Pepe Delgado's

It's April Fool's Day so if you expected an "always out for a few yucks" practical joker like me to have a headline today like, "El Buen Gusto Sucks" or "I Hate Beer" or "Taqueria El Bajio Lowered Their Prices and also Made a Meal That Didn't Taste Like Shit", well, you're dead wrong.

With the one and only Steve Edwards visiting, the last few nights have been awash in some of the finest Santa Barbara Mexican food. Los Agaves on Tuesday night followed by a second visit in 4 days to Palapa last night. Sidetracking.......I was reading some online reviews of Los Agaves and it seems there's a lot of negativity recently. Starting with the usual "It used to be better" which is most assuredly not true...it's just as good as it was in the beginning, I should know, because since the day they opened up I've visited VERY regularly. To go along with "the service is bad", often true, and has always been true, but who fucking cares? They've got it set up as a quasi-taqueria and not as a Wine Cask for a reason dumbass. Another thing I read a few times was "too expensive", which is incredibly dumb if you've ever been to a number of the truly spendy places with lesser food (Super Rica, Carlito's, Cava, or Los Arroyos come to mind). But the most hyper-stupid thing I read was "portions are too small". Only a babbling fat bastard from Nebraska who is used to eating 4 fried chickens and a gallon of mashed potatoes sopped with thick, drooping gravy would say something so moronic. I can pile food on pretty good, and I have NEVER left Los Agaves either hungry or feeling ripped off.

As far as Palapa last night, well, it was dreamy as usual and I knocked down a gigantic pile of carnitas and a few micheladas. Actually, the pile of carnitas was so huge that I brought half of it home to enjoy for lunches. Anyways, tasty stuff and it was heartening to see a couple Super Asada readers in there, no doubt encouraged by my posting and Micah's seconding the accolades. Hopefully you guys had a great meal.

Let's get on to tonight's feast, Pepe 's in Goleta, sort of the Rose Cafe of the Goodland, having been there since 1958 or so. I love this place and it's the thing I miss most about my couple of years living in Goleta, where I spent a fair amount of time saddled behind the bar swilling Dos Equis draughts and chowing on some classic grub.

I haven't been here in quite a while, so Deb and I ordered up two of my absolute old favorites, the Rajas con Pollo and the Chingadera. The rajas con pollo is exactly what it sounds like, rajas (roasted chile with onions, cheese and chicken). If it doesn't sound delicious, well trust me, it is. Just as good today as ever. Perfect combo of onions and chile.

The chingadera is simple perfection and one of my true faves in town (have I said this before?...yeah, probably). With a name like that, what is it you ask? Basically it combines three of the greatest ingredients on the planet: pork, jalapenos, and beer, and puts them heated up on a tortilla over beans and chile verde sauce, with either a big dollop of guacamole (my choice) or sour cream. Granted, you have to buy the beer separately, but if there is one dish in town that is so perfectly complemented by a frosting mug filled with golden brown Dos Equis draught, this is it. I'd damn near move back to Goleta just to go back to the days of eating this twice a week. Heaven.

Palapa

I've been meaning to do a write up on Palapa for quite some time, and actually thought that I had done so, until checking the archives and realizing that the rampant crack smoking binge has caught up to me and I was wrong.

Although not many people know this, Palapa has long been one of my favorite places in town, a particular favorite hang-out on Sunday afternoons, where the patio is always thriving. On weekends there is a lady who makes tortillas on the outside grill and cooks up mini-quesidillas, handing them out to everyone on the patio. You don't find that kind of unique service anywhere else in Santa Barbara. This place is so cool that it doesn't seem like you're in Santa Barbara at all...it feels like a roadside joint in Mexico or anywhere in Central America.

One of the owners of the joint is always there, a guy who reminds me a bit of Ron Jeremy if Ron Jeremy was a five-foot three Mexican sans receding hairline and a dirty blonde attached to his schlong. While that doesn't provide the most appetizing image for eating tons of food, once you order up, all is forgotten. The best salsa in town is accompanied by limitless fresh chips and the salsa is so good (heavy on the oregano) I'm usually too full by the time my entree even gets to me. This is the first place I ever had a michelada (beer with hot sauce, lime juice, and shrimp garnish), now I get them all the time and nowhere does them up quite like here.

As far as the food, I always have thought they have the best carnitas in town. I didn't get carnitas today, but someone else at our table did, and I'm still right. Ryan ordered up a Carnitas Burrito, which is so fricking big no one could believe it. It also had the distinction of being so mucho carnitas that the verde sauce covering it had carnitas in the sauce. HUGE. I mean, who else tries to pull off that? (see pic). I got the fish tacos, Deb got shrimp tacos and we traded so we had one of each...if I could have fit in a dozen I would have eaten them all. The green rice is better than any other rice I've had in town. In fact, the only place that can rival this place for food quality in a non-taqueria setting is Milpas Street's outstanding Los Agaves.

You should plan on being there every Sunday afternoon. Micheladas, margaritas, perhaps a seafood cocktail that'll rock your world, and the afternoon sun. Perfecto.

Depth Fried

A few months ago I had a chimichanga at Los Agaves and made a noted mention that I would have to go back to Chilango's and see if their chimi is as good as it used to be. Chilango's used to be a regular feasting locale for our gang back in the 90s, generally as a post climbing or pre-debauchery meal, and they had what was by far the best chimichanga in town. For whatever reason, mainly because I got older and began to avoid State Street as if it was festering night and day with flesh craving zombies, I stopped going to Chilango's and have probably only been there 2 or 3 times in the last 8 years.

But today Deb and I found ourselves downtown for a Sunday afternoon movie. Hungry. Walking past Chilango's.
And we went in.

Chilango's was always a typical taqueria.......this is no longer the case. I'm not sure when they re-did the decor, or more importantly, why, but somebody was on a little too much peyote dust when they decided that what a Mexican taqueria on State Street needs is to have a little bit more of a 'modern' look. It's like someone opened up Architectural Digest and found one of those glass houses with the Jiffy Lube roll-up doors, looked at the interior photos of weird art, odd chairs and tables and said, "Now that's the kind of shit that makes me hungry for fat burritos." With a little 'stacked firewood' wall art motif thrown in (yes, firewood....?????). And some unfinished plywood seats. The place looks straight up fucking weird. Basically somebody had their head up their ass when the re-model decision was made. A smart man would've taken a picture to illustrate my point. Also, the once grand salsa bar that took up a good portion of the south wall was now relegated to a tiny table in the corner, so tiny I almost missed it.

All of this got me frightened right away, cause I'm figuring, "Ok, some complete fucking tosser bought this place and turned it into a wank-fest."

Well, enough about how ridiculous the place looks inside....we ordered a chicken chimichanga to share. At $8.95 - completely reasonable, and only $1 more than my breakfast at El Bajio on Friday (the worst breakfast burrito I've ever been served, you'll here plenty about that at a later posting). Figuring that since the food might have taken a turn for the worst, I'd cut my losses and ordered a Dos Equis draft...at FIVE bones. Not $4.50 or $4.75. But $5.00. I can't remember the last time I paid that much for a beer that wasn't at a concert venue or the ballpark...but I guess this is State Street and they try to rook the late night drunks, thereby screwing the daytime patrons. Another reason I rarely set foot downtown anymore.

Back to the chimichanga. It came out looking pretty close to the same as it used to, complete with the black plastic plates that I remember, a beautiful crisply fried burrito split down the middle with big dollops of sour cream, guacamole and pico de gallo placed next to it. Holy shit it was good. The chimi at Los Agaves (everyone's new favorite restaurant in SB, Mexican or otherwise) is pretty good, but Chilango's doesn't have a damn thing to worry about, they are still the absolute KING of this dish until someone can prove otherwise (to me at least). The thing is, I can't even pin down one thing that makes it so much better than others. There's something delightful about their chicken for sure....however I don't think the regular chicken burritos are anything super special. There's also something about the tortilla, but once again, I've had their non-fried burrito's and while they're good, I'm not writing new Psalms in their favor. So maybe it's the oil they fry it in...or how long...?? I don't know, and I don't particularly care. You can't imagine how happy I was that with the absurdity of the decor, the ingredients for greatness hadn't changed.

I'll be back. And sooner next time. But I might try to get away with BYOB.

Los Agaves

This place is batting a thousand for me right now and tonight was another grand slam with both me and Deb glowingly raving about our meals. She got the Chiles Norteno and I got a chicken chimichanga. The chiles norteno was off the charts outstanding, green chiles stuffed with cheese, shrimp and Buddha knows what else. The chimi was excellent as well, although not quite the best I’ve had, which reminds me that I need to head back to Chilango’s one of these days to see if the best chimi is still there. Because the way Los Agaves is going, they might own the Best category in lots of items before too long.

If you haven’t gotten the point yet, your new favorite Santa Barbara restaurant is Los Agaves.
Go there.
Now.
Tell me I’m wrong. I dare you.

Triple Play

“The month of Decembre means bueno food!”

La Gloria Taqueria
I hit up one of my semi-regular lunch spots, La Gloria this afternoon, mainly because I ran into the lovely Bridget at Trader Joe’s the other day and she remarked how she and Micah had not had such a great food experience here a few days before. Now let me clarify that La Gloria is a place that several years ago I did not care for at all. My main memories of it from way back when were primarily of the biggest Mexican dude I’ve ever seen that they had working behind the counter (picturize Andre los Gigante) and the excellent verde sauce they had at the salsa bar. The rest of the joint was take it or leave it. But in the last year or so, I’ve found myself at La Gloria quite often since it is one of the many burrito joints within a block or two of my office (how lucky am I?). And I have to admit I like it a lot more than I used to, even though there’s no longer a gi-normous Mexican and the salsa verde isn’t quite what I remembered.

What I don’t like about the place is that they are slow. And when I say slow, I mean, if you’ve got something to do, make sure you do it first. Generally, I’ll avoid the lunch rush, go a little after 1pm, order my meal, sit down for a while, watch my nails grow, trim them, then pick up my food and take it back to the office. If you go during lunch, bring a shaving kit and some deodorant, you're in for the long haul and these people take their time. Which, I have found is a good thing. My burrito today was outstanding. I got the chicken super burrito, and the beauty of La Gloria is that they fill it up with fresh veggies along with meat, salsa, sour cream, cheese, avocado, etc. This is a QUALITY burro, and quite a step up from the basic Super Burrito you’ll get at a lot of other places. And today, I was sitting there waiting, got out my nail clippers….and my food came out before I could get started. I was back at the office in no time. And a final note to Bridget and Micah, give it another try.

Lilly’s Taqueria
I swilled some beer last night with my good friend Jesus and since I always rave about this joint we decided to rendezvous tonight for a quick taco session after work. He hadn't been here before and when we walked in the door he immediately started laughing at the menu when he noticed you could eat everything on it for about 10 bucks. I got my usual adobada tacos, because I’m a creature of habit and think they’re some of the best things I’ve ever had, but Jesus strayed out and scored himself some adobada, asada and ….cheek. I haven’t had cheek before, but I had a bite of his and it was quite tasty. I’ll certainly order one up in the future.

Jesus gave me some good natured ribbing for writing a food blog while being such a conservative eater (at a place that has a fuckin eye taco)….and he’s right. I gotta start branching out. But the truth is that when I find something I love, like say, Lilly’s adobado tacos, it’s damn hard to see anything else on the menu, in fact, I don’t even look at the friggin thing.

Los Agaves
So less than 2 hours after leaving Lilly’s, I find myself pulling up a chair at Los Agaves again with Deb. PACKED on a Friday night, as it rightfully should be. I pass by this joint every day numerous times and every night this week it has been filled up, but when I talked to the owner at the register tonight he said, “Oh,. It’s been so slow this week except for tonight.” I call bullshit on that. This guy’s drumming up support for his tip jar I think. More power to him, cause he deserves it. I'm still loving this place.

Anyways, we got the Tacos de Tingas and a chicken Molcajete….oh yeah, that’s right, you remember the molcajete. My Lilly's companion tonight, Jesus, a native English/Spanish speaker told me that ‘molcajetes’ is the word for the volcanic type bowl that the food comes in, but I assure you that he is 100% wrong. I don’t know who the hell taught him Spanish, but ‘molcajetes’ means: “Super Fucking Hot”. People probably thought I was exaggerating on the last posting about this dish, but let me tell you this: when we left the restaurant tonight with a little food still in the bowl, it was still boiling, and it's not like we were there for 15 minutes. We ate a friggin full meal. Regardless, I liked this version better than the sea and land one we had last time, but I think Deb would disagree, as it was quite a bit spicier (even I was beading up on the browline). The chicken was excellent, and I’m pretty sure thast they just throw a live chicken into the vat, the feathers melt away, the meat breaks into chunks and it cooks perfectly on it's way to table.

But I figured out that the strategy in eating this dish is to scoop it out on top of a tortilla laying on a bed of dry ice, order up a sixer of Corona, drink it, then eat your taco. Repeat. You’ll be righteously full of seriously tasty grub and seriously hammered by the end of the next night when you finally stumble home with sweat dripping form every pore.

Los Agaves

I know what you're thinking...

The last thing that Milpas Street needs is yet another establishmente that serves up greasy Mexican fare.

But that, my friends, is not true. The last thing that Milpas Street needs is another atrocious Chinese buffet. One is more than enough. Mexican establishments, here in my beloved part of town at least, we can deal with. For when it comes to Mexican fare, Milpas, which in 10 short blocks has a current total of 11 life support systems, is Darwinism in restaurantism. Only the strong survive. Which brings me to one of the newer establishmentes, Los Agaves, a swankier than the norm joint at Cota and Milpas that has been open a couple months now and which I’ve now eaten at enough times to give a clear view of what we’re looking at. But let’s start off with the most recent visit.

First off, I don’t like their ordering system. They’re obviously trying to go for the taqueria style of things by having you order at the counter, but you’re obviously not in a taqueria. You’re in a restaurant where a service person brings out chips and salsa as well as your food. They need to get over the identity crisis, cause it’s annoying. Anyways, that complaint aside, Deb had heard good things about a dish called the Molcajetes. So we ordered that and the Enchiladas Guadalajara, which were good enough on a prior visit that I ordered them again. The enchiladas were fantastic: perfect chicken and outstanding verde sauce. I could ask for nothing more, but really, it's a basic Mexican dish and if you can't do this one right you can kiss your ass goodbye in this part of town, no?

Well, on to the Molcajetes. We got the “sea and land” version, and what is it really, you may ask? Yeah, I hadn't heard of it either, which is why I was excited to try it out. In short, it’s a bunch of fish, shrimp, chicken, beef and spices cooked up bouillabaisse style to a resting temperature of 9 million degrees. A more in-depth explanation is that it is a boiling, bubbling, mass of goodness that goes straight from the pot into an equally hot bowl formed from volcanic rock that has been mined from the depths of the earth and kept under constant heat since Krakatoa exploded. Sitting at a table front and center to the kitchen I swear I saw a tiny Indonesian midget emerge from a mineshaft in the back corner, wipe some black soot from his brow, hand the bowl over to the cook, and then jump into the oven to cool off. Right then I should have known something was up.

But alas, I was clueless and watched carefully as the always friendly proprietor of Los Agaves brought over the boiling bowl cradled in only his bare hands and set it down on the table. Struck by paralyzing fear, I could only stare dumbly at its gurgling redness. It looked good, yes. I took a swallow of Modelo. But it was obviously…..well, really fucking hot. I stuck a fork into the broth and watched the tines disappear as much molten steel. Luckily I had carried along with me a set of titanium tongs which I dipped in and scooped some grub onto the waiting corn tortilla. Via some chemical reaction that I can’t possibly begin to understand, the tortilla did not shrivel up and combust as expected. Things were going my way. After another swig off the Modelo, I anxiously closed my eyes, lifted the filled tortilla to my mouth, prayed to the rosary and every pagan idol I could think of..........and then bit in.

Remember when you get that pizza straight out of the oven with the scalding hot cheese and are so hungry you chomp right in, only to have the cheese sear the roof of your mouth leaving not only pain but effectively ruining the rest of the meal and leaving you with a flap of skin hanging from your mouth for the next 3 days? Child’s play, friends. That’s like chomping into an ice-cream sandwich compared to this. Food does not need to be this hot. In fact, unless you are Heidi Klum or an 8th century Japanese ninja forging a sword, nothing should be this hot. Ever.

We decided to let the dish cool a bit before we ate it, ended up spending the night with everyone else in the restaurant who’d ordered the same thing, and devoured it the next evening when it was merely scorching. And it was really good. Not to mention that as far as I know, and what I don’t know about Mexican food in this town ain’t worth knowin’, you can’t get anything like it anywhere else in Santa Barbara.

The final verdict on Los Agaves is it ROCKS. Probably my favorite new place to open up in town since Palapa on upper State broke tortilla. I think we’re four for four on satisfactory visits, which don’t happen often in my world. Furthermore, the style of the food, the curiosity of the menu, and the manner of the service can really only mean that they're gunning for the high-falutin' (is there a Spanish translation for that?) Super Rica crowd who've grown tired of waiting in line all day. They won't be disappointed.