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Pleasure Pizza in Santa Cruz: BBQ Chicken Pizza Slice!

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

This is a really simple post but I wanted to feature this great BBQ Chicken Pizza by the slice that we had recently at Pleasure Pizza in Santa Cruz.  I don’t typically like chicken pizza toppings because they can be dry and bland but this is a the best I’ve tasted because of its sweet and subtle spicy flare. There are now two locations for Pleasure Pizza. They are both across the street from each other on 41st Avenue and one is a more of a sit down restaurant “East Side Eatery” and one is a pizza by the slice spot “Pleasure Pizza”.

BBQ Chicken Pizza:

  • Semi Spicy BBQ Sauce
  • Pepper Jack Cheese
  • Red Onion
  • Red & Green Bell Pepper
  • Pineapple

PLEASURE PIZZA | 11AM – 10PM DAILY
BY THE SLICE • TO GO • DELIVERY
4000 PORTOLA DR. SANTA CRUZ, CA 95062
PHONE / DELIVERY: 831.475.4999

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41st Avenue Liquor Store: Santa Cruz

Sunday, September 18th, 2011

Beer Snob?  41st Avenue Liquor is the place to buy beer in Santa Cruz.

41st Avenue Liquor has Belgian sour beers like rodenbach, a large variety of Ciders, IPA’s, German Beers, and large selection of microbrews.  In addition they have quite a good liquor selection including all types of whiskey, vodka, liquours, tequilas and so on.  The wine selection is not as large as BevMo but they do have a pretty good selection (the beer prices and liquor prices are usually a bit lower or similar to Bevmo).

Also, I like to randomly pick up unique drinking glasses and bar knickknacks here like the metal deer head shot glass and margarita glasses too.

2155 41st Avenue
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

(831) 475-5117

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Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk • Top 3 Favorite Foods

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Can you tell we’re trying to hold onto summer … I thought I would mention our Top 3 Favorite Foods from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk so you don’t lose your chance to eat the goodness (hmmmm … badness).

Rides Open Only: 11am-7pm on Weekends now Weather Permitting

#1 – Cajun Corn Dog @ Surf City Grill … Homemade and delicious. They claim to have the best corn dogs and they may be right.

#2 – Tater Twist (Put hot sauce and some seasoning on it)

#3 – Chocolate Covered Bacon @ Marini’s Candies

Posted in Eating Out, Santa Cruz, Where the Locals Eat | 1 Response »
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Olive Oil & Balsamic Tasting ~ True Olive Connection • Santa Cruz

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

For Santa Cruz Food Blog Readers … Three relatively new “tastings” to try in Santa Cruz:

Wine always tastes better when you are out tasting it.  The same goes for olive oils, vinegars and pretty much everything else (sample nuts next door @ Nut Kreations too).  I guess the taste seems more pure when you are out tasting, without distractions from the other food and small talk at a dinner party (does it have anything to do with it being free, hm, maybe).  At that instant you taste something, when that taste is your one and only intent, you are alone with the flavors in your mouth, focusing solely on the potential flavor intensity.  It’s about an experience.  It is interactive and engaging, what you wish your entire educational experience could have been.

I love that there are so many new food experiences and unique food tasting opportunities popping up all over, like the tasting available at True Olive Connection and the new Santa Cruz Food Tours, both in Santa Cruz.  Many of these tasting opportunities seem to be located in tourist towns that have a lot of foot traffic.  Lucky for us (at least in this sense and many others of course), this describes Santa Cruz.

We’ve found that tasting a product before you buy it is a great way to open one up to new flavors that you may not have tried otherwise.  At the True Olive Connection in downtown Santa Cruz we sampled many fused olive oils and vinegars on their own as well as together in suggested combinations (such as Chipotle Olive Oil + Blood Orange Extra Virgin Olive Oil on fish, chicken or summer salads).

One of the vinegars that was very intriguing was the Dark Chocolate Balsamic Vinegar because we figured it had some unique potential for drizzling on berries for a healthy dessert made with a great local product.  We also bought little bottles as Santa Cruz-specific presents for out-of-town friends.

In the end we purchased smaller bottles of Olive Oil and vinegars so that we could have a variety to sample later on salads, meats, and desserts.

106 Lincoln Street

Santa Cruz, CA

http://trueoliveconnection.com/

* Awesome marinade or sauce for meat – Chipotle Olive Oil + Tangerine Balsamic.

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Cafe Delmarette • Santa Cruz

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

Cafe Delmarette, located in downtown Santa Cruz on Pacific (next to the Delmar Theater, get it, Delmarette), is THE place to meet friends for lunch OR to take out of town friends for lunch, coffee, house made teas (such as house made caramelized pear tea), homemade scones (Bacon, chive, & cheddar Scones, Fig goat cheese Scones, Strawberry Scones etc…), sandwiches, salads, and soup.  This is an order at the counter cafe with limited indoor and outdoor seating. The casualness to the setting makes eating Delmarette’s local, tasty food quite wonderful.

Delmarette serves seasonal foods from a variety of pressed sandwiches to a great salad, daily soup special, and even a grain salad special which is always delicious too (such as Ta-Boo-Lee = Bulgur, Carrot, Red Onion, Cucumber, Cherry Tomato, Kale, Parsley & Dill).  They serve VERVE coffee, another one of my Santa Cruz favorites, and they put frozen coffee ice cubes in their Iced Coffee (see photo above)!  Their little cupcakes are delicious too – Blenheim Apricot Buttercream Frosting w/ fruit topping.  My brother says it is the only place he eats lunch in downtown Santa Cruz and I have to credit him with introducing me to it as I walked by it so often and thought it was just another coffee shop.  The atmosphere could be described as ‘cozy’ (not warm cozy like a diner or lodge in the winter, but small cozy). I would say that it is very much like a cafe you would find in Berkeley with local, homemade and seasonal foods for lunch with lots of folks strolling in and out.  You order at the counter and can sit among cool little art inside or sit outside on the street on a little patio and people watch.

CLOSED TUESDAYS

Mon: 9:00 am - 6:00 pm
Wed – Sat: 9:00 am - 7:00 pm
Sun: 9:00 am - 6:00

http://www.facebook.com/cafedelmarette

Cafe Delmarette
1126 Pacific Avenue, Santa Cruz, CA 95060

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Mead: Honey Wine for the Honeymooners

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

There is apparently a tradition of giving newlyweds Mead as a wedding gift for them to drink on their honeymoon.  This is a Northern European tradition where newlyweds drink a daily cup of honey wine during the first month of their marriage (I guess the honeymoon was traditionally a month, nice!).  This daily cup of Mead would assure the couple the birth of sons while also symbolizing the sweetness of the first month of marriage (I mean, it better be sweet the first month!).

Mead is actually honey wine or drinkable honey made by fermenting honey and water.  It can be still, carbonated, or sparkling, and it may be dry, semi-sweet, or sweet and is between 8%-18% alcohol.   There are about 36 different mead varieties (my brother said, that’s it, are you sure).  Mead ranges from being made with honey and maple syrup to chili peppers and varieties can be found all over the world from Europe to Africa.

  • Metheglin – Mead that contains spices or herbs such as cloves, Cinnamon, nutmeg, hops, lavender
  • Melomel – Mead that contains fruit such as strawberry, raspberry, or blackberry

Combined with the fact that my father-in-law now raises bees and talks a lot about Mead and that we are attending many weddings this summer and need unique local gift ideas, I had to finally taste some local Mead.  Down in Soquel in Santa Cruz, CA there is a winery called Bargetto that makes Mead (in the spirit of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales).  Bargetto has Chaucer’s Mead (as well as other wines and other fruit wines).   Chaucer’s Mead (92 Points – Wine Enthusiast – $13-15 a bottle) comes with tea bag filled with spices on the side.  You can place the spice bag in the chilled Mead bottle and drink it with the spice addition.  It is a great dessert or sweet wine and a great local wedding gift for friends.  It can be served chilled or heated in the winter.  Stop by the Bargetto Winery tasting room in Soquel on Main Street to sample their Mead!

  • Mead made locally for our Santa Cruz Food Blog readers – Chaucer’s Mead at Bargetto Winery in Soquel, CA.
  • Mead made locally for our Silicon Valley Food Blog readers and San Jose Food Blog Readers – Rabbit’s Foot Meadery in Sunnyvale, CA.
  • Mead made locally in Maine for Kellies Belly Readers, Kellie suggests Honeymaker Mead, especially their lavender mead and blueberry mead.

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Princess Cake from Gayle’s Bakery in Santa Cruz

Saturday, June 4th, 2011

I’ve been meaning to write about the Princess Cake at Gayle’s in Capitola, down in Santa Cruz, for as long as we’ve had our Santa Cruz food blog.  This year, my family surprised me with the Princess Cake on my birthday and so I finally got a photograph of it with my new lens at 11:30pm at night before we dove into it.
  • Gayle’s Bakery in Santa Cruz is pretty large,and when I say large, I mean 10,000 square feet of Bakery, Rosticceria, and Italian Deli.  So when you get there, line up and take a number while you decide what to eat-in (fairly large patio with seating area to eat lunch) or take-home.  The Princess cake is my absolute favorite birthday cake.  I know I’m not alone on this one because after attending baby showers and birthday parties in Santa Cruz, I found out that Gayle’s Princess Cake is many other folks favorite cake in Santa Cruz as well.  I am typically a chocolate lover, but this cake … it is truly scrumptious with a vanilla and almond paste kind of flavor with raspberry and cream inside and an unbelievable texture.
  • Gayle’s Princess Cake Three layers of vanilla genoise cake ~ layers of pastry cream, raspberry jam & whipped cream inside ~ pastel marzipan shell outside ~ sprinkled with powdered sugar ~ topped with a fresh rose.
The history of the Princess Cake is that it is a traditional Swedish Cake created in the 1930’s (or as they say in Sweden, Prinsesstårta OR Prinsess Tårta).  In Sweden they serve this cake for celebrations such as birthdays and graduations, just not on Christmas. You can buy it frozen as well and the brand below is suggested (check out Ikea to see if they have it in your area).
I’ve read that Schuberts Bakery in San Francisco also makes a good Swedish Princess cake if you aren’t close to Santa Cruz, CA.

Posted in Santa Cruz, Store Bought | 5 Comments »
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Copious Winery & Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Events

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Copious Winery in Santa Cruz is a fun-loving tasting room near the Swift Street Wine Tasting complex in Santa Cruz (Swift Street: Bonny Doon Vineyard, Odanata Cellars, Trout Gulch Vineyard and Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard).  We became a member of Copious after a day of tasting at a variety of spots because we have to admit, we really liked the winemaker Lance Campbell.  He was very down to earth and unpretentious, and that is refreshing in the wine world.  Tasting after tasting, one’s taste buds can give out so we knew the wine was good but we had no idea just how good by that time.  Then we got our bottles home (hadn’t opened the bottles yet) and got news that Copious had won some major awards this year for their wine.  They not only won the Best in Class at the 2010 State Fair with their 2009 Sauvignon Blanc, Monterey ($18) but they also won the Best in Class from the 2011 San Francisco Chronicle with their 2009 Pinot Noir, California ($32).  BUT the Pinot Noir that we just loved was the 2009 Pinot Noir – Sonoma ($35) which won a Gold Medal in the 2011 San Francisco Chronicle.  When you become a member you can use their hot tub on the premises too.

Copious Winery: 427 Swift Street Santa Cruz, CA 95060 – Friday 12-5 pm – Saturday -Sunday 12- 6 pm

To Find Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Events:

Upcoming Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Events:

  • April 30th -- This Saturday – Los Gatos Spring Wine Walk: from Downtown to Old Town 2pm-6pm, $35-45 - Sip, savor and shop your way through Los Gatos. Local wineries from the Santa Cruz Mountains and Santa Clara Valley will pour wine for your tasting pleasure at various shops and locations throughout downtown.Start in the downtown locations, open from 2-5:00; and finish your Wine Walk in the Old Town amphitheater, open from 3-6:00, where you will find more wineries, food samples, live music, models showing fashions from local shops; a raffle; and complimentary bottled water.
  • May 1 — “Dare to Pair” Wine & Food Challenge: Surf City Vintners & Cabrillo - Santa Cruz
    Wine & Food Education: Cabrillo Community College’s culinary students are teaming up with the Surf City Vintners group of Santa Cruz wineries for the second annual ‘Dare to Pair’ food and wine challenge. Try a wine and small plate appetizer at each of the 12 wineries and judge for yourself. Surf City Vintners Tasting Rooms, 402 Ingalls Street, Santa Cruz CA
    Fee: Call for information Time: Call for information Phone Number: (831) 479.5012
  • May 15 — Santa Cruz Mountains Wine Express -  $55-$65 – Join the winemakers of the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association on Sunday May 15th, from 1pm to 5pm for a unique event pairing wine (over 70), food, music, and a trip on the Santa Cruz Mountains Wine Express at Roaring Camp Railroads.

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