This is the best restaurant in town for diners with any multitude of dietary restrictions. But that does not mean the menu is drab and limited. And that does not mean you must have a multitude of dietary restrictions in order to eat here happily.
The menu identifies which items are vegetarian, vegan, egg free, gluten free, soy free, dairy free, or raw. I have enough ovo-lacto, celiac, raw-cleansing pescadarian friends that having a restaurant like this in town is a blessing. Also, the interior is clean and lovely.
I did not feel any air of uber-healthy pretension that exists in hippie enclaves in other cities, i.e. no menu items called “I Am Manifesting Abundance” when it’s really a caesar salad.
That said, I am here to talk about the seasonal lunch special they recently rolled out. It sure did manifest my abundance, and it *wasn’t* a caesar salad!
 
 
The lunches are bento boxes, each containing a healthy starch (like buckwheat soba, roasted yams, brown and wild rice, or quinoa), protein (tofu, tempeh, seitan, chicken or salmon), and sauce. Plus seasonal vegetables.
They are designed to be compact, and are prepared in a jiffy. You can start ordering ahead by phone at 11 am, for pickup.
The set boxes are $9 each. You can swap around the protein, with a $1 supplement for chicken and a $2 supplement for the wild salmon, but the supplement only applies where they weren’t originally offered in the bento. You get the salmon for the standard $9 in one of the set boxes.
I had the curry bento, which was tempeh, coconut curry sauce and roasted yams. The seasonal vegetables included crisp-tender zucchini, carrots, broccoli and “dragon beans” from the local farmers market, which I’d had before from the market and loved them.
Others at the table got assorted rice, tofu, yams, and salmon.
One person also ordered a side bowl of butternut squash chili ($3 for 8 oz) and everyone got to try it. Delicious!
I had a cup of raw vegetable juice, ($2 for 4 oz) containing juiced carrots, tomatoes, apples, leafy greens (kale, chard, or beet greens, depending on the season), beets, lemon juice, ginger, garlic, a touch of cayenne pepper, & olive oil. Wow, a little garlic and ginger goes a long way, and the olive oil was new to me for being in a juice. It’s certainly not a mainstream corporate chain smoothie, but it felt good to drink it. Also, that’s an outstanding price.
Regardless whether you eat in, or order takeaway, the bentos come in biodegradable boxes, and compostable birch eating utensils. It may seem a little awkward to be eating out of these lunch boxes while sitting at their dining tables, but I imagine the focus is more on providing a very healthy meal to someone on the go, and we all need this!
So, honestly, the birch utensils don’t provide all the sturdiness necessary to stab the vegetables or slice up the tempeh, but I didn’t have much issue with this, for two reasons.
1. I like eating with my fingers. :)
2. I keep my own reusable plates, forks and knives at work, so if I’d taken my lunch to go, I would have declined the disposable utensils altogether. Remember: reuse is better than recycle!
Final notes: the vibrant colors of the food! None of these pale yellow starches of mass produced buns and fries. And…AND!..no food coma.
Spiritland Bistro
230 E Victoria St
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
www.spiritlandbistro.com
On Fridays, Whole Foods in Santa Barbara has a pizza deal.
Buy 2 pizzas at regular price, and a third pizza of equal or lesser value is free.
We were hungry, and planned a quiet night in watching videos. What better meal to hunker down on the sofa with than some yummy pizza.
The pizzas ordered were ham and pineapple, bbq chicken, and pepperoni.
However, these are advertised as flatbreads, and my past experience with flatbreads is that they’re smaller. Like one is a generous portion for one person. But these were huge, and heavy. OMG!
The sauce was flavorful and tasted fresh. The pepperoni was spicy and also tasted fresh…fresh being relative for a cured meat. It didn’t taste like that shelf-stable pepperoni that mainstream grocery stores sell, chock full of preservatives.
The prices range from $13-$16, so they average to about $15 each. That’s $30 for two flatbread pizzas, where we each ate a slice and thought, “huh, I’m full.” So there was plenty to eat throughout the weekend and into lunches for the week after. So, maybe these are better for a party. They reheated well in a cast iron pan.
Past words.
Whole Foods
3761 State St
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com
I first set foot in Sly’s when I joined some friends on a quest of good cocktails, and not only did we find them, but we also stayed for the food.
Sly’s pedigree includes Lucky’s for upper-end steak and seafood, but that should not turn off an average diner with an average sized pocketbook from exploring what’s there…as long as you are fine with trekking over to Carpinteria.
The back room does have a feel of a finer dining experience, with its linen cloths, quiet atmosphere and patient yet attentive wait staff. But the front bar and bistro area is casual and comfortable. I really enjoyed sitting at the bar, even for eating.
And I mentioned that my first reason for coming here was for the cocktails. Sly’s cocktails are among my favorite in this area, especially for the classics, like a Manhattan, Gimlet, Negroni, gin and tonic?or Moscow Mule. The Manhattans are made with real Marasca cherries; they make their own tonic water for the G&Ts, and the Moscow Mule comes in its traditional copper mug. And the prices are good for this level of quality. The Moscow Mule I had on this night was $7. Ted got a shot of the exquisite Maker’s 46.
 
The real special I want to focus on, though, are their prix fixe dinners. The menu changes about every three weeks to a region of France, and I recently got a chance to sample it.
For my meal, the prix fixe was based on the regional cuisine of the Brittany coast, known for savory buckwheat crepes, cream, and salted butter.
The price for each is $35, for a starter, a main, and a dessert. For wine pairings, the price is $55. I had the meal only. I was in a group that enjoys trying as much as possible, so we managed to order almost everything off the menu.
Starter choices:
 
* Bisque of cepes (mushrooms)
* Oysters on the half shell (not pictured)
* Cassoulette of scallops and bay shrimp
Main dishes:
 
* Moules frites - mussels and french fries
* Sea Bass in green cabbage, with pilaf rice
* Rack of lamb, “Cocos.” Three lamb chops with white beans
Dessert choices:
* Special gateau Breton
* Crepes au caramel sale (crepes with salted caramel)
* Bittersweet chocolate mousse
* Ripe Camembert (not pictured)
  
I had the cassoulette, which came in a cream and white wine sauce, and drizzled with lobster sauce. A good-sized portion, and the sauce was great for dipping with their fresh baked crusty bread.
My rack of lamb was prepared medium rare, and the diner specifies its doneness. It comes with a little wood toothpick labeled with the correct doneness. They’ll prepare it, or steak, well done if you desire, and not give you grief on that choice. But if you ask for their recommendation, the suggestion is medium, to medium rare. The dish came with the white beans, as listed. They were tender cooked flageolets. Also, fresh crisp-tender green beans with a light cream sauce.
I selected the special Breton cake for dessert, as I’d never heard of it before and didn’t expect to see anything like it elsewhere around town. The dough is rolled and folded, in a style similar to puff pastry, and layered in between with sugar and butter. If you can imagine a cake made mostly of butter and sugar, held successfully together by a little flour and egg, this is it. Baked as a pancake, the bottom was quite dense and needed a knife at times to cut it into bite size pieces and tastes sweet, slightly salty with a buttery chewy texture.
The salt in the caramel had one friend enjoying her crepes, saying it was very flavorful and not cloyingly sweet. And the bittersweet chocolate mousse was so rich and dense that it went a long way, even shared between several people.
The Brittany menu is wrapping up soon, and may have already completed. That is okay, because the next prix fixe is going to specialize in the cuisine of Provence!
 
Past visits.
Sly’s
686 Linden Ave
Carpinteria, CA 93013
www.slysonline.com
It’s been a year now where my travels have become wonderful culinary adventures (first being New York). Yet, I don’t make specific plans for noted places, or do a heavy amount of research beforehand. I put my trust in people and their recommendations once I get there. Great opportunities fall into my lap, or maybe it’s because I have good friends.
St. John was one of them. I was talking one evening with our hosts, Phil and Mary, about a suitable place for a dinner the following night with the Belgian. They suggested St. John, which was just down the road from them, and they enjoy the place so much they had their wedding reception there. It was, however, expensive, and reservations were often necessary.
It may not have been suitable price point for a dinner that included a freelance writer and an academic, but it planted the seed that this could be the one big splurge meal of the trip, and to help cut some cost, maybe we could go there for lunch. Tomorrow! And we did.
 
The restaurant is more than just a restaurant, it’s also a bakery, coffee shop, and bar (click the blackboard photo above to see the bar menu). We arrived just before lunch service, and this helped us get a table without a reservation. We sat in the coffee shop/bakery area initially for a coffee.
It was wonderful coffee. Rich, aromatic, with chunky sugar lumps and the milk in the little pitcher was already warmed. Such a nice touch, to add warm milk to the coffee so as not to cool it down. We enjoyed it thoroughly, then moved into the dining area to a 2-top by a window.
St. John initially got our attention because its focus is on local source, British food. We were warned that the food would be very meat-heavy and were looking forward to that. What we learned upon arriving is that St. John has a “snout to tail” philosophy, using the whole animal. I was so down with that! It’s also located across the street from a meat market - convenient, eh?
The menu changes daily, and we got an idea of what was current by looking at the previous day’s menu online the evening before. Still, the menu did have some changes. We opted to get one main dish, a few small plates in place of a second main dish, and a dessert.
  
The first small plate was a mixed terrine, like a coarse pate. We ate it with delicious slices of bread right from the bakery across the way. And I love cornichons.
 
A favorite from the small plates, and one of the most popular items consistently on the menu was the roasted bone marrow. It was soft, juicy, crisp in places where the marrow roasted directly on the pan, and we spread it thickly on our bread and toast. Being a novice, I did have to ask what the peculiar pointy device was on the table, and our waitress was very comforting - she put her hand on my arm, smiled, and said it was for the marrow. Of course!
The marrow came with a parsley salad, using thick flat-leaf parsley, very finely sliced onions or shallots, capers, and a little pot of coarse salt. This was essential to eat with the marrow and everything tasted perfect together. I’d love to eat this again.
  
We shared some fresh English peas in the pod. The small ones were tastier.
One of the specials of the day was pig’s spleen. Neither of us had pig’s spleen before (knowingly, at least. Perhaps it’s been in our American hot dogs and SPAM), so we ordered that. I am sorry to say, it was not a favored item to me, and I can soundly say I don’t need to eat this again, it was a bit too cold and rubbery for me. But Ted liked it.
Our one “main” dish was wild pigeon, which we ate with a side portion of seasonal greens. I never did find out what the seasonal green was, but whatever stock it was cooked in, it was delicious.
The pigeon was quite raw, the sauce was primarily blood. Tasty blood, of course. The menu warns that wild game may contain buckshot, and wouldn’t you know it - my portion had some! It looked like a very small metal BB. The same happened to my parents with a wild duck they ate in Scotland a few years back. The pigeon dish was served with peas, leeks and bacon. Ooooh, those veg and the bacon were a great match.
 
Finally, dessert. We had the madelines. They are freshly baked with 15 minute wait once ordered. Half a dozen for less than 3 quid. And SO GOOD. We were full after the savory courses, but we made room for the madelines.
We didn’t have alochol with the meal, which helped reduce costs. It ended up being about 50 quid, all in. Wow, super reasonable. After VAT and tip, the credit card bill in US dollars was about $85, feeding two people and incredible meal of wonderful British food.
Did I mention? St. John has a Michelin star.
St. John (Farringdon)
26 St John St
London EC1M 4AY
www.stjohnrestaurant.com
Nearest Tube: Farringdon
  
Our B&B in Stratford was a cute little place called the Curtain Call. Although I dropped the luggage off there en-route to the wedding reception, and then we limped up to the room somewhere in the middle of the night, I didn’t get much of a look at the place until the following morning. It was cute!
But oooh, it was an aching head moment the following morning, sitting in full sun with the effects of late night dancing, eating and drinking still pounding in the head. Plus, breakfast was served only between 8 and 9 am. As in, eat it *before* 9 am. So really, it’s breakfast at 8 or 8:30 am.
Add to the confusion the man who came out to bring our coffee, tea and juice. Turned out he was American! The Inn is run by a couple - Cheryl and Dave, a British woman and an American man, former military based in the Cotswalls who fell in love with the area and an area woman, and stayed. Both were fun to talk to. They took great pride in running their businesses and serving up a fantastic full English breakfast and taking great care that the ingredients were of the highest quality and locally sourced. Free-range eggs, and sausages procured from a small business butcher and the Inn owner had visited the very farms the pigs came from. Plus bacon, beans, tomato, toast, and an assortment of cereals and milk.
 
Really, for £65/night, for two people with a private WC and shower, and including this great breakfast for two, in Stratford, for a Saturday night? That’s an amazing deal, it’s only about $100 total. Bravo.
The Curtain Call
142 Alcester Road,
Stratford-upon-Avon CV37 9DR
England
It’s First Thursday! That means browsing the galleries and studios downtown, checking out the art, listening to some music, catching up with friends, and grabbing a bite to eat at Square One.
Pink recommended the grilled apricot salad, mizuna, manchego crisp, champagne vinaigrette.
  
This was followed by:
Smooth duck pate and crostini,
Fettucini, quail, avocado blossom honey, dates, wild arugula, $16.
And sweet corn ravioli, tarragon, vanilla emulsion. $14.
Very yummy!
Past entries.
Square One
14 E Cota St
Santa Barbara, CA 9319
www.squareonesb.com
Lunch downtown during the workweek is now a rare occurrence. But given the opportunity, I’ll take it! This time we went to Elements, a restaurant and bar I have little experience with. The last time I dined at that location, it was a little bakery, and a chocolate croissant was a real treat after spending an afternoon in book bliss at the library.
The first thing I noticed at Elements was a prix fixe lunch special; three courses for $20. It sounded expensive at first, but most lunch sandwiches or burritos can easily cost $10, so adding in a soup or salad and a dessert, the price becomes reasonable. Then I started reading the food descriptions. Greens from Shepherd Farm, almonds from Fat Uncle Farms…these are all local companies I see at the farmers market. Sold.
I started with a simple green salad with avocado and vinaigrette. The other option was tomato soup. No complaints - the avocado was perfect and the salad was dressed nicely.
  
For my main course, I selected the fish and chips. It’s quite different from the typical fish and chips. The fish has a corn meal crust; the tangy coleslaw uses jalapeno and no mayonnaise. The tartar sauce is spicy and looks house made. Pots of ketchup and malt vinegar are also provided. It’s a lot of food! The fish pieces were sometimes a little crumbly, because the corn meal doesn’t bind together as well as traditional batter. Rather than dip the fish, it was sometimes easier to spread on condiments.
Other options were a grilled chicken sandwich or a vegetarian sandwich.
My dessert was a 50/50 of citrus fruit granita and ice cream, topped with whipped cream and crushed roasted almonds from Fat Uncle Farms - very enjoyable when the weather took a break from the June gloom.
My dining companion had a cup of French onion soup, and the Elements burger, “Santa Barbara style” with grilled onions, bacon, tomato and avocado. These were a la carte items from the menu, not part of the prix fixe options. Mmm, burgers.
 
The atmosphere of Elements is mellow and elegant. It’s perfect for business lunches, or a book club meet up. I hear there are good cocktails here, although I’ve never jived with the trend of calling drinks whatever-tini. I like a martini, or a vodka martini. Going into Bellini-tinis, Melon-tini, Pearfect-tini…maybe I’m just not trendy. But I do like innovative cocktails, why not put in another minute of creative thinking and come up with a better name. Anyway, if you’re happy hour inclined, their signature cocktail is usually just $5 for the first drink. That’s a great deal for being downtown with a view of our lovely courthouse and sunken gardens.
My final note: the lunch menu has gyros! Casual word on the street is that the gyro meat is also house made. I wasn’t able to try this for my lunch, but I’m very curious to learn more. The problem is that I probably won’t be in the area for a workweek lunch for a while. Anyone give them a try?
Elements
129 East Anapamu Street
Santa Barbara CA 93101
www.elementsrestaurantandbar.com
Check out these awesome blistered almonds, from the Saturday farmers market.
What was nice touch, wrapping them in little wax paper bags and tying them up with brown string.
They come in a variety of flavors, and the Chinese 5 Spice is nice, but I like the plain salted ones the best.
Just $5 for a big scoop.
Fat Uncle Farms (at local farmers markets)
blog
I heard about a special event through Edible Santa Barbara.
Here’s the Scoop in Montecito was having a special dessert evening, with desserts created, prepared and presented by local chef Brian Foehl (a former chef from Metropulos, another favorite market/deli).
A quick email and I rearranged my evening to meet up with a couple friends right when the desserts would first be offered, 7 pm.
Each of the chef’s desserts were paired with small scoops of the ice cream shop’s gelatos and sorbets.
Now, I knew that Here’s the Scoop made all their own gelato and sorbet in-house, and specialized in seasonal market fruits (try the pluot in summer), which the other gelato shops don’t do, but it’s rare that I make down Montecito way. Logistics and all that.
This was worth the trip. Here’re descriptions of the three desserts on offer, pulled from Edible SB’s posting and Here’s the Scoop’s newsletter:
STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE: Toasted Almond Shortcake, filled with Strawberry Sorbet, with a Strawberry couli and balsamic reduction drizzle, topped with vanilla bean whipped cream.
CHEESE BOARD: A Ricotta Cheesecake with an Olive Oil Citrus Cookie and Pink Sea Salt.– Paired with Almond Gelato, Blood Orange and Mixed Berry Sorbet.
MOTHER’S DAY TREAT: Vanilla Bean Angel Food Mini Bunt Cake with Rose Water Glaze.– Paired with Pistachio Gelato, Mango and Lemon~Lavender Sorbet.
  
Each cost $7.95.
We got the strawberry shortcake and the cheese board, the photos are of our actual dishes. We did not get the mother’s day treat, and this photo is of the display dessert in the freezer case. It sure did look good and I did try some of the lavender lemon sorbet separately.
My favorite of the evening was the cheese board, I loved the citrus cookie base and the pinch of salt made all the flavors pop. The blood orange sorbet was intense and delicious, and the owner Ellie Patterson said it’s one of the most popular flavors they offer.
These desserts are available all weekend! You might want to call ahead to confirm if there is a special window of time the chef is preparing, as this Friday event was only 7-10 pm.
If you don’t have time this weekend, or just want a simple scoop of frozen treat, I recommend the lavender lemon sorbet. It’s LOVELY. Nik got a medium cup with a waffle cone, containing vanilla bean gelato and the lavender lemon sorbet. He seemed pretty happy.
 
Here’s the Scoop
1187 Coast Village Road
Montecito, CA 93108
Some friends who are #1 fans of food brought us here for dinner on a Saturday night. We also got the prix fixe with assorted supplements.
Damn. It was my best meal in Portland. Tabla brought out the subtle purity of its ingredients and the wines paired well.
On the chalkboard near the front door is a list of all the local source companies that contributed to the menu. The chef went to the main farmers market that morning to pick up fresh items.
The 3 course dinner is a deal almost too good to be true. $24?? Even with maximum supplements (worth it), the food hardly goes higher than $35 and the smaller plates by no means left us hungry. In fact, I needed a small box to take a good portion of the 3rd course home.
But first! An amuse buche. Er, I don’t remember what it was! But trust me, we ate it happily.
I started with the trio of fish. Fresh crab, black cod and mackerel. It’s hard to say which was best, they were all standouts. The group did enjoy the combination of the mackerel with fresh apple slices, though. This dish had a $5 supplement, two at our table got it and everyone loved it.
2nd was the paglie e fieno. Paperthin, nearly transparent pasta with steamed manilla clams, shallot, white wine, house cured guanciale. The clams were sliced thin, allowing me to get a bit of the shellfish in every bite. The guanciale added some smokey umami. I liked it a lot, but it was essential to stir up the dish quickly upon the dish being set down because pasta was so thin it would stick together without constant lubrication of the sauce. A must for clam lovers. I actually enjoyed the black pepper fettuccini with cauliflower cream and aged balsamic that someone else at the table ordered, but that is because I am a bigger fan of balsamic and cauliflower than I am of clams.
 
My main was grilled coulotte steak with garlic cream, beluga lentils, sylvetta arugula, and horseradish salt. With a $3 supplement. The beef was cooked exactly to my specifications, somewhere between medium and medium rare. Loved the lentils, which were dainty and creamy. I was told they have hard cooked egg yolk mixed in to attain that creamy texture.
 
Elsewhere on the table: baby octopus (above), two kinds of pasta (below), and duck confit (far below).
 
I don’t recall the wines we had, but it was two bottles on Tabla’s recommendations. The first was a wine that was delicious with the table olives. And btw, the olives were great, too. Three distinct flavors for the green, purple and black olives. Yum. I should have dipped the bread from Pearl Bakery into the olive bowl, but completely forgot - there was enough food on the table to keep me occupied.
The second wine was a red for the meal.
 
For dessert, I wanted to skip. I was too full. But our group of four decided to share one dish. The one with chevre in a cheesecake, and we picked it because we did not want something overly sweet. For that, we had a small glass of dessert wine, I was told it was local and prepared to the effect of eiswein. Sweet, but not cloying. A favorite beverage of the night!
With all the alcohol consumed (LOTS), the tab did add up. But the prix fixe with moderate supplement and a good glass of wine for under $50 is outstanding value for the quality of food that you can either study and discuss with the staff or simply stuff in your gob.
Tabla (NE)
200 NE 28th Ave
Portland, OR 97232
www.tabla-restaurant.com
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