Mexican Food of San Luis Obispo County Part Two

Here’s Part II of Deep and Radical’s discussion of San Luis County Mexican food. Here are some tasty establishments in some of the more overlooked and forgotten parts of the area. Take a little trip and go check them out.

 

San Miguel

Most know this dusty corner of SLO County’s for pleasant rolling hills, wineries, and the conveniently located Dos Hermanos. It’s a great spot for sure, with fresh made pan dulce and a bomb breakfast burrito. Their extra- tripey menudo is a world beating hangover cure. Best of all is their special weekend birria served in a burrito, torta, or taco. They make this traditional stew with beef or goat and all sorts of mystical peppers and spices and other things I’m not worthy to know about.

Mexican Food of San Luis Obispo County Part 1

Deep and Radical is back from hiatus. After a lifetime of extensive research, it’s time to discuss the important stuff in life, starting with a two part voyage through the Mexican restaurants of San Luis Obispo County. Part 1 focuses on the County seat and nearby coastal towns. Be hungry.

San Luis Obispo and Tacos de vs. Tacos de

San Luis is home to many great Mexican restaurants and elusive tamale ladies, but even the great establishments have their flaws.

Save James Price Point!

James Price Point, located outside Broome in northwestern Western Australia, is not a classically beautiful place. The rock shelf outcropping and surrounding coastal lands are strangely formed and colored. Pindan soil, washed away by rain, runs into the sea coloring the water a puke like red-orange. The exposed reef shelf that runs from the point down the bay is marked with razor edged pock-marks and ledges. It is uncomfortable to walk across and to chill on. Twenty yards or so past shore, the pindan water becomes nice and clear, although twenty yards out one can still walk through depth around three to four feet. This shallow sea-floor gradient does not make for a great swimming location. There is no shade along this stretch of coast, no shelter from the Kimberley heat.

James Price Point is an unique and interesting place for sure, but visually it cannot compare to other ocean-side spots in the Kimberley and greater Western Australia. Despite this, James Price Point is currently valued at about $30 billion, due to a massive natural gas deposit sitting just offshore, beneath the sea floor.

No Such Thing as a Bad Beer 2: Matso’s Mango

• Matso’s Mango Beer
• Beer Type: Wheat Beer with Mango Flavoring
• Brewed in: Broome, Western Australia
• ABV: 4.5%
• Cost: $8 for a 400mL glass

During a recent sojourn in Broome, Western Australia, Deep and Radical experienced many strange new things: a proper and oppressive heat and humidity combination, mosquito swarms, and paying $25 for a Pacifico six-pack. Most bizarrely, fruit beers became genuinely appealing.

No Such Thing As a Bad Beer

At no point in previous human history have so many unique beers been so widely available. An undeniable quality range accompanies this glorious variety, but only the ignorant amongst us would call a beer “bad.” Humans create so many different social situations, from baby showers to wakes, and beer drinking makes each one better. Every beer has its own flavour, aroma, ABV, and price that combine to create an individual character suited to certain times and places. There’s no such thing as a bad beer, just bad beer choices. No Such Thing as a Bad Beer will explore some misunderstood and underrated beers, matching them to their ideal settings. First up, Emu Export.

• Emu Export
• Beer Type: Lager
• Brewed In: Perth, Western Australia
• ABV:4.4%
• Cost: $30 for 30 cans (if you’re lucky)

A certain subset of Western Australians genuinely considers Emu Export the only beer that matters. Most consider it piss in a can. Following the morning after a monumental Wizard’s Staff effort using the infamous red can, Deep and Radical once belonged in the second camp. Recent adventures in the Kimberly bush have forced a re-evaluation of Export.

Hands down the cheapest beer in a state known for cruelly exorbitant beer prices, the Red Can is cherished as a rare economic tipple. High minded aristocrats and fancy boys will always cluck their tongues and stick up their noses in response to Emu, saying it tastes like gasoline and that only the homeless drink it. Although Emu doesn’t taste super great and (like all cheap alcohol) fuels some serious social problems, it would be unfair to call it a bad beer.

Emu Export is uniquely Western Australian. The state is nearly four times the size of Texas but home to only 2.3 million people (1.7 million of whom live in the Perth metropolitan area). Exploring the largely untouched wilderness is the essential WA activity, but keeping beer cold across long stretches of desert is extremely difficult. Emu Export makes long term cooling systems entirely irrelevant, for it is a rare beer that tastes better warm than cold. Ideally, Export should be served in cans left resting on the desert red dirt for at least an hour. Or kept in the boot over a two day drive across Pilbaran outback. During the hot Western Australian summer, nothing beats bringing an Emu carton to a park or open space and chipping away at it through the day. The day begins to heat up, the cans get warmer, and nectar tastes sweeter. By sunset and the end of the carton, Emu is the best tasting beer in all Australia.

Sadly, the Australian government recently decided to clamp down on this time honored WA tradition by unfairly making an example of Emu Export.

A common sign in Broome, Western Australia

While Emu may not be permitted in Kimberly parks, The Man can never stop proud Sandgropers from drinking it anywhere else in the vast and beautiful isolation that is Western Australia.

Champions League Semi-Final Treats

With Barcelona and Real Madrid in opposite Champions League semi-finals, many people (including Deep and Radical) anticipated a classico encounter for this year’s final. Barcelona, hands down the best club team in a generation, were always favorites to lift the trophy. With Real finally getting the better of their Catalan rivals in the Spanish league, few gave any thought to a potential Bayern-Chelsea match-up. Fortunately two of the best semi-finals in recent memory gave us just that, the “underdogs” final.

Have You Seen It Volume 3: Irn-Bru

In AD 71 the Roman Empire began a campaign to conquer Scotland. Banking on their supreme organization and military might, the Romans thought their armies would roll over the Scottish tribes as easily as they had already rolled over the Mediterranean coast and Western Europe. After encountering fierce resistance from the Scottish tribes, the usually incorriagle Romans bailed on their Caledonian endeavor and built a wall to keep the madmen at bay. In the First and Second Wars of Scottish Independence, waged between 1292-1328 and 1332-1357, the Scots fought against  invading English forces to establish the Scotland as an independent nation. Today Scottish people continue to proudly resist foreign invasion. The Coca Cola Company and PepsiCo dominate the international soft drink market  but the Scottish national soft drink, Irn-Bru, outsells both the American colas, a feat achieved by very few countries.

3 Brief Things from Down Under

Pale Ales Spreading

The Settler’s Tavern in Margaret River sells Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in bottles and their sister bottle shop sells the entire Sierra Nevade range. The brewey affliated with Settler’s models their Pale Ale after Chico’s finest. Microbreweries with any distribution are rare here, but every one has their own pale ale offering. It seems the pale trend has spread across the Pacific. WA desperately needs some beer diversity. Hopefully the increasing popularity of the hoppy stuff will lead to exploration beyond the omnipresent and horrible Toohey’s and Carlton varieties.

Australian Justice

A bored shopkeeper in Walpole aired his grievances about the local police. He told me about a local repeat trouble maker who was constantly “getting on the piss and selling dope to backpackers.” Early one morning this offender was fishing off the boat ramp and blind drunk. Rather than putting in the effort to arrest him, the police decided to teach him a lesson by dumping both his buckets of bait into the river.

The shopkeeper expressed disbelief that such methods would deter the flagrant alcoholic disturbances perpetrated by this community rogue and reckoned the time had come to “take him round the back the pub and beat the piss out of him.”

Drive Through Limitations

Drive through liquor stores are so Western Australian. In Broome you are not allowed to walk up, take a taxi, or ride a bicycle through these stores. But hey, if it’s eleven at night and you’ve just finished off your Emu case, drive on down.

Deep and Radical in the Southwest Part 5: West Cape Howe National Park

“When I see a view like that I’m always aware of the terrifying insignificance of mankind and yet at the same time the irrevocable connection we all have with the universe.”
Howard Moon, Jazz Maverick

Deep and Radical left Denmark predawn in a final attempt at finding good surf in the Southern Ocean. Sadly a stiff southeasterly plaguing the coast rendered all breaks unrideable. On the positive side, my desperate searchings led me by the Cozy Corner Café. With no surf to distract me from my hunger, I stopped in for brekky. While I cannot remember every time I’ve eaten French Toast in my life, I say with absolute certainty that the Cozy Corner Café serves the best French Toast I’ve ever had. Made with thin slices cut from a dense bread and topped with berry compote and cream, the breakfast represented all the culinary freshness and gustatory joy I’ve experienced in Western Australia.

The Cozy Corner Café sits near the entrance to West Cape Howe National Park, home to Torbay Head, the southern most point in WA. One could sail 2,100 miles south, 1,100 miles west, or nearly 5,000 miles east from here before reaching land again. Being the romantic type I figured hiking to WA bottommost tip would provide fitting closure to my deep and radical southwest wanderings.

Deep and Radical in the Southwest Part 4: Denmark

In Margaret River I heard tales about the world class right at ——’- —– just outside the town of Denmark. In Walpole the legend grew into a wave that rivals the quality of Snapper Rocks yet is far less hyped. A dude in the Muttonbird Island parking lot described as four hundred meter sand point with multiple barrel sections (and that when it’s on, every surfer in WA knows about it). Eager to check it out, but not expecting to find it working, I drove through the town of Denmark following the signs straight to Ocean Beach.