HUNGRY? The Great Bakersfield Food Tour.

“Try to stay hungry.”

“I just need a piece of bread or something…”

“I know, but just don’t go overboard…you’ll need your appetite.”

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So goes the back and forth between my wife and I as we head on across the Tejon Pass, just north of Los Angeles. It’s been a long Lent and now we’re ready to break it. It’s time for a food-centered trip to one of the great, undiscovered food destinations in California…Bakersfield.

It’s mid April as we have an easy drive over the Grapevine. Sunny and warm, it’s the perfect weather for the wildflowers that paint the hillsides above Gorman. Still early for them, they’re just starting the show. Come here at the beginning of May and it should be spectacular.

First up, a snack to hold my wife and son over until dinner. Dewar’s has been in business here over a century making premium ice cream and candy. It’s great, delicious fun but the original location, with it’s tight spaces, is hard on a wheelchair. Fortunately, their new location is just about perfect.

West of the 99 on Rosedale Highway, just past the giant shopping center where WalMart is, you’ll find the new Dewar’s outpost just off of the corner with Callaway Drive. Not only a great, spacious ice cream parlor, you’ll find a museum of Dewar’s…and Bakersfield…history featuring ice cream making implements going back a century and a guitar given to them by local legend Buck Owens that Letty is standing in front of in that picture up above.

Apart from the giant tour buses blocking the handicapped spaces in the parking lot, check-in goes smooth at the Springhill Suites. Apparently, dozens of college swimmers here for a meet will be surrounding us tonight. Pray for us…

Unpacked and very hungry, we head out for our first meal of the weekend.

Bakersfield has a reputation for being gritty. It’s not a completely undeserved one. Walking the streets of downtown, you’ll have no problem spotting the homeless and others who are down on their luck. The blocks just east of downtown are dotted with halfway houses and rehab centers.

The city also is home to some of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet and there’s a renaissance just over the next hump. New restaurants, art galleries, nightclubs are edging into spaces next to the old guard, Bakersfield classics. Come downtown on a Friday or Saturday night and the place is alive.

This is where we come for our Friday night dinner to Uricchio’s Trattoria one block west of Chester Avenue on 17^th Street.

We spend a lot of time in this city…a lot. Once we found out the charms and hidden beauty of Bakersfield, we fell in love with it and refer to our frequent stays at the Marriott here as our “timeshare.” Each visit, we try to find at least one new thing to try. This weekend it’s Uricchio’s.

Opened in 1995 by Nick Uricchio, his son Steve, and chef Raphael Hernandez, Uricchio’s serves high-end Italian cuisine in an updated space at very reasonable prices.

At the beginning of dinner service…5:00…we’re able to squeak in without a reservation. The server is very friendly and extremely knowledgeable about the food and the building itself. We notice that some of the windows, most etched with fine detail, have been replaced by plain glass.

Our server tells us that due the historic nature of the building, no one can create windows like that anymore so when one breaks, it can only be replaced by plain glass.

The wine is poured and warm, soft bread is served. Not too long afterward, our entrées appear.

Letty has the linguini pescadora which has seemingly every critter in the ocean swimming in its light marinara sauce. It is pronounced heavenly.

Tim has the manicotti, delicious crepe tubes filled with ricotta and topped with melted mozzarella. He opts to have his covered in meat sauce.  Again, a perfect dish with a nice bold taste to go with our bottle of Syrah.

I have a sublime veal saltimbocca with parmesan potatoes and a delicious vegetable medley on the side. I appreciate the restaurant that tries this dish and love the ones that get it right. Uricchio’s is one of the best I’ve had.

Each entrée is also nicely south of $20.

One meal down, we head back to the hotel to let the food digest and to watch our Angels beat up on the Orioles.

Did I mention we were sharing the hotel with hordes of college swimmers? Luckily, it only took one request to get them to stop screaming in the halls and after bedtime, they were quiet as mice. In the morning, however, these ravenous athletes decimated the hotel’s breakfast bar leaving us with just a cup of yogurt and a bagel.

Oh well, they’ll be checking out today and it’ll be nice, quiet, and empty at the Springhill Suites tonight.

Armed with whatever calories we could find this morning and with quite a few still hanging around from last night, we head south of town to check out another new site for this trip…the Wind Wolves Preserve, nestled up against the backside of the San Gabriel Mountains south of town.

Run by The Wildlands Conservancy, this preserve was purchased from the Tejon Ranch and contains some prime California Condor territory as well as ancient grasslands and canyons.

We don’t have time to go on a long hike and Tim is feeling some ill effects from the heat today so we keep near to the visitor’s center and hang out with a couple of volunteers there looking for birds and any other critters we can find.

About a hundred cliff swallows are flitting about, packing mud under the eaves of the building for nests.

A Bullock’s oriole sips water from a nearby pond before buzzing us up on the balcony.

Tim and I find a bee hive in the roof…hey, where’d Tim go?…as I see the wheelchair flying as far away from the bees as possible.

Some light hiking around the area reveals an algae filled pond with thousands of tadpoles waiting to become frogs. Out on the grasslands, larks sing relentlessly.

It’s back to Bakersfield where the hunger is starting to reassert itself. 5:30 and time for the next stop on our food adventure.  This time, it’s an old friend…Benji’s.

Benji’s is one of Bakersfield’s famed Basque restaurants.  On the edge of one of the city’s oil field no man’s lands, it occupies a corner on Rosedale Highway between an oil rig business and an auction.

Long home to shepherds, the area is known for this unique style of dining. The most famous of the city’s Basque restaurants is Noriega’s, an old boardinghouse in the old downtown area east of the current city center. Most people know it as the place where everybody sits at long tables, passing dishes back and forth family style.

At Benji’s, you sit at your own table but you still share the dishes among you, and what dishes they are! Seating is prompt. The dining room opens at 5:30 and not a minute before, however the bar is open and you’re welcome to enjoy a soothing glass of wine or a strongly mixed picon punch before your meal.

Once seated, your server will take your drink order then give you a basket of crusty French bread, accompanied by their spicy, warm salsa and butter.

A big tureen of thin, vegetable soup is next, served with a plate of beans used to thicken it up. It’s all made from scratch and is incredibly delicious…much more than the thin broth would indicate.

The salad…another large bowl to be shared by all…arrives. In all of my life, I have never had a salad and house dressing better than they make here at Benji’s. Fresh produce, along with a plate of ripe tomatoes and onions, and their creamy house dressing make this a dish I could make a meal of.

Along with the salad course comes the pickled cow’s tongue. If you’ve never had it, what a treat you’re missing. Beefy and covered in a slightly tart sauce, this delicacy will have you asking for more.

Next comes the main course, with green beans and fries, your entrée is served. That is a ton of food so we do what most people do now and order one entrée with the rest of us getting the “set up.” The set up is the entire meal as described above, less the entrée. Our one entrée tonight is a big, medium rare rib eye steak that we cut into thirds and share.

We are completely, satisfyingly stuffed. Dinners here are also reasonable, most entrées between $14 and $20 with a set up going for $13.95.

Dinner over, we head to the other side of the freeway to Sam Lynn Ballpark and spend the evening watching the local minor league team, the Bakersfield Blaze, win over the San Jose Giants.

The Blaze is now affiliated with the Cincinatti Reds and we get to see a true superstar, Ken Griffey, Sr., take the field as he is now managing this team.

(Note: The Blaze discontinued operations in 2016 - Ed)

Game over, it’s back to a very quiet and empty hotel to sleep off the day.

Sunday morning dawns and we pack up to get ready for the trip home. After checking out, we head across the street to Costco to gas up, down the street to Cruz Thru Car Wash to get the dust and bugs off of the van, and then to the food highlight of any trip to Bakersfield for us.

Back across town, on a quiet side street off of busy Union Avenue, sits the little neon green building that makes the best food in the world. No longer visible to customers since it’s been moved back in the kitchen, marinated pieces of pork slowly spin on a vertical spit known as a trompo. A large onion sits on top of the stack as the heat makes the juice trickle down the side as it all slowly cooks.

The cook takes a tortilla, quickly fries it on the lard coated flat top. A sharp knife is used to carve the cooked pieces of meat off of the trompo and placed into the tortilla. This shepherd’s style of Mexican pork is known as al pastor and no one does it better than Los Tacos de Huicho, the little taco stand that could, sitting here in this bright green building in the rundown neighborhood east of downtown.

We have been known to drive out of our way to make it a meal at this place and wouldn’t think twice about the two hour drive from L.A. just to have some.

The taco comes plain, meat only, on the tortilla and you finish it off at the condiment bar next to the counter. Here, you’ll find chopped onions, cilantro, pickled and fresh radishes, deep fried jalapeño peppers, green salsa, red salsa, and…the star of the bar…their absolutely breathtaking creamy, spicy, guacamole. For me and the al pastor, it’s onions, cilantro, their fiery hot red salsa, and the guacamole.

That’s one heck of a taco for only 99 cents (now $1.09 - Ed)

In addition, their burritos, sopes, and other dishes called gringas and mulas, are very good. There is not a bad thing on the menu here. One item I get that grosses a lot of my friends out are the tripas tacos…intestines fried to a cruncy bite wrapped in a tortilla. It is another taste I’d drive two hours for.

For some reason, this little Mexican restaurant in Bakersfield also makes some of the best seasoned French fries you’ll ever find.

This will pretty much be all the food we need today…two burritos (one chile verde, the other bean and cheese), two tripas tacos, two tacos al pastor, two carne asada sopes, and an order of fries.

Filled to the brim, it’s back on the 99, heading for home already making plans for the next time.

Darryl

Copyright 2012 - Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

America's Breadbasket - California's Central Valley: Tulare County

Upon learning that we’d be going to one of his favorite restaurants in the world while he was at camp, Tim was not a happy camper. “Don’t worry,” I told him, “the weekend after you get back is a three day weekend…let’s go up there when you get home.”

Of course, if you followed our trip without Tim to Paso Robles, you’ll know that we had to make an emergency trip to pick him up because he got sick.  And sick he was for a couple of days.  We didn’t know if he’d be well enough by the weekend to go, but thankfully he did get better and off we went.

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The restaurant, as many of you who know us will already guess, is the wonderful Los Tacos de Huicho in Bakersfield, California which sits at the southern end of the San Joaquin, or Central, Valley.

Yes, we did go to Huicho’s and, yes, the food was as absolutely delicious as always, but this trip is not about Huicho’s or even one of our favorite destinations, Bakersfield, all that much.

After dinner, it’s back on the 99 north to our next stop about an hour’s north…the Charter Inn and Suites in Tulare.  The hotel, which sits adjacent to the freeway as Prosperity Avenue, is about the best hotel I know of in the Central Valley along the 99 corridor.

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Big, spacious rooms with a great hot breakfast buffet.  Monday through Wednesday, they also include dinner. There’s a lending library in the lobby, a nice pool area with spa, a patio area with a barbecue, and a very good staff.

Our room was a king size suite. Not technically accessible but at least as accessible as many other “handicap” rooms we’ve stayed in that didn’t feature a roll-in shower.  Wide access areas for the wheelchair, comfortable bed, a queen size sofabed, a large bathtub which more than accommodated our bath chair, and good wifi access.  There are even robes in the closet.  All for around $90 – 100 per night.

The Central Valley is the biggest agricultural area in the country. It’s not the California of beaches and palm trees, but plays a vital role in providing you with the food on your table. This morning, we’ll see some of that first hand.

After breakfast, it’s over to nearby Visalia where a farmers market sets up in the local Sears parking lot each Saturday.  It’s jammed packed with produce, cheeses, eggs, and more.  It’s not set up like a lot of farmers markets back home where there are more craft vendors and kiddie rides than there are farmers.  Here, while there are a couple of non-food vendors, it’s all about the food.

And the food is amazingly good. Sweet donut peaches, large red grapes, figs, oranges, heirloom tomatoes, zucchini bigger than my arm, and many items that, frankly, I have no clue what they are but they look delicious.

Our plan is to load up on all the fresh produce we can, keep it in our air conditioned hotel room, and then pack on ice for the trip home in the hot, valley summer heat.  It worked like a charm and we dined like royalty on all that farm-fresh produce for a couple of weeks.

Back at the hotel, we pack the most perishable items into the small in-room fridge, and turn the a/c up for the rest.  We have a nice swim in the pool and then head over to Hanford, which is about 15 miles west of us.

It’s the 4^th of July weekend and the temps are over the century mark.  In downtown Hanford, it’s 106 degrees. Not a problem.

The main reason we’re here in this beautiful little town is ice cream. One of the state’s…and probably the country’s…great, classic ice cream parlors sits across the street from the town’s plaza.  We’re talking about Superior Dairy.

In this location over 80 years, Superior is a gorgeous, small town ice cream emporium with brass chandeliers, pink booths and counter stools, and some of the most generous portions of frozen cream you’ll ever see.

Letty has just one scoop of rocky road.

Tim and I share two scoops of cookies and cream, covered with a rich caramel sauce and whipped cream.  Look at those two pictures.  That is quality ice cream served in gigantic portions.  Together, that’s about $7 worth of dessert.

Superior is also known for their S-O-S (Superior Oversized Sundae) sundae, pictured above, a gargantuan banana split that can easily feed four or more.

The cold ice cream cools us down nicely from the furnace outside. We walk across the street to the shady park that houses some beautifully restored buildings…the Municipal Auditorium, the Veteran’s Memorial Hall, and the old courthouse…across the street from an equally impressive restored Fox Theater.

It’s shady, with a cool fountain, a couple of snack stand, and lots of cool grass to play or lay on.  We see this little parakeet, probably someone’s escaped pet, happily chewing on stalks of grass.

In the evening, it’s back over to Visalia to visit the Rawhide.

Just south of Visalia’s great and walkable downtown is Recreation Park, an old minor league stadium. The team, going through lots of names over its 65 year history, is currently affiliated with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Rawhide are the Diamondbacks single A team playing in the California League.

In 2009, the stadium was renovated with new club level and grandstand down the right field/first base line. There are wheelchair seats along this area, where we sat, and also in the stands along the left field line.  There are a couple of accessible seats behind home plate about six rows back, but they’re behind an aisle and not too desirable.

Access to the level we sat at was via a slow, creaky lift that had to be repaired before we could use it…you can read more about in our stadium review.

At the game, it was a salute to military night with veteran’s throwing out the first pitch, different branches being honored each inning…i.e., one inning Navy active members and veterans were asked to stand up so the audience could applaud their service…another veteran singing God Bless America during the 7^th inning stretch, and…most poignant of all…cadets setting and serving a dinner to an empty table in front of the mound to POWs and MIAs who should be there but are not.

The game itself was pretty exciting with the Rawhide easily handling the visiting Lake Elsinore Storm…even though the PA announcer called them the Inland Empire 66ers for two innings before he caught on.

The food was miserable and delicious.  The miserable was the Italian sausage that Letty had, the delicious was the incredibly good bratwurst that I got to replace it from a grill near our seats. A very good selection of beer, including local microbrews, topped the concession selections.

All in all, a very fun game with just a couple of glitches. Visalia’s a very fun place to be.

In the morning, we checked out, shopped the outlet mall behind our hotel, and moved south to Bakersfield. Here we checked in to the Marriott Springhill Suites, which is pretty much our vacation condo these days with all the time we spend in this town.

We wanted to take one more night and go to Huicho’s one more time.  Before that, though, we went to our favorite bar. I’m a fan of the margarita and love when one is made right. Here in Bakersfield is one of the best.

Mexicali, on 18^th Street on the eastern edge of downtown along Mill Creek, makes the best I’ve had. Their house margarita made from scratch is a tarty little piece of heaven. Their Cadillac margarita takes what is the best plain margarita I’ve had up several notches on the taste scale. It is the nectar of the gods.

Along with the great drinks, the bar here is so comfortable and the people so friendly that it feels like home, having drinks with some old friends.  A truly classic, great, and dark bar.

On the morning of the 4^th, after a fitful night of sleep as some other rude guests were shooting off firecrackers in the parking lot (necessitating many calls to security) in the middle of the night, we check out and head to Huichos. (Note…after complaining at checkout, the hotel manager knocked our rate down to $50).

On Friday, the people at Huichos told us they would be open on the 4^th.  Between then and now, someone must have changed their mind because now they’re closed. Darn!

We’d saved up our appetite for this and were now disappointed.  Back in downtown, we were looking for somewhere…pretty much anywhere…that would be open on this holiday.  I see a burger stand with people working out back so I pull in.

Juicy Burger is a Five Guys knockoff located on 24^th and  M Streets, in the same building as the University of La Verne’s Bakersfield satellite campus.  It looks just like Five Guys when you walk in and has a very similar menu.  It also has both Coke and Pepsi machines, so Coke and Pepsi fans should all be happy here.

We order some burgers and fries, not really expecting much.

The burgers were amazingly good. Juicy, cooked to perfection, with great, tasty produce.  The fries were also good, not served in quite the heaps that Five Guys does, but the burgers were the star of the show here…incredible!

The staff here was very friendly and competent.  Each meal comes with a cookie but the counter person also gave me one to sample while we waited for our food.  Great food, great service, and fast food pricing.  What more could you want?  We now have another very good place to eat on our ever-growing and long Bakersfield food list…seriously, this is such a good food city.  Come here for that if nothing else.

I hunted down the manager and let her know just how much I loved this place.

Our appetites nicely sated, our disappointment at missing Huichos subsiding, we climb into the van to make that one last trip over the Grapevine to head back home.

Darryl
Copyright 2011- Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

ROAD FOOD: Ice Cream!

Update:  It's National Ice Cream Day...I didn't know that..

That was the temperature on our back patio on Friday afternoon at 4:00pm.  It's time to think of something cool.  Cold even.  Here are some of the most memorable ice cream parlors we've been to on our travels.

Picture courtesy of Flickr

rellim under CC-BY-SA license

The Sugar Bowl in Scottsdale, Arizona is a true family place.  So much so, it was Bill Keane's favorite place.  You may know him better as the dad who drew The Family Circus comic strip based on his real family.  Not only are there delicious ice cream and treats here, but many original drawings on the walls that Mr. Keane contributed to the restaurant.

Picture courtesy of Flickr

MonicaD under CC-BY-SA license

Superior Dairy in Hanford, California is a sight for sore eyes on one of those blisteringly hot Central Valley days.  The flavors are a bit on the basic side but can be jazzed up with many toppings.  The scoops are huge.  A single scoop here would beat a triple at many places.  It's located on Hanford's main plaza, which is also a jewel.

Dewar's is a 101 year old company located on the corner of California and Eye Streets in Bakersfield, California.  There's also another location on Hageman and Coffee Roads in the northern part of town.  Not only do they make delicious ice cream, but many hand-made candies too.  I'm particularly fond of the caramel chews.  Letty says they make the best pink peppermint and chocolate chip ice cream she's ever had...

...except for the version she made at home (see picture above).

Thrifty Ice Cream is available at most Rite Aid stores along the West Coast.  Many a California adult remembers as a kid visiting Thrifty Drug Stores (now Rite Aid) and buy ice cream cones for a nickel a scoop.  Now around a dollar, it's still suprisingly good for a low priced ice cream.  This basic frozen treat has a lot of fans.

Picture courtesy of Flickr

LadyDucayne under CC-BY license

The west San Gabriel Valley...just east of downtown Los Angeles...is known these days as a very large Asian community.  Great Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and other Asian tinged restaurants abound.  One thing that has stayed constant over the years is Fosselman's Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street in Alhambra.  The small shop is overwhelmed with crowds some days, but seek it out if you're in the neighborhood...and if they have white chocolate listed as one of their daily flavors, don't pass it up!

Try some of these great ice cream treats next time you're in the neighborhood.  Have an ice cream place you think is the best?  Tell us in the comments below.

-Darryl
Copyright 2010 - Darryl Musick