Saturday Restaurant Highlight: Gold Street Cafe, Grace Place

Edited 12/31/2013

Every Saturday, I'm going to be reviewing two different restaurants (or places that serve food) that I've been to and, of course, tie those reviews in with geography.  First on the list is Gold Street Cafe.

Gold Street Cafe

http://goldstreetcafe.webs.com/locationhours.htm

Review: This seems at first to be just an average diner in the Redding area.  It's more than just that, though, because of its impeccable service.  While its food is not the fanciest around, it does a very good job with what it serves.  Eggs Benedict is my favorite thing on the menu.  I usually order it with mushrooms and onions instead of ham, with hash browns and extra Hollandaise sauce on the side.

Photo credit: Robin Heater (me)

Geography:  Gold Street Cafe's out-of-the-way location may steer some away from it.  I call this a "remote sense of place".  But I have found a rule of thumb: if a place looks worn down, and it has a remote sense of place, then that means the eatery is doing something right.  If it has been in business long enough to look that way even while it has a less-preferable relative location, then either the food is good, or the service is good enough to make up for it.  In the case of Gold Street Cafe, it is both.

Grace Place

Photo credit: Robin Heater (me)

http://www.graceplaceteahouse.org/

Review: If you enjoy good food and nice people, this is a place to be.  All kinds of tea from all over the world are here, which piques my interest as a food geographer.  What really sets it apart from other places is the wide variety of food and tea, and the fact that everybody is friendly.  Also, all proceeds go to help the elderly and the mentally disabled.  It is a very Christian-oriented business, but don't let that put you off if you're not Christian.  I am agnostic, and enjoy it for its service, food, and charitable causes.

Geography: For the geography of Grace Place, I want to talk about their teas.  Their regional teas mostly are representative of Eastern teas.  I am here at Grace Place now, writing this post, and have just finished a Masala Chocolate Truffle tea.  This borrows flavors from Indian (the notes of cardamom and clove) and Oregonian (the specific combination of truffle and chocolate) cuisines.  These two cuisines are famous for tea, the cuisine of Oregon more recently.  Soon, I may do a post on "hipster cuisine", and Oregonian cuisine will be talked at length about at that time.

Check back next Saturday, when I will review Brew and Yaadgar.