Page 14 - Sonoma County Gazette August 2019

Cotati Quietly Pushes Back
By Peter Posert
I know someone who isn’t perfect. She
A zig and zag off the main drag and you’ll be able to find the
best park in Sonoma County. We have some great ones, I know. There’s Armstrong Woods, Helen Putnam, Sonoma Mountain, Annadel and Sugarloaf plus the beaches on the coast and on and on and on. None hold a candle to Cotati’s little secret gem of a park.
doesn’t wear The Best clothes or have The Best house. Her body isn’t the shape of
a magazine model. Her kids may not be destined for MIT. Her life has ups and downs. Yet somehow, my friend, whom I dearly love, is uniquely perfect in her own funny, quirky, lovable way...
When I survey the cuisine scene of Sonoma County, there is one shining beacon that calls to me for affordable, family-friendly, honest, great restaurant and food experiences. That equals the
best of Brooklyn but isn’t trying to be a Manhattan, it’s casual elegance instead
of tuxedo fare, it ain’t tryin’ to be a Napa Valley, just a better than average night out.
The great folks at Daily Acts got hold of a basic small residential something that was sort of an unused grass lawn, just 5000 square feet, and transformed
it into the Pocket Park Food Forest!
Our local shining star is typically
overlooked in most guidebooks. Virtually
everyone’s opinions for restaurant
destinations in our upscale wine county
world calls for driving on by to get to the
perfect and fancy haunts. I think you will
be surprised when you really see what is in ... Cotati!
Mike‘s KRUSH Burger
Instead of spraying pesticides and 60,000 gallons of water annually to keep up a grass lawn that nobody used, they transformed this little lot into a working permaculture garden showpiece and local resource that galvanizes the neighborhood to act in a mindful way about their water and their yards and their food.
Cotati isn’t perfect, like my friend, but in its own funny quirky way, there is way more to it than meets the eye. A few highlights include:
Burgers? Mike’s at the Crossroads, Super Burger and ACME Burger. A lifetime could be spent arguing which of the trio produces a better burger, and everyone would be right. The sides do matter, but again, it’s a tossup: Super Burger’s out of this world Greek Fries vs. ACME’s vibrant pickles on the counter vs Mike’s spot-on potato salad. This may be the best burger town in America.
Chinese? Amy’s Chinese Kitchen, China Chef, China Village and Fou Zhou. Four Chinese to choose from in 1 little city. Amy’s incredible homemade pot stickers, China Chef’s great mu shu, China Village’s fiery hot and sour soup and Fou Zhou’s noodles are all stand-out dishes. You
Mexican? Mi Ranchito, Mi Pueblo, Cotija and Café Salsa.
It is a tie. Spectacular Mexican cuisine can be had in Cotati at any one of 4 cantinas. Molcajete at Mi Ranchito, burrito at Mi Pueblo, phenomenal tacos at Cotija and everything at Café Salsa!
Let’s take an honest look:
There are a whopping 17 independent, local proprietor-owned restaurants in the little town!
The food grown there is free to any citizen of Cotati.
The featured flavors are Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, American, Seafood, Nouvelle/modern, Middle Eastern, Italian, and yes, even a couple of BBQ joints. That’s 10 traditions out of restaurants 17 in a city of just 7,500 people – Sonoma County’s smallest incorporated city.
When I stop to think about what I’d want from my community, it’s fantastic artisans of the culinary trade, it’s community involvement, it’s a shunning of the forces of industrial American food supply chains and a return to my locally grown food stuffs.
What is even more remarkable is the quality of the local groceries within the hamlet, with representation of upscale organic (Oliver’s), Far East- Asian, an Indian/ Pakistani grocer and the old-school local market.
Just at the edge of town are a couple of authentic Mexican and Latin American grocers in Rohnert Park. While there are all of these local ethnic and neighborhood stores, what goes unnoticed is that in Cotati, there isn’t an industrial scale American chain grocery store in the city and only one fast food joint tucked into a gas station at the freeway offramp and a sandwich and a take-home pizza place in there somewhere.
It often seems like all our other cities have way too many industrial scale grocery stores and so many fast food outlets that they have driven out the artisans, but not in Cotati, where you can pretty much only choose great locally-owned stores and restaurants.
Within the town are a half-dozen bakeries. There are award- winning wineries in Cotati now too. All this only covers the surface of one of our remarkable local gems.
The culinary heart of the city lies just a few blocks from the downtown strip.
really can’t go wrong in Cotati for Chinese.
14 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 8/19
COTATI cont’d on page 15
Acme Burger and Fires