Hard day at work

As most of you know I work at The Linkery and every so often I get to drive up to the Santa Monica Farmers Market to get some produce. This time around Farra joined in on the trip and we had a blast. We hit up the SMFM and loaded up on a bunch of stone fruit from the Central Coast. The best part of that trip this time was not the SMFM, but the visit we had at the Intelligentsia coffee bar in Venice.

When I had the opportunity to take over the coffee ordering at The Linkery I got exposed to Intelligentsia coffee, which is the best thing to happen to coffee in the last years and in the years to come. We had an amazing visit with one of our friends from Intelligentsia who gave us the tour of it all. Check out the link's blog to read more about it.

After all the coffee drinking we needed some food to stop our shaking. Thankfully, Nick recommended a great restaurant just down the street called GJELINA. This place was full of people just having casual lunch during the middle of the day on a Wednesday, which made me think "do these people work?" Anyways, we scored this petite table on their charmingly rustic looking outside patio. First things first, I ordered Green Flash's West Coast IPA and Farra ordered a glass of Triennes rosé. We had heard that their brick oven pizza's were delicious so we knew that that was one dish we were getting and then we decided on a salad.

Here is the rocket, sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, lemon, and shaved pecorino salad. I loved how the spice from the rocket was balanced out by the sweetness of the corn and the cherry tomatoes. And who doesn't love shaved pecorino on their salad?

The house-smoked cheese pizza with roasted tomato, rocket, and sliced jalapeños. We both love spice and this pizza definitely made us take a break every so often. Good thing I had that IPA to wash it all down.

We sat there enjoying our meal and really appreciated the day we had had, a beautiful drive up, a nice sunny day for the SMFM, cruising down the boardwalk from Santa Monica to Venice, the amazing experience at Intelligentsia, and then this al fresco lunch. If you are ever up in this area I highly recommend these 2 places.