Santa Cruz Restaurants

I couldn't get into this restaurant on an October night we happened to stop by. The waiting list was long, and I had a bit of a cold, so wine tasting before dinner didn't seem wise at the time. Nevertheless, I had heard great things about this restaurant, and indeed the wine shop itself is quite a place. The wine choices are not simply domestic, although California is well represented, but European, Australian, and South American wines are there in great abundance. While waiting for food, one can taste, but I noticed that the price of the "wine flight" is a little steep--$3-$5. So that's the catch, the restaurant puts you on the waiting list, hoping that you will hang around and buy up some bottles or at least taste several wines. The only thing that I didn't like was the rather snobbish attitude of the waiters as people waited outside in the cold for up to an hour for a table. As I said, we couldn't do that so we walked down to Costa Brava for good friendly service but without the quality in food. Then, this summer, we stopped there at about 5:30, and found plenty of empty tables. The menu came to use in three pages--wine list, wine shop specials list, and food menu. The menu is divided into "small plates", "appetizers", and "entrees". All menu items are matched with a recommended wine from the shop, but if one wants to buy a wine from the shop and bring it to the restaurant, there's a $10- corkage fee. I found it difficult to distinguish the purpose between the "small plates" and "appetizers", and waitress wasn't much help with either the menu or the wines, but apparently this is sort of like Spanish Tapas and American appetizers. Both are indeed quite small in terms of quantity of food, and unfortunately, the "entrees" are also small, so I left the restaurant both confused and hungry.

I've read that the mole made with authentic chocolate is heavenly, but I'm certain that this creative restaurant changes its menu constantly. This place obviously specializes in pairing wine and food, so if you aren't a wine lover, I wouldn't bother going here. The food is extraordinary in quality to be sure, but portions are tiny. My wife's $10- appetizer of smelt was three tiny smelt, each on it's own cracker. A friend's order of merinated mahi, which was something like cheviche, was about 8 pieces of thinnly sliced meat, each about the size of a nickel. My entree of duck was about 10 thin slices of meat, each about the size of a quarter--that was a $19- plate. The food was artistically prepared and well presented on the plate, but the portions were something of a joke on the patron. It would have helped to have a waitress more familiar with the menu, able to suggest a way to get a full meal, and familiar with the basics of wine appreciation. Telling the customer that "that wine is really nice and spicy" isn't enough.

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