The surf, the beach, the mountains… Yes, there’s a lot to do in San Diego, but you still gotta eat, right? San Diego county has many interesting gourmet food shops. We visited three unique places on a recent Sunday afternoon cruise up I-5.
Baker & Olive (oil) gave us an unexpected tasting experience. Did you ever drink olive oil? The many flavor-infused and extra-virgin oils along with flavored basalmic vinegars are here for you to sample. Three-liter sized stainless steel containers (called fusti in Italian) are lined up on tables in the store. They have spigots for sampling the oils and vinegars. Healthy, I know, but I was a little shy at first. The trick is to use the itty bitty cups provided and get a store employee to help you pick. I liked mixing different oils & vinegars together in the same cup like a vinaigrette. The oils come from across the globe and vary with the season–Southern Hemisphere in our spring, and Northern in our fall. They have two locations: one in the Del Mar Highlands Town Center and the other in Camino Real Shopping Center. bakerandolive.com
Venissimo cheese gives us a world tour of artisan cheeses. My cholesterol reading will tell you that I love cheese–a food that tastes good after it’s gone bad. I imagine the desperately hungry first human to try the moldy curds of bad milk thinking to herself, “if I don’t die from this, I’m going to make it again; it’s delicious.” Now we have hundreds of different cheeses. Venissimo has many of them, or at least a representative of most kinds. It’s a bit overwhelming, but here too is a great opportunity for sampling. There is also a basket of cheese “remnants” (not ruminants!) at the register. These are very small bits of cheese wrapped and ready to go–3 for $3 , and a great way to have a new taste experience (in the privacy of your own home.) There are several locations, but we went to the newly-relocated-across-the-courtyard Del Mar Center store. www.venissimo.com
The farm stand at Chino farms gave us the freshest baby vegetables available outside your own backyard. No, they are what my backyard garden vegetables aspire to. The produce is perfect: crisp, fresh, uniform in size, shape and color, and often unusual. Are there no bugs in Rancho Santa Fe? There is, I’ve heard, a cult-like following of local chefs vying for this stuff. I’m happy with my assortment: beets-not red, carrots-not orange, tomatos-not round-not red, raspberries-not red, eggplant-egg shaped and white, broccoli-not green, something choy, and fennel. Now the adventure begins. There are no prices posted. The employee behind the counter takes your selections–some things are weighed, some not–and returns much too quickly to say, “$20 please.” Relieved that I have enough cash in my wallet, I smile and gather my precious petites for the return journey home. There is no website, so here’s the address:
6123 Calzada Del Bosque, Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92014