gutfud – the food, es ist gut » 2009

China Pavilion

For someone who’d probably be disinherited by the Chinese clan for eating Chinese food anywhere else but the family home, I took a chance on China Pavilion after hearing some good reviews from friends. I can say this is a good place to come for an elegant ambiance. The tableware was all great, definitely classier [...]

Memorial Weekend with Friends

The afternoon’s nocino making session merged into an evening dinner with friends in Heather and Sarita’s garden. There was plenty of beer, wine and spirits, but the low-alcohol tolerance chick in me gravitated towards the Trader Joe’s Blueberry Juice. And who could say no to it, with the enthusiastic sommelier we had offering the sweet [...]

Nocino

Sarita and Heather are the proud owners of a walnut tree in their yard and this year they offered up the green walnuts at their peak for making nocino. Matthew and I were there in a heartbeat to get started. Nocino is a walnut infused liqueur, using green walnuts that are still soft enough to [...]

The Burger Bus

I’d been watching the updates on the Burger Bus for about six months, so of course I’d make an effort to sample the goods in their first week of biznas. The burgers are not your typical. The beef is grass-fed Shalhoob’s, the bread is Our Daily Bread’s ciabatta. Other ingredients, like cheese, jam, lettuce, are [...]

C’est Cheese

C’est Cheese is one of those success stories of Santa Barbara that I totally thought would fail, but really hoped it wouldn’t, and so far it hasn’t. Typical SBers might be tightwads, but apparently not when it comes to good cheese. I truly believe it was the cheese tasting evenings that made it so, by [...]

Shalhoob’s / Jill’s Place

I’d only been here for a lunch plate before. This was my first time for dinner. Plus, I ate here in May and writing this post in August. I don’t remember much. It had the feeling of a locals drinking hole, with more people huddled around the bar than sitting at the tables. Most of [...]

Spoon

Our third and final destination on the spontaneous downtown food tour, and we almost didn’t make it. I hemmed and hawed for a while, and finally gave in. I needed cool refreshment for dessert. The interior is a bubblegum crisis. Sickeningly pink, and the staff dress like hoochies. But that’s not necessarily bad! What matters [...]

Romanti-Ezer

Stop #2 on the spontaneous downtown food tour! Lilly’s tacos wasn’t enough, now Drew had a hankering for mole. And there’s no better mole downtown than the mole at Romanti-Ezer. IMHO, of course. Ambiance is hardly the linen service, but it’s also not as casual as the outdoor walk-up window at the front might lead [...]

Lilly’s Tacos

It started out innocently enough. Drew wanted a breakfast burrito. The problem was that our breakfast burrito place was not open on Sundays. I convinced him to go to Lilly’s. There is nothing fancy about Lilly’s. It’s simply tacos, nothing more. A paltry $1.35 each, plus tax. And they come in a dizzying array of [...]

Kobachi Izakaya Dining

I had a quiet dinner, to celebrate my home surviving the Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara. I cannot say the same for the property, as parts of both my front and back garden burned, but I am very grateful for the metal roof covering my cottage, and firefighters who kept the flames from my place. [...]

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