Christina Waters

“Chinese-Japanese Cuisine” says the sign on the old China Station building at Fair & mission, which is currently being revamped for a future opening.

Huh? The Westside is prime restaurant territory, where roving foodies (not to mention ravenous students) eagerly await the next dining possibility. Why would anyone offer the curious culinary cross-colonization of Chinese cookery and Japanese cuisine? (Do they give Oscars for alliteration?) After much emailing with the chef/owner of the O’mei, I want to clarify that I would welcome a menu reflecting an authentic, historically-based dialogue between Chinese and Japanese culinary cultures. What I fear is a convenient cross-breeding that ends up being neither Chinese, nor Japanese.

We’re being asked to believe that a single restaurant can convincingly create dishes from two heavyweight culinary cultures? Or that if you can, say whip up a kung pao something, then you can obviously also make robata, or yakitori, or sushi?….What this means to me — and I’ll eat my words if I’m wrong — is that we’re looking at the imminent opening of yet another pan-Asian fusion everything that remotely involves soy sauce eatery.

How about a Bagels & Pho bistro? Or Norwegian Barbeque?

Ben Sims at Avanti made my new favorite summer salad last week.

Fresh local albacore confit, shredded into unctuous morsels and then arranged with organic green beans, heirloom baby tomatoes and a garlicky, fresh aioli garnish.

Consumed with something in the key of Rioja.

Yes.

At this week’s SCMWA professional wine judging, Lionel Le Morvan of Ma Maison Restaurant laid out a spread that was truly choice. Giant shrimps from French New Caledonia, coucous with succulent chicken and fiery harissa, housemade lamb sausages (tdf!), gorgeous desserts including the house signature bread pudding and beautiful little custards with fresh strawberries - and this was after crostini slathered (one of the appetizer tables is shown at right) with salmon and dill, plus enough of the house paté to pave Provence itself.

But here’s the best part, M. Le Movan confided to me that he would be repeating his cold weather triumph of last year — yes, cassoulet. It will make a guest appearance on the Ma Maison menu sometime in February 2009. We’re talking authentic cassoulet, three days in the making, cutting no corners, making no concessions.

I will begin camping out in the parking lot of Ma Maison sometime near the end of January. Cassoulet made by a French chef is the stuff of dreams.

My new favorite light dinner - three fat, perfectly cooked scallops sitting on a bed of crunchy, roasted cauliflower. The sauce? A dazzling sweet-&-salty puree of raisins and capers. For $13, it’s an affordable luxury. Add a Gruner Veltliner and find yourself smiling despite the economy.

Soif - 105 Walnut in Santa Cruz.

Moss doesn’t grow on Lou Caviglia, who lies awake at night dreaming up ever more tantalizing deals-of-the-century. My friend Susan adores the Martini Dinner specials at Clouds, and she showed me why last week when four of us lived large for very little $$$ at the downtown Santa Cruz watering hole.

Here’s the deal: Clouds offers a long list of specialty martinis, to which you add your choice of light dinner entree. The result? A stiff drink, a delicious dinner and a price tag you can live with. Here’s an example. I don’t like martinis adulterated with fruit, flavorings or sauces. I like mine straight up and pure, i.e. cold gin in a glass.

So I ordered a Tanqueray martini with a dinner order of California roll sushi (see above). The price? $10.95. That’s what you might expect to pay for a martini alone. Are you liking this? I thought so. On the other end of the martini/dinner scale, Susan’s latest boyfriend Rich ordered his drink with a New York steak. Pricetag? $18.95. That’s for a drink and a steak. I don’t know, it sells itself. More…

Since the “peace candidate” has announced that we should be sending more troops to Afghanistan, I figure it’s time to party like there’s no tomorrow.

And to help, here’s a new organic, luxurious butter from the nice folks of Clover. Ultra-creamy European-style, seasoned with sea salt, and on your morning multi-grain toast, it’s fabulous. Weighing in at 8oz and just under $5, it’s shameless indulgence of the sort that our forebears rubbed all over themselves during the plague years. From where I sit, now would be a good time to do likewise. At Shoppers & New Leaf.

Yes, I know. Many of you ran out to Shoppers to find this extraordinary frozen sin and it was all gone. Here’s why. My original source, gourmet realtor Dee Vogel, confessed. She kept buying tub after tub of this Ciao Bella gelato, and has by her own admission taken on ballast from eating so much of it.

However - here’s the good news. Ciao Bella Fresh Mint gelato is currently available at Deluxe. If you need to keep up with the very best in high-calorie creamy desserts, then you know what to do. Frankly, it’s an amazing combination of flavors — intensely creamy vanilla gelato, nuggets of dark chocolate, perfume of fresh mint. Mmmmmm.

By now you’ve already finished up your romance with English peas and have moved on to peaches and chiogga beets. We’ve been enjoying the strawberries and tender baby greens — both wild and cultivated — offered by the Farm Cart at UCSC.

Tuesdays and Fridays, the fresh harvest is loaded this time of year with all manner of onions and garlic, leafy greens, blueberries and plums, herbs and beautiful old-fashioned bouquets. Everything is organic, sold by the young growers of the Agroecology apprentice program and utterly delicious. Even if you think you only need spinach for dinner, the seasonal produce might surprise you. Stretch your palate - try some intriguing item you’ve never had before. Tuesday and Fridays, at the corner of High and Empire Grade, noon - 6pm.

Thanks to gourmet realtor Dee Vogel — a woman tireless in her quest for a better mouthfull — I discovered a wicked new way to give my mouth a treat. And thanks to those merciless Ciao Bella gelatistas, I now know about Fresh Mint. Forget about that goopey, green, fake mint-flavored stuff that always tastes like junior high. This is tight-textured vanilla gelato, laced with slabs of dark chocolate and the top-note of fresh mint. It tastes like the middle of summer, only colder.

Dee told me I had to try it. I always do what Dee says, so I ran out to Shoppers and got some. What can I say? She was right. The most fun you can have for under five bucks.

A small plate of cheese.

And figs, and quince paste.

And especially rose jelly.

Jelly that tastes and smells like roses in some English garden.

This was ‘dessert’ at Soif last week, where I toasted the passing of a long-lost friend.