Minimoon - PCH - LA to Big Sur

So, I'm doing a little honeymoon planning, or rather minimoon planning. Kerensa and I are planning on a major Italy trip next year, but we still want to get out of town after the wedding and spend a little quality time together. So we're thinking California. Kerensa's never been west of the rockies, and I haven't seen the Pacific for years. So, I come to you, the LTHForum for advice: culinary, hotelinary and activitinarian.

I did the PCH from LA to San Fran right after college - stopped at the Madonna Inn to admire the urinals and then kept right on rolling, camped somewhere along the way, stood in the Hearst Mansion parking lot waffling over whether to invest a full-day's gas money per person in the tour, imitated elephant seals on the beach, drank campari & tonic at Nepenthe in Big Sur and froze our asses off swimming at Pfeiffer beach.

This time around, we'll take 4 nights to drive up and back (or maybe all the way up to San Fran if I can get an open-jawed flight), stay in hotels, maybe drink some wine, and get a massage somewhere along the way. I've been researching - rereading past cali threads here, put in a bid for info on AskMefi, been poring over maps and atlasses.

So AskMefi is making me think we should split our time between the Santa Ynez Valley/Santa Barbara area and Big Sur. There are some interesting links to inns and restaurants in the wine country including Ballard Inn, Sycamore Springs, Santa Ynez Inn, Lucia Lodge, Deetjens inn, and an exhaustive list of wineries and scenic routes to hit. Then up near Big Sur a whole other set of recos, mostly out of my price range.

So, can the forum contribute ideas for hotels/inns/restaurants along the coastal route. I've got SuperRica on my list, but I'm pretty open besides that.

Thanks in advance!

Seth

Hi Seth,

Rob and I had a wonderful meal at the Monterey Fish House. They have the famed BBQ'd oysters which are barely warmed through with smoke. Rob's been going there for decades(!?) and hasn't had a bad meal. It's casual--but special.

2114 Del Monte Ave., Monterey
Phone: 831-373-4647

At least nominally, Half Moon Bay seems appropriate. And, if you feel like surfing... surfline.com says it ranks relatively low on the very scientific poo patrol scale.

trixie-pea

If you travel (or think) the way I do, these ideas may not be so far-fetched:

Santa Maria BBQ, it's something I've really wanted to try.

The other thing I'd really like to do, is visit some Basque places in Bakersfield. See here or here.

Rob

My husband and I had one of the best meals of our lives at Nepenthe when we did the drive from LA to SF 15 years ago. That may or may not be because we thought we were on our death ride on the way there -- it was 2 days after a huge earthquake, there was a terrible storm, we couldn't see five feet in front of us, debris kept rolling down the mountain and bouncing on the road, and my foot was killing me when we finally reached our destination at Big Sur Lodge from pressing the imaginary brake (I wasn't the driver). They closed the road as soon as we got through.

Another highlight of the trip was visiting La Super Rica in Santa Barbara. Great Mexican food, very unpretentious and reasonable.

It's really a great trip and one I would like to share with my kids some day. Enjoy!

Suzy

If you get all the way up to Carmel, I would much recommend a stay at Clint Eastwood's Mission Ranch resort. We stayed there this past March and had a lovely time. The ranch has a great setting, just near the town's old mission and away from the town. It looks over the ocean across a broad pasture, where sheep roam. The ranch, we discovered, was once a working ranch, but in Eastwood's youth was known mostly for its restaurant, a place where locals hung out to get away from the wealthy tourists. When the property came on the market, by which time Eastwood had become his iconic self, he bought it to save it from being turned into a development. The rooms on the property are all original to the ranch (we stayed in the two-bedroom bunkhouse), are all nicely done, the grounds are beautiful, and the restaurant is still incredibly popular, and the piano bar still brings in the locals at night -- and Clint himself is said to frequent the place (we didn't see him during our stay.) Carmel itself is incredibly beautiful, very romantic, and of course full of multi-million dollar homes -- but all of them are adorable "jewel boxes," with no street addresses, only names -- the Sea Breeze, the Windjammer, etc. A number of excellent restaurants in town as well; I had an incredible coconut tart, that I still dream about, at a French bisto there, whose name I can't recall.

Someone get Rob a map.
And a pickup truck.

If you make it to Monterey, and especially SF, go here:

http://www.duartestavern.com/

And I'm a sucker for San Luis Obispo, though I'm at a loss as to where you should eat.

I've been to Duartes, (artichokes were over cooked, but sand dabs were awesome) but I have a feeling we're not going to make it all the way to Monterey or San Francisco on this short trip...

The Hearst castle is worth it, by the way (I take it you decided no that time). It's insanely over the top (Hearst basically had tacky nouveau riche taste and billions to indulge it with), the stories they tell on the tour are fun and happy to dish dirt, and it's especially amusing if you've recently seen Spartacus (since they shot some scenes there). One of the more entertaining house tours I've done.

If you get as far as Napa: I had a really good meal at Tra Vigne, I probably liked it best of the Napa places we ate, the others were too pretentiously nouvelle and austere. Also I sat next to Billy Bob Thornton and Laura Dern (curiously, if I listed all the celebrities I've encountered in my life, they're probably the only two who'd each turn up twice on the list, years apart).

On the whole, my main piece of advice would be, shorten the distance you plan to cover, and explore the area you settle on more minutely. It's a pleasant area to putter around, but not if you feel like you have four more hours to cover every time you stop.

Napa is geographically not going to work as it is 50 miles north of San Fran, right? We're going to stay firmly south of San Fran. Now maybe the decision is Santa Ynez & San LUis Obispo vs. BigSur and environs...

I don't pretend to say that I am an expert on the area but I have spent a lot of time in Scotts Valley ten years or so ago.

Some recommendations off the top of my head:

Chaminade Inn - in Santa Cruz overlooking the ocean. Former Catholic retreat center that has been nicely refurbished.

Best Western Seacliff in Aptos - nice hotel with great landscaping.

Watsonville - lots of fruit stands
Castroville - Artichoke stands
Gilroy - Garlic capital - a lot of places sell the garlic stuffed olives.

Santa Cruz Pier - the sandabs are the local fish choice. Other than that it is a waste. home of the best dressed and most persistent panhandlers.

Monterey Pier - the sit down restaurants are OK. Some of the food stands are really great - look for roasted garlic which is quite good. The aquariun - and I HATE aquariuns - was well worth the admission. There is also a university that has a marine station that is worth a visit.

17 Mile Drive is well worth the toll, especially in the morning with a fog.

Solvang did not do much for me, the smorgasbords just were not as good as advertised.

The Channel Islands are worth a day trip if you have the time.

Ok, since you got some good advice on the north end of the trip, I'll mainly focus on the south end. However, in the Big Sur area, I'll recommend the River Inn as a relatively affordable if unpretentious place to stay. About 1/5 the price of Post Ranch Inn or the other mega-$$ place (I forget the name). As for Monterey, ok so it's rouristy but the aquarium is pretty special, and getting some clam chowder on the Monterey Pier and eating it with the Sea Lions yapping at you is cool.

Working the way south, Hearst Castle is a must-do...touristy but spectacular in it's own right. Cambria is a pretty cool town just south of Hearst Castle.

Ok, Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo...the central coast is an amazing place, prob my fac area in CA. In fact, just got through camping at Lopez Lake with my wife's family.

Where to stay: 2 places. On the south end in the Santa Ynez Valley, the Los Olivos Grand Hotel is quaint but first class all the way. Gateway to a lot of wineries, and FWIW, that's where all the guests stayed for Michael Jackson's wedding years ago. Further up north, the Sea Venture is at the south end of Pismo Beach, walking distance from the pier and downtown, feautures a great restaurant and has ocenfront rooms WITH hot tubs on the balcony. Highly recommended.

Where to eat: First of all, try to be in the area on a Thurs night and experience the SLO Farmer's Market from 6-9PM every week. Great food up and down the street. To me, the central coast is about Santa Maria style BBQ...meat (primarily beef) cooked over red oak. 3 great places...Hitching Post (Casmalia and Buellton), Far Western Tavern (Guadalupe) and Jocko's (Nipomo). In fact, the HP in Buellton was featured in the movie (darn, forget the name...won the best pic Oscar last year). All are unpretentious places...Guadalupe is a farming town and Jockos is kinda scary in some ways. However, an hour or so in the bar at Jocko's and a great meal there (in addition to the beef, they have an unreal pork chop) will leave you stuffed and content...and you'll probably make some friends along the way. Try to get a table overlooking the pit and make sure you order your food grilled over the oak. Trust me.

For a more high-end meal style-wise, there is a great restaurant in a little town near Santa Maria called Orcutt. The place is called Chef Rick's and write-ups have always been marvelous even if I have never been there. One other gem of a place is an ice cream stand in Arroyo Grande called Doc Burnstein's.

As for Solvang, fun place to go to and get some bakery goods or fudge, but I never found a good place to stay or great restaurant that made it worth more than a half-day trip.

Another option to consider from drive-fly is drive-train. Amtrak operates between LA and Oakland or San Jose, and the Coast Starlight is a wonderful train. The ride between Ventura and San Luis Obsipo in particular is spectacular, with much of it riding literally on the edge of the ocean (much like Highway 1 does from Hearst Castle to Monterey).