I hit a food trifecta this past weekend

Gilroy Garlic Festival, Yank Sing Soup Dumplings, Suppenkuche.

If you're gonna be a carnivore only once a month, make it worth it:


Gilroy Garlic Festival
Since I was going to be in the area, I made it a priority. 30 years and going. Whenever you drive through Gilroy, you get a great garlic smell. But with the festival, there's a roasted garlic aroma for like 10 miles of driving. And how they promote it: 10 tons of beef … 4 tons of pasta … 4 tons of calamari … 2 tons of scampi … plus 2 tons of fresh Christopher Ranch garlic …

Soup Dumplings:
The other day, I got an email titled "San Yoon Gets His Dumplings: The chef flies to San Francisco to get Yank Sing’s soup dumplings". Really? I'll be in SF. So I went to Yank Sing in SF and tried them...2 orders. Unreal how good they were.


Suppenkuche:
Cant' beat the Suckling Pig. I swapped out the Sour Kraut for Red Cabbage, something that drew positive attention for onlookers. Red Cabbage is a probably better pairing for that Beer Sauce they use for the pig.




When I was coming home through Santa Cruz I was hoping to stop at Mike's Soul Food, a place I had gone to in 2001. But it closed down from what I read. So I stopped at Cole's Bar-B-Q in Aptos, CA, right outside of Santa Cruz.