Dishcrawl, the Rolling Food Party, Debuts Successfully in Santa Cruz

Lights...action...cue the food....snap away...

The restaurant sampler known as Dishcrawl hit Santa Cruz Wednesday and drew 30 locals on a walk to four restaurants to sample the food downtown.

Based on the sounds of slurping, chewing, clinking glasses and the empty plates, the debut of this young San Jose company's idea was a success.

"It was great," said former Cal Poly food studies student Emma Kitchen, who works at Martinelli's. "My favorite was the Italian place (Cafe Mare), because of the eggplant."

The walking tour of gastronomy began at Pono Hawaiian Grill with chicken katsu, Hawaiian-style spring rolls and Kalua Pork Sliders and moved through three other restaurants.

Each pulled out some specialities and had owners or managers come out to explain the samplings.

Cafe Mare's owner Jean Pierre Luliano, from Calabria, served Fresca Contidina, Girello Vegetarian and Polpete al Sugu. In non-foodie English, that would be a lasagna, an eggplant dish and something else good.

Rosie McCann's Irish Pub's Kim Shankland wanted people to know that pub food in her place was on the gourmet level. The beef sliders are made from Kobe beef. They came with some corned beef and fried fish, for authenticity.

Finally, Mission Hill Creamery served dessert of, you guessed it, any flavor you wanted, from salted caramel to maple bacon and even vanilla.

The next Crawl hits Capitola Feb. 28. The company was started by a San Jose State University graduate and has been giving crawls for two years across the country. This was its first in the county and host Wes Katayuma said we can expect more.

Prices are steeper here than in other states, $45 for three courses in three or four places.

The first 20 Santa Cruz Patch readers who post scpatchreaders in the promotion code box for the Capitola crawl will get a $5 discount.