Santa Barbara - Day 2

Attempting to make the most of the sunshine (asides from just melting in it), we spent our first morning in Santa Barbara lazing around the pool for some much needed R&R. It’s a tough life seeing all these places you know…​

Once we'd had our fill of vitamin D, we headed out for a drive before lunch and found ourselves in Montecito, well more specifically at the San Ysidro Ranch and being ever inquisitive, we drove on in and had a peek around. Sticking out somewhat in a little beach dress, I’m never one to mind going against the grain a little and we got to wandering around the gardens and checking out how the other half holidays pretending we fit in, spoiler alert…it’s pretty nice.

​This is often voted as one of the world’s top hotels and it’s not hard to see why. Tucked away out of sight, it is its own little paradise, complete with a self sufficient chefs garden. It feels less like a hotel and more like a secret escape.  Enough nosing around (and tummy’s beginning to rumble) we made our way back to the beach to sniff out Brophy Bros.

Nestled down on the harbor front (there are 2, this one was the closest to our hotel), be sure to head upstairs for the view. We hadn’t booked, just grabbed a drink and waited until a table on the balcony was available. Seated, we made quick work of ordering and watched the boats come and go until lunch turned up.

​Becoming somewhat of a crab cake lover, these little beauties were by far the best I’ve ever had, little bit of crunch but not overly fried or overpoweringly crabby, I munched away happily until my plate was clean and my drink needed topping up.

We retreated back to the pool for the rest of the day before deciding an acceptable amount of time had passed since lunch and got ourselves ready and strolled off in pursuit of dinner. Anyone else spend the majority of their holiday’s drifting from lunch to dinner? Guilty over here…a bit of a last minute booking, we arrived at The Lark in the Funk Zone just as it became dark and gabbed a table outside. It was packed, which I always take as a good sign, plus I love a busy restaurant with lots of chatter going on around me to avoid those awkward hush toned conversations.

​To say I wanted to order everything on the menu is no over exaggeration, alas the wait staff advise you to grab 4/5 dishes to share (obviously more if there are more of you) so we went for the brie, tomatoes, sweetbreads (which I had always thought were some kind of animal balls but apparently that’s not the case), parpadelle and ribs.

Well…it was hands down the best dinner of the trip so far. Everything was so damn good. Actually the sweetbreads weren’t really my thing, tried and tested and OK but just not for me, they have and odd texture. If we had been staying another night I would have happily trooped myself back here and worked through the rest of the menu. If you’re going to Santa Barbara, this place is not to be missed.

Ready for a trip to LaLaLand? Lucky for you, that’s where we’re off to next…
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WG x