Cocina on the Green The incongruity of a Mexican restaurant on the grounds of a golf course lessens as you sit in a snug window booth at Cocina Mariposa (4750 Fairway Drive, Eureka), which you enter via the pro shop, and watch the sunset. On a recent rainy evening, when a lone golfer was whacking […]
Mexican cuisine
Posted inEat + Drink
What’s Good: Irish Pizza and Seaside Mexican
On a Grecian pizza The pizza restaurant that once was Eureka’s Big Louie’s, then Marcelli’s, has been repainted an eye-popping green and reopened as Shenanigans (1604 Fourth St.). Given its name and pedigree (owner Kelly Erben runs Gallagher’s Irish Pub), you wouldn’t be crazy for thinking this is an Irish bar, but it’s a pizza […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Coastal Comforts at Los Sinaloenses
Maybe you’ve sat in the maroon vinyl booth seats at 1134 Fifth St. in Eureka before — when it was a Mexican restaurant, then a barbecue joint, then another Mexican place. But for the last month, it’s been Los Sinaloenses. It’s named for the people of the coastal region of Mexico just inside the Gulf […]
Posted inEat + Drink
What’s Good: Surprises
Pizza by the sea When eating in Trinidad, it’s a totally understandable knee-jerk impulse to veer toward fish and chips, clam chowder or crab anything. It’s the seaside atmosphere. But are you overlooking the pizza? In the shadow of its older sibling the Lighthouse Grill and on the former site of the Bergeron Winery tasting […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Lady’s Choice
The grill at The Patron Kitchen (70 B Wildwood Ave., Rio Dell) can’t be more than 3 by 4 feet but the output, most of which winds up on a bolillo roll, is impressive. Two women with their hair in matching glossy black topknots, lay out meats, tortillas and chopped peppers in separate quadrants on […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Hum Plate Roundup
Red sauce for the blues Pity those whose otherwise broadening travels render them unable to enjoy American immigrant iterations of their ancestral cuisines. I think of my old classmate returning from a semester in Rome, heartbroken from an affair and recoiling from the messy red spaghetti and glass shakers of parmesan cheese and red pepper […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Fresh Takes at Fregoso’s
So long, Savory. Hola, Fregosos Comida Mexicana (1504 G St., Arcata). In November, Savory’s owners, who also own the Fregoso Market across from the Arcata North Coast Co-op, made the switch with a bright coat of paint, a fully Mexican menu and a new name in the same location across from Stars Hamburgers in Arcata’s […]
Posted inEat + Drink
‘Tis the Season for Tamales
Even though tamales can be found and eaten year-round, it’s the tamales at Christmas that are rooted in the Mexican holiday tradition. Food anthropologist Mario Montano, a professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, told me in an interview a few years back that tamales originated from the Aztecs. “When Hernan Cortes arrived in Veracruz, […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Champurrado
As the weather gets colder, the drinks get warmer. While I do appreciate a good seasonal drink, I’m not talking about pumpkin-spice-anything. It’s time to let atole warm up your heart. For those unfamiliar with atole (pronounced ah-TOH-leh), it’s a corn-based drink made throughout Mexico and Central America. With origins dating back to pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Give Me My Flowers So I Can Eat Them
Ripe tomatoes, aromatic herbs, and sweet melons. Every late summer, most of us can expect to find our favorites at the farmers’ market. But some of the season’s treasures are still lesser known: squash blossoms and amaranth greens. If you love Italian cuisine or are a fan of “trendy” foods, then no doubt you’ve heard […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Taco Brothers Truck Rolls into Eureka
As you zip down Eureka’s Fifth Street, you’re bound to spot the new taco truck that just claimed a spot on Monday at the corner of O Street under the golden pawn shop orbs. The snazzy Taco Brothers truck (1415 Fifth St.), with its dancing mustachioed burrito and taco, is hard to miss. It’s owner […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Rescue by Torta
On a rainy day, the little striped pop-out awning on the Los Giles Taqueria tucked in the lot behind US Bank in Arcata looks like an oasis (953 G St.). (Yes, it’s the same black truck you see up the street across from the Arcata Theatre Lounge in the evening.) Pressed for a recommendation, owner […]