Santa Cruz, California

Are you comfortable in a wonderfully diverse and progressive political environment that is, while way too white, at least accepting of most kinds of cultural expression (though not too tolerant of the redneck stuff)? A solidly blue-green county that marches to the beat of a different drummer?

Maybe you're just young and interested in a spectacularly wide variety of physical sports--in which case you'll be fine here, too. The outdoor lifestyle is endorsed, perhaps prevalent.

Are you interested in eating well, with year-round access to some of the best organic food produced in California, the country, and perhaps the world?

Quick Tips:

The Good Times (www.gdtimes.com) is the local entertainment weekly, filled with everything going on in the county.

Get the coupon book at www.entertainment.com (zip code 95060 for Santa Cruz/central coast) for two-for-one offers on restaurants and a zillion other discounts on entertainment, car rentals, hotels, shopping, and more. It’s worth the or so!

See the Culinary Alliance of Santa Cruz County (www.culinarysantacruz.com) for a listing of food professionals (restaurants, farmers, food artisans, wineries) committed to bringing the best of the area to its visitors. Think of SC as a culinary destination like Napa or Sonoma.

Best Way To Get Around:

Biking, walking, and scooters are everywhere. Taxis are scarce.

Santa Cruz Metro = the bus line
Info here: http://www.scmtd.com/

Parking is usually really easy to find, except near the beaches on sunny days.

Oswald is one of a handful of restaurants where I send visitors seeking the best that Santa Cruz has to offer. Menus are seasonal, organic, and prepared with an attention to detail that brings out the essence of the ingredients beautifully. I have long proclaimed that I would eat a dish towel if chefs Damani Thomas or Eric Lau prepared it.

Dishes often incorporate unusual ingredients (Meyer lemon, squid ink, etc.) that dazzle. The chefs know the local farmers and know how to present seasonal items in fresh and imaginative ways.

It's a lovely little bistro, intimate without being claustrophobic. The wine list is succinct and appropriate. Entrées run in the $20-and-up range, though not always so high. There are always pleasing vegetarian options as well.

If you want a romantic dinner with simply perfect food, good service, and ambience, you cannot go wrong with Oswald. It's the essence of what California cuisine is about, with an emphasis on fresh, local, seasonal food. Good folks doing great work.

I love it here, and I wish they had a website.

A rainy Sunday and lethargy made us head down to Watsonville for lunch—I'd been hearing of this place for years. It was one of the best Mexican meals I've ever had—strike that—it was the best, and I include the many meals I had when visiting Mexico City, Guadalajara, Taxco, and other regions.

Owners Jorge and Araceli Rivas are from Guadalajara. I learned that the food comes from "Antique Mexican Corn Culture Recipes;" the menu offers recipes from all over Mexico. Jorge came to our table to handhold us: having never been there, it was daunting to look at both sides of the 11-inch by 17-inch menu. He was both knowledgeable and courtly.

He made a handful of recommendations, most from the hard-to-find dishes, with one exception: white enchiladas, rendered unique by the presence of squash blossoms. His other recommendations: • Rose Petal: with cactus fruit, almonds, and rose petals, a recipe from Oaxaca with shrimp or chicken
• Chiludo: Durango style with a combo of shellfish/meats or Guajillo style, which is light, spicy, and highly recommended
• Chiles Nogada: a plate created by Puebla nuns made of poblano peppers filled with ground turkey and seasoned with almonds, pecans, fine herbs, and dried fruits and topped with a walnut sauce
• Achiote: shrimps grilled with onions and pineapple in a mirror of achiote sauce, Yucatan style
Jorge then recommended something off the menu: homemade tamales with poblanos instead of corn husks. I ordered them (at $12.50, one of the most expensive items): "Three tamales wrapped in grilled poblano peppers, filled with Huitlachoche (Mexican black mushrooms), picadillo, and shrimp, mirrored in three different sauces, the Pipians (white, red, greens—these have in common pumpkin seeds but in each change the herbs and peppers)."

Bob ordered Chiles Nogada ($12.50); he was delighted to receive an additional crepe covered with rose petal sauce. Adorning the main course and the crepe were dried cranberries. As Señor Rivas explained, pomegranates are traditional but were not in season.

Our beers came in a galvanized tin bucket with ice. Bob's food arrived first—the tamales take longer, but we were sharing, so it was no biggie. There was probably a 10-minute or longer time span between the arrival of our plates.

The place is small, seating about 50. The walls are filled with Mexican folk art that constitutes a big part of the "fiesta" in their name. Attractive blue-and-white platters are about 16 inches across; they're laden with your entrée, rice, beans, guacamole, salad, and appropriate sauces. This food was out of this world. I've had enough food in Mexico to know that it was prepared with care and knowledge. Too bad you can't smell the aromas.

Short story: this was stellar. I can't wait to take visitors here.

Fiesta Tapa-Sahuayo is on the corner of Riverside (Highway 129) and Main (despite its address on First, it's on the corner of Main and 129!). Plates run from $3 for a regular burrito to $7 to $8 for three-item plates; special plates are $12.50.

A line around the block, even in the rain? Yep. That's the Silver Spur, which is arguably one of the best breakfast spots in town. All the locals know it, and the tourists seem to have found out, too. Your wait is comfy, though: hot coffee is in an urn outside, and you can help yourself to a bottomless cup. Serving breakfast and lunch six days a week (closed on Sundays), the Silver Spur diner is as comfortable as a pair of old shoes. Booths and tables with captains chairs are packed with young, old, and everyone in between (surfers, yupsters, and lovers who've obviously dragged themselves out of bed). Although new owners bought the place in 1998, the restaurant still uses the original pancake recipe from 1963. Forty years of happy diners is saying something.

Don't be fooled; while the menu may read "traditional," it's anything but generic. Biscuits and many baked goods are made in-house. And while the cowboy theme may appear on coffee cups and menus, don't expect burned toast and bitter coffee. The care that goes into each dish is palpable. Home fries are made with rosemary, and the hollandaise fairly sings with fresh-squeezed lemon juice. Omelets, scrambles (available with organic tofu), huevos rancheros, pancakes, French toast, and all the typical sides (oatmeal, granola, gravy, bananas, and more) fill out the breakfast half of the menu. On the other side, you'll find lunch items that are standard, but which also include BBQ, teriyaki, quesadillas, and house specials.

On the morning we were there, the specials included Eggs Benedict, chorizo scramble, fresh swordfish or salmon with scrambled eggs, orange poppyseed pancakes, corned beef hash and eggs, skirt steak and eggs, and chicken-fried steak and eggs. Besides coffee or tea, you can get chai, soda, Odwalla juices, Martinelli apple juice, or even a milkshake made with Marianne's (local legend) ice cream. The kids menu is ample, and all soups and desserts are homemade.

Every time we go (it's just a couple of blocks from our house), it's always been worth the wait. Good folks doing good business, the right way: consistently, cheerfully, and with attention to flavors, freshness, and value. NOTE: Photos coming soon! Silver Spur web site.

Testify, sistah! Paninis. That's their forte.

We tried the applewood smoked ham with cheddar (his) and turkey with brie and pesto (mine). They are just perfect in density, gooeyness, interesting flavors, and crisp factor. The salads were probably bagged greens, but with homemade vinaigrette and other pleasant elements (like red bell peppers)... nothing fancy but perfectly wonderful. Very satisfying for about $8-$9 a plate.

He had Pelligrino and I had a glass of Husch Sauvignon Blanc ($7.50 for a not-chintzy pour).

It was so good that I went back tonight with my family. We had the ham and turkey sandwiches, and upgraded to Caesar salads (homemade dressing, huge curls of shaved Parmesan on top) for an extra $4/person. Those came with panini-pressed slices of baguette, brushed with garlic and oil, and they were good, too.

We tried a new wine, Bargetto Lodi Tempranillo, a mere $22 a bottle: what a deal. Very, very tasty red wine (jammy, solid, fragrant, smooth!), and we came home with half the bottle. We also came home with half of our sandwiches, because we were all stuffed. About half of the salads are here, as well.

The cost for three of us with an entire meal left over (possibly two - with Caesar salads!)? $65 before tip.

For three people.

For dinner.

In a nice room with lovely jazz vocals and ambience, and the truly gracious hospitality of Billy, who is from South Carolina (he's got an accent so thick you could spread it on bread, and being a native Southerner myself, I asked for a biscuit), and his partner, the chef, Farouk. These are very talented, very caring young men who have created a little bubble of their own: you step out of Santa Cruz into their world.

A couple other notes:

1) It's next to the parking garage, and parking is about a dollar for a meal. There is also metered parking in the streets. Good luck on Wednesday, though: hello, farmers market (where Cafe Limelight buys the peanuts for their organic, housemade peanut butter). No, I am not making that up.

2) They do a High Tea every now and again, and have an assortment of teapots that have been donated by little old ladies and other artsy sorts who love what they're doing at CL. Your only chance of finding out about those is being a regular who gets the insert with the bill in the binder. Personally, I like that touch, as opposed to being one of the people who cut to the front of the line with the Bat Phone at the French Laundry... but I may slip them a dollar (heh) to clue me in for the next one. Apparently they fill up a month in advance.

The repeat clientele, Billy says, is 90%: I have no reason to doubt this. He also says, "We touch all your food with love. And you absorb all that positive energy." And I have even less reason to doubt that.

LOVELY.