My Favorite Restaurant Ever

On a recent trip to Santa Cruz I was seriously wowed, I mean, on the floor begging for more wowed, when I went out to dinner at Malabar Restaurant. My lil' sis' Maggie took me out for my birthday and she premised the meal with, "it's OK to get your hopes up for this one, it's THAT good."

Wow, which was also gushed frequently throughout the meal, is the least I can say about the food at Malabar. It's a combination of two Santa Cruz gems that recently closed (Asian Rose and Malabar Cafe) and reopened under one roof on Front Street as Malabar Restaurant. The cuisine is Sri Lanken, which I can't say I ever remember trying before but now I believe it to be like Indian food but the sauces are sweeter and less oily. In fact everything we ate was fresh and delicious, attributable to the beautiful ingredients the owners load up on at the Farmer's Market. The menu is entirely vegetarian with many vegan options also, there is no alcohol or dessert served, and the place seems to be absolutely packed every night.

The prices were very reasonable for a fancy, might I add, delicious and filling, dinner. Entrees were around $11, drinks were around $3 and there were many gorgeous sounding salads and appetizers that were all so hard to choose from.

We ordered drinks, partially to buy more time to read the menu a 2nd and 3rd time, but also because we couldn't resist. I love interesting flavor combos and the Rosemary Lime Margarita was calling to me. It was creamy and frothy and an immediate palate cleanser. The rosemary was a strong flavor but not overbearing, I loved it. One of the owners Raj then brought us a glass of the Persian Nights drink that I had planned on trying next time I'm here. What a treat! Now I don't think I'll be able to try anything else! It is a heavenly blend of banana, pomegranate, almond milk and rose water and somehow, that drink went straight to my pleasure center; serious wow.

Mags and I started with the Banana Blossom Salad, the special of the evening that 3 different servers told us about. It was jicama, asian pear, cucumber, banana blossoms, mint and chopped peanuts with a red wine vinegar dressing. It was to die for and came out served in a dramatic maroon banana flower.

We also shared some crispy-fried lentil cakes with a mild yellow curry dipping sauce and a scoop of coconut paste with fresh herbs. That also was to die for (notice this theme at Malabar).

Maggie ordered the Tempeh Goreng which was little crispy bites of tempeh and fresh veggies served on crisp fried noodles with peanut sauce. A decorative side of pickled red onions was served on the side.

I had to read over the menu 3 times before deciding but I came back to the dish that caught my eye the first time, the Mango Curry with plantains and veggies. It was perfectly sweet and fresh and a nice compliment to the salty Tempeh dish.

Our food all arrived artfully assembled on uniquely shaped dishes and platters, including the white rice in it's own little bamboo steam basket. The servings were all well-sized and the salad, small plate and 2 entrees were more than enough food for 2 people.

Malabar Restaurant was filled with lit candles that gave the whole place a warm inviting glow. Each table had it's own tea light on a dish with fresh flowers. It was busy as soon as 6:30 rolled around and while the service was quick and very attentive earlier when we were one of 4 tables, as soon as the 57 capacity was reached we were forgotten about. Now, in Europe this is how dinning out works, you don't get your bill until you ask for it. I hate it when a server leaves the bill on the table while I'm still eating and says"no hurry." Of course I feel hurried. So, honestly I didn't mind that the servers left us alone once we got our food, I just wanted to sit and savour all those wonderful flavors for hours.

This was a wonderful meal and I rate this resaturant A++ for ambiance, flavors and service. Currently I live 9 hours by car, 18+ hours by train, 2 months by foot, or $400 by plane from Malabar Restaurant and I have seriously considered all of those options for next weekend just to dine there again.

Shotguns and Shellfish

Aaaahhh yes...Spring is here in Central Oregon and with it has blossomed a new voracious appetite for creativity. Hence my return to blogging after a 3 month hiatus.
My wonderful parents drove up to Bend for a little visit (which definitely corresponded with the warming trend) and with their arrival so also came our feasting with abandonment.

You see, for the past 5 months John and I have been living on day-old pastries, bread and dumpster soup from the bakery where we work. We venture to the grocery store once in a while for a little fresh produce and other items that sparsely supplement our bread diet. Of course when we have guests for dinner or it's a special occasion like Valentines Day or Cinco de Mayo we'll plan and cook a full menu that is luxuriously bread-free, but otherwise, it's, "hey John, what kind of bread do you want me to toast for ya?" This has been a great way to save money. I think our monthly grocery bill averages around $50 a month or less which lifts our spirits out of the "bread ho-hums" when we realize how much we're saving.So when my parents were here who conveniently share our love of good cookin' and good eatin' we did it up right! We had big breakfasts, picnic lunches and great food and wine for dinner. And during the day we entertained them with some fun Central Oregon outdoor recreation; we went fishin' and shootin' (those were Dad and John's ideas...) and we also planted some herbs in my little herb garden (for the genteel folks).

On their last night here they took us out to dinner at Merenda Restaurant and Wine Bar downtown. We shared wine flights and passed all the great dishes around the table family style.

Merenda is a large open dining space with beautiful old brick walls on the interior and windows looking out on the small town bustle of Wall St. They have a very diverse and carefully selected wine list and offer 2 oz tastes for 1/3 the price of all the wines they serve by the glass (which was 88 wines when we dined there). Oh, the wines all sounded so intriguing it made it hard to choose so we let the sommelier give us 2 flights of wine, a flight of Pinot Grigio and a flight of reds that had been rated 90+ by Parker (a well known, notorious perhaps, wine snob from Wine Advocate). The wines were all great, most notably delicious were an Oregon Pinot Gris and an Australian Shiraz, fruity and thick of course.

But enough about the wine, more importantly, let's get on to the food! This entry is the most photo-centric in the blog yet and although the photos almost speak for themselves I will do my best to transport you to the gorgeous smells, flavors and textures we experienced that evening.

We began with the Risotto Balls. They were rolled in fine bread crumbs, fried and served on a bed of baby frise with an aioli garnish. They were the perfect combination of crispness and warm meltingly smooth interior.The frise dressed with a sweet vinaigrette was a refreshing teaser between the drool-inducing balls.


The Pommes Frites appetizer arrived in a cone of white paper balanced like a bouquet in an iron spiral stand with freshly shaved parmesan and black pepper ground over them. The garlic aioli dip was so mellow it went almost unnoticed on the frites but once we tasted it, we couldn't skip the dip.


John ordered the hand made Fazzoletti pasta with fresh morels, spring garlic and thyme and had the whole dish mostly to himself. It was a beautiful layering of large pasta sheets the size of won ton wrappers (a little too similar to the pre-made wrappers we thought) but easily overlooked due to the abundance of fresh morels on the plate. The mushrooms were just as earthy and divine as we remembered them being and the spring garlic and thyme went nicely with them adding a burst of spring to the forest bouquet. John was kind enough to present each of us with a big bite.

The Iron Skillet Roasted Mussels with garlic and herb butter were good, but nothing special except that they were served on the iron skillet which kept them warm through the whole meal. Warm, but also maybe a little drier than they should have been.

Dad shared one of his Seared Bacon Wrapped Scallops with Pistou with me. One of the prettiest items on our table, and perfectly cooked as well. The Pistou is a garlic basil olive oil that tastes like a basil pesto but with all the chunks strained out.

I ordered the Roasted Halibut Cheeks with lemon, garlic and sherry in honor of my little sister Maggie who I am sure would have ordered them herself had she been there with us. They did not disappoint. They were a lovely firm but smooth texture and the sherry flavor was dominant in the rich broth. Small portion for 4 people to share but that's how it goes with delicious items I suppose.

Mom and I shared a Vegetable Platter that had four vegetables or side dishes that we chose out of the seven listed on the menu. Ours had Sauteed Spinach with Lemon and Garlic, Whole Bean Ragout with Goat Cheese, Sauteed Pea Vine with Smoked Bacon and Shallots and Organic soft Polenta with Butter and Parmesan. The best items on the platter were the spinach which was so fresh it seemed it had been lightly cooked right in front of us and the soft polenta which was like dessert it was so rich with butter and milk. The beans were a little too salty after the first bite and were missing any sign of the goat cheese. And the pea vines were overshadowed by the bacon, might as well have just been a pile of bacon on the plate. But at any rate this veggie dish is the kind of thing that gets us vegetarians very excited (even though I opted for the bacon dish...what was I thinking? I should have gotten the asparagus...I was weak...bacon is my downfall). I have heard in the past they have a Brussels Sprouts dish that is to die for.

Just when I thought I couldn't eat another bite, the desert menu showed up. Remembering the ecstasy Mom and I experienced the last time we ordered desert at Merenda (it was a blood orange cheesecake and it was art, pure and simple), I knew I had to try something else. I went for the Creme Fraiche Panna Cotta with Rhubarb-Orange Compote and Mandarin Sorbet. I was in ecstasy yet again. The Panna Cotta was so beautifully creamy it was like they used butter instead of gelatin and the little vanilla beans speckling the pure white mold were lovely. The rhubarb was soft with all crispness cooked away yet still firm enough to give me something to chew on with the soft creme, and the orange infused into it gave it a very floral note. The mandarin sorbet was a little grainy in texture but had a perfect tartness that went well with the rhubarb and the sweet creme. The absolute highlight of the meal.

It was a meal to remember and I can't wait to go back there and try it again. Now that I'm hungry after writing about our culinary adventure at Merenda I think I'll go have some bread...

Nopales: Found Food

When my clever and resourceful husband John took a winter trip to Florida he found two very exciting free foods ready for harvest. The first was pink grapefruits. It seemed that every house had at least one tree heavily burdened with the luscious fruit growing in the yard. A lot of the fruit went unpicked because all the snowbirds were taking medication that explicitly forbid them to eat grapefruit. OK... So John loaded his checked baggage with the sweet ruby gems.

The other fun food John brought home to snowbound Central Oregon was a dozen nopales, also known in English as "cactus paddles." These are the vegetable part of the same cactus that grows the prickly pear fruit. They are best and most tender when harvested in the spring. The cactus that he harvested his paddles from was a "no spine" variety in the neighbors' yard, bred for ease of consumption. We had a ton of fun researching recipes and cooking our nopales. Many nopal fans on the Internets said that it's a lot like okra. It needs cooking and even when cooked perfectly it still has a bit of a slimy texture. We found that slimy texture to be a little foreign to our palettes and not very pleasant. But we did enjoy the light lemony flavor they had. Our first project was to grille the little paddles to see what that did. They popped and sizzled on the fire as the juicy slime cooked away. But even after 10 minutes grilling when we bit into them they were still quite slimy. So I chopped them up and sauteed them in butter; very tasty but still slimy.

Next the bits went into scrambled eggs with green onions and cheese. I served the "Nopales en Juevos Revueltos" over pinto beans. It was a delicious meal and we both agreed the nopales were free food that was well worth John exporting from Florida.

Foo Foo Drinks Rock!

John and I joined some new friends of ours for a drink down at the Bend Distillery Martini Bar the other night. It was great fun.

I'm a huge supporter of local food and products, I think it's what makes Bend such an up and coming "right on" town. By "right on" I mean a place where all the cool kids have lived or plan to someday and where all the people with money like to buy their second homes. I grew up in Santa Cruz, it's a "right on" town, so much so that John and I could never afford to buy a house there now. When ever I tell anyone I grew up in Santa Cruz they usually respond with, "right on, that's a pretty cool place." That's where the "right on" adjective came from. Bend is now producing a similar response from folks.

Bend is lucky to have a local distillery that makes some pretty tasty liquor. Their tasting room and martini bar downtown is usually pretty crowded but on the early Tuesday evening that we were there it had more the feel of a mellow, mood-lit coffee house than a bar. There were a couple sofas, lots of candles and some awesome local artwork on the walls. Of course it still had the nasty, old booze smell of a bar when we walked in but once we saw the drink menu we knew we were in for a treat. They had a bunch of traditional martinis but they also had a ton of foo foo martinis dressed up with fruit juice, cream, espresso and garnishes.

I ordered the Crater Colada. It was Crater Lake Vodka, coconut cream, pineapple juice and orange juice served in a martini glass rimmed with toasted coconut. Delicious. Other drinks ordered were a Dreamsicle, a Shanghai Citrus (something or other), and a Lime Ricky (virgin drink for the driver). All the drinks were fabulous. The Dreamsicle was mango infused vodka, mango puree and cream, again served in a martini glass. The freshness of the mango was perfect with the richness of the cream and a beautiful change from the traditional orange creamsicle.

Drinks were all between $6 and $8. Pretty normal pricing for foo foo drinks I suppose, but well worth it. The bartendress was very informative and attentive, friendly too. We'll be back there as soon as our bank account recovers...

You can check out the Bend booze and get some cool recipes at bendistillery.com

Pho, 'nuff said

When John and I lived in Tahoe our favorite place to dine out was a cozy little Asian restaurant named Pho 777.

It was in Reno, hence the "777" (jackpot!) name. Yeah, I thought it was their address for a while, but really, it's clever. We found Pho 777 on recommendation from a friend who had also traveled in Asia and who shared our love of cheap eats. Not only was the food there delicious, but it was also dang cheap. We instantly fell in love with the little place and dined there on every trip to Reno.

John and I are "good faith vegetarians." So we eat veggies most of the time but we make exceptions for home-raised animals, wild game, meat while traveling and Pho. At Pho 777 we ordered our dishes with veggies and tofu only, even though the same waiter told us nicely each time that the soup is made with chicken broth. We smiled and said, "yes, still, tofu only please."

Pho is a nest of rice noodles and veggies floating in a hot sumptuous clear broth. An added and required bonus is the little plate of fresh bean sprouts, fresh Thai basil, sliced fresh green jalpenos and lime wedges. This plate is not a side salad, you add these acoutrements to your bowl of Pho. It is absolutely my favorite soup in the world. I ritualistically slurp and sip it down until my belly is uncomfortably full. But it's worth it. It hits those happy buttons deep down inside.

Pho is amazing. It satisfies the soul of hunger like a hearty stew and yet is as fresh as a spring salad of peat shoots. It feels so healthy to eat that I find myself craving it after a good yoga session. It is so warming that I want to inhale it's beautiful aromas on a chilly central Oregon winter's evening. You get the idea, it's everything you want and need from one bowl of soup.

On our last trip to Reno we found our dear dear Pho 777 boarded up and closed. It had shared the building that burned down and killed 12 people in that Reno hotel fire. We were saddened by the horrible deaths but we had to admit that we were even more sad to find our beloved Asian restaurant gone.

When we returned home to Bend we vowed to quench our desire for Pho by making it ourselves. It turned out to be very possible to replicate Pho with a couple of key ingredients: chicken broth and a little special spice bag from an Asian market. The spice bag contains star anise, fennel, coriander, cinnamon, sugar and cloves. So it adds a little spicy sweetness to the broth that is hard to identify. It makes the soup Pho.

The chicken broth we got from work when we cooked a few free-range chickens in a big pot of boiling water. The bakery used the chickens for their chicken salad and we brought the broth home and cooked it down for a couple hours with onions, carrots, celery and the spice bags. Our windows were steamed and out house smelled great, AND we now had our Pho soup base. Once we added salt, honey and a dash of soy sauce it was ready.

Next we steamed our veggies and tofu and boiled our rice noodles separately from the broth. We arranged our noodles and veggies in our bowls and ladled the soup over it, floating the tender morsels and finding so much joy in the little rising bubbles of tasty oil. We sprinkled some green onions, bean sprouts and fresh basil on top and squirted our lime wedges over our steaming bowls. It was perfect. John and I both grinned and looked like we had discovered gold. We had our Pho once more.

At the Starting Line

Ok, here it is, starting now I am officially beginning my quest to get paid to do what I love: eat and travel.

I have always wanted to be a food writer. I really think that would be the perfect career. My first attempt to write a recipe consisted of writing down for my mom the directions for making what I called Polar Bear Cereal.

Polar Bear Cereal
makes one serving
1 cup crushed ice
1 cup fruit juice

Add fruit juice to ice and eat with a spoon.

I thought it was a great idea. I figured I could enter it in one of those contests in the Pillsbury Magazines at the checkout stand. I never did and the thought of what I could have won had I entered it float in and out of my daydreams to this day. But I suppose child hood fame and fortune could have also corrupted me and I think it's better this way. Now that I have matured as a person, writer and eater I can really do something great with my dreams.

I have no career. When people ask me what I do, I like to say, "I travel, I have fun, and I fit work in when I can." Well, I like to think that and I only now have started training myself to say it. I like to think it turns their little idea of life upside-down. Of course I have lots of goals in life to actually get me to the point when I never have to work, when I can just retire at a young age.

The first of those goals would be to pay off the house that my husband and I just bought this Spring 2004. That was a huge step to get ourselves into that much debt again after we had just finished paying off his student loans.

Shortly after buying the house we took a 6 month vacation to hike the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail. We saved all our money the winter before to take the trip and also make sure the mortgage was getting paid. I think it took that trip for us to realize how we really want to live our lives. While out there we decided that we really need to retire. When we returned home we would buckle down and pay off the house in 5 years. And when that is done we will be more free to travel. Heck, we could even move to Thailand and live off our rental income. So that is our goal and we're sticking to it, however many doubting looks and sugar-coated supportive smiles we receive from our family and friends.

So for the next five years I'm gonna be working my butt off and pinching those pennies while daydreaming of hiking the PCT, living in Thailand and writing about food. I'll even daydream about travel writing as I'm sure this blog will have lots of posts on our travels as we fill our bellies with Ramen (I still can't believe they can sell the noodles for $.10 a packet).

So as a stepping stone to eventually get paid to eat and write about amazing food and travel I will be posting to my blog. It has the fitting title: Will Travel For Food. Maybe I should have called it Will Write For Food, actually now that I think about it I should have named it Will Write For Free. These are all fitting titles. This blog will have it all: travel, food, writing and of course my trials to get free travel and food in an effort to pay off the house!