Weekend 1: Santa Cruz's Best Hot Chocolate

Our first weekend adventure was filled with hiking, kayaking, beaching, and of course, eating. We woke up early saturday morning for a pre-hike breakfast at Emily's Bakery. We wanted to try everything, so we ordered enough food to hold us over until dinner.

A chocolate croissant, a spinach and cheese croissant, a carrot muffin, and a piece of cherry pie.

My favorite was the chocolate croissant. Look at these insides! 

We were nice and full for our hike along the coast. 

After some hiking and beaching, we decided to go to dinner at the hip new place in downtown called Assembly (thanks to a recommendation from the Kopito's). The place was into the local food and community style meals in typical Santa Cruz fashion. We started out with some padron peppers with heirloom tomatoes, avocado, and red onion. While we really like each individual piece, the overall flavors didn't necessarily complement one another. For our main dishes, I had the salmon while David tried the pork belly. 

Both were delicious but slightly overpowering in their flavors. We decided to skip desert and go get hot chocolate at my favorite place, Chocolate, just down the street. 

Overall, we liked Assembly, but gave it a "recommend to a friend" rating, as it was a fun experience, but not necessarily somewhere we would return.

At Chocolate, we chose two of the seven different hot chocolate choices. I had the Victoria, a bittersweet Venezuelan hot chocolate, while David tried the Belga, a hazelnut hot chocolate. 

Yumm!!

Next up, Napa Valley!