By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY
Staff Writer
Sweet Pea’s – the new restaurant that opened on Thursday, Aug. 29 in Crestline – offers a new food choice in the community. It has both five-step poke and four-step teriyaki bowl choices, plus a variety of tea and coffee boba drinks and a sweets menu.
Sweet Pea’s owner Amber Crubaugh smiles as Crestline historian and author Russ Keller enjoys a refreshing beverage.
Sweet Pea’s is owned by Crestline native Amber Crubaugh, who has owned the Crestline Café since 2022, after starting work there as a waitress in 2014 and taking over management in 2015. Over the years, she has developed a good feel for the food tastes of the Crestline community. She seems to have found the perfect fit for the new, emerging tastebuds of the town with the immediate Facebook responses all positive. It is located in the former location of the Crestline’s Mandarin Garden restaurant, across the street from Rim Bowling and Entertainment Center and Sleepy Hollow Motel at 24036 Lake Drive. Crubaugh has had a lot support from community members as she has worked toward this opening day, with the painting of the cement urns and a small wall mural as examples.
The new menu should appeal to a wide variety of tastes. Customers get to make choices all along the way as the bowl is being dished up in front of them from the refrigerated or heated selection of foods.
Bowls of delicious shrimp and chicken teriyaki are already getting rave reviews from customers.
The $15 poke bowls are made in five steps with a base of either rice or greens. The protein choices are ahi tuna, spicy tuna, crab salad, salmon and tofu. Toppings choices include cucumbers or cucumber salad, mango, cilantro, green onions, red onions, red cabbage, jalapeno, pineapple, radish, edamame, spicy edamame, corn, avocado, carrot and wasabi. The fourth level is the choice of sauces, from wasabi aioli sauce, garlic sauce, ponzu/or ponzu lime, eel sauce, spicy mayo, miso mayo, soy sauce or bang, bang sauce. On top of all that is the crunch layer of furikake, crispy onion, crispy garlic, chili flakes or hot Cheeto dust. The concensus of those tasting the poke bowls that first day was a resounding “yes!” Happiness that Sweet Pea’s is open was a regular expression of the customers, after eating at the new restaurant.
Two older, long-time Crestline residents came separately into the restaurant on opening day, but did not know what poke was so they chose two of the teriyaki bowls. Those bowls are four layers of tastes, beginning with a salad or rice base. The prices are based on which protein is chosen, beginning at $14. The protein choices are grilled chicken, salmon, beef, tofu, grilled shrimp or Auntie’s Spam, plus there are add-ons of kimchi, avocado and half-half bowls. These can be topped with a steamed veggie combo of carrots, broccoli, cabbage, teriyaki sauce and sesame seeds.
The oldsters truly enjoyed their meals, loved the flavor of the teriyaki sauce and the grilled chicken and grilled shrimp and promised to return. Something these Crestliners never had previously tasted was boba, but both loved the variety of the iced boba menu and the drinks. Other customers in the restaurant were declaring that the boba was better than the place in Ontario that they currently drive to for boba.
Sweet Pea’s has milk tea and coffee boba for $6. The eight milk tea flavors include brown sugar, cinnamon, strawberry, hakkaido, taro, Thai, matcha and lavender. The five coffee bobas are brown sugar, whipped dragon, vanilla, coconut and caramel. There are boba extras, including extra bobas, cheese foam, mellow cream and mint mochi.
As they get community feedback, more items or taste selections may be added to the menu in the future.
The sweets menu features sorbet at $12 a bowl, beginning with dragon fruit, acai or a mango base. The toppings include strawberries, blueberries, bananas, coconut, chia seeds, cacao nibs, goji berries, oats, biscotti bits, almonds and granola. On top of that is a choice of sauces: honey, Nutella, blueberry sauce, mochi, biscoff, peanut butter, strawberry, vanilla, mango, green tea and pistachio drizzle.
The restaurant Sweet Pea’s is named after Amber’s three children – (P) Paisley, (E) Emma and (A) Aston – with a pea pod illustrated on the sign, meaning “three peas in a pod.” The children were helping in the restaurant on opening day, along with other employees.
Aug. 29 was a soft opening of the restaurant but is also a significant date in Crubaugh’s life as it was her grandmother’s birthday. She had always encouraged her granddaughter to strive for her best.
Hours will be 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day; the Facebook page is Sweet Pea’s Poke. They will take most credit cards, Venmo and other pay systems. Crubaugh hopes the phone will be installed soon.
0 Comments