Beach Time

Butterfly Beach, in Montecito, is a favorite among the locals.  This beach is smaller than the ones that you would find in Downtown Santa Barbara but you can't beat the location. Being situated right in front of the The Biltmore - Four Seasons Hotel, it's the perfect place to catch some rays and grab a drink afterwards if your schedule permits.

Since my out of town guests came to Santa Barbara for a little R/R, I decided that there was no better place to chill out than at this tucked away beach.  Before heading out, we filled up our beach bags with sunscreen, books/magazines and of course wine.  The three of us happily sat on the sand to soak in the sun and sipped on some vino in our coffee mugs of course (*wink wink*).

BEWARE!  There is one thing you must know about before you step on any beach in this area.  Due to the oil drilling off the coast, you may come across some tar while strolling on these beautiful sandy beaches of Santa Barbara and won't even know it!

Drink Up!

This past Labor Day weekend, my dearest friend, Yen, and cousin, Uyen, made a visit to stay with us for a few days.  We had a weekend filled with lots of wine, food and more food!  Every activity was planned around a meal or an alcoholic beverage of course.  Sadly we weren't hungry even once.

Since moving down to Santa Barbara, I have been dying to go wine tasting but really wanted to wait to do it with some out of town guests.  So this was the perfect weekend to take my over-aged guests (I do mean that in the most endearing way!) to the San Ynez Valley, central coast wine country.  Our first stop was Bridlewood Winery, one of the larger estates in the area.  The Spanish influence landscape gave the winery a rustic charm.

After sipping slowly on the classic tasting flight, we decided that we yet again needed a snack.  Luckily, we were given precise instructions to head to a nearby market, Los Olivos Grocery.  Although the market was small, it had all the essentials to pair with wine - cured meats, pate, crackers and even free picnic plasticware!

After picking up our goodies, we made our way Firestone Winery only to find that the tasting room was closing down for the day.  However, Uyen was successful in purchasing a bottle of white but unsuccessful in her attempt to run into Andrew Firestone. We ended up shortly back at Los Olivos Grocery.  The cute grocery store had a little picnic area out front.  We opened up a bottle of wine that we had just purchased and made ourselves at home.

I was soaking in the wonderful afternoon and swinging in the hammock chair listening to Yen and Uyen complain about how much we ate and drank.  However, it was too much fun to stop and did not want any food or wine to go to waste!

Great company and great conversation made it a wonderful afternoon in wine country.

Japanese Pub food in the Sin City

Following our Korean BBQ breakfast (What can I say?  You have to take advantage of what you can't get back home anytime you can get it) and hours of shopping, we decided we needed to re-energize with a snack.  I had been researching some local Japanese restaurants and came across Ichiza.  Ichiza specializes in Japanese pub-like dishes with a bit of a fusion flare.

One of our favorite dishes was the saute beef tongues on a sizzling hot plate.  This dish was so tender and tasty!  Just how beef tongue should be cooked.  It is best served with a nice cold glass of beer.

To be honest with you, we both were not even very hungry to begin with.  But we couldn't leave without trying their most popular Honey Toast Dessert.  It is nearly a half loaf of white bread served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the middle.  What really seals this dessert together so nicely is the scrumptious drizzle of honey on top!

Worth it?  I would say so.