Dish in La Canada is just awful

My buddy Steve came over to help me hang pictures at my new place this weekend. After we were done, we decided to grab some grub and ended up at Dish in La Canada.

Turns out this place is all bark and no bite. The have a great sign, a tasty sounding menu, and a interesting room.

This is all to no avail, as they failed on almost all counts. In an effort to be concise, I will just give you a bulleted list.

• Getting Seated - us and another group of people waited about 5min. before anyone even spoke to us. After that it was another 5min. to get seated.
  
• Ordering - they were out of two specials and at least one regular menu item
  
• Beef & Barley Soup - this was basically salt porridge. Campbell's is better.
  
• Mac & Cheese - not very cheesy with a watery and salty sauce
  
• Penne with Sausage - this was perfectly serviceable, but nothing special
  
• Drinks - Steve ordered the drink special, a Mint Julep. With the promise of fresh mint, I opted for a mojito. Both drinks were basically well alcohol over ice with a sprig of lime on top. Quite awful. We hardly touched them.
  
• Strawberry Shortcake - this was pretty icky too. Decent strawberries, but the shortcake tasted like a store bought scone heated up in a microwave.
• Bathroom - Their men's room was a completely disgusting in ways that I don't care to mention. Use your imagination.
  

In short - I will not make a another visit to Dish, even under duress.

Two Good Meals in Santa Barbara

I went on a day trip with some friends last weekend up to Santa Barbara, La Purisima Mission, and Solvang. It was a long day (left at 8am and got back at 10pm). Our rental minivan was a Dodge, which reminded me of how crappy Dodge vans are.

We ate lunch and dinner in Santa Barbara and both meals were really good, so I wanted to post about it.

Lunch was at La Super Rica. The line stretched down the block (a lot longer than in this picture) and it was about 20min before we could order.




When we got to order the reason for the line became apparent. There is one lady making fresh tortillas from masa as fast as possible.

However, when we got our food I was glad we came. It was all very good and the fresh tortillas kicked it up a notch. I got a daily special taco that had stewed pork and zucchini. I was *great*. I also got a very nice horchata. Be sure to order a large as it is only 16oz.




Dinner was at Your Choice, a Thai place which we randomly selected while driving around. And good random selection it was. We did a family style meal with tum kha gai soup, mee krob, beef salad, garlic duck, and pumpkin curry. It was all very tasty. The soup was especially good. It is much more creamy than most tum kha gai one finds.


The dining section of santabarbara.com has lots of good info about the area. Check it out !

Sunmilk ?

So I keep seeing magazine ads for a new product called Sunmilk, which claims to be 'real' milk without any saturated fat. I think "Hmm. Interesting." Since I am squarely in the target demographic and I do drink milk as a beverage I figured I would try it if I ever saw it.

Well last week I saw some at the newly remodeled Vons near my apartment. It was about $1 more per half gallon than the regular old store brand. Since my ex-wife preferred non-fat milk and I preferred 2%, we always compromised on 1% milk. So I went ahead and bought the 2% fat version.

I drank a gulp when I put it away and thought "it tastes like milk". Pretty uneventful.

Later on I was reading the label and it says "by removing milkfat and blending in a small amount of natural healthy sunflow oil, you get a great creamy taste with no saturated fat or tans fatty acids" and "it's high in protein and is loaded with vitamins and minerals". This sounds like they basically add sunflower oil, protein, and calcium to nonfat milk. Hmm.

Now every time I drink some Sunmilk it does not quite taste like 'real' milk to me. I think that milkfat has a different mouth feel than sunflower oil. But I am going to buy it again and see how it goes. A little less saturated fat sure isn't going to hurt.

If you are a resident of Los Angeles, San Diego, or Las Vegas you can get a coupon for a free half gallon here.