I had the day off today so I was able to get brunch, my favorite meal of the day. We went to Scarlett Begonia in Victoria Court. I had the polenta with two poached eggs, cippolini onions, artichokes (that are normally fried but were sauteed to be GF) and prosciutto. I have to admit… it was a weird combination of ingredients. However, I found it to be quite satisfying. My favorite part of the meal though was the homemade GF chocolate toffee we got with the check. Yum.
Tonight we tried Petros, the new restaurant on State Street across from the Arlington Theater. I started with the Petros Horiatiki Salad which had vine-ripe tomatoes, cucumber, feta, olives, avocado, onions, capers, olive oil and oregano. We then shared the Dip Combo which comes with portions of Kafteri, Melitanosalata, Tzatiki, Fava and Taramosalata. Since the Taramosalata has bread crumbs in it, they put it on the side for me. They also brought out sliced cucumber (at a charge) since I couldn’t eat the pita.
I really enjoyed two of them (the bottom two in the picture). The white one was the Tzatiki which had a good bite to it due to garlic. The one of the bottom was the Kafteri which consists of four special Greek cheeses blended with a cocktail of hot peppers. Then it was time for the main dish. I tried to order their signature dish which was feta crusted rack of lamb but there were bread crumbs involved so instead I went with the fish tacos which are served on corn tortillas.
These were pretty good. The feta on top was a nice touch. I struggled to finish all three though since it was a generous portion. During our meal, we had a waitress in training. I will say that I was glad that the seasoned waitress was with her while we were ordering as she seemed very knowledgeable about which dishes were GF or not.
We were both pretty hungry before the sun had gone down, so we decided to take advantage of the weather and eat on Zaytoon’s wonderful patio. We started with some hummus. As my husband ate it with some warm pita, I ate it with some cucumber slices that the waitress brought out for me. We then shared the Egyptian foul mudammas.
I love this dish. It consists of fava beans cooked in garlic and topped off with olive oil, lemon juice, tomatoes, onions and parsley. It is very hearty for an appetizer. For my main dish, I ordered the Chicken Shawarma. Normally, this dish comes with rice pilaf and fattoush salad. However, their rice has orzo in it. Our waitress gave me more fattoush salad (without pita chips) to make up for the rice.
This was quite alright with me since I absolutely love their fattoush salad. Do you see that white glob in the bottom right of the picture? That is called heaven. It is some mixture of garlic, olive oil and some secret ingredients… all of which our waitress assured me were gluten-free.
Last night, we were both craving Italian food, so we decided to check out Arnoldi’s. I had called ahead to see if they had gluten-free pasta, and they confirmed that they do! I started with a Caesar Salad. Even after doing my whole GF speech, the salad arrived with croutons. Not the best start, but the waiter was quick to have them make me a fresh one. It was a solid Caesar Salad. I then had the GF pasta with the Arrabiata sauce.
This was as straightforward as you could get but the sauce was really good. We sat outside along the Bocce Ball courts. This seems like the perfect place for a first date or a double date. We didn’t try our luck with the Bocce Ball this time, but we definitely want to return!
This morning, we started the day right by going on a hike. My favorite hike in Santa Barbara is Inspiration Point because it doesn’t take too long but there is a great payoff at the top of the trail. Pictured above is the view you see at the top. After the hike, we decided to get some lunch. I had read somewhere that Nutbelly Pizzeria and Deli in Carpinteria has gluten-free pizza. So, we headed South on the 101 for a few minutes to reach our destination. It is located on the main street in Carp, called Linden Avenue.
I started with the Mediterranean salad. This was okay. It was a pretty good size. I probably wouldn’t order it again though. You know what I WOULD order again? The ridiculous tasty pizza I got.
I got the cheese pizza with garlic added on. This pizza was fantastic. There were tons of minced pieces of fresh garlic and the crust was such a good consistency. It held up like “normal” pizza crust does. My husband and I both put it in our top 5 best GF pizzas we have ever had. I asked some questions and it turns out that they make their own GF pizza dough. It is a mixture of rice flour and tapioca flour. If you needed another reason to go here, they have Au Bon Climat wines by the glass, my favorite wine from this region!
Photo from Anderson's Website
It was so incredibly nice out today in Santa Barbara so my husband and I went for walk along State Street after I got off of work. I have always been intrigued by Anderson’s, so we walked inside to take a look. Inside is a large baked goods case with tasty looking items. I asked one of the staff if they happened to any gluten-free items. What followed was amazing. He pointed out about ten items that were GF, all of which sounded like they would be incredibly good. He also offered a sample of any of them to us. I couldn’t resist, so I chose an item that sounded like it would be a good choice… something with a chocolate exterior and a creme filling. It reminded me of Yodels, a treat I used to love back in the gluten eating days. I will definitely be returning to try everyone one of those items… especially the APPLE PIE!
I was feeling really run down today. When I got home from work I crashed on the sofa for longer than I intended. When I woke up, all I wanted was something warm and gooey. Enter the nachos from Los Agaves… the perfect cure for the chills.
We went to see The Descendants tonight at the Hitchcock Way Movie Theater. Go see this movie while it is still in the theaters. It was the perfect combination of funny and sad. Afterwards, we decided to pick up some dinner from Whole Foods. I went to the sandwich counter and asked if they could make a sandwich with GF bread. The guy said that he could. When I asked what kind of bread they use, he said Udi’s which made me really excited since their sandwich bread is great. However, it turned out he used Ener-G’s Tapioca Bread since they had an open package of it. It was pretty thin and crumbly and made me think that this is what most gluten eaters think all GF bread tastes like. The fillings were tasty though. I will definitely go back and try another sandwich on a day that they use Udi’s, especially since the guy was great about changing his gloves and being careful about cross contamination.
Sushi Teri on Bath Street is our go-t0 for sushi if we don’t want to spend a fortune but want some good sushi. Tonight, we started with some edamame. I then got three rolls. The first was the SBCC roll.
In this roll is shrimp, broccoli, crab leg, cream cheese, avocado, cucumber and spicy sauce. I get this roll every time we are there. This time, I also tried two new rolls. They were all pretty similar though. The first was the Black Tiger. This had crab leg, avocado, cucumber, cream cheese and shrimp.
The last roll I got was the Red Shrimp. It wasn’t on the menu… I had seen it on the wall by the door when we were waiting to sit. It basically had a lot of the same ingredients as the first two rolls but with tuna on top. Happy New Years Eve Eve!
I had just enough time before work to get breakfast this morning so I decided to go to Tupelo Junction. They always have a stack of the Santa Barbara Independent out front which was perfect reading material as I was dining alone today. I ordered the smoked bacon, spinach, caramelized onion, tomato and gouda scramble. It was quite good. It comes with their potatoes which are always the perfect consistency. Yum.
gluten-free in sb 