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Edible Events
This page, Charlie Hong Kong. Opposite, Lokal. Photo by Patrice Ward
Edible Events Charlie Hong Kong and Lokal
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By Amber Turpin and Sarah Wood
This past spring, Edible Monterey Bay launched a series of Pop-up Supper Clubs aimed at celebrating our local food and drink and nurturing our community of conscious eaters. Events like these also provide a way for the magazine to thank our supporters, build awareness of food-related issues and raise funds for great food-related causes, so we hope you’ll get to attend one soon! To receive advance information on upcoming events, follow our Twitter, Facebook and RSS feeds, and send your e-mail address to info@ediblemontereybay.com. What follows are accounts of our first two events, and the stories of the wonderful people and places that hosted them. See the blog on our website for more about these restaurants and the events we held there. —SW
Santa Cruz, April 22—Here on the Central Coast, Earth Day has become quite the celebration. Beach clean-ups, parties, concerts —you name it, we do it, all in the name of preserving our beautiful planet. This year in Santa Cruz, one such event was Edible Monterey Bay’s April Pop-up Supper Club, which offered participants a unique view into a popular local organic restaurant and Certified Green Business, Charlie Hong Kong, including a tour of one of its enlightened suppliers, the legendary UCSC Farm & Garden.
Since opening in 1998, Charlie Hong Kong has served as a Santa Cruz institution for affordable, convenient, healthy food. Owners Rudy and Carolyn Rudolph aim to provide the community a taste of Southeast Asia, inspired by the abundance of tasty street food found in their travels, and also to incorporate the fresh produce that is unique to our region here in California.
The Rudolphs are committed to sourcing much of their ingredients for the restaurant from local farms, and are also contributors to UCSC’s Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. As Carolyn comments, the program “is growing a new generation of organic farmers,” a vital thing as we see the adverse effects of largescale factory farming and monoculture. For this reason, the Rudolphs came up with the great fundraising idea of incorporating an educational tour of the UCSC Farm prior to the delicious family-style Earth Day tasting at their restaurant. As Carolyn says, “It wasn’t enough just to do a dinner for me. I wanted to highlight where this food comes from.”
The fact that Charlie Hong Kong chops 400-500 pounds of leafy greens every day is evidence of its role in supporting the local farming community. Its demand creates business for a flow of rotating farms, with a menu that features regional standards like chard, lettuce and cabbage to specialty crops like green garlic and fresh flowers. “There is all this gorgeous food grown right here. And people are now spending more money going out than they are at the grocery store, so eating out should be healthy! Yet the most driving factor for me is wanting food to be affordable, and as well, to be a place that you can get something fast but nourishing, too.”
A European adventure in her early 20s led Carolyn to the discovery of vital, “alive” ingredients, and since then, she has been dedicated to promoting that way of eating—as well as the Mediterranean mentality of community coming together through food. With Charlie Hong Kong, she has been able to put all of that together.
“This is a vision I’ve had for decades, and my intention was to be able to feed people healthy, organic food. My husband was in the
Lokal’s Chef Brendan Jones assembles ceviche.
corporate world and really knows how to run a business, so it’s a perfect marriage.” Literally. Ultimately, both of the Rudolphs want their restaurant to feel like the customer is coming home. As Carolyn likes to say, “This is your kitchen, come and eat!”
For the Supper Club’s lucky attendees, eating together familystyle meant that the group could try nearly every one of Charlie Hong Kong’s delicious specialties, including Gado Gado, Chaing Mai Noodles, Spicy Dan’s Peanut Delight and a mint and cilantrolaced green chicken curry. —AT
Carmel Valley, Wednesday, March 28—When a new restaurant arrives with as much anticipation as Lokal has, it’s easy to wonder how it will live up to the hype.
But in just one night—hosting the first Edible Monterey Bay Pop-up Supper Club—the Carmel Valley creation of Brendan Jones and Matthew Zolan easily surpassed the promise of months of frothy press reports and social media frenzy, with a menu that was both mind-bendingly creative and incredibly delicious.
And whereas the food was full of exciting surprises, the service had the assured calm and pleasant lack of surprises of a restaurant that’s been open for months, if not years.
Lokal’s opening had been stalled for some seven months due to permitting and construction delays, but the restaurant was able to christen its kitchen on March 28 for the Supper Club, and in advance sales it quickly sold out. (The restaurant finally opened to the general public on April 30.)
Unsurprisingly, the excitement of those who were quick enough with their PayPal buttons to obtain tickets created a happy and partylike buzz that lasted throughout the night.
The revelations began at the get-go with a two-tone, two-temperature Hot and Cold Gin Fizz that Jones adapted from a recipe served at Ferran Adria’s avant garde restaurant elBulli in Roses, Spain—which was considered one of the best restaurants in the world until Adria closed it last year and moved on to other projects. (Jones himself apprenticed with elBulli protégé Andoni Luis Aduriz at his Mugaritz in Errenteria, Spain, which itself was ranked third in the world by Restaurant magazine on its 2011 best restaurants list.)
Zolan and Jones’ last venture together was a popular bar in Prague called Osmicka, and they very nearly moved back to the Czech city last year to open a restaurant there before starting Lokal. (Type “Lokal” into the search function on the EMB website to learn more.) So, fittingly, the meal also included a buttery, spicy dark zelnacka, or cabbage soup, but also, fittingly, it was anything but traditionally Czech, as each bowl was topped by a large scoop of Jones’ own golden, seed-flecked mustard ice cream.
Other highlights of the meal included deeply flavorful and meltingly tender short ribs and a salad prepared with Coke Farm artisanal greens, sliced pears, wisps of crisped parsnips and foamed Point Reyes blue cheese.
Jones’ own favorite course of the night was a ceviche of juicy California snapper, kumquats and tangerines served with sliced avocados, frisée and cilantro. The dish’s unexpected kick came from bright shards of cracklins—made not from pigskin but, rather, crisped mole sauce.
Just as one would expect from a restaurant named Lokal, Czech slang for local—Jones uses local ingredients as much as he can, and just as his father, Michael Jones, does at the Cachagua General Store, where Jones also cooks, Brendan Jones selects organic as much possible. Even the restaurant’s wine list emphasizes local: For the Supper Club, the restaurant paired a Vermentino and Grenache-Syrah blend, both from Chesebro, and a Pinot Noir and a Chardonnay from Chock Rock. —SW
Charlie Hong Kong 1141 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz 831.426.5664 • www.charliehongkong.com
The Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems
UCSC • 831.459.3240 • www.casfs.ucsc.edu
Lokal 13750 Center St., Carmel Valley • 831.659.5886 www.facebook.com/lokalcarmel
Amber Turpin is a baker, homesteader and food writer located in Ben Lomond. Her most recent endeavor is a coffee and bakeshop on the west side of Santa Cruz called Filling Station.
