My California Culinary Adventure

I haven't posted for about a week because I've been in Orange County, California (yes, the real O.C.) from 23-28 October 2008 taking care of some family business. Since I'm a native Californian, it was great to visit old favorite restaurants. I was hosted by Larry (my wonderful brother) & Stephanie (my wonderful sister-in-law).



I wanted to write up a few culinary highlights of my trip, but of course these don't officially count for this blog, since the restaurants aren't in Leesburg. I'm also including these notes here because some of the places we ate at are California classics, and have no equivalent here in Virginia. I may be stretching the term "Culinary Adventure", since most of these places were fast-food, chain restaurants, but it was an adventure nontheless.

A couple of times we ate at L&L Hawaiian BBQ. It's a kind of fast-food chain store, but very unique. The first store was in Hawaii, and now they have many locations, most in California. The menu is full of apparently authentic Hawaiian favorites, served in the classic Hawaiian "Plate Lunch" style. The main offerings are BBQ beef, BBQ chicken, BBQ pork short ribs, Mahi Mahi, and shrimp; all served with rice and macaroni salad(!) If you can't visit in person, at least check out their web site to get an idea of what it's all about (the intro video is interesting).

Keeping with the island theme, we had lunch once at a place called Islands. They have old surfer videos playing continuously on the monitors placed throughout the restaurant, for "atmosphere", I guess. It's basically a hamburger joint, and all the burgers have Surfer/Hawaiian names; I had the Kilauea ("jalapeno & black pepper-crusted burger with pepper jack cheese, chipotle aioli & seasoned red onion strings") and Larry had the Bleunami ("bleu cheese dressing, lettuce, tomato, red onion & crumbled bleu cheese"). Interestingly, when you go to their web site, you get redirected to a secure (SSL) URL - I guess this is really sensitive data!

One morning we drove into San Juan Capistrano and had breakfast at Sarducci's Capistrano Depot. The weather was perfect and we were able to eat outside in their beautiful brick courtyard; it was very relaxing. Their homestyle potatoes, served with most of the egg dishes, were unique and delicious.

Carl's Jr. is a classic California burger chain that's been around since the 1950's. The menu is typical burger joint but better than average quality and taste. One of their newer items is "The Guacamole Bacon Six Dollar Burger"; it's made with a charbroiled Black Angus beef patty, guacamole, bacon, and more. The joke is that although it's called the six dollar burger, it really costs about four dollars - it's just big. Larry and I had breakfast there a couple of times; the breakfast burritos are pretty good.

We had two dinners at the Claim Jumper, a slightly upscale chain restaurant, with locations mostly in California. It's basically a steak house; on one visit I had Barbeque Ribs, and the next time the Ribeye, and it was all good.

We had breakfast at Denny's twice. Not that Denny's is anything special, but it was fun because we don't have any very near Leesburg. I have to confess that I really liked the "Lumberjack Slam" breakfast, plus it just sounds cool.

Finally, we had lunch a couple of times at that most iconic of all California burger joints, In-N-Out Burger! Their menu only has burgers, fries, and drinks - that's it. The only burgers on the official menu are singles and doubles. However, they also have a "secret menu" (no so secret anymore, since it's on their own web site), that you can order from if you're in the know. I had a Double-Double Animal Style, and there are other interesting choices. And of course they have a store (online & in the restaurants) where you can buy t-shirts, hats, etc. to show you're a true devotee. Yes, I bought a t-shirt.

Thus concludes my California fast-food chain restaurant adventure.