Best Eats & Drinks in Santa Barbara, pt. 2

On our second day in Santa Barbara, we made it to 6 different restaurants to continue our eating and drinking through State Street to find the best food and drinks in Santa Barbara. We continued with our oyster hunt and found the best oysters in town as well as some of the best butter I have ever eaten (which is pretty impressive considering that as a freshman in high school when my mom and I had to fill out a questionnaire about each other’s favorite foods we both put butter on the list aha).

Michael and I started with a pretty hearty breakfast at the popular Sambos that was located right by our hotel. The complimentary breakfast Hotel Milo was offering was packed so instead of fighting over bagels and hard boiled eggs we made our way next door. I got Biscuits and Gravy and Michael had the California Eggs Benedict. Although I could have just eaten the little chocolate chip muffins they bring out while you wait for your order.

We decided it would be a good idea to take a walk after breakfast and wandered a couple miles up State Street before the sun came out in full force and we had to duck in somewhere for cover before turning back. I didn’t exactly pack the best shoes for this trip and the flip flops I got at the 99 cent store weren’t any better than the ankle booties I made the first part of the walk in.

We did accidentally find the Santa Barbara Public Market on our walk back to the hotel though, and made a plan to return, in an Uber, after making the journey back to shower and change. I saw the noodle bar that’s in the market on Travel Channel weeks before, and was set on trying the famous pot stickers when we returned. We walked back along the residential streets admiring the variety of Victorian houses and beach cottages until we hit a roadblock that had us walk all the way back to the first street we were on, cross under a bridge and walk back to where we just were by our hotel. Anyways, we recharged and regained our appetites and planned to get dropped at the Public Market and walk our way back to the hotel stopping at places along the way to continue our eating and drinking marathon.

Stop one was the Empty Bowl Gourmet Noodle Bar in the Public Market and the Big Eye Raw Bar. I got the curry noodle soup and sadly missed the famous pot stickers the owner’s mother folds by hand every morning.  I should have got them when we were there earlier in the morning but I was still full of biscuits. Michael got some crispy Ahi sushi bites and we wandered into the wine bar and market, The Purveyors, in the center of the building. You can bring whatever food you buy in the market in there so I brought  my noodles along to enjoy with the Languedoc Rose we ordered.

It was really nice and relaxing in here and we easily spent over an hour in there talking and looking around at all the bottles. After a couple glasses of wine we decided to stick with that for the night and plan our bar/food crawl home around where we could find rose and oysters.

We walked a couple blocks to Fork and Finch and had just missed the kitchen closing to prepare for dinner so we had a glass one wine and kept going after a brief photo shoot against one of their tiled walls.

Our next stop was one of my favorites. Kanaloa Kitchen  had really fresh seafood and mason jars full of rose which was a plus, especially since they gave us a third glass because there was some sediments the bottom of one of the glasses that we didn’t even notice. The oysters were the best we had of the other locations and I loved the nautical theme of the restaurant mixed with crisp white marble and festive lighting and signs.

We continued on the wine train and went for a tasting at Au Bon Climat and each tried the variety tasting in the tasting room. It was decent wine and a good price especially since there was only one other person in there so we had the experience pretty much to ourselves. It was tucked in along a hidden alley of restaurants and we ended up next door after our 5 wine taste. The room was a nice mix of rustic decor and modern devices. 

Intermezzo Bar and Cafe  was next door to the wine room and has outdoor seating by the road where we sat and an entire indoor area inside the hidden alley. I asked for some bread to come out as we waited for our burrata and final round of oysters to come out with our rose. The bread might have been one of my favorite parts and it was paired with the best butter I have ever had. It was a shallot and sea salt butter that was seriously just so good with fresh warm bread I could have eaten that the rest of the night. I am going to try and recreate the butter recipe for sure because I feel like it would make any dish better. We had small Kumamoto oysters that were fresh and clean tasting and I loved the pesto covered burrata as well.

By this time we were hitting our limit on wine and decided to go play a round of pool at our last stop of the night. We found Dargan’s Irish Pub and Restaurant had awesome potato leak soup and spicy hot wings to enjoy with a round of pool. It was a fun atmosphere and ended our food fest on a good note.

To recap …

Where we stayed:

Hotel Milo – good location and pretty views but expensive and no air conditioning.

Where we ate/drank:

1. Santa Barbara Shellfish Company
2. FisHouse
3. Les Marchands
4. Loquita
5. The Niegoborhood
6. Rudy’s Mexican Restaurant
7. Sambos
8. Public Market (Empty Bowl, Big Eye, Purveyors)
9. Fork and Finch
10. Kanaloa Kitchen
11. Au Bon Climat
12. Intermezzo
13. Darngan’s

Day two highlights:

• Everything in the Public Market
• Kanaloa Kitchen with the best oysters
• Intermezzo butter

Day two bummers:

• Missing out on the famous pot stickers because they sold out by 2 pm.
• Getting to Fork and Finch in between kitchen hours and them only having local wines.

Has anyone eaten their way through Santa Barbara? What were some of your favorite places?