Garden Kitchen is back from Winter Break and will be re-opening Thursday, January 12th! Russ and Coral spent some time in Sayulita, Mexico, and the staff spent time unwinding with family & friends. After some much needed rest and relaxation we are ready for an exciting 2017, and have some fresh ideas, new food inspiration and lots of great events coming up. In case you have the rainy day blues, you should know that we recently fully weatherproofed the front patio, so even on a rainy day it now stays fully dry and warmer while maintaining the cozy atmosphere.
We have joined up with Farm to Fork San Diego for upcoming Farm to Work Week, which is an exciting new project that friend and fellow restaurateur Trish Watlington, owner of The Red Door, has put together to join the true farm to table restaurants here in San Diego. This alliance helps continue support of local farms, and offers an alternative to the traditional San Diego Restaurant Week, which forces many local restaurants to drop the quality of their meat & produce to compete with lower prices offered during this week of deals. Farm to Fork Week joins restaurants that pledge to use local & mostly organic produce and who support local farmers & purveyors. Check out the Farm To Fork website to read more and see the other restaurants that will be participating next week by offering $15 – $40 prix fixe lunch & dinners.
From Tuesday January 17 through Saturday January 21, we at Garden Kitchen will be offering a three course, $40 prix fixe dinner in addition to our typical la carte menu, with specialty item additions and $15 wine pairings. The three courses will include choice of appetizer, soup or salad, choice of entree, and choice of dessert. San Diego’s freshest seafood from Catalina Offshore will be offered daily during this special F2F week! As always, reservations are encouraged but not required.
As part of the Farm to Fork events, Coral will be guest chef at a special all vegetarian dinner at The Red Door, alongside Executive Chef Miguel Valdez. The event takes place Sunday, January 22, and will be a five course dinner featuring local farmers, ranchers and winemakers. There will be two seatings, 4:30 and 7:30, and the price is $75 (includes tax & tip), with the option to add $25 wine pairings. You can purchase tickets here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/farmers-friends-and-fishermen-ix-tickets-30818195051
Even more exciting news, we are excited to be joining forces with local company Closing The Loop to work towards becoming a ZERO WASTE restaurant! Although we already reduce, reuse & recycle more than most, by working with this amazing crew we will be diverting virtually all waste from the landfill. Closing the Loop is a local & veteran owned one stop shop waste recycler. While we have already reduced our impact by recycling traditional items, we will now be sorting all extra trash that we generate, right down to meat and vegetable scraps. Closing the Loop will effectively allow us to eliminate our commercial trash and recycling service. While we have never used styrofoam at Garden Kitchen, they even have mealworms that they use to break the styrofoam back down to a usable, organic product! Chris, Abriana & family are young and intelligent and are doing amazing things, we highly encourage you to
read more about what they do! They also service both residential & commercial, so if helping the planet on this level is what you want, we suggest you contact them.
Valentines Day is just around the corner, and even though it falls on Tuesday this year, we will have a special Valentine’s menu on Friday the 10th, Saturday the 11th, and Tuesday the 14th. Just like last year, it will be a romantic & special weekend, and as for food expect to see wagyu steak, pork tomahawks, risotto, the freshest seafood and many vegetarian & vegan delights. This weekend always sells out so reservations are highly encouraged.
In March look forward to a special 100% Vegan Sunday Night Dinner. Because we have a large vegan & vegetarian following, we will celebrate Coral’s love for vegan foods as well as offer an amazing 5 course dinner with the option to add wine pairings. We don’t have an exact date yet, but we will keep you informed and can assure you this event will sell out quickly.
That’s all for now, thank you for your continued support as we head into 2017 and celebrate our second year of business. We look forward to more great food, supporting local farms and our continued friendship with many of you!
