Ratings are on a scale of 0 to 24.  The scale used to be 0 to 10, so restaurants written about before 2012 may have only had their ratings adjusted by formula and not by hand (hence all the 2s, 5s, 8s, etc.)  The scale works as follows:

An asymmetrical 0 to 24 scale may not be intuitive, I realize.  But as a rule of thumb: a double-digit score means I liked it, while a single-digit score… less so.  Also, as you might expect, scores from many years ago may not be very reliable, so do check the dates.

CA Central Coast

San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties.  (The underlying theme of this section: Is there a reason to take the 101 instead of the 5?)

Click on the column titles to sort the entries!

Name	Cuisine	Address	Last update	Score
La Super-Rica	Mexican	Milpas & Alphonse, Santa Barbara	2015-02-12	15
This is basically a taco shack, and most dishes are very simple. Rajas: peppers, onions, cheese and herbs on a pair of corn tortillas. Queso de cazuela: melted cheese in a bowl of tomato sauce, served with three corn tortillas. Gordita frijol: corn tortilla stuffed with spiced pintos. Simple and yet very good. The exceptions have been the specials: chilaquiles were above average but not great, and the tamal de verduras was bland. Still, a must-visit.
Full of Life Flatbread	Pizza	Bell btw Den/St. Joseph, Los Alamos	2021-08-08	14
I stopped by this place, in a tiny hilltown ten miles from anywhere, many years ago, back when it was called American Flatbread—​apparently there was a schism between the west coast and east coast factions—​and wound up being seated almost directly in front of the blazing hot pizza oven.  By the end of the meal I felt pretty well done myself.  This time around, the covids made takeout seem like a better choice.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that the pizza was better than it was back in the Bush years!
Old West Cinnamon Rolls	Cinnamon rolls	Dolliver & Pismo, Pismo Beach	2021-08-08	14
Very good cinnamon rolls with a variety of toppings; my favorite was probably the one with cream cheese (apparently a dairy supplies the shop with 300 pounds of cream cheese every week) and cherries.
Doc Burnstein's Ice Cream Lab	Dessert (ice cream)	Branch btw Wesley/Nevada, Arroyo Grande	2007-02-19	14
Good ice cream and a charming establishment. Apparently they create new flavors on Wednesday night in performances open to the public.
Birkholm's Bakery	Bakery	Alisal near Mission, Solvang	2015-02-12	12
I figured that if you're going to go to California's recreation of a Danish village, you should probably get a danish. Here I got a gigantic cherry/cheese danish. It was tasty. Good job, Danes.
Blenders	Smoothies	regional chain	2025-08-12	11
Here (at the Buellton location, to be specific) I got a strawberry coconut smoothie that at first didn’t particularly impress me, but which I found more and more addictive with each sip.  I plan to return the next time we’re in the area!
Happy Cat Eats	Street food	Cabrillo & Helena, Santa Barbara	2025-08-12	11
Here I got a breakfast burrito with macaroni and cheese (!) in it.  Interesting concept, and it kind of worked!  I did miss the beans (the burrito I got had eggs, potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and avocado, with salsa to be poured on bite by bite), but I can easily imagine adding macaroni and cheese to the burritos I make at home.
Olsen’s Danish Village Bakery	Bakery	Mission btw 5th/4th, Solvang	2024-07-03	11
This place provided the breakfast that was included with our hotel stay.  We each got to select one pastry (out of about a dozen options rather than the hundred or so in the case; I got custard-filled), one bread roll (I got ciabatta), and one beverage.  We also received slices of cheese, tiny glasses of orange juice, and some butter and jam, and I paid for a “Napoleon hat” pastry.  It was fine.
Mexi-Thai Roll	Dessert (ice cream)	California & Taft, San Luis Obispo	2024-07-02	11
As the name suggests, this is one of those rolled ice cream places, and as the name does not suggest, it is pretty much identical to every other rolled ice cream place I’ve ever tried⁠—it didn’t seem particularly Mexican or Thai to me.  Ellie and I split a Ferrero Rocher bowl and it was pretty much identical to the one we’d gotten at Icicles in New Mexico.
Chinelo	Mexican	Broad btw Marsh/Higuera, San Luis Obispo	2021-08-05	11
Here Ellie and I split a huge “California burrito” (i.e., one with french fries in it).  It tasted more like eating a plate of fries with sour cream and salsa than like a burrito, but that ain’t a bad lunch.
Jeannine’s	Breakfast/lunch	regional chain	2025-08-12	10
Ellie wanted to stop for a sandwich at the Goleta location.  She also got a peach lemonade, of which I had a sip, which turned into a few sips, as it was delicious.  It was so good, in fact, that before we left the area we went back, this time to the Santa Barbara location, so I could get a peach lemonade.  This time it was only okay.  Ellie got a blueberry lemonade.  I had a sip.  It was delicious.
Ziggy’s	Vegan	local chain: San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles	2024-12-26	10
Here I had a taco with fried cauliflower, kale, and spicy dressing.  I love cooked kale, but am kind of dubious about raw kale, which is what was in this taco.  However, the other elements were tasty enough that all in all it was a winner.  So much so that I actually came back less than half a year later during another trip to SLO; this time I got a bowl with East Asian flavors, which was not quite as much to my taste, though still good enough to keep a blue rating.
Coffee Express	Cafe	Grand near Brisco, Arroyo Grande	2015-02-12	8
Unnervingly nice service, but the breakfast wrap I got here was not the unparalleled triumph I had been led to expect. It was okay but it's in the middle of the pack as breakfast burritos go.
Brød & Kage	Bakery	Mission btw Atterdag/4th, Solvang	2025-08-12	6
While passing through Solvang, I thought I’d get some Danish baked goods, and I hadn’t tried this place before.  I got a Napoleon hat pastry (okay), a “flødeboller” that turned out not to be my sort of thing (it was full of marshmallow fluff), and a German chocolate cake that was disappointing, more of a confection than a slice of cake.
Flour House	Pizza	Higuera near Broad, San Luis Obispo	2025-08-10	5
This place was named the #20 pizzeria in the U.S., so when Ellie and I were scheduled to pass through SLO, I made a point of stopping here.  The menu is full of explanations that the pizza is not your standard fare: cooked at 1000°F for just a few seconds, and served uncut, the pizza is intended to have a very soft, floppy middle.  So it does… and, uh, deliberate though it may be, it’s not actually good.  The place is called “Flour House” and the center of the pizza does indeed taste like flour, not bread.  The thing is, that’s not actually why I disliked the pizza: it was that the toppings (I got a “Siciliana”, with fried eggplant, parmesan fondue, and what was supposed to be a tomato cream sauce but did not taste like it) were virtually flavorless.  Dessert was a white chocolate pistachio lava cake with hazelnut gelato, which sounded awesome and turned out to be mildly disappointing.  It says something when “mildly disappointing” is a step up.
Lokum	Turkish	two locations: San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara	2024-12-26	5
This place specializes in Turkish Delight, but I was tempted by a piece of chocolate pistachio baklava: four dollars for a bite-size piece, but hey, we were on vacation, so I decided to spring for it.  It was not worth four dollars.
Buena Onda	Argentinian	Haley btw Nopal/Quarantina, Santa Barbara	2024-07-03	4
I was excited to try this place because it came up on a web search as the most recommended spot in Santa Barbara and because it offered fugazzeta, which I had seen pop up among the cooking videos Youtube feeds me and which I had been wanting to try ever since.  It looked amazingly fluffy, outrageously cheesy, and full of crispy roasted onions.  The Buena Onda version turned out to be a completely ordinary pizza with nearly raw onions on top.  It wasn’t bad, but compared to what I’d seen in the videos, it was very disappointing.  And then the service turned out to be abysmal: customers looked around in disbelief as long stretches of time went by with the entire wait staff just hanging around chatting with each other instead of tending to tables.  Even when I finally got up and went over to one group of them and said I wanted to pay, they just ignored me.
Copper Cafe	American	Madonna & US-101, San Luis Obispo	2024-12-26	2
Here I got a waffle that reminded me of the waffles you can make at the complimentary breakfast bars offered by chain motels, only not quite as good.
Alex Madonna’s Gold Rush Steak House	American	Madonna & US-101, San Luis Obispo	2024-12-25	0
This place doesn’t have many vegetarian options, but I did see a few on the appetizer list I found online: I figured I’d go for the garlic bread and truffle potatoes, with avocado toast and fried mushrooms as backups.  Then I was handed a special “holiday menu” with no appetizers on it; I asked whether I could order some anyway, and was told no.  So I elected to go straight to dessert and ordered a slice of German chocolate cake.  The waiter said they were out.  My dinner ended up being a couple of rolls that came with Ellie’s turkey plate.  That plate also came with snap peas.  I tried a couple of the pods and they were terrible—⁠microwaved into a mealy paste.  Oh, and the mashed potatoes were lumpy.

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