A touch of class after class
Chris Cadelago and Lyndsey Fellows
Issue date: 11/30/05 Section: Entertainment
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Few cities in the world lay claim to as many restaurants per capita as Santa Barbara. So you may be asking yourself, where do the city's restaurants get cooks to fill its kitchens? The answer is the City College School of Culinary Arts and Hotel Management. In the hollowed halls of the John Dunn Gourmet Dining Room, located across from the Bookstore, students handcraft the most appetizing and aesthetically pleasing dishes in town.
Thursday evening hounding the alleyways of City College with expert senses, we pounced upon the John Dunn, affectionately known as Dunny's.
My colleagues and I were greeted warmly and ushered to a table situated under dim romantic lighting. We awaited our delicious four-course meals, salivating over the menu. Although the menu may look intimidating, everything is more than pleasing and will satisfy all cravings.
Our server made insightful recommendations for our starters and continued to impress us with her professionalism throughout the meal. We opted for the tomato bread salad, which came beautifully prepared with blue lake green beans, goat cheese and torn basil. All this sandwiched between three generous slices of heirloom tomato. The dish was masterfully paired with Tin Roof's pinot noir rose.
One of my colleagues had the drunken ceviche, which came in a chilled glass piled neatly with mango, papaya, Serrano chilies and tortilla chips. Orange juice and tequila topped off the dish. Our server poured a generous glass of the Lafond Chardonnay Santa Rita, which brought out the sweet flavor of the vine-ripe fruit with ample acidity. Let's just say our friend Pierre has done it again, squeezing liquid so tantalizing one might call it the nectar of the gods.
We also recommend the avocado Clementine tangerine salad, which included watercress tossed with light citrus vinaigrette. The soft hint of sweetness in the tangerine gave the salad a flavorful tang and the Tin Roof pinot noir rose also accompanied the greens. Even this early on in the meal, we were already sold. But the staff continued to impress us with its relentless pursuit at perfection.
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