out Your Place, it had been almost 30 years since Bob and I had been out to breakfast in Santa Cruz.

As we sat down at our table, we were greeted by the cute little set of salt and pepper shakers in the photo above. Each table had it's own charming set.

The wait staff was attentive when we first sat down, bringing us coffee, water and menus. I ordered tea and was not pleased with their selection, however their food menu had plenty of choices !
 Bob decided on the breakfast burrito with country gravy, which sounded horrific to me... it looks rather horrific too. He enjoyed the gravy and the sausage inside, his only complaint was the excess of large potato chunks.

I usually use French toast as my breakfast barometer, I wasn't in the mood for something sweet. I braved the hazardous world of omelets and scrambles. My scramble had bacon, baby spinach, mushrooms, bell peppers and Parmesan cheese. It was perfect and that saying a lot coming from a very fussy egg eater. I chose the hashbrowns instead of the country potatoes, I didn't eat them. They were not brown nor crunchy, it been a long time since I had tried hashbrowns. Bob claimed they were fine...and while I ordered wheat toast they brought me a biscuit. They did bring me toast once I pointed out the mistake.

They had their own toppings to go with the toast. The strawberry preserves were watery and not very flavorful, I am guessing they were trying to do a reduced sugar jam. The marmalade was much better with big chunks of peel and just the right tartness.
 














The decor was clean and kitschy fun with white tableclothes, real napkins and those cute salt shakers.

Your Place is located in a strip mall with a very unassuming front.

Bob liked this tabletop sign about the carbon offset of their cocktails.

Overall we enjoyed having breakfast out and would come back again to try more of their menu.

Red Stick Road Trip Finale: Baton Rouge and New Orleans !

It's time to finish this trip and get on with posting recipes and another travel adventure.

As you may remember the whole point of this road trip was to get Genna to Baton Rouge where she is attending LSU graduate school.

Genna's new home is in the Garden District of Baton Rouge.

 

Here's a house nearby in her neighborhood, so beautiful and classic.

 Here is the cat that lives with her.

I loved Baton Rouge. It was full of charm, very verdant and a bit warm.

Bob found his own way of dealing with the heat as we helped Genna settle into her room.

 She knew she had made the right choice when our first evening in BR she managed to capture not one but two little toads.

While most of our time was spent with the moving in process, we did spent a little time sightseeing in downtown BR, it is the capitol of Louisiana. This castle is the old governor's mansion !!

Bob and I enjoyed touring the USS Kidd, a huge battleship/museum on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River.

Here he is in the "mess",  happy he only has to clean up after me in our small kitchen.

Speaking of food, which had to come up sooner or later, right ??













We did find a couple of fun places to eat in Baton Rouge.

Chimes is the LSU hangout with lots of beers on tap and a high decibel atmosphere. We ate there several times and enjoyed our meals and the beer selection.

My favorite part was the half price oysters on the half shell during happy hour: 4:00 to 7:00.
This is a challenge we were prepared to take on.

The three of us impressed our waiter with the speed with which we consumed our first dozen.

Of course, that was just the beginning...

One morning Bob was desperate for breakfast and the cook at the hotel cafe had not shown up for work...so he went out exploring. He had trouble finding any place open for breakfast but finally found Christina's, it is your classic breakfast place. I was so happy to have my first grits for breakfast.

Bob stuffed himself with biscuits and gravy.
I am sure I don't know what the fascination is with this particular breakfast tradition.











We found a very charming lunch place near Genna's new home. Yvette Marie's Cafe is set amid a cluster of interesting antique and collectable shops.

Since we were so close to famed Big Easy, Genna took a break from moving and joined us for a couple of days of sightseeing and fine dining.

Summer is not the best time to experience New Orleans because it is HOT, very HOT !!
It's hard to walk around in that kind of weather which is our favorite way to explore a city.

I think NOLA suffered too due to our recent time in Paris. It was hard not to compare it to that most amazing of cities.

We did the Garden District and Lafayette Cemetery Tour. While the houses, their history, architecture and current star status was interesting, the cemetery just couldn't hold a candle to all those fabulous ones in the City of Lights. Lafayette had been vandalized by an unscrupulous antique dealer, who was currently serving time for his crimes.

The French quarter seemed to be full of shops from which to buy either cheap souvenirs or expensive antiques. We are not the kind of people who shop much while on vacation. There were also plenty of places to drink, and get drunk...another activity not high on my personal list of thrilling vacation ideas. I do realize that NOLA is known for this.

We did have several very good meals.
One night we dined at Peche.

 While the dish to the right looks messy it was a delightful plate of smoked drum ( fish) with fried white beans, basil and chili aioli.

In order to maximize our taste experience we ordered lots of small plates.

These little fried balls were the restaurant's take on hush puppies. They were crunchy and flavorful, with some kind of dipping sauce I have forgotten ;-)














Our second dinner out was at Emeril Lagasse's NOLA. From the starched white table clothes to the attentive, impeccable service to the fabulous food, it was an great dining experience.

 Here is our pre-dinner family selfie.

I asked for a fun non-alcoholic drink to start with, usually this request is met with disdain or blank stares. At NOLA, I got my first ever virgin Cosmos.

Again we ordered lots of items and shared them around.

 This catfish was so good, crispy and served with dirty rice and pork cracklings, how Southern :-)

The dessert trio of creme brulee was the perfect foil for the rest of the meal. Intense little pots of rich, creamy custard, sigh.


Down the street from our hotel was a fun breakfast place: The Ruby Slipper.

 

I enjoyed several versions of their Pain Perdu ( french toast, literally translated to "lost bread".)

 While we weren't willing ( at least one of our party was not) to wait in line for a table at the famous Cafe Du Monde. We did get him to wait while we got beignet to go. Wish we had had more time to explore the whole beignet world.

There was one other notable place we stopped for lunch after our tour of the Garden District and cemetery. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of it which is too bad, we had the best shrimp and grits there made with a smoked Gouda cheese.

Their farmer's market salad was a welcome addition.

I will leave you a few random photos from our wandering in New Orleans, it is a very colorful and quirky city.