And here are two more possibilities among the many ways (see post below re: Storrs) to celebrate our Gallic cousins in their annual Fête Nationale.
Consider joining French wine legend Martine Saunier at a pouring of old world beauties, including vacqueyras, pouilly-fuisse, and blanc de blancs, chez Soif of course, where $20 can still purchase a seat at a palate-pushing tasting.
Soif’s chefs offer a special Bastille Day menu as well, which includes tartine of lamb, flageolet bean purée and chèvre crostini, gnocchi a la Niçoise, a variation on bourride, and any number of Francoholic appetizers. The wine tasting happens on Saturday July 14, from 2-4. Reservations and details here!
Or, join Michel and Muriel Loubiere at their intimate Aptos restuarant, Au Midi, for a very special menu to be served one day after Bastille Day, on July 15.
Au Midi’s charming announcement says it all:
On Sunday, July the 15th with an extra day to prepare the party,
please be French for one night.
From 5 PM to 9 PM
Appetite and Attitude a must.
Mild French cursing accepted but no smoking…
No need to argue, except among friends. C’est magnifique!
And the menu includes a carpaccio of heirloom tomatoes, a classic beuf bourgignon with soft polenta and dessert or organic strawberry mousse with fresh berries and rhubarb coulis. Reservations only at a special price of $32.50. That price alone is reason to celebrate.
Au Midi Restaurant – 7960 Soquel Drive in Aptos. 831.685.2600.
You would never know it from your blog that there are other restaurants in santa Cruz County besides Soif, La Posta , Cigare Volant , and Au Midi
Bob, you wild man, here’s the truth.
The reason why I spend some time writing about these particular places is that I don’t have the kind of disposible income (who does?) that would let me forage on a purely experimental basis.
I go where I know the food will reward the money I’m spending.
O’mei is my go-to place on the Westside, for example, when I have guests I want to actually have a conversation with – AND enjoy brilliant, flavorful dinners.
La Posta seems always fresh, always satisfying. Nothing tricky and worth the tab at the end of the meal.
Au Midi happens to feature the work of a genuine French chef, who knows her way around fresh ingredients. So it’s a treat to stop by and remind myself why French cooking still sets standards.
Soif needs no justification. The wine list alone rocks my world —where else can you sample varietals from Croatia, the Canary Islands, the Golan Heights for crying out loud? The food usually keeps right up with the wines.
Le Cigare Volant now has in place a chef worth getting out of bed for, as it were. It offers exciting foods of the season & region. And that, Bob, is why I go out to dine.
If I have had a negative experience at a restaurant — and I don’t have the luxury of unlimited $$$— then I probably don’t go back for a while.
And – conversely – if I’ve enjoyed a meal, an experience, ambience, wines, etc. at a given dining room, I WILL go back when I crave a dinner out.
Whew!
I needed that. Thanks for pushing my buttons. Again.
Christina
Christina, thanks for keeping up “the faith” in O’mei.
Like many other places, we are seriously impacted by those “thin wallets”, like the one in your possession. You are not alone. I myself confess that I just don’t “go out to eat” at places like Au Midi, and the more Westside places like the Flying Cigar bistro, and Paul’s Avanti. I have two excuses: my lady has a hard time eating anything not Chinese (Cultural Bias, or merely a biased digestive tract?), and, unlike most people, since O’mei is my place, I can get a “free” dinner there anytime I want!
Free dinner at O’mei anytime I want ??? Well, yes, I don’t have Jie Mei bill me, but I’m not eating there as much as I used to. Why not? I’m on a diet, a “Paleo Diet” as they call it. Well, I must say, it’s WORKING! I mostly cook at home, but in the process realized that what we do at O’mei, with a few minor twists, can fit VERY NICELY into just what Paleos (Yeah, I’m that too …) want in a meal.
We have not developed an actual menu listing these possibilities yet, but it’s already a “mental outline” … in there among a gazillion others … some of which you understand, but not as much as you THINK you understand them. (grin).
I have a suggestion: why not you and I get together and chat about this? Maybe we could sweat out some “details” that would also work in many other places; not just at O’mei. People’s dining habits are changing, due to a variety of reasons. Money is a biggie. Health is another. In my particular case, “old age” is also telling me that I can’t live on what I used to live on. At least, I can’t do that and feel as good as I want to feel.
I’m probably not alone in this!
As for Bob, I concur that his question pushed some “good buttons”. I think a lot more need to be pushed … in expectation that this blog, this “foodie space”, can rise to another level, a level beyond “What Christina Likes”, and an expanded version of a newspaper review.
I think YOU, a “food critic” (self-annointed, or not), have a much larger responsibility to the culinary culture than as a human advertising marquis for “what you like”. How about enjoining some of the culinary culture that you DON’T either like, or are not drawn to, in an ongoing conversation of “constructive criticism”. Of course, that might mean doing something like a behind the scenes discussion with cooks (you know I’ll almost NEVER use the word “chef” in public. More grins) and restaurant owners … in a “problem-solving” mode. Let them be the “drivers”. You know how dangerous a cook can be if a “mere scribbler” attempts to drive them …. (many more grins!)
As you well know, I can write enough to totally DEVOUR your blog, and everything in it. So I’ll stop now, before that happens. :)
PS: Christina, over the years you’ve reviewed O’mei, and often discussed certain flavors. I’ve always wondered how you tasted the “citrus floral essence” in the dishes we cook which use Sichuan Peppercorn! The reason I’ve “always wondered” is that, until quite recently, we’ve only had access to the RED peppercorns, the mature ones which are dried. While these do have a whiff or two of such aromas, my experience was that those got lost in the overall dish. Maybe my “smeller” just isn’t as good as yours?
But NOW, things are different! (Do I hear a rejoice?)
We’ve struggled (yes struggled) for years (actually decades) to source the real essence you describe. And now that we’ve sourced it, we’ve pretty much cleaned out all the bay area sources. Selfish bastards we is! But all for our flavor-lovin’ guests, of course. So what’s the secret?
GREEN Sichuan Peppercorns. Don’t try to find them in any store in the Bay Area: They’re all in O’mei storage, at least until our secret source orders more for us.
These puppies literally REEK of that orange-blossom perfume you once described, but not at all like say, orange-blossom water, which is way more Moroccan than Chinese. And the “Ma” (numb) flavor is even different than the red Sichuan corns.
We haven’t made any splash about this, but it’s integrated into many dishes, especially those with Ma-La Flavors. Our “new” upcoming menu will talk a bit more about this, and highlight the dishes with this. It’s sort of subtle if you don’t make a habit of Peppercorn Whiffing, but once you sense the difference, you’ll realize something very old in Sichuan has arrived in Santa Cruz.
Am I engaging in a shameless plug for O’mei cooking? Yeah, why not. This stuff excites me more than the latest ballgame scores or whatever is supposed to happen in London at the end of this month. Flavor Uber Alles, my friend.
Christina, you made it very clear in your response to Bob that financial restraints affects your ability to experiment with unfamiliar restaurants and your not alone, even in good times I hate to waste money on a mediocre meal often poorly served and so, like you, I return to those restaurants that satisfy, both to enjoy and to support their efforts. I’m certain that the reason your blog continues to exist is that for the most part your readers identify with your likes and taste (pun intended) and look forward to reading What Christina Likes. In fact Roger chooses not only to completely ignore your explanation but come up with the ludicrous suggestion that you spend your valuable funds purposly eating food that you don’t like purely for constuctive critism. How can there be constuctive critism of something you dislike eating and to what end? Furthermore I cannot remember you ever describing yourself as a food critic, he chooses that label, I think of you more as a critic at large and that’s fine. In addition he also suggests newspaper length reviews of these forays, you write a blog! Most restauranteurs I know, the successful ones, make a practise of eating at other establishments both to keep abreast of current trends and to help them recognise areas that could be improved on in their own establishments, they also have the good sense to post their menu’s on their website. Perhaps both these enhance their ability to afford those meals in the longer run.
Okay Roger your on a diet like many of us and you’re looking for possibilities to enhance your menu or at least attract more thinner wallets, how about offering the option of a smaller portion? I have to admit to being very negatively affected early in your first post when you used the words my lady in referring to the woman in your life. Besides it sounding sexist, it comes across as extremley pompous as does your habit of capitalising certain words and using italics improperly in an effort to highlight them. Unfortunatley, in my opinion, that pomposity continued throughout your correspondence.
Christina, please ignore Roger, keep doing what you do. You know I don’t agree with all you write but it’s always well presented, entertaining and worth reading.
PS.
You don’t like her blog? you don’t have to read it, write your own.
LDR, just noticed your comment. I haven’t pored over it yet, but will, and will respond. At first glance, I see two things to address:
1. Smaller portions for less $$, and possibly a way of catering to “changing tastes” (and diets).
2. “You don’t like her blog?” etc. Who the hell said I didn’t like her blog. Can you not discern constructive critical thinking from “not liking”? As for writing my own blog: that is in the works, on the new O’mei website. We will not be a “commenting” type of blog, because I just don’t have the time to sort out the confusion caused by minds which confuse offering critical thinking with “not liking”, and subsequent dismissal of said comments. Life is too short for that crap.
Be back in a few with some thoughts on #1 ….
“Roger chooses not only to completely ignore your explanation but come up with the ludicrous suggestion that you spend your valuable funds purposly eating food that you don’t like purely for constuctive critism.”
LDR, where did I say that? Exactly: NOWHERE. It’s all in your interpretation, not in my words.
What I was hinting at is something Christina and I will discuss, should she choose to talk about it. It has nothing to do with her spending money on “something she doesn’t like”. In fact, she may be able to squeeze a few $$ free meals out of it!
After all, what is a culture critic for, if not to offer thoughts that help IMPROVE the area of culture they focus on. I (personally) think Christina is “up to this”, to doing this sort of thing, should she so choose. This cannot be done in a newspaper review, or even here, at least as a first step.
What a spicy delicious conversation this has been. Food, culture, grammar, economics. I wish you all were my dinner companions — what a great discussion we would enjoy. Thanks for your posts – most enjoyable reading.
Did Roger just DEVOUR Christina’s Blog?
Oooops, the Grammar Police will probably come out with sirens BLARING because there was a shift to 3rd person narration!
Ooo, this has been interesting to “watch.” So many things to comment on, and I can be as long-winded (um, busy-fingered?) as Roger, so I will try to restrain myself with bullets:
–Sorry we missed the post-Bastille-Day festivities. Though $32.50 x3 might curtail further celebrating for some time.
–Everyone should try to eat what they like and what makes their body feel good, as often as they can. And also try some things that are new, just to see if they might become favorites. Seems to me Christina has been doing that all along.
–Roger, your first and second comments made me smile. It sounds as if you and Christina have known each other a long time.
–Switching to third person is okay if you start a new comment,
–But the Grammar Police do come out when “you are” is abbreviated as “your.”
–GREEN Sichuan peppercorns! We are so there! Is this the kind that has the “ma” effect on the way out as well as in? I so remember that from a few places in China. Like nothing else! When’s the new menu coming out?