BBQ is pretty much the best. But the Bay Area is a long way from where the best BBQ is supposed to be. Yet, while there for a quickie trip I made my way to 3 Pigs BBQ in San Carlos. The place definitely has a rustic feel, with an homage to the southern source of great BBQ in the form of an American flag made from Bud and Bud Light beer cans. It seemed like my kind of place and I set to work on ordering.

I opted to split a couple things with my buddy. The first was a half rack of St. Louis ribs. The ribs came out pre-sliced and followed the mantra of “ribs shouldn’t be fall off the bone.” I prefer them at least a bit more tender, but they had a good, smokey flavor and went well with all of the BBQ sauces provided by 3 Pigs.

We also split a Chopped Brisket Tray, which came with two sides and corn bread. For the sides we went with chili and mac and cheese because chili and mac and cheese. Duh. Unfortunately, the highlight of this tray was everything except for the ribs, which is definitely not what you want to say at a BBQ spot. The brisket was flavorless and simply not as tender as brisket should be. Not even the sauce could salvage the brisket, but at least I had the sides. The mac and cheese was great, with bread crumbs on top to for crunch and despite lacking in creaminess, there was plenty of cheesy flavor. The chili was also pretty solid and was a much better use of the brisket than the actual brisket. Oh, and the corn bread was plenty moist, fluffy and corny.

So, while the ribs were better than the brisket, 3 Pigs BBQ was nothing to write home about. That’s why I am writing about them in a blog, because home just wouldn’t care.

Perched on a corner in what is more neighborhood than retail area in Ventura is a restaurant called Cafe Nouveau. The restaurant boasts a pretty great outdoor eating area, but the wait there was nuts so we went inside to what felt like a home that had been converted into a cafe. I set to work at figuring out what to order, but after a quick look at the menu I had made up my mind.

It was the breakfast burger, which was appropriately topped with a fried egg, cheddar, hash browns and bacon. I ordered it medium rare and with a side of fries because the hash browns obviously wouldn’t be enough potato for me. Plus, we got a blueberry corn muffin for the table to share because it was supposed to be delicious. It was.

But as for the burger, it was one of the most beautiful food things I have ever seen. And unfortunately that also made it one of the most disappointing. I bit in hoping for something amazing, but what I found was shockingly bland and the burger was also overcooked enough to make it somewhat chewy. It almost seems painstaking to make something with such ingredients bland, but Cafe Nouveau found a way. The restaurant is both quaint and cool, but that simply did not add up to a good burger and that is unforgivable.

Greasy spoons are some of the greatest restaurants in the country – giving people access to hearty food and the gamut of surly to humorous waitstaff. One place you may not expect to find such a place is Ojai, California – which is more known for a level of spiritual pretentiousness than greasy food, yet I found myself at Bonnie Lu’s – a quintessential greasy spoon right on the main drag. Of course, it was next door to a paleo-vegan-gluten-free vomit factory, so I knew I was still in Ojai.

I quickly made up my mind to order Bobby’s Bowling Alley. a sandwich with tri-tip steak, Ortega chile and cheddar on grilled sourdough. For my side I picked fresh fruit because I was feeling feisty. Unfortunately, I was not informed that there would also be pickles on my plate. This was, of course, the first thing I noticed when I saw my meal and it left a bad taste in both my mouth and on the bit of bread that had brushed with the juices.

Yet, it wasn’t really the pickles that ended up being the problem here. There was just a general lack of freshness in the sandwich that I can’t fully explain. You know how beef can sometimes take on a “soapy” flavor? Well, there was a hint of that here. Sure. I ate it all, and enjoyed the greasiness of the perfectly grilled bread and melted cheese, but it just didn’t treat me the way I’ve come to expect from greasy spoon sandwiches.

Sometimes I feel like my wife searches the interwebs for places to get bone marrow. Or at least that’s what I assumed when she recommended we go to The Lark in Santa Barbara. Of course, bone marrow was a prominent part of the menu. Fortunately, I am also a fan of that stuff and the rest of the menu seemed intriguing as well.

There’s not much to be said from my perspective about the bone marrow. I’ve kind of reached the point where it all tastes pretty much the same and that it really comes down to what you eat the marrow on. The Lark matched all my expectations and you really couldn’t ask for more.

The main course was a tough decision, but after much deliberation my waitress recommended the Grilled Lamb Belly. Having never eaten such a thing, but loving pork belly I figured why not? It was served with madras curry, roasted fuji apples, maple gastrique, French lentils, a poached egg, pickled jalapenos and crispy sage. It was a ridiculous amount of ingredients, but it was all worth it. The lamb belly was similar to pork belly in a lot of ways and just like pork belly it really relied on the flavors it was cooked with. It was super tender and didn’t have any of the “muttony” flavor that sometimes brings me down.

It’s also worth noting that The Lark is a pretty cool restaurant in terms of design. For example, the wife sat in a confession booth, while I just sat in a plain old chair. Regardless, what really matters is that The Lark serves up some tasty belly to fill up my belly.

As with most breakfast places in Southern California, there has to be some sort of Mexican influence. Dawn Patrol in Santa Barbara is no different. So as I stood in line waiting to place my order, I had plenty of time to think about what to get. Like many breakfasts before, I couldn’t take my eyes off of the Breakfast Burrito.

But this was no ordinary breakfast burrito. Where others are often just a combination of meat, cheese, egg and potatoes, Dawn Patrol’s goes a different route. It’s filled with an over-easy egg, Oaxacan cheese, fire-roasted salsa, avocado and beans. And not just any beans: heirloom beans. I have no idea what that means, at least in the flavor realm, but I was excited to find out. I also added bacon to my burrito for good measure.

The result was pretty fantastic. I mean it’s hard to go wrong with all of those things mixed together in a burrito and Dawn Patrol didn’t disappoint. It was also a nice balance of flavor that can be hard to get in a breakfast burrito stuffed with hash browns. The tortilla was griddled to a nice crisp that added a bit of crunch to the texture and made itself more than just a container.

As far as breakfast burritos go, I couldn’t have asked for much more than what Dawn Patrol had to offer.

In Santa Barbara there’s a spot called the Public Market. It’s kind of like an upscale food court, but most importantly there is a bar that attracts Michigan fans called The Garden. It’s not your typical sports bar, and is a sort of attempt to be a beer or wine garden. Whatever the case, I was eager for some beer and a burger.

What I found was The Market Burger. It came topped with a whole bunch of stuff I had no interest in, like lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles. But it also came with provolone and Russian dressing, which I felt were acceptable.

It took a surprisingly long time for my burger to come out, and at one point I saw a very un-unvegan (with all the toppings) burger come around that no one was willing to claim. It was sliced in half and I could see it had been cooked to medium-rare, but alas it wasn’t mine.

Shortly after, my burger arrived and was in a strange state. The patty was cut in half and the bun was still complete. It didn’t take a fool to realize that this was the original unclaimed burger that had been thrown back on the griddle with a fresh set of cheese. It tasted like it too. There were bits of the previous toppings on the burger, and the burger was overcooked. Moreover, being weirdly cut this way made it a real pain to eat.

In all, you can probably guess that this was not one of my favorite meals. In fact, probably the only thing that would bring me back would be a Michigan game timed somewhere outside the realm of normal meal time.

Down San Diego way there are a few Broken Yolks. As you could probably guess, these are breakfast spots and we headed to the Carlsbad location to see what it could serve up. The menu unquestionably had a lot of dishes calling my name. After all, breakfast is notoriously unvegan-friendly.

Finally, I went with the Border Benedict. This is basically what happens when eggs benedict meets Mexican food. Thus, the poached eggs rested atop corn cakes, which were themselves perched on carne asada. Moreover, they were topped in a poblano sauce and a thin slice of jalapeno. For my side, I went with the hash browns.

Simply put, the Border Benedict got the job done. That is to say, they hit the spot on made for a delicious conversion of Mexican food and classic American breakfast food that huevos rancheros just can’t always offer. Nonetheless, the eggs could have been a bit more runny and the carne asada could have been a bit more tender. The salsa was surprisingly spicy, but I like spicy and the hash browns were always there for buffer. Plus, the corn cakes helped to add balance with a nice punch of sweetness.

With such a menu, I’m not sure that I would order the Border Benedict again. Nothing against the dish, as it was definitely nice to eat, however, there is just more good stuff out there that I would like to get up close and personal with.

On the way into Taste of the Himalayas in La Jolla, a patron on the way out told us that we had to get the tandoori chicken tikka. There was a strong scent of smoke in the place, which had clearly turned off its smoke detectors a long time ago, and we figured this departing patron must have known what she was talking about.

Thus, we began with the tandoori chicken tikka. It arrived like a plate of fajitas – steaming up the place to accompany the smoke. The chicken was good, although not exactly something I would declare every stranger walking through the door should order.

We also ordered a little something called Momo, which are a part of why this restaurant is called Taste of the Himalayas and not Taste of India. That’s because momo are Tibetan specialty (that have spread throughout South Asia). They are steamed dumplings that are generally filled with whatever is available. In this case, since we don’t live in the Himalayas and have choices, we opted for the chicken variety. They came with a “Himalayan” sauce that was pretty good and while I enjoyed the dumplings, our resident South Asian expert at the table let us know that they weren’t anything special.

As for my main course, I went with the Chicken Korma, because that is generally my favorite Indian dish. Taste of the Himalayas served it up pretty solidly.

Ultimately, Taste of the Himalayas churned out a solid meal. None of the dishes stood out to me in particular, but they were far from being bad. If you’re in La Jolla looking for Himalayan food, Taste of the Himalayas will do. But I wouldn’t exactly make it a destination.

As you might expect, there are a number of harbors in Southern California. Some are better than others, but the best are full of a series of shops and restaurants. Dana Point has one of those harbors and in fact it harbors a restaurant called Harbor Grill. Most people would expect to get seafood at such a place and that probably would have been a wise decision, but I am not most people.

Instead, I ordered a burger. It was creatively named the Bacon Burger and came with cheese, mushrooms and onions. I had no need for the mushrooms and onions, so I ordered without and asked the burger to be cooked medium-rare.

When the burger came out, it appeared that the mushrooms and onions had been replaced with half of a salad on a bun. The good news was that it was served open-faced and I could easily remove those nasty veggies. After the removal I persisted and found the burger to be decent. Bacon was crispy, cheese was cheddar and melty. The patty itself could have used some more thought, but alas this was a seafood restaurant.

If I went back I would probably get the burger again. It wasn’t anything to write home about, and hardly something to write in a meat blog about, but it sure beats seafood almost any day.

I’ve always said that restaurants with an amazing view often have a hard time pumping out amazing food. The idea being that the real estate is generally too expensive to get quality food. Nonetheless, I’ve been proven wrong a number of times and hoped Pacific Coast Grill in Cardiff by the Sea would by another in the latter category.

While the menu was dominated by seafood and had a few terrestrial animals as well, there was a pasta dish that was pretty much begging for me to order it. It was a Lobster-Bacon Carbonara and while the bacon part may be redundant (pretty much all carbonara has a bacon-like element), I was very excited for almost all of the rest of it. There was an “heirloom tomato compote” but I couldn’t decide if it would be a sauce or chunky tomato situation so I let it slide.

Unfortunately it turned out to be a chunky tomato situation, but I was able to avoid it pretty easily as I made my way through a dish that nearly lived up to my lofty expectations of it. The lobster tail was no slouch, being big, juicy and flavorful while avoiding being rubbery. The sauce was nice and rich, being a glorious combination of egg, cream and bacon. Could there have been more bacon? Yes, but that’s ummm always the answer.

It’s not always good when a place tries to fancy up a classic comfort dish. That was not the case with Pacific Coast Grill’s take on carbonara. Now, if they could replace that tomato compote with bacon, it would be a game changer. Oh and did I mention the awesome view?