Santa Maria (for Bill)

While Santa Maria, like much of wine country, is nothing much to look at, there is something to be said for the dining. Radisson usually does better than the one in Santa Maria, but we were not too terribly concerned with the accomodations. We wanted to get out of the city, have a couple of decent meals, and enjoy the scenery. We managed all of that, but the best part was the food.

When we arrived last Saturday, I got a list of local eateries, and paging through, I noticed the word "steak" in parentheses by one name. Then I noticed the name: The Hitching Post. Now, if you have seen Sideways, you may be familiar with the name, but the one we went to was the original, in Casamalia, not in Buellton. This place looked more like a shack or barn from the outside than a restaurant.

The decor was more like the restaurant in which Jack, in the film, picks up the waitress Cammi: animal heads and dark wood all about. Among other historical gems, the BBQ pit was lit in 1984 when the Olympic torch passed through. The same pit has been burning constantly since 1988. Sunshine ordered an 8-ounce filet mignon, and I had a 7-ounce top sirloin. Throw in salads (they make all of the dressings on site), an assortment of fresh veggies on which to nosh while waiting, and dessert (ice cream or sherbet, the latter being pineapple the night we were there), and things were off to a great start. Potatoes, of course, are a given in such situations.

Now, I am a steak sauce kinda guy, but having said that, the steaks could have been served to us in a rubber room with plastic cutlery and nothing but our imaginations to alter their flavor since they left the grill; we still would have been able to cut them with ease and dined in bliss. Sunshine thinks she may have just had the best steak of her life there, and I am ready to say the same. And I have had some fantastic steaks. Tender, truly medium rare (as we both like them), and perfectly seasoned, primarily with coarse-ground pepper.

And while that was a fine meal, we were faced the next day with another problem: brunch. We were prepared to throw in the towel and go to the nearest IHOP, but it was in the wrong direction, so, after checking out, we headed back toward home, trusting to small towns along the way. I finally decided that we had seen enough pavement and got on in Los Alamos. Heading south through that town takes patience. There is really quite a dearth of, well, anything until you hit what passes for downtown. Once there, there is very little more than anywhere else, but we found the Twin Oaks, a quaint diner that was serving brunch.

Trusting the general look of the place, once inside, we sat and studied menus that seemed almost too fancy for such a place. Perhaps it is sad, but we ended up ordering the same thing as one another: eggs benedict. Neither of us had had the dish in ages, and we felt the call at once. Hollandaise sauce, like many of its cousins, is a delicate creature, but whoever put this one together at the Twin Oaks understood perfectly well how to achieve the proper consistency without turning the concoction into scrambled eggs. The poached eggs had viscous liquid yolks, perfectly cooked. At that point, almost any ham and English muffin will look good, but even there the owners and chefs didn't skimp. Throw in two coffees, and we had brunch. Try finding perfect eggs benedict for nine dollars most places, and you'll go hungry.

In all, one can do well by escaping the city. The distractions of fast food and the prices of everything else in the city make the drive out to these quiet corners worthwhile when seeking something with the power to clog arteries while making the consumer not even care about the health effects.