Christina Waters

Erin V. Sotak: Squeeze - A cunning and curious installation dealing with pomegranates — lots of them — fills the Sesnon Gallery up at Porter College, now through March 17, 2007. Open Tues - Sat, noon to 5pm, the Sesnon continues to offer sensory-cerebral treats for those who like their artworks more edgy than not. Sotak’s work explores loss, decay and the passage of time in ways that often border on the playful and delicious. Not for those who like it tame. Sesnon Gallery - the link gives ample info to help you get on up to the UCSC campus and dive into this juicy installation.

Quickies: Sitar, at 1133 Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz, is flashy and it’s open. Malabar ditto, fresh and sparkling in its new Front Street location. I’ll let you know what I think in a week or two. . . Hula’s is still a good place for high-performance theme visuals and well-made mai tais. But after two more forgettable Hula’s appetizers, Katya and I went to Soif for an amazing dish of duck leg braised in red wine with collard greens and prunes. The duck cost the same as two appetizers at Hula’s, but the difference in the experience was, well, stunning. And since it was Tuesday at Soif we got to listen to some choice blues from the piano of Art Alm. .

Readers want to know: Who has the recipe for the original minestrone served at the old Santa Cruz Hotel? and where can I find a genuine pastrami sandwich in Santa Cruz county?

Nice to see jewelry czarina Kate Nolan back in the Many Hands store on Locust. Great for downtown, bad for my checkbook. I cannot resist Nolan’s ancient Roman-style earring designs. . . Don’t miss the atmospheric black & white photography by Katie Cater (who moonlights behind the wine bar at Avanti), now showing at Riva, on the Santa Cruz Wharf. . . and save the February 28, 4-6pm date to join radical filmies up at UCSC’s Bay Tree Building for a screening and talk by Saul Landau. With yet another incendiary political tome, “A Bush and Botox World,” and new film on the cultural impact of globalization, called “We Don’t Play Golf Here,” Landau is the busiest act in polit-biz. Reception afterwards. I’ll see you there!

Looks like there is life after India Joze after all. The spacious Center Street Grill makes a terrific design statement. Already attracting a lunch and dinner following, this spot packs even bigger visual punch at night — when the glowing ochre and terra cotta walls provide a bold hit of sophistication. Huge abstract paintings, creatively-placed track spotlighting, and acres of well-tended plants make it one of the nicest interiors in downtown Santa Cruz. And let me praise the care taken by the management not to cultivate a generic look. Plenty of small touches make Center Street Grill seductive. Good-looking polished wood furniture, table lamps, velvet curtains framing doorways, even intelligently-placed mirrors and custom grillework all work to maintain a sense of dining identity and intimacy — no small feat in this over-sized restaurant. Right, Christina. But how is the food? Read on. (more…)

Time for a little grousing about rude restaurant behavior — from the management’s point of view. Ted Burke has been running a mighty successful establishment — Shadowbrook Restaurant — for decades. He’s seen it all in the rude patron department. But here’s what’s got him seeing red a week before Valentine’s Day. “Too many people interested in dining on St. Valentine’s Day,” Burke said in his recent email, “will make several reservations around town — this happens on New Year’s too — and decide at the last minute which one they want to keep …and then not bother to cancel any of the others.” (more…)

Immodest Proposals: Where to go for romantic V-Day dining? Here’s my answer. Gabriella Cafe chef Rebecca King and her sous-chef, Ben Howard (both veterans of Chez Panisse) offer lovers a four-course Valentine’s odyssey, accompanied by two glasses of Italian bubbly, for $85 per person. And since Gabriella Café, 910 Cedar Street, is arguably the most romantic dining spot in Santa Cruz (as Theo’s is to Soquel), one must reach immediately for the phone to make February 14 reservations, at (831)457-1677. And speaking of Theo’s, Roger Romano tells me that reservations are rapidly filling up. V-day dinner — $75 per person, not including tax & tip. Just know that chef Nicci Tripp will make the experience a benchmark in romantic gastronomy. Feast on the Valentine’s menu at www.theosrestaurant.com/ and then pray there’s still a table! Theo’s, 3101 N. Main - Soquel: 831.462.3657. . . Since hyper-romantic (in that nostalgic way) Shadowbrook has probably long since stopped taking reservations for dinners, I can pass along a tip. Try grabbing a seat in the upstairs Rock Room Lounge, where Terry Riversong will be singing on Valentine’s eve. There’s a wood-burning oven, and a separate food menu, plus with the first come/first served, no res policy, this is a great option for those who couldn’t get a dining room reservation. Vibrant and definitely romantic atmosphere. The Shadowbrook, at 1750 Wharf Road, in Capitola: 831/ 475-1511.

Martha Mayer Erlebacher is a leading Philadelphia-based
babe in the arts.

I remember over-hearing my uncles trying to outdo each other with the rallying cry: “I’ve got a bottle of Hallcrest in the closet.” Uncle Harold always made points when he played the Hallcrest card. That was the first time I heard the name, which was the family code for classy red wine. Well, that was the old Hallcrest, the experimental gleam in the eye of Santa Cruz Mountains proto-winemaker Chaffee Hall, and the wine was fabled — a tradition continued under the steady eye of current winemaker, John Schumacher. A visit to the Hallcrest winery on Empire Grade (a few blocks up the hill from downtown Felton), is a step back into the old west, complete with horses in the meadows just below the redwood-framed vineyards.
The Hallcrest I’ve recently fallen in love with — and which makes edible poetry joined with rare lamb loin and a ripe Camembert for dessert — is the winery’s 2002 Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir. An exquisitely clear, ruby-hued wine, weighing in at 14.1% alcohol, from Ciardella Vineyard grapes grown on slopes facing Corralitos, it expands into a bouquet of plums and black cherries. The structure holds from the first sip to the last drop in the bottle. For well under $20 it is a liquid treasure. Go get some.

I’ve never met a museum cafe I didn’t like, and the Art Museum Cafe, run by Giuseppe Restaurants at La Jolla’s lustrous Museum of Contemporary Art, is no exception. Housed in a corner wing of the Robert Venturi-revamped, seaside mansion, the Cafe offers glamorous al fresco dining under the wisteria-draped pergola, or in the frescoed dining room. So completely Italian is this setting, watched over by the drop-dead handsome Giuseppe himself, (more…)

O’Mei entrepreneur, Roger Grigsby, shared this gem with me. He overhead a former waiter approach a table about a month ago and actually ask the patrons, “You guys hangin’ in there OK?.” A true indication of just how genericized ordinary language has become.

I am about to give up my crusade to ban “you guys” from public communications, especially since I attended a lecture last week at Cowell College and heard the distinguished guest speaker begin his remarks with, “How are you guys tonight?”

Even ruder was the family I observed dining at Avanti two weeks ago, who allowed their “darling” 3-year-old to scream, bang spoons, wriggle (more…)