By The Secret Diner –
In my last review, Mrs. Secret Diner and I reviewed Thai Fire, 2404 East Main. Please check them out. Tell them The Secret Diner sent you! Read below and guess where we’re off to next.
Different scholars and thinkers, doers and makers have contemplated the intersection of nature and culture. They each may have different names for this intersection but I bet all would agree that “place” does a pretty good job of scooping up all the intentions and aspirations. And there are predictable, emergent themes at this intersection: creativity, survival, and spirituality. All three of these themes can be tasted in a plate of food, for example, especially if the chef is sincere and intentional. She draws on what is available in nature, seasons it with her story, her identity. Inspired, she plates not just sustenance but art.
There is a large mural, a map of Ventura in the lobby of the “place” Mrs. Secret Diner and I broke fast recently. Something about maps inspires contemplation and imagination. Mrs. Secret Diner and I spent a moment traveling Ventura via this map. We told stories of places we’ve been and what happened there. We found our “spot,” our apartment within earshot of waves. “It’s crazy that we live here, isn’t it?” she asked. How in the world did we end up here? It matters, I think, how we answer the question, “where are you from?” because the place you currently occupy – where you sleep and eat and love, is layered like onion skin with all the places you’ve been and the reasons you spent time in them…and the reasons you left them.
We were offered seating indoors or out, and we chose a booth in the back of the dining room with a view of the pass. The pass is wonderful theater, a stage where all life’s plots get enacted, a play within a play. Here, servers finished dishes, slathered pancakes with foamy cream, wiped a plate or garnished an omelet. Food here is collaboration.
Our server brought us beautiful crocks of café de olla. Coffee, but from a different place – a different nature and culture, and absolutely delicious. Mrs. Diner decided she’d also like a peach mimosa. “Con el jugo al lado?” the server asked with a mischievous wink.
“Yes, on the side,” Mrs Diner understood.
“On the side?” I asked.
“Yes, you can make this carafe of peach juice last all morning,” she smiled.
As we sipped coffee and peachy wine, it was hard not to talk about the drama swirling around the world outside this culturally mashed-up oasis. Parades and protests, kings and queens, and not kings and queens. Lots of people worried about telling others where their place is while lacking any sort of reflection about their own place(s). But not here, not in this restaurant. Here, we brought our collective identities, shaped by hundreds of different places, and we smiled, winked, and asked, “you want that on the side, right?”
As we do, Mrs. Diner and I over ordered. Mrs. Diner had the ortega chili and cheddar omelet with hashbrowns. I asked for the ranchero skillet, I love chorizo! Eggs over easy and a biscuit with gravy. I also asked for a short stack of pancakes for the table. Sweet and savory!
We very nearly ate every morsel. We did take a box with a few bites of Mrs. Diner’s omelet leftover. “Eat that in the morning,” Mrs. Diner insisted.
Before settling the bill, I needed to use the restroom. I was directed through a door and into a short hallway.
“Get this,” I said to Mrs. Diner when I got back to our booth.
“What?”
“The bathroom is in a hallway that connects the cafe to the library!”
“Oh, that’s awesome.”
Mrs. Diner is right. There is something especially sublime about this cafe sharing a restroom with a library, connected by a hallway. Nature and culture need not be at odds. Rather, the relationship is symbiotic. Healing. We all need to spend more time in places like cafes and libraries!
Think you know where we ate? Check out my next review to see if you’re right, and to join us on our next adventure.
