The gals are on vacation this week. We thought we would leave hot and stormy Indianapolis for the beaches of Michigan, South Haven to be exact but wouldn’t you know it its raining here. South Haven is a quaint little beach style town of course there is no true beach because it’s a lake not an ocean but hey it’s the closest to what Tracy and I grew up with in Manhattan Beach California without actually going there.
So this rainy day we decided to do our own version of Diners Drive In’s and Dives. We really wanted to start out with a latte from our favorite coffee place Starbucks but to no avail there is no starbucks in this town but we were told the best place to get coffee is at the coffee beanery which is located in a village market a local grocery store. Boy were the locals right our latte’s were very similar to our favorite drink and they gave us the kick we needed to cruise the streets for treats.
We found ourselves at a place called the wild blueberry. Everything you can imagine done with blueberries even blueberry coffee. We tasted some lovely very chunky preserves on vanilla wafers. Then we were off to the Olive Bar its not really an olive bar its carries olive oils and vinegars. The best thing about this place is you get to taste all the oils and vinegars; there are plenty to choose from. We tasted a buttered olive oil and we said buttered popcorn, there was orange flavored and lime flavored rosemary, garlic and Chile and so many more but the best thing we tasted was the peach and white balsamic vinegar and cherry Chianti balsamic vinegar.
Then we shopped in and out of all the local chic stores with lots of fun jewelry, clothes purses (a favorite of mine) and of course the typical souvenirs too choose from. With all the shopping it made us hungry, so we asked at the visitor’s bureau and they told us the best place for dinner was Su Casa, a really cool Mexican restaurant. It’s in an old building with beautiful wooden floor and high seelings with exposed brick. There is a large bar with a large tequila list. We ordered the chicken soft tacos rice and beans. I am getting ahead of myself here. They delivered chips and salsa not your standard blended salsa and warm chips they brought us crispy tortilla chips with three condiments. A fresh tomato, onion cilantro salsa, and pickled carrots with jalapenos this is very California style and a great tomatillo/avocado sauce/salsa, which was refreshing. Now back to the chicken taco’s, I have eaten my fair share of Mexican food and chicken taco’s are one of my favorites and these taco’s were right up there with some of the best I have had. Warm corn tortilla’s stuffed full of chicken some of the tomato onion salsa and lettuce. You get three tacos rice and beans for 8.50. We love this fresh style of what I call California Mexican style food.
Stuffed to the gills we head out for more shopping and we find ourselves at Warner Vineyard store. They have a local winery and this is were you can by there wines without visiting the winery. They also have wine tasting you get to try 6 of their wines for free, so of course Tracy bought 6 bottles. We cruised around town a bit more just to work up a small appetite for some of the best ice cream we have ever tasted at Sherman’s Dairy bar. Tracy got mocha fudge and I got chocolate peanut butter. Now if I love California Mexican style food a lot, I love ice cream even more. This ice cream is so creamy and flavorful its in the top ten of my favorite places not to mention the size of the scoop its huge. Unlike other ice cream shops were scoops are getting smaller and the price is going up this place gives you a softball size scoop and we paid less than 7 dollars. Stuffed we had just enough energy to make it back to the hotel where we decide if its raining tomorrow we are off to Saugatuck/Holland to check out there eats.
No comments:
Post a Comment