news story / By North Coast Journal Staff

Best Of Humboldt — Staff Picks

BEST BLOCK FOR EXPERIENCING AN ECLECTIC MIX OF HUMBOLDTIA

E Street, Eureka, between Second and Third Streets. You’ve got Los Bagels, our fabulous Jewish-Mexican bagel shop, perhaps the only one of its kind, with the treasure house known as Booklegger across the street. You’ve got Ramone’s, with their lovely, yummy cakes. Ciara’s pricey-and-worth-it Irish Shop holds forth across the way. Humboldt Baykeeper offers up environmental protection and a five-foot aerial map of the bay that keeps lookie-loos glued to the window for a half-hour at a time. Just around the corner on Opera Alley stands the doorway to Café Nooner, with outdoor seating and fusion food by local legend Tommy Chase. On the other side of E, Gabriel’s offers up higher-end Italian next door to the Frisbee-hookah-flavored confines of Humboldt Glassblowers. A couple of steps further and you’re at the Clark Museum, a treasure trove of eclectic Humboldtia from throughout the ages. (Admission: free.)

It’s the county in a nutshell, a place where exploring tourists mingle with experienced locals in the salty breeze and a multitude of values remain on display.

— Jennifer Savage

BEST NEARLY-ALWAYS-OPEN-STUDIO ARTIST

On E Street in Eureka, next to the Labor Temple — best-named edifice, dontcha know — there’s often an impromptu art show in front of Curtis Otto’s house. You know Otto: Revered local artist whose impressionistic work, often featuring local themes — nude bathers at College Cove, political battles — employs rich, muted golds, blues and rusts and cool, local-sky grays and, nearly always, a dash of red to draw the eye. He’s the guy who had the honor of having one of his oils, “House Near Ferndale,” stolen 38 years ago off the wall at the Humboldt County Courthouse. He’s still pleased about that.

Often, Otto hauls his paintings outside, props them against house and hedge, then brings out palette and paints and gets to work on a piece.

— Heidi Walters

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