My scenic byway took me to Santa Barbara last weekend. It is a lovely little town, and the surrounding wine country is beautiful. We stayed two nights in Santa Barbara (SB) and made it our base for visiting some of the local wineries. We left Santa Clarita on Friday, drove to
Summerland Winery (Part 1) on the way and then arrived in Santa Barbara in the afternoon. We had hoped to drive up to the
Lompoc Wine Ghetto (I want a t-shirt that says Wine Ghetto!!), but that is an hour drive from SB and all the tasting rooms close at 4 or 5 pm, so we were too late to make it there for this trip. The Lompoc Wine Ghetto is a warehouse with tasting rooms for 12 local wineries all in one locations. Nice, huh? A must see for next time.
Not being able to make it to the ghetto this trip, we decided to walk around SB and visit a few tasting rooms. There are a number of
tasting rooms downtown. We visited two before heading out to dinner. The first one was
Oreana. Fun space in an old tire shop (see photos of us lounging outside). Nice staff. The kind of place that makes you want to hang out. But the wine we tasted was not great. They look like they have fun events. The next tasting room we hit was the
Santa Barbara Winery just across the street from Oreana. Not fantastic, but ok.
After those wine tastings we needed some food. Some of the staff at the Santa Barbara Winery recommended we head to
Arch Rock Fish. If you are visiting SB I highly, highly recommend this place. It is in the heart of the restaurant area. The place has great food, a good wine selection, a fun atmosphere, and great happy hour food and drink specials. I would definitely go here again. You must go here!
Saturday we spent the day wine tasting in Los Olivos (posting to come). But, Saturday night we were back in SB and for dinner we had to hit
La Super Rica Taqueria - Oh man oh man oh man. I cannot wait to go to this place again! I can't wait to take my husband! You must go here!
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| Photo courtesy of John Dickson's Santa Barbara Restaurant Guide. |
A friend heard I was going to SB and told me that I had to try this place. She told me that Julia Child loved it. I was intrigued. I read up on it online, including looking at photos of the menu items that someone had graciously posted, and I was hooked. I told my friends we had to go to this place. So on our last night in SB, in the pouring, pouring rain (a huge storm was blowing in) we drove to this little taco joint. It is a tiny place with a tiny kitchen and a tented seating area attached (thankfully with space heaters as it was chilly that night). It has a huge menu. Everything is a la carte. The prices are cheap. Everything we saw looked good. Everything we tasted was fantastic. Fresh. Real. If you don't believe how good it is hearing from me or Julia Child, read the NYT review and all the personal reviews from Yelp and other sources. Google it and find out. Its worth a trip to Santa Barbara.
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| Some of our food - sorry the light was bad. |
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| The friendly guy who takes your order. |
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| Part of the menu. |
My scenic byway took me to Santa Barbara last weekend. It is a lovely little town, and the surrounding wine country is beautiful. We stayed two nights in Santa Barbara (SB) and made it our base for visiting some of the local wineries. We left Santa Clarita on Friday, drove to Summerland Winery (Part 1) on the way and then arrived in Santa Barbara in the afternoon. We had hoped to drive up to the Lompoc Wine Ghetto (I want a t-shirt that says Wine Ghetto!!), but that is an hour drive from SB and all the tasting rooms close at 4 or 5 pm, so we were too late to make it there for this trip. The Lompoc Wine Ghetto is a warehouse with tasting rooms for 12 local wineries all in one locations. Nice, huh? A must see for next time.
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