Santa Cruz Food Talk kicks off next week
Food Talk, a restaurant opening Aug. 7, is located in Ulterior (upstairs from Motiv at 1209 Pacific Ave.). Chef Donnie Suesens, former owner and chef of Café Sparrow in Aptos, is creating a menu with an emphasis on “farm and ocean to table with locally sourced ingredients.” He makes everything from scratch, from grinding the burgers to making the buns. Hours are Wednesday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m., and Friday through Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m. His motto for the new venture? “The world is a strange place. Let’s break bread together and have a FOOD TALK.”
Menu highlights include the burger, the “Kimcheese” (grilled cheese sandwich), and the “Scotch Egg,” the latter of which features eggs from Pajaro Pastures, house-made pork sausage, breadcrumbs, mango chutney, and curry sauce. For more information, visit @foodtalk_santacruz on Instagram. Over the past few years, the Ulteria space has housed concepts from a variety of chefs, including Chicken Foot and brunch-shift chef Jessica Yarre.
APTOS Jack’s Bao opening soon
Jack’s Bao will open a second location at 49 Rancho Del Mar sometime in August. Menu items include steamed baos (pork buns, veggie buns, soup dumplings), noodle soups, and wonton soups. Plans include more menu options and seasonal offerings in the future. Jack’s Bao’s flagship location (751 Cannery Row, Ste. 121) opened Memorial Day weekend earlier this year. Anni Wang, who manages both locations of the family-owned business, draws inspiration from her father, Jack Wang, and her family’s recipes from Shanghai. Her brother Kevin and mother Lisa are regulars in the kitchen at the Monterey restaurant, and you can expect the same at the new location.
For more information and menus, visit jackbao.com. Both locations are open daily from 11am to 8pm.
Watsonville Strawberry Festival this weekend
The annual Watsonville Strawberry Festival (watsonvillestrawberryfestival.com) kicks off with carnival attractions and music on Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. at Watsonville’s City Plaza, 358 Main St. The festival continues on Main Street from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free.
Strawberry-themed treats for sale include strawberry tamales and burritos, strawberry pizza, strawberry tava, strawberry shortcake, strawberry smoothies, strawberry churros, and berry samples will be available at Driscoll’s. There will also be many non-strawberry food vendors, several pie-eating contests throughout the weekend, and a “Berry Best Dressed” strawberry-themed outfit contest.
New this year is the participation of four local craft breweries in the beer and wine garden: Fruition Brewing will be serving strawberry beer, and the other breweries are Buena Vista Brewing Co., Santa Cruz Cider Co. and Watsonville Public House.
Vegan Furutaya Bakery’s Santa Cruz Pop-Up
Furutaya Bakery, which offers traditional and contemporary Japanese sweets, has several upcoming pop-ups, including one at the AAPI Cultural Festival at The 418 Project (155 S. River St.), which runs Sundays from noon until sold out. It will also reopen on Aug. 16 at Sushi Market Sprouts (300 7th Ave.), which runs every Friday at noon. Sweets sell out quickly at these stores, but you can pre-order via Instagram DM. Owner and chef Hana Frances Furutaya, a local resident, launched her vegan business two months ago. Starting in late August, she will begin taking pre-orders for sweets to be picked up from home on Tuesday afternoons.
Signature items include pound cake (the most popular is matcha topped with edible lavender) and habutae mochi cake (in flavors like vanilla and almond). Other items on the menu include daily tarts and sweet breads, as well as uiro cakes made with ingredients like Japanese brown sugar and Japanese hojicha or matcha. “These are topped with nuts, dried fruit, or sweetened black beans,” says Furuta. “They are thought to have been created in the 1300s as a palate cleanser for the shogun after he took bitter medicine.”
Born in Japan, Furuta moved to Austria at the age of eight. She attended an international school and met children from 81 countries. “This experience really developed my palate,” Furuta says. In her early 20s, she worked as an assistant to a food photographer in Tokyo, learning food styling and publishing several recipes. For more information, follow her on Instagram @furutaya_bakery.
Menu changes at Jack O’Neill in Santa Cruz
In August, Chef Gus Trejo will add new dishes to the menu at Jack O’Neill Restaurant & Lounge at the Dream Inn Santa Cruz (175 West Cliff Drive, 831-460-5012, jackoneillrestaurant.com). The new dish, “Pacific Halibut Crudo,” features albino watermelon, lemon cucumber, dulse seaweed, nardello peppers and leche de tigre. And a new Olympic menu, a plant-based four-course menu with the option to add a sustainable protein, pays homage to the current Olympics and honors “the ambitious environmental menu that Paris is preparing,” Trejo said.
Watsonville Food Bank fundraiser underway
Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz County (thefoodbank.org) will host its first party on Saturday from 4-7 p.m. in the parking lot outside the food bank headquarters (800 Ohlone Parkway). Tickets are $25 and include one drink ticket (beer, wine or non-alcoholic beverage) and live music by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Proceeds will help Second Harvest provide healthy meals and nutrition education to local individuals and families in need. Delicious food will be available from food trucks My Mom’s Mole, Fired Up Fresh, Saucey’z and Kuki’s Bowl. Humble Sebi will be selling coffee and pastries. Tickets are available in advance at app.giveffect.com/campaigns/32094-party-in-the-parking-lot-2024 or purchased at the event.
Santa Cruz Church’s Oktoberfest Seeks Volunteers to Prepare Sauerkraut
Messiah Lutheran Church, 801 High St., will host the Santa Cruz Oktoberfest on Sept. 21. The church will hold a cabbage prep day from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday and is seeking community volunteers to “mash traditional cabbage” for the homemade sauerkraut to be served at Oktoberfest. If you have questions, call the church office at 831-423-8330. The church is also seeking volunteers for the Sept. 21 event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Santa Cruz Oktoberfest.
La Selva Beach Food Truck, Books, Draft Beer
The La Selva Beach Books & Brews Summer Fair will be held Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm at the La Selva Clubhouse & Lawn (314 Estrella Ave.). Food and drink vendors include S&B, offering burgers and sliders, Tacos El Jesse, offering tacos and other specialties, and Discretion Brewing, offering draft beer. The Library Teen Advisory Council will be hosting a bake sale. There will also be more than 50 craft booths and a used book sale by the Friends of the Library. Live music will be provided by Girls & Company, That Country Feeling Band, and Woody Bell. The event will raise funds for La Selva Library programs and the La Selva Beach Improvement Association. For more information, contact booksandbrewsLSB@gmail.com.
APTOS Leicester Estate Wines continues its summer music series
Lester Estate Wines’ (lesterestatewines.com) Friday Night Sundowner Concert Series runs through October and continues this week with a performance by the Dylan Rhodes Band. Wine is available by the glass and by the bottle. The first Friday of each month features live music and local snacks on the Tasting Barn patio. This week, SC Eatery will be providing food. On September 1, Fonda Felix (Music by Flor de Caña) will perform. Admission is $15 and includes a Lester Estate Wines logo glass. Reservations are recommended at exploretock.com/lesterestatewines.
SCOTTS VALLEY POP-UP AT STEEL BONNET BREWING CO.
Several food trucks will be at Steel Bonnet Brewing Co. (20 Victor Square, 831-454-8429, steelbon.net) in the near future: Shockwave will be there Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m. and on Aug. 10. Parker Presents…Oysters will be there Friday and on Aug. 4. La Fenice Pizza will be there Saturday, and Kikuchi Yakitori will be there on Aug. 15. Other vendors include The Griddler.
Quick Bites, edited by Tara Fatemi Walker, brings you Santa Cruz County restaurant, food and drink news every week. Submit your stories to sentinelfood@gmail.com (deadline for the week’s column is Sunday at 7 p.m.). Want real-time local food and drink news? Follow the Sentinel food crew on Twitter (@santacruzfood).
