So instead I'm going to talk about the food that was downed in the beautiful seaside city Pismo Beach, part of the "Five Cities" area of the South-Central California coast. First up is Pierside Seafood which I'm guessing specializes in seafood but, naturally, I stuck with land animals:
BBQ bacon burger with onion rings even though I think onions suck
This place has really bad ratings on Yelp but I thought it was ample enough. The service is what actually made it memorable. Our waitress was this chick named Heather and she pulled all the moves in the book to make it seem like she was giving us special privileges even though it was trained beforehand, i.e. "I added on another onion ring" or "I added in some of the smaller shrimp." OH, yeah, speaking of which:
I lied - there was some shrimp on the table
The burger was good. Had a nice grill taste and the shrimp was good. I did appreciate the service, though. The only thing better than a woman being genuinely interested in you is a woman pretending to be genuinely interested in you to earn a bigger tip.
So. On this trip we went all around California - deserts, mountains, coast - as well as Nevada. We dined in Bodie, Virginia City, Reno, Carson City, Sacramento, Oakland, San Carlos, and Santa Cruz - but the BEST meal came on the last morning of the trip in Pismo from Penny's All American Cafe:
It's like all of my taste buds orgasmed at once
Holy crap was this amazing. What we have here are the Deluxe Strawberry Waffles, featuring a waffle with strawberries, two over easy eggs, and a couple strips of bacon. And WOW was this a taste explosion. Everything was fresh, cooked perfectly, and absolutely delicious. And the funny thing is we stopped here on a whim. "Hey, you wanna get some breakfast?" "Sure." "Cool, how about there?" There was also free coffee since they had a Yelp thing going on so that's always cool. Everyone likes free stuff.
What I respect the most about Penny's menu is that this is actually a seasonal dish. You know what that tells me? It tells me that they only bust out this meal during the months when strawberries are in season. While it may be a disappointment to not have this dish all year round, there would be an obvious difference in quality if it was. Strawberries are my favorite food - always have been - but even if a pound of them were going for 99 cents at Shithole Vons in the middle of January, I wouldn't buy them. I mean, if they looked good and had a good scent I would, but in January that just doesn't happen. Keeping this delicious dish as a seasonal thing is very respectable.
So Penny's American Cafe - best meal of the trip and a new favorite of Greg's Gourmet. Absolutely sensational.