El Rinconcito Del Mar

Why yes, this IS heaven.

El Rinconcito Del Mar

2908 E. 1^st Street

Los Angeles, CA

I took a huge leap of faith when I chose to redeem my Restaurant.com gift card for a voucher to use here.  I mean, LA is riddled with Mexican restaurants, good and bad, large and small.  But half a grilled lobster alongside carne asada and a couple side dishes sounded pretty good to me.

White guy in tote (ha), I certainly felt like a fish out of water when I walked in.  However, we were welcomed as if we were one of the many regulars there that night.  In fact, everyone looked like a regular…and that’s always a good thing.  The place was packed, the waitresses were working hard, and the karaoke hostess was almost finished setting up.  Sunburned and starving, we sat back and enjoyed our cocktails amid the buzz of Spanish being spoken all around us.

Service wasn’t exactly speedy on this busy Friday night, so it was nice to not be in a rush for a change.  Complimentary chips kept our hunger at bay while we salivated over others’ dinner platters.

And then came the lobster.

I wanted to jump for joy when I saw my platter, overflowing with bubbly, grilled lobster, charred carne asada, a huge, steaming baked potato with butter and crema, rice pilaf, and a generous dipping bowl of garlic-infused butter.  Having no shame, I tore into it, likely flinging butter and lobster bits every which way without realizing it.  I guess I made quite the spectacle of myself, because patrons seated around us started to order the same entrée…hmmm…

In the middle of our dinner, karaoke started.   Spanish karaoke, at that.  What a treat!  The big surprise of the night was a young Asian kid who brought the house down with a Spanish ballad.  It was better than anything I’d seen on the Latin Grammys.  Take that, Marc Antony.

Petaluma Pie Company

You don't have to tell me twice...

Petaluma Pie Company
125 Petaluma Boulevard

Petaluma, CA

Nestled in a shady courtyard a few yards from bustling Petaluma Boulevard is the Petaluma Pie Company, teasing passersby with smells of fresh-baked, buttery pie crusts oozing with hot fruit mixtures or savory meat fillings.

There’s not much to the interior of the bakeshop; then again, what more do you need other than a coffee condiment bar, a glass case displaying glistening fruit pies, a menu listing that day’s savory pie options, and a few tables where you can sit and scarf it all down?

A “Hand Pie” sounded a little more reasonable that a pot pie or beef-filled concoction so early in the morning, so my buddy and I each ordered the Bacon & Egg, an option not on the menu board but suggested by the nice girl behind the counter.  We settled at a table outside with delightful views of a speakeasy and local tattoo shop before stabbing into the golden crust with our three-pronged forks.

A flaky crust sealed and crimped in an empanada-style half-moon encased fluffy scrambled egg and crispy bacon.  This would be a great snack to have handy while window-shopping if you’re not prone to getting pie crust shards stuck in your lipstick like I am (classy).

Try their sweet and savory options, and wait to apply your lipstick until after breakfast.

Jamie's Broadway Grille

(I should have put the cornbread in the foreground.)

Jamie's Broadway Grille
427 Broadway
Sacramento


Holy Jebus, this place was delightful.  I was iffy about my boyfriend's instructions to "just push my way through the hallway to get to the bar", but it worked.  I settled atop a cushiony barstool next to an older lady plowing her way through a rather large fish entree.

My boyfriend pointed out that one of the bartenders sounded like Robert Downey, Jr.  Agreed.  When he began insisting he looked like it too, I politely asked him to stop drinking.

Calamari and Clam Chowder were ordered and subsequently devoured.  Best Clam Chowder in Sacramento?  Perhaps.  We split an embarrasingly large platter of BBQ chicken, ribs and links, and then I took a bite of the BEST THING EVER.  At least here.  And that would be the cornbread.



Cornbread everywhere else:  YAWN.  Cornbread at Jamie's:  "^&#* YEAH!"  

It's buttery.  It's spicy.  It's full of cheese.  It's just perfection.  I ordered an additional side of it and wasn't charged.  Dude!  You're the best, Robert Downey, Jr.

DeBrito Chocolate Factory

Get your wallet ready...

DeBrito Chocolate Factory

160 Briggs Road

Hollister

If you told me in 1993 there would come a day when I would spend the equivalent of two hours of hard-earned mall wages on a single Granny Smith apple, I would have thrown my AP Calculus textbook at you…because THAT math would have sounded preposterous.

Fast forward nearly two decades, and I’m walking out with a Rocky Road AND a Triple Treat.

Any idiot can dip an apple in caramel and roll it in a number of toppings.  Few, however, can do it well.  Overheat your caramel and it, along with any toppings, will slip right off that apple like a dress on prom night.

DeBrito has mastered the technique.  Crisp, sweet Granny Smiths are dipped in a buttery caramel, melted just enough to provide a thick coat and support an abundance of substantial toppings from gumballs to chili-lime salt to banana leather.  The result is amazing, due to the quality of the ingredients and the care taken as each sinful treat is prepared by hand.  This is a real fork-and-knife dessert.  Even I don’t have a mouth big enough to wrap around one of these things.

That’s what she said.

Piaci Pub & Pizzeria

Menu, schmenu.  Ask the bartenders for suggestions.

Piaci Pub & Pizzeria
120 W. Redwood Avenue

Fort Bragg, CA

Dubbed “Home of the Adult Pizza”, Piaci is the perfect neighborhood joint where you can take a date, meet your bros, or pick up a takeout order of some pretty phenomenal pizzas and salad.  Leave the kids at home, because that’s why men go to bars in the first place.

A wide variety of beers are poured by knowledgeable bartenders who sure as hell know how to make dinner suggestions, too.  Ten minutes were spent reading and re-reading the menu trying to make a decision until I heard one bartender offer another diner the option to order a half-and-half pie.  That’s the route we ended up taking.

Not long thereafter, it arrived: half Farmers and half Rosa, on a thin, crisp crust all blistered and smoky from the heavenly oven beside the old Italian in the kitchen who’d been twirling dough since we’d shown up.  The Farmers half was decadent with its fennel-rich sausage, caramelized onions and mozzarella; the Rosa was lighter and sweeter with Canadian ham, Roma tomatoes and mozzarella.  The entire pizza was complemented by a perfectly thin layer of tomato sauce and herbs, allowing the crunchy crust and toppings to shine through unlike so many inferior pizzas swimming in sauce these days.

At the end of our meal, we were sated and surrounded by the sounds of Tears for Fears.  Head over heels?  Yep.