Petit Valentien

With 25 minutes to idle away and a starting point of the public library, I’d made it as far into the Coffee Cat as the ordering queue before I changed my mind and walked over to Petit Valentien for a quick bite of something. It’d been a long time since I was there, months! And I used to go every other week at a time.

It was early enough that I was one of their first customers of the evening, and I sat at the bar and let the waiter choose my one small plate. He said the baby back rib char siu was ample, and good, but for my quick bite that I wanted to be light, he recommended the roast shrimp with black tea and spicy lobster oil, for $9. Done.

Sitting at the bar enabled two things. The first was chatting with the chef/owner and staff. The topic of conversation was the chef’s concept of spicy. I’ll let that one stay private. The other item was the ability to count the Buddhas, and you can really only do this at the bar. I counted three, including a large one wearing glasses. They told me there were four Buddhas, so I have my work cut out for me.

My snack was certainly enough. Three large-ish shrimp, butterflied and roasted with ground black tea leaves. The oil had just enough zip to it to call it spicy, and not be hot. The shrimp were served on a small bed of long julienned strips of cucumber marinated in rice vinegar.

I ate my shrimp, and soaked up the remaining oil with pieces of the bread roll that comes early on to the table. Full enough to move on to my next appointment.

Past musings:
21 January 2009
4 November, 2007

Petit Valentien
1114 State St
Santa Barbara, CA 93190