The Food In Santa Cruz

I told you I would be writing more about my trip to California. But what I really meant was that I will be writing about the food I ate on my trip! This is me after all. I don't have pictures of everything, which is probably good, because do you really want to see pictures of my creme brulee latte with a rainbow sprinkle doughnut?

My parents picked me up at the airport with fries and a hamburger from In-N-Out, plus a Vanilla Shake. I haven't had In-N-Out in probably years, and even if it had gotten a little cold in the car, it was still amazing. Of course I don't have any pictures of my meal, because I ate it before I could think of it.

Nor do I have pictures of the amazing meal my grandmother made when we went to dinner at their house Thursday night. But we had chicken, potatoes, and an apple tart. Although my favorite was the salad (with nuts, squash, cheese, and maybe cranberries in it?).

Friday we started our drive from Long Beach to Santa Cruz. We stopped for lunch at The Hungry Cat in Santa Barbara (They have a second restaurant in Hollywood if you're curious). Since its pretty much impossible for me to find a good fish taco in Louisiana, I had to go for their fish tacos.
Fish Tacos at The Hungry CatThe tacos were pretty much amazing. The avocado was prefect, and there was just the perfect amount of cheese. But the best part was probably the home made tortillas.

After a million hours (fine, more like 7) we made it to Santa Cruz. We checked into our hotel and went to dinner, at a win bar called Soif. At least I think that was the name. No pictures of this meal, but we had a bunches of different small plates to share. My favorite was probably the asparagus soup.

Graduation was Saturday, and afterwards we all headed to lunch. We were planning on getting sushi, but the two sushi places we went to were closet for lunch. There was a Chinese place done the street, so we decided to go there an order family style.


1st Row: Sizzling Rice Soup, Fried Sweet Potatoes 2nd Row: Spicy Green Beans, Ginger Beef 3rd Row: Spring Rolls The Ginger Beef was probably my favorite, but clearly the spring rolls have the best picture. If anything came with a dipping sauce I tried to include it in the picture, and of the three we had, I liked the peanut sauce that came with the spring rolls. Overall, it was a nice lunch, but nothing incredibly amazing.

After lunch we had a Japanese tea ceremony with my brother's tea ceremony tea. Then went to his room to pack up all his still.

The went to out for my brother graduation dinner. We went to a restaurant called Oswalds. I think my mom described it to my brother, as farmer's market type food. I started off by ordering the cassoulet

1st Course at OswaldsI'm not sure if I've ever had a cassoulet before. But I remember seeing someone make on on the food network and thought to myself I HAVE to try that. In case you weren't sure, cassoulet is basically a white bean dish with pieces of pork that's left too cook forever. You can kind of tell in this one that it had a bread crumb crust. This wasn't the type of first course I'd normally go for, but I wanted to try it. Looking back, maybe I should have had the foie gras.

But the main reason I didn't have foie gras is because I had duck for my second course. I have done that before and ordered duck for my main dish and appetizer, but it always seems a little silly.

Main course at OswaldsI pretty much love duck, and will order it whenever I see it. The fun thing about this duck is it came with a blueberry sauce. This also came with a salad, which came with blueberry cornbread croutons!

And of course dessert!

Dessert of OswaldsCreme brulee. Probably my all time favorite food. Let's say I will decide I am too full for dessert, and if I will see a creme brulee on the menu, then I always have room for creme brulee.

And finally the last meal on the trip, breakfast on Sunday morning.

The Last BreakfastSorry, I can't remember the name of this place, but I had their huevos mexicanos. After all it was my last meal in California, and had to end it with the last good Mexican food I'll have in a while. The eggs were scrambled with avocado and tomatoes (I had them hold the cheese). And it came with black beans and tortillas. There was also a side of salsa, but that didn't make the picture. It was really good, but the tortilla didn't quite compare to the homemade ones from Hungry Cat a few days earlier. And that's my trip to California! Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'll be back out there for a while.

Now that I've made everybody hungry I'm off to make dinner! Although, I can guarantee you it won't quite compare to the food above.

~Shoshanah