Posts for Food
Posted by paulrivas on: December 16 2008
When we lived downtown, one property up from the log cabin, Clare and I ate Saigon In and Out on State and Victoria once a week. Now that we're in Goleta, we invent errands that can only be run downtown on an empty stomach, and eat Saigon once a week. Feeling that we'd been neglecting Goleta, we thought we'd give the Saigon by KMart a fair try.
Clare got a bowl of pho similar to our other usual and said it was good. I got a bowl of grilled beef and (three) grilled shrimp over noodles and a few salady vegetables and was dumbfounded at how delicious it all was, especially the beef, which was apparently seasoned with something magical. I drank two Tsingtao, the first of which came in a frosted mug, and learned that "Tsingtao" as from the lips of a Chinese person sounds nothing like any sounds I've ever made when speaking. It's clearly "Tsingtao", but it sounds much cooler, like in a kung fu movie.
Saigon by KMart had the basketball game going on TV, which is nice if you feel like having the basketball game on in your restaurant, as I sometimes do. It makes the space feel like Javan's cleaned up and given a thick dose of frames within frames. I love Javan's, particularly their foreign brand of customer service: absolute dedication to the product being offered on the one hand and absolute dominance of the customers on the other. The Mercury Lounge in Goleta operates on this principle and is different from all other bars in town in this way, although the owner is an Irish-American from Kansas City. People go to these places for the abuse.
By comparison, Saigon by Kmart is putting out a good product and at once treating their customers well. The wait staff are all dears. The skater kid waiter said, "Take your time, sir," and I couldn't help but laugh out of the embarassment of being called Sir with the Laker game blasting. I felt like a sheikh. When Clare didn't finish her soup, she had to swear on the Chinese server girl's dead great-grandmother's grave that it was because she wasn't hungry. The girl brought it back in a to-go container and said, "Eat as soon as quickly."
The two Saigon In and Outs are owned by one Vietnamese guy. I don't know who owns this Saigon. This one doesn't have curries, which really puts the other two over the top, as far as Clare and I are concerned, but these guys do the other stuff well. And on Saigon/Bond night, Saigon took it.
Posted by paulrivas on: September 29 2008
Rivas Cultural Services spied the one and only Coach Pimm at Saigon In and Out on State Street Friday night. That's Jerry Pimm, Coach, the man who led UCSB's celebrated men's basketball teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Prior to the men's soccer team's rise to prominence and 2006 national championship, the big basketball wins of Coach Pimm's days were probably the high point in the history of UCSB athletics, in terms of national recognition (and attendance). Even today, with the men's soccer team's present success now coming as expected, people recall the glory days of the basketball program, which came under Pimm.
I hadn't seen Coach Pimm since his first days as an athletic department administrator following his retirement from coaching. Back then, he looked beat, but Friday at Saigon In and Out's downtown location, he looked never-better, probably 10 years younger than he looked 10 years ago. (In fact-checking for this story, I learned that Coach Pimm's mother recently passed away aged 99.) Coach's granddaughter, Gina, was in my third grade class at Foothill School.
I very nearly got up and greeted him, to give him his due props and thank him for first putting UCSB athletics on the map, but it's a delicate operation over there at Saigon In and Out, and one finished diner crossing the room to great another diner just about to sit down may well have brought the whole place crashing down. Saigon In and Out (not Saigon by KMart - never been there) is Clare's and my favorite restaurant these days. We get pho and chicken curry noodles, a Dragon and Angel brand beer and a Diet Coke for about $24.
The food is delicious, and they have a chrome rickshaw that would make any of the local low-rider bros take a second look, but what we love about is is how the very short women on the staff scream hello and goodbye unseen from the far end of the restaurant as soon as a customer crosses the threshold. Such is the hospitality at the downtown location. The staff bend over backwards to be welcoming and helpful, all the while laying conversational booby-traps that are at best startling and at worst the potential for disaster. When Clare ordered both the pho and the chicken curry noodles one time, without saying that we'd share the two dishes, the 90-pound waitress shouted, "It's too much food for you!!!" If a diner tries to order something before the waiter is ready to field the order, or speaks before the waiter has finished speaking, the whole transaction comes to a crashing halt, often necessitating an entire do-over. So you can see how I just couldn't stand up and traipse across the restaurant floor, willy-nilly, and start shaking hands with the customers, even for Coach Pimm.
Posted by paulrivas on: September 26 2008
Six weeks ago, I learned the word "raconteur". I'm not sure where I saw it first. About a week later, during happy hour at the Brewhouse, I saw a poster for a band called the Raconteurs playing at the bowl. I said to myself, "What a clever name. I think I'd like to see a band called the Raconteurs." A few weeks later, I heard KCSB giving away tickets in their usual way - to the first caller - while saying that the Raconteurs featured Jack White of the White Stripes. I counted this as a plus, and decided to put some attention toward winning tickets. I did this, and won two tickets last week.
Before the White Stripes, whose music I first heard played in Europe in 2003, "Jack White" was the name of a boy my younger sister Laura went to elementary school with who lived on Pintura. He was always present in my mind because I once heard him exclaim, "This one has more gription," in reference to one mini basketball that was easier to grip than another. It was the only time I've ever heard the word "gription" spoken seriously, and pre-dated the next reported instance of the word by two years, when the Life Artist Bubba Ray Robison heard 1996 New York Mets First Round Draft Pick Robert Stratton say, "This ball doesn't have any gription on it," shortly before becoming a millionaire.
Last night, Rivas Cultural Services introduced a Mexican exchange student to two Santa Barbara classics: Lilly's Tacos and the Santa Barbara Bowl. The pinche mexicano, as he is affectionately known, ate five "tacotes" at Lilly's, a total he later decided was 67% more than he needed. (How many tacos did he need?) He had two asada, one adobada, one maciza and one lengua. He preferred the asada to all, but also complimented the adobada. He said the lengua was okay but earned his lowest rating of the four varieties sampled. Once at the Bowl, Rivas Cultural Services and client picked up the free tickets, schmoozed the bigwigs, and had two free drinks apiece bestowed on them.
It was only a few days before the show that I realized that "raconteurs" sounded like "rock on tours". I'd like to thing this was unintentional on the part of the band, because there's nothing worse than a pun, unless you're in Mexico, where puns are king, but I had my doubts after seeing them play. After carefully considering White's Heath-Ledger's-Joker-inspired-sick-and-twisted-meets-Johnny-Depp-aloof look, and the other guitarist's mustachioed ridiculousness, I could only assume that the joke was on us. Well, not "us" exactly. Not on Rivas Cultural Services, to be sure, and not on the pinche mexicano, but certainly on everyone who paid to see an uninspired and at best occasionally interesting show.
Posted by paulrivas on: March 16 2009
In Santa Barbara and Goleta, there are Mexican restaurants that last less than six months that no one bothers to keep track of, and there are Mexican restaurants that have been around for years that everyone knows. And then there's El Rincón Bohemio, which has been around since 1989, seemingly without customers.
Have you ever even heard of anyone going to El Rincón Bohemio? Do you have the slightest idea where either of its two locations is? Can you believe there's a Mexican restaurant in Santa Barbara called "The Bohemian Corner" that isn't overrun with ladies of leisure lunching in $2000 wannabe Frida Kahlo skirts?
Of course not! It's inconceivable! Why, the Santa Barbara Man About Goleta himself just discovered the downtown Goleta location last week! It's on Pine Avenue, one block off Hollister, hiding in plain sight in a building I don't have the architectural vocabulary to describe properly, but that resembles a hobbit house built into a hill. The other one is rumored to be buried somewhere in the El Mercado center on upper State Street.
In the heart of Mexican Goleta, a deserted-looking building in an empty parking lot, El Rincón Bohemio is a summarily Mexican joint. The food is delicious, the portions are enormous and many of the beverages listed are unavailable. Before I could ask if the management was concerned that a restaurant that was impeccably decorated yet starkly devoid of customers might be considered suspicious, in a front-for-Mexican-drug-trafficking-money sort of way, the young woman behind the counter blurted out that I shouldn't be alarmed at being the only customer because the nice old lady who owns the restaurant makes good money renting out the back patio for events (no music) and catering fine Mexican dining for 500 people (she's done this twice (in almost 20 years!)).
Posted by paulrivas on: October 29 2009
To a Mexican who knows no English, this beer-sponsored sign in downtown Goleta would read, "Special - the brand of leche called Milk - 2 gallons for $4.99". To a bilingual person, it's just a special on milk. Either way, if you speak Spanish, you're buying this leche.
If you don't speak any Spanish, you're probably not in downtown Goleta. But if you're there anyway looking for milk and the word MILK catches your eye, the sign would read, "Especial - the brand of milk called Leche - 2 gallons times $4.99". Of course this doesn't make total sense, but if it's a milk emergency then this Leche stuff certainly warrants further investigation.
Two weeks ago, Santa Barbara Man About Goleta found evidence of American-born Spanish-speakers going after the Mexican dollar in downtown Goleta. This beer sign for milk appears to be an example of a bilingual business owner going after both the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking dollars! That's twice as many dollars!!
Rivas Cultural Services thinks this is awfully crafty, and redolent of the Chapulín Colorado rubbing his hands saying, "¡No contaron con mi astucia!"
Santa Barbara Man About Goleta celebrates local color with bilingual humor and California style. Rivas Cultural Services are international advisers expert in Latin America and budget travel.
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