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EAT THIS: BEEF KOUBIDEH BURGER AT LAILI
Need an excuse to eat as many burgers as you can in a week and a half? Now is your moment. Santa Cruz Burger Week has returned to Santa Cruz County for an eighth year, this time for 12 days instead of the traditional eight. The event started Wednesday and runs through March 9, with 37 participating restaurants offering two to three special burgers for $12, $15 or $18.
I look for unusual creations from unexpected places, so after I checked out the burger guide in this week’s Good Times – you can also view all the options at santacruzburgerweek.com – I stopped by Laili Restaurant in downtown Santa Cruz for a beef koubideh burger ($18).
This kebab-like burger was loaded with spices, with the flavors of cumin, coriander and turmeric coming through the well-seasoned beef patty. It was complimented with a smear of fresh, creamy mint aioli, sweet caramelized onions, funky Gorgonzola and peppery arugula. And it came with robust sides: a side salad with pomegranate seeds and roasted paprika fingerling potatoes, which made that $18 price tag seem like more of a deal.
(Laili’s other Burger Week special is a hefty discount on its lamb burger, available for $18 instead of the $25 menu price.)
Plus, I got to enjoy one of downtown Santa Cruz’s best-kept secrets: Laili’s romantic courtyard, the stone walls covered in crawling vines.
Are you going anywhere for Santa Cruz Burger Week? Email me at lily@lookoutlocal.com, or find me on Instagram.
BEST OF THE WEEK AHEAD
Below, find a curated list of the best food and drink events in Santa Cruz County for the coming week. At the top, I share my picks of unmissable local happenings.
The Lookout Santa Cruz app is available now in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Learn more here.
NEWS OF THE WEEK
ICYMI – here are the food news stories from Lookout that you might have missed, plus important news from beyond our borders picked by yours truly.
- Citing design flaws, Moss Landing restaurant owners sue Vistra over battery plant fire (Lookout)
- Ask Lookout: What’s the status of humpback whales in Monterey Bay and Dungeness crab fishing gear entanglements? (Lookout)
- A ‘perfect storm’ of environmental and political issues is driving Santa Cruz fishers out of the water (Lookout)
- The Chocolate Studio opens in former Flower Bar for three-month pop-up (Lookout)
- Meeting Mount Eden’s new winemaker Austin Chin (Edible Monterey Bay)
