Holy moly it has been a long time. I will try to catch up on some posts this week. My whole family was here to end 2013. While they were here, we tried Blue Tavern. Let’s start with the positive. The food that I had was really tasty. They serve some corn and salt on the table when you sit down, but this is not gluten-free as they use a contaminated fryer. I started with the Beet and Heirloom Tomato Salad. I would order this again as the combination of the beets, tomatoes and pesto was quite good. For my main dish, I had the Quinoa Risotto.
This had parmesan, wild mushrooms, arugula and parsley oil. I have always had an aversion to mushrooms but I didn’t find these offensive. Rather, I found the dish was nice and flavorful. Overall, I enjoyed my food. But there were two incidents that overshadowed the night for me.
When we sat down, they asked if we wanted Santa Barbara water or bottled water. We said the tap water was fine. They brought over two carafes of water. Half of our table had normal tasting water from one of the carafes. My half of the table however was poured water that tasted like extreme salt water. When we said something to our waitress after spitting it out, she asked if we wanted bottled water then. I asked her if she wanted to taste it as there was something very wrong and I wanted her to see what we meant. She then said that they had heard that from other people, but she did not apologize or offer to get other tap water. She asked us if we wanted to then order bottled water. It was so ridiculous of a situation but we said fine so that we could have water. At the end of the dinner when we got the bill, we had spent an excessive amount on just bottled water as we were a party of nine.
Our table had ordered two orders of the potato gratin (which was GF). When one of the food runners brought out the second order, she said this is compliments of the kitchen. I then explained that we had actually ordered the item, so there was no need for it to be complimentary. She responded, “That is what the kitchen told me to say” and then walked away. When we checked the bill at the end of the meal, they had charged us for both orders, so it was very odd that they would have said that at all.
Even though the food was good, these other things that happened just seemed so off that I have a hard time wanting to go back. Hopefully, they figure out their water situation and their communication skills so that they can be successful!
Tags: gluten free, peruvian, risotto, santa barbara, state street
Santa Barbara’s newest restaurant is Mesa Verde, a “plant-based” vegetarian restaurant. The first thing I noticed on the menu was that it said “No Modifications. No Substitutions.” These are the worst words to see as a Celiac. However, I saw that they offered gluten-free flatbread. When I asked our server about it, I learned that they share the same surface in the oven as the regular flatbread. When the server asked the kitchen about that, she was told that the gluten burns off in the oven so it would be safe. Wrong. I just wish our local restaurants would participate in gluten-free training to make it more comfortable for Celiacs to dine there. Luckily, I was able to find some tasty alternatives. We started with the Cacao Black Bean and Sweet Potato Tacos. There was a spicy red sauce drizzled on top that was particularly yummy. Then I had the Fez Seven Vegetable Tagine served on Red Quinoa. For this dish, they omitted the fried shallots that typically accompany it.
It was good, but I would probably try something else next time. Luckily, many items on the menu are naturally gluten-free. If you check Mesa Verde out, make sure that you do not park in the 7-11 parking lot as we watched multiple cars being towed!
gluten-free in sb 