.That New New

There are almost as many participating restaurants celebrating Santa Cruz Pizza Week, Jan. 29-Feb. 8, as there are possible toppings to plop on a pie.

Slice Project (300 Main St.. Watsonville) is celebrating with a deal on Saucy Little Chicken pizzas—and word it’s adding an outpost at The Hangar (45 Aviation Way, Suite 6, Watsonville), across town from its downtown spot in the former Fox Theater.

“We are excited to be joining such a great group of businesses and the opportunity to serve the northern part of Watsonville/Freedom with easier access [to] our pizza,” The Project team, led by brothers Brando and Kristian Sencion, posts on Instagram. Optimistic ETA: end of February. santacruzpizzaweek.com

A bumper crop of other spots have leapt to life recently, in addition to the likes of Coffee Conspiracy Co. (1855 41st Ave., F01, Capitola) and Gabrielita Tamaleria (1128 Pacific St., Santa Cruz) listed in this column this month.

Here comes a turbo tasting of the recent debuts, starting not far from where Gabrielita is wrapping yum in banana leaves: In another downtown kiosk, Matt McCabe has opened Crepe Cones (in front of 1520 Pacific St.) with affordable fresh-to-order crepes.

Tortilla Shack (1505 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz)—from the same peeps behind Izakaya West End (334 Ingalls St. D, Santa Cruz), Quinn Cormier and Geoff Hargrave—is now pressing fresh flour tortillas in house, across from Dominican Hospital. The homemade tortillas fly off the comal in classic white, spinach-garlic green and chipotle-smoked cheddar red, ready for guests to customize ingredients for a burrito. Or they can go for a choose-your-own bowl, taco or nacho combo.

Back downtown, Fusion Fare (1003 Cedar St., Santa Cruz) and Chef Hongmin Mo are already sizzling modern international/Sichuan-tinged dishes like slow-roasted lamb, peppercorn wings and braised pork hock in green onion sauce in the former Rustico Italian Street Food.

Green Papaya (8042 Soquel Drive, Aptos), meanwhile, is doing Southeast Asian dishes like spicy larb, cashew tofu and khao man gai chicken in what was Café Sparrow on Soquel Drive.

And J&M Bagels (5980 Highway 9, Felton) now gives the mountains fresh flavor in the form of sourdough bagels and special-recipe schmears.

HAND UP, BELLY FED

Chef Jose Andres does the kind of gourmet grub that sane souls have called “life-changing.” What humanitarian Jose Andres and his team have done with World Central Kitchen is truly life-changing, in a day-to-day way. Their latest mission to deliver relief to disaster areas has shared more than 200,000 hot meals with Los Angeles citizens across 50 meal distribution sites, including 20 dedicated to first responders. Birichino Winery (204 Church St., Santa Cruz) is aiding the push by donating 10% of online sales via its website (birichino.com) to WCK through the end of month. Next month, namely Feb. 15-16, Linda’s Seabreeze Café (542 Seabright Ave, Santa Cruz) hosts L.A. Fire Relief Days to generate funds for WCK, Pasadena Humane and the American Red Cross. wck.org.

BURNT ENDS

Happy National Soup Month! An atypical way to celebrate/self-mutilate: Progresso now does Soup Drops, hard candies with flavors like chicken noodle, and the motto, “Soup you can suck on.”…Venus Spirits (200 High Road, Santa Cruz) and other California craft distillers are pushing lawmakers to retain COVID-inspired legislation that made shipping their liquids to consumers permanent…There are now Post Malone Oreos…This closing quote is officially anonymous, maybe because it applies broadly: “I’m sorry for what I said when I was hungry.”