The Dixie Chicken restaurant had caught my eye on previous visits. On this day we made it our lunch stop. The food's good and the beer's cold and if you're in the area I recommend it. It's easy to see why it's an Aggie tradition.
This man exudes passion. He's "been around the world two or three times" first with the military and then on a culinary adventure. Military food was "horrendous", so he'd often go AWOL with his buddies for good food. He loved to cook pancakes and barbeque for the barracks.
The Palace Grill has been a downtown Santa Barbara fixture for more than 25 years, serving a wide array of food choices, but with a focus on Creole and Cajun. We started with a Cajun martini, marinated with jalapeño and served with cherry peppers in a Mason jar.
“Desert rats”. The sand dunes 5 miles to the west of town offer months of fun for Quad riders, motorcyclists and dune buggy enthusiasts. For “River rats”, the Colorado River, 30 miles to the north offers a variety of water sports from waterskiing, inner tubing to sitting on a sand bar and watching the world go by.
Torch is the place to go if you're craving s'mores. Forget the store bought Graham crackers and marshmallows, these are hand made Grahams with handmade vanilla marshmallows served with milk chocolate.
Les Pervenches delighted us with a Rose of Frontenac and Black Seyval. The berry of the Frontenac and the orange, honeycomb and strawberry flavors of the Black Seyval were a magical blend.
The hacienda is magnificent with vaulted ceilings and oak beams, stone walls made from local Carmel stone and a Mexican terracotta roof. There are mementos from the old West, posters depicting events from days gone by and photos of movie stars who frequented the ranch decades ago.
The tasting room is right on the Vermont border and hosted by a lively gentleman named Tex. He has been with the company since the start and brings lightness and humor to cider tasters. Just don’t ask him where his nickname comes from. Well, maybe you should.
He put that idea on the back burner until he lost his job in 2004 and thought to himself 'what the hell?' Starting with $78,000 and a naive stubbornness, M2 was born.
Over-sized concrete chairs and sofas dot the patio. Empty wine bottles are embedded in cement. They built the winery using natural ingredients, most of them sourced locally.
