Cocoanut Grove Ballroom and Bayview Room
Thursday, October 25, 5:30 – 9:00

We welcome you to our eighth annual “A Taste of Santa Cruz” fundraising event!

The Santa Cruz Association of REALTORS® Housing Foundation (SCAORHF) is thrilled to invite you to this fun and tasty event on Oct. 25, 2012 at the Cocoanut Grove. This year we are welcoming back many of the restaurants that have consistently offered flavorful samplings from their menus during the past few years, and we excitedly await the cuisine being planned this year from our new entries.

Süda’s inventive menu brings pleasure to Portola

Süda means heart in Estonian, and at the newest restaurant in Pleasure Point, I found a lot to love. It is no surprise, that with seasoned owners Mike Pitt of Motiv, and Dan Voskoboynikov of Harbor Café, it has quickly gained a following. The menu is delightful, and the efficient, knowledgeable, and energetic staff, attired professionally in black, worked together as a well-practiced team.

Earlier in the summer, Süda served breakfast. With the introduction of dinner, early morning meals were discontinued in order to focus on the other two. However, when lunch service begins at 11 a.m., some of the most popular morning dishes are served until 2 p.m., perfect for a weekend brunch.

Seabright’s Tramonti makes pizza and pasta the Italian way

Tramonti is a town on the Italian Amalfi Coast in the region of Campania, known for its mozzarella, especially bufala, made from the milk of water buffalos. The town now lends its name to a pizza and pasta restaurant in the Seabright neighborhood that is the product of a dream at least a decade in the making.

I finally had my fresh Jack O’lantern pumpkin purée recipe down to a science when I read that the smaller sugar pies were a better choice. So I conducted a head-to-head competition.

Hearty platefuls of creative Italian fare continue to fuel the success of Café Mare 

My stepdaughter and son-in-law came to stay for the weekend recently, so my husband and I took them to dinner at Café Mare for some tasty Italian fare. Owned by Jean Pierre Iuliano from Calabria and Andrea Mura from the island of Sardinia, their passion to make authentic Italian stems from growing up in an environment of homemade pasta, excellent olive oil, flavorful plump olives and rich sauces.

Capitola Coffee Roasters finds a comfy new home at Capitola Book Café

Capitola Coffee Roasters and Patisserie has found a new lease on life at the Capitola Book Café. Owner Michaella Olavarri, pâtissier extraordinaire, noted on the restaurant’s Facebook page recently that she has never been happier.

Main Street Garden & Café now features Italian countryside cuisine

Farm to table doesn't get much closer than at Main Street Garden & Café. Kiwi vines shade the patio, and what's ripe on the vines in the restaurant's cheery organic garden is featured on the menu. Guests are even encouraged to wander amongst the plants.

They say if it can be grown, it can be canned, or "put up.” In a cabinet under my mother's stove, there was a covered pan that contained solid paraffin. Each year, she would reheat it, add some more, and use it to seal the jars of jellies made from the fruit of our trees. I later learned the simpler and more reliable hot canning method.

Surround yourself in Thai culture at Bangkok West

At Bangkok West, Thai cuisine is waiting to fuel a reasonably priced weekday lunch. It's like wandering into another world, from the meandering walkway to the ornately appointed interior with bejeweled gilded carvings, statuary, and Kalaga tapestries.