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Kosher Food in Santa Cruz?

Is there a good kosher resturant or kosher grocery store in the Santa Cruz area? Well, not really, but I thought it would be good to share what I do have. The following is a list of sources for kosher or almost-kosher food in Santa Cruz.

Resturants

• A vegan resturant is most likely ok.
• A vegetarian resturant in the USA is likely ok if you accept the heter (leniency) of considering all dairy products made in the USA as being kosher.
• A resturant that serves fish and does not serve meat is likely to be ok, but this can require some checking. You should observe how they do the food preparation if there are non-kosher fish served in the resturant (and the will almost certainly serve shrimp, so you do need to watch it). This applies to sushi as well even though it is not cooked. Be careful about the ingredients and watch that the chefs are careful to clean their work surfaces after preparing a non-kosher fish containing dish.
• Salad bars are usually ok.

With that in mind, here is a list of resturants that meet the above criteria as far as I know. If you have other places to add please let me know and I will be happy to add them.

• Noah's Bagels - kosher - Santa Cruz and Capitola
• Malabar Cafe - vegetarian
• Asian Rose - vegetarian
• Dharmas - vegetarian
• Fresh Choice - salad bar is mostly ok
• Kefi - vegetarian
• Staff of Life - vegetarian deli open for lunch
• Pink Godzilla - sushi - very clean and careful preparations

Grocery Stores

In the latest issue of the Kashrut Nexus they pointed out that having a hechsher (a symbol identifying the kashrut certifying authority) on your products makes them sell better and that more non-Jews are buying kosher than Jews. What this means is that it is getting easier and easier to find kosher products in the stores.

A couple things to note about buying kosher products:

• It is not sufficient to read the ingredients labels to tell if something is kosher. For example, did you know that Starkist tuna is (U) whereas Bubblebee tuna is (U)D (i.e., dairy)? There is nothing on the ingredients that would tell you this. There are also questions that cannot be answered about the manufacturing process.
• A manufacturer can use the K without any supervision so it is not always a reliable method of determining if the product is kosher. I do have resources to determine the kashrut status of questionable items if necessary, so if you have a question about something feel free to ask.

Cheese: The Conservative movement's position is that all cheese made in the USA is kosher and does not require certification. Not all people follow this leniency, however, and so you might want to know that the closest source of kosher cheese and other kosher foods is the Willow Glen Market. The Willow Glen Market, which is in San Jose, also has a kosher butcher and a deli counter.

Beyond Santa Cruz

Markets

Willow Glen Kosher Market

Mollie Stone's Market

J. Sosnick and Sons Kosher Food Products

Tel Aviv Strictly Kosher Meats

Israel and Cohen Kosher Meat Market

Jacob's Kosher Meats

Oakland Kosher Foods (also catering)

Henry's Kosher Meats

Kosher Meals by Mail

Restaurants - Vegetarian Chinese

Shangri-La Cafe

Lotus Garden

Restaurants - Ashkenazi and Sephardi

Holy Land Kosher Restaurant

Restaurants - Jewish/Kosher Delis and Middle-Eastern Food

Natan's

Pita King

Restaurants - Bagels

House of Bagels

Noah's Bagels