Restaurants sometimes debut fully formed, while others take time to emerge—especially the personal, chef-owned places we love.
I was thinking about this while diving into a dish of ahi tuna laab served with crunchy shrimp chips at Hanloh Thai—Lalita Kaewsawang’s buzzy new eatery located inside Bad Animal bookstore in Santa Cruz.
Edible Monterey Bay started covering Lalita and her vibrant Thai cooking in 2018 when she was doing weekly pop-ups at Sante Adairius brewery. During the pandemic, we reported on the meal kits and pad Thai instructional videos she put out.
So it almost felt like a graduation to finally be able to sit at a candlelit table and dine at her restaurant.
Lalita is not the only chef who has emerged from the Santa Cruz pop-up circuit. Andy Huynh of Full Steam Dumpling now serves nightly at After Hours, Katherine Stern’s brick-and-mortar version of The Midway is set to open this spring and Jessica Yarr of Chicken Foot is launching her own café in Felton in just a few weeks.
With one cohort of pop-up chefs moving up, we wondered who was next? So, in our cover story, reporter Ashley Owen set out to discover the most exciting tastes and rising star pop-up chefs on the Santa Cruz scene right now. Fortunately for us eaters, there are plenty to choose from, and we didn’t even consider food trucks—which could be a story all its own.
Also in this issue, we meet two already firmly established stars: author Andrea Nguyen—a resident of Santa Cruz and one of the country’s foremost authorities on Vietnamese cuisine— who is about to release her seventh cookbook; and Aptos fisherman-forager Griffin Guess, who has a surprising Hollywood past.
We also wade into the culture wars with Sarah Wood’s story on induction stoves. I can assure you this piece was underway long before “banning gas stoves” became a talking point for cable news hosts, and she makes a compelling case for at least considering the switch to induction cooking.
We like to say Edible Monterey Bay is “appointment reading,” so sit back in a comfy chair with your favorite beverage, turn off those digital devices, take your time and enjoy our Spring issue!
Deborah Luhrman
Publisher
About the author
Deborah Luhrman is publisher and editor of Edible Monterey Bay. A lifelong journalist, she has reported from around the globe, but now prefers covering our flourishing local food scene and growing her own vegetables in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
