" " wrote in message news:[email removed]... > > Can anyone recommend any "must eat" places in Santa Barbara? > Hi, I live in Santa Barbara and can give you a few must eat at places. For a wonderful breakfast/lunch, try Cajun Kitchen, there are 3 locations. One on De La Vina (on the corner of Mission and De La Vina), one on Canon Perdido (Canon Perdido and Chapala), and one in Goleta on Storke road in the Kmart shopping center. For great Mexican food food that is very casual, go to La Superica. There is not a sign for it but it is on Milpas and Alphonse (left hand side of Milpas if you are going towards the beach). You order your food at a window and they call your number. It used to be frequented by Julia Child and I saw Jackson Brown and Daryll Hannah there once. It is VERY popular and has been in Sunset magazine. WONDERFUL tortillas they make while you wait. Pascucci's on State has the best Italian food and it is really inexpensive. I think the sampler dessert I had was 3 full size desserts for $7. Pierre LaFond has really good munchies for when you are wandering downtown. There are a couple of these bakeries. One is at the Paseo Nuevo mall. If you are looking for a particular kind of food, let me know and I can tell ya what there is. Also, if you try any of these places, let me know what you think. Oh yeah, for a really nice place for a drink while the sun sets, go to Stearns Wharf and have a drink at Longboards so you can sit outside and see how beautiful SB is. Thanks! Jill
Santa Barbara, CA
Good restaurants in Santa Barbara?
I highly recommend the Palace Cafe (http://www.palacegrill.com/). Excellent crab cakes, soft shell crab po-boys and crawfish 8 E. Cota Street, between State and Anacapa Streets. . > Can anyone recommend any "must eat" places in Santa Barbara? > >
Funny you should mention that! Read on.. As it turns out, we were NOT staying in Santa Barbara. We were staying in Buellton, nearly an hour's drive away! Ack. So, here are our culinary experiences during this trip: We found the absolutely best strawberries we've had in nearly 20 years, at a stand (Ruby Farm) a few miles west of Lompoc. Cheap, too. $1 per overloaded pint basket. Oddly enough, there was no discount for buying a full flat, though. We went back 3 times: The strawberries were perfectly ripe, which is, presumably, why they were sold locally instead of being shipped. We ate 3 pints per day, between the two of us. On the last day, we drove back there to get a flat to bring home. We've given half of the flat to neighbors, ate another pint, and the rest are probably going to become jam, this evening! Solvang seems nearly devoid of worthy eating places. We had the obligatory ableskivers (spherical, butter-laden fried batter, dusted with sugar and doused with raspberry jam). Nice, but if I don't have another one for 10 years, I won't notice. We had a smorgasbord at Bit of Denmark. Pass! We finally had a decent culinary experience at The Meadows, a hotel restaurant: My wife decided to have the smorgasbord, which had a smaller selection than BOD, but of MUCH better quality. I had a chicken breast on portobello mushroom, with a subtle marsala sauce and figs. I asked for a red wine risotto instead of the garlic mashed potatoes -- and was instead served a pilaf with bits of asparagus and carrots. It was good, and I just didn't feel like giving the waiter a hard time. The next day, we lunch ate at The Belgian Cafe in Solvang. Not bad at all. My wife had the prosaic Belgian Waffle with sliced strawberries. I had a ratatouille crepe. For Solvang, this was a pleasant and relatively inexpensive lunch Our hotel (Marriott Buellton) had a seafood buffet -- don't bother. It's not bad, but it's not worth going to unless you happen to be there. On Saturday, we wine-tasted our way to Santa Barbara. In Los Olivos, we had lunch at Fess Parker's (yes, Disney's Daniel Boone) Wine Country Inn and Spa Hotel restaurant. I had a seared ahi sandich, served on panini, with artichoke hearts and tomato tapenade. The ahi was done perfectly, but the artichokes overpowered the subtle taste of the fish! My wife had an excellent tri-tip sandwich, prepared with caramelized onions, and also served on panini. Both sandwiches are accompanied by freshly prepared potato chips. Prices are what you would expect for a a resort restaurant. Not absurd, but not value-priced. When we got to Santa Barbara, we were going to take Jill's recommendation and try Pascucci's -- but they wouldn't take a reservation for later that evening. It wasn't crowded, mind you, but it left us uncommitted. While walking back from the wharf, we noticed a long line in front of The Palace Grill. The menu looked good, and we decided to take a chance on the place, as the line did not appear to be heavily populated by tourists. This is supposed to be a Cajun restaurant, but it's really New Orleans-style cuisine that's been California-ized. They served a basket of delicious, freshly-baked muffins ranging from cornbread to cheese to various fruits. My wife started with gumbo. It was good, but what the heck was *salmon* doing in gumbo?? I had a jambalaya on dirty rice. Nice, but again, where the heck did that damned salmon come from???? My wife had crawfish cakes. They were tasty, but they were also around 2/3 breading and 1/3 crawfish tails (shelled, of course!). If they had taken out most of the breading, they still would have had decently-sized cakes, and you wouldn't be gumming down so much breading, and you'd be able to taste the crawfish tails! We finished with the "bread pudding souffle with whisky cream sauce". Absolutely no doubt, this was the best part of the meal. Deeeelicious. We had asked our waiter to pack up the leftover muffins (so we could have them for breakfast on the way home). He gave us a bag of fresh-baked ones (two of each kind!) instead. Smart way to get a good tip. We probably should have tried Pascucci's... By the way, while we were intrigued by the many recommendations to try La Superica, we've become inured to taco/burrito/enchilada cuisine. It just wasn't at the top of our list. Next time we're in SB, perhaps we'll give it a try. Rob L. wrote: > I highly recommend the Palace Cafe (http://www.palacegrill.com/). > Excellent crab cakes, soft shell crab po-boys and crawfish > > 8 E. Cota Street, between State and Anacapa Streets. . > > >>Can anyone recommend any "must eat" places in Santa Barbara? >> >> > > >
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 10:57:18 PDT Organization: RoadRunner - West Xref: usenet.INS.cwru.edu rec.food.restaurants:55839 Funny you should mention that! Read on.. As it turns out, we were NOT staying in Santa Barbara. We were staying in Buellton, nearly an hour's drive away! Ack. So, here are our culinary experiences during this trip: We found the absolutely best strawberries we've had in nearly 20 years, at a stand (Ruby Farm) a few miles west of Lompoc. Cheap, too. $1 per overloaded pint basket. Oddly enough, there was no discount for buying a full flat, though. We went back 3 times: The strawberries were perfectly ripe, which is, presumably, why they were sold locally instead of being shipped. We ate 3 pints per day, between the two of us. On the last day, we drove back there to get a flat to bring home. We've given half of the flat to neighbors, ate another pint, and the rest are probably going to become jam, this evening! Solvang seems nearly devoid of worthy eating places. We had the obligatory ableskivers (spherical, butter-laden fried batter, dusted with sugar and doused with raspberry jam). Nice, but if I don't have another one for 10 years, I won't notice. We had a smorgasbord at Bit of Denmark. Pass! We finally had a decent culinary experience at The Meadows, a hotel restaurant: My wife decided to have the smorgasbord, which had a smaller selection than BOD, but of MUCH better quality. I had a chicken breast on portobello mushroom, with a subtle marsala sauce and figs. I asked for a red wine risotto instead of the garlic mashed potatoes -- and was instead served a pilaf with bits of asparagus and carrots. It was good, and I just didn't feel like giving the waiter a hard time. The next day, we lunch ate at The Belgian Cafe in Solvang. Not bad at all. My wife had the prosaic Belgian Waffle with sliced strawberries. I had a ratatouille crepe. For Solvang, this was a pleasant and relatively inexpensive lunch Our hotel (Marriott Buellton) had a seafood buffet -- don't bother. It's not bad, but it's not worth going to unless you happen to be there. On Saturday, we wine-tasted our way to Santa Barbara. In Los Olivos, we had lunch at Fess Parker's (yes, Disney's Daniel Boone) Wine Country Inn and Spa Hotel restaurant. I had a seared ahi sandich, served on panini, with artichoke hearts and tomato tapenade. The ahi was done perfectly, but the artichokes overpowered the subtle taste of the fish! My wife had an excellent tri-tip sandwich, prepared with caramelized onions, and also served on panini. Both sandwiches are accompanied by freshly prepared potato chips. Prices are what you would expect for a a resort restaurant. Not absurd, but not value-priced. When we got to Santa Barbara, we were going to take Jill's recommendation and try Pascucci's -- but they wouldn't take a reservation for later that evening. It wasn't crowded, mind you, but it left us uncommitted. While walking back from the wharf, we noticed a long line in front of The Palace Grill. The menu looked good, and we decided to take a chance on the place, as the line did not appear to be heavily populated by tourists. This is supposed to be a Cajun restaurant, but it's really New Orleans-style cuisine that's been California-ized. They served a basket of delicious, freshly-baked muffins ranging from cornbread to cheese to various fruits. My wife started with gumbo. It was good, but what the heck was *salmon* doing in gumbo?? I had a jambalaya on dirty rice. Nice, but again, where the heck did that damned salmon come from???? My wife had crawfish cakes. They were tasty, but they were also around 2/3 breading and 1/3 crawfish tails (shelled, of course!). If they had taken out most of the breading, they still would have had decently-sized cakes, and you wouldn't be gumming down so much breading, and you'd be able to taste the crawfish tails! We finished with the "bread pudding souffle with whisky cream sauce". Absolutely no doubt, this was the best part of the meal. Deeeelicious. We had asked our waiter to pack up the leftover muffins (so we could have them for breakfast on the way home). He gave us a bag of fresh-baked ones (two of each kind!) instead. Smart way to get a good tip. We probably should have tried Pascucci's... By the way, while we were intrigued by the many recommendations to try La Superica, we've become inured to taco/burrito/enchilada cuisine. It just wasn't at the top of our list. Next time we're in SB, perhaps we'll give it a try. Rob L. wrote: > I highly recommend the Palace Cafe (http://www.palacegrill.com/). > Excellent crab cakes, soft shell crab po-boys and crawfish > > 8 E. Cota Street, between State and Anacapa Streets. . > > >>Can anyone recommend any "must eat" places in Santa Barbara? >> >> > > >
Someone wrote: > By the way, while we were intrigued by the many recommendations to try > La Superica, we've become inured to taco/burrito/enchilada cuisine. It > just wasn't at the top of our list. Next time we're in SB, perhaps > we'll give it a try. This is an absolute must when in SB. I have gone out of my way on roadtrips to SoCal just to eat there. It is one of Julia Child's favorites and rightly so! Super Rica is anything but your standard Mex.