When a new place opens, the common wisdom is that you should try it in a couple of months when it’s worked out the kinks. Are you made of stone? There’s a whole unexplored menu to peruse and sample. What if there’s something you’ve never eaten before? Once you finally break down and pull up a […]
What’s Good
Posted inEat + Drink
Little Orange Hen
Back in the day (the historical period during which everybody started dressing like hell on Mad Men), every fancy French menu had a canard a l’orange — the dark, roasted duck with crispy skin ladled over with a sauce of stock, orange juice and zest and maybe a little booze — Grand Marnier or Cognac […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Fair Factor
You can smell the fryers from the parking lot as you stumble through the lumpy pasture toward the whirring rides and tinny pop music playing on the other side of the turnstiles. Once inside the Humboldt County Fair, the maze of traveling food stands and the barrage of signs for jumbo and beer battered everything […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Eat Your Spaghetti
If not the smell of the sauce (or “gravy” as they used to call it), the huge portrait of the owners with a tuxedoed Marlon Brando and young Sophia Loren that hangs in the back room of Roy’s Club (218 D St., Eureka) should tip you off that you’re in an old-school Italian-American joint. Like […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Arcata’s Best Chile Relleno, Determined
Okay, lovers of Mexican food, we heard you. You said last week’s entry into the Arcata bracket, the eggy, crepe-y delish dish from Fiesta Grill and Cantina, was inadequate competition against the traditional battered and fried version from Carmela’s. So we returned to that foggy college town and made the rounds again, this time including the […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Chile vs. Chile: Fortuna Strong
The Fortuna contingent brought it hard this week, forcing us to revise our standards. Two different restaurants produced three very different rellenos, with a spectrum of chiles, sauces and batters. All were delicious, and as such we’ve decided to be more inclusive. There is no black and white when it comes to pepper, cheese, batter […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Chile vs. Chile: The Fast Food Edition
Expectation is a double-edged sword when it comes to experience: it can both elevate the mundane and intensify the disappointing. Never was this more was this true than with Los Gallos Taqueria at the Bayshore Mall. In case you think we’ve rigged this race, Los Gallos has been a dark horse favorite in the world […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Chile vs. Chile: Eureka
Our epic quest to find Humboldt County’s best chile relleno got underway this week, with gustatory explorations on Tuesday and Thursday. Our criteria for a good relleno? Stem in, naturally. Poblano pepper or nada. Good ratio of batter to cheese to pepper, with no one aspect reigning supreme. And whatever the Spanish version of je […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Boathouse Barbecue
Barbecue has gotten a little esoteric. At once secretive and boastful, the macho hype surrounding the grill can make you long for the simple sweetness of pork cooked low and slow without all the fuss. This is a good time to swing into King Salmon for hole-in-the-wall Polynesian barbecue at Sammy’s BBQ & Catering (1125 […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Á la Truck
The appeal of a crepe is its delicate nature. Sure, you love the lumberjack-powering stack of flapjacks meant to send you off to either haul timber or drop back into bed like a felled tree. But crepes are the pancake’s refined French cousin, impractical, requiring special pans. Crepes are art for art’s sake. Hum Grown […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Reubenesque
It’s hard to look classy whilst cramming a big, grilled, cheesy, pastrami-packed Reuben into your mouth. And there are days when you want the taste of the sandwich, but maybe not the heart flutters afterward. Your solution is at Nourish Bistro & Catering (518 Henderson St., Eureka). Order up a Reuben at the counter and […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Flat Out
You think you’re happy with the damp circle of particle board that is a packaged tortilla. And maybe you are. But a fresh, handmade corn or flour tortilla with its uneven edges and its delicate chewiness is to the hard-edged pre-packaged kind as a crackling, oven-warm baguette is to a slice of Wonder. Sure, there’s […]