It was like old times on the plaza during the June 10 Arcata Bay Oyster Festival: friends hugging and balancing topped up beers, lines for the food vendors lining the sidewalks and bands playing the main stage for an audience of dancers and picnickers in the grass. The official head count isn’t in yet but, […]
Eat + Drink
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Oyster Fest Hopes to Pack the Plaza Again
The last time revelers swarmed the Arcata Plaza for Oyster Fest was 2019, the pre-pandemic Before Times, when long lines, sunburn and a hangover were the looming fears. Following two years of virtual events and a ticketed in-person event in the Creamery District last June, the annual bivalve bacchanalia is set to take over the […]
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Filling Empty Bowls
As a ceramics student at Humboldt State University in the late 1980s, Mark Campbell made ends meet by taking off his clay-spattered apron and putting on a new one to cook in the kitchens of local restaurants. “I graduated from HSU with an art degree to become a full-time cook,” he says. That career carried […]
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Chocolate Tart Renovation
After 22 years, we finally renovated our kitchen. Refinishing our cabinets and removing the old countertops was a fun project for our family. During this process, our kitchen has been a semi-functioning mess: cabinets covered with plastic wrap, cookware on the dining table and a bare countertop. Luckily my sink and stove were still hooked […]
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I’ll Have My Spinach with Cheese and Chocolate, Please
“Chocolate is a vegetable,” read a sticky note placed on the refrigerator door in the kitchen of the office where I worked some years ago. I smiled when I read it — that chocolate could be consumed with other vegetables, a culinary path I was not interested in exploring at the time. Then something happened. […]
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Oyster Fest’s Beer Choice is Shuck It
After virtual Oyster Fests with online entertainment and curbside pickup of oysters and beer, and an in-person tangle of food and drink lines by the Creamery District, the June return to the Arcata Plaza feels nostalgic. No entry fees, no fences. Just the old ouroboros of people circling the lawn and the bands and lining […]
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Eating Ocean Friendly
Click on the Ocean Friendly Restaurants program on the Surfrider Foundation website, and you’ll see businesses that have earned the nonprofit’s seal of approval. Restaurants participating in the program must adopt seven protocols to reduce or eliminate the use of single-use plastics, as well as three of eight optional measures, like offering vegetarian, vegan or […]
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Dumplings and Tea at the Carwash
Even in a rainy month, Auto Spa in McKinleyville still sees a little traffic since the bright blue Auntie Hao’s truck is parked out front Thursday through Saturday (1642 Holly Drive). The trim menu of Chinese crepes, dumplings, fried noodles and tea stands out amid bumper-to-bumper taco and sandwich trucks, and it’s likely the only […]
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Arrivederci, La Trattoria
After 21 years, Jim Becker and Patricia Cambianica, husband and wife owners of La Trattoria in Sunny Brae, are bidding farewell, shuttering the little restaurant after service Saturday, April 1. “We’ve been doing this for 21 years,” says Becker over the phone. In that time, La Trattoria has built a loyal following with its traditional, […]
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What’s Good
Dumplings and Tea at the Carwash Even in a rainy month, Auto Spa in McKinleyville still sees a little traffic since the bright blue Auntie Hao’s truck is parked out front Thursday through Saturday (1642 Holly Drive). The trim menu of Chinese crepes, dumplings, fried noodles and tea stands out amid bumper-to-bumper taco and sandwich […]
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Take Time for Salad
I am not a fan of cold weather. By the time dinner time comes around I am dreaming of a hot dish: a hearty soup or a vegetable side or main dish that warms me and helps me let go of whatever tension the day may have caused. But before the warming course, I eat […]
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The Wild Midwest
There’s a lot going on at Overtime Eatery and Games. In the lot, where the old Angelo’s sign still stands, noodle bowls are steaming from the red Nou Nou’s truck. Inside, basketball plays on a massive TV, the beer counter is hopping and cabinet video games flash from a side room, beyond which, a couple […]