••• Sama Sama Kitchen is now open for lunch Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., serving a “limited menu” and no cocktails, just beer and wine. Above: hot chicken bao, a recent special that seems a good fit for lunch.
••• And as of February 7, Café Ana will serve dinner on Friday and Saturday. No word yet on what the menu might look like, but dinner is being overseen by chef Adam Shoebridge, formerly of Helena Ave Bakery, with table service, like at brunch. Reservations can be made here.
••• Goleta’s Chicken in a Barrel has closed. —Restaurant Guy
••• Santa Barbara Restaurant Week is February 21 to March 6. The list of participating establishments includes Loquita, Blackbird, Paradise Cafe, Sushi Bar Montecito, Sama Sama Kitchen, and many more, and the website has links to the prix-fixe menus for a few of the restaurants. (For instance, here’s Loquita’s three-course, $45 menu.) “Proceeds from the event will be donated to ProStart, a two-year culinary arts and hospitality management program supported and managed by the California Restaurant Association Foundation. 140 public high schools in California (including our own San Marcos High School) use this curriculum and it reaches over 13,500 students every year.”
••• I was sitting outside Bree’osh yesterday, grateful everyone was wearing shoes, when a Range Rover parked in front of the café. The driver waited in the idling vehicle while his companion went inside—leaving the rest of us to enjoy engine noise and exhaust with our cappuccinos. This seems to happen more and more often. So here’s a rule to live by: if it’s warm enough for me to sit outside, it’s warm enough for you to turn your engine off.
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