California Food and Wine Blog

For my birthday my boyfriend took me to Ciopinot – an upscale seafood grille and oyster bar in downtown San Luis Obispo.

There’s a formal dining theme with black and red interior and lots of nice wall accents. The Christmas lights and kitchen in the middle of the seating throws it off and keeps it from a romantic ambiance, but overall it’s pretty nice inside.

The ambiance and people

Every item on the menu lists a recommended wine pairing with it and the wine prices are actually pretty decent AND they have a no corkage fee which really sets them apart from other restaruants in SLO. The servers are very attentive and check in at your table frequently and the owner of the restaurant also walks around and talks to each party which makes it feel very personal.

We started with Oysters Rockafellar and asked for the recommended wine that was listed. Here’s where it gets a little strange; we received the wrong wine with our appetizer and asked them to take it back. They brought out a different wine and said the wine that was recommended on the menu was not good at all and this would be better. Why are they recommending a wine that they are openly stating isn’t good??

Nathan ordered the Italian Ciopinot: the signature cioppino stock with Jumbo Prawns, Scallops, Clams, Calamari and Fresh Fish with penne pasta.

Italian Ciopinot

I ordered the Fisherman’s Plate: A platter of grilled fresh fish, jumbo prawns, sea scallops,
cockle clams and deep fried calamari. They brought it to me with a side of mashed potatoes instead of the rice pilaf I’d requested. The mashed potatoes were very good, but again made it seem like they just weren’t listening very well.

Fisherman's Plate

The waitor also said my dish would go well with any wine so we went with the recommended wine for Nathan’s dish. Unfortunately it didn’t go well with either dish. It tasted ok with his, but really didn’t compliment or bring out any new flavors, and mine clashed pretty poorly.

The Italian Ciopinot was great. Very spicy and full of fish and flavor. The Fisherman’s Plate was good but not something I’d get again.

We finished the meal off with the blueberry cobbler – definitely one of the best desserts I’ve had out to dinner. We were both tempted to ask for some sponge cake or something to get every last drop off the plate, but we resisted.

Overall I would recommend NOT going with any recommended wine pairings because it doesn’t seem to be done with much thought or skill in pairing. The servers are very attentive but may need to focus a little more on listening to the guests, but the owner makes up for it by being so personable and making sure everything was to our satisfaction. Also the actual servings were very generous so even though its about $25 per plate, you’ll definitely leave full.

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Today after another 3 hours at the beach boogie boarding and snorkeling we got hungry and decided to go to a local hot dog joint recommended by one of my sister’s friends. We headed down to the Poipu Village shopping center and stopped at Puka Dog for lunch. This place really makes you feel like its a great local joint. Its basically a cash register, a kenmore outdoor BBQ, and a bunch of relish pumps operated by two local kids.

I ordered a polish dog with spicy jalepeno garlic lemon sauce, mango relish, and the lilokai mustard. The polish sausage was a good size, nice and thick and well cooked. The sauces was quite good, though far from spicy. The mango relish is something I would like to get my hands on, it was delicious. The lilokai mustard was also a bit sweet, not something I would really think of as a mustard for a polish sausage, more for a salad dressing. All of them come in something that is not so much a hot dog bun as a hoagie roll with a hole in it instead of being sliced. An interesting package, though far too much bread or too little polish sausage. The extra bread came in handy for feeding the local birds though. You get the dog prepared how you like for $6.25. This place would have been great had the portion been larger or the price been 50% less.

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A Puka Dog

The Hanalei Gourmet is a cute little deli/bar/restaurant in the town of Hanalei on the north shore of Kauai. We stopped here on our way back to Poipu to grab a bite to eat to hold us over after 3 hours at the beach. I ordered a passion margarita and a N’Orleans Po’Boy sandwich. The margarita had strong flavors of passionfruit and was quite good. The margarita flavor was very subtle and light on the tequila, probably good in such a warm climate. The poor boy was a bit different than a traditional poor boy, they describe as: Deep fried, fresh catch on a french baguette, with coleslaw, sliced tomatoes, cajun remoulade and french fries on the side.

The fish of the day happend to be ahi tuna and the breading used had some herbs in it. Quite a good batter and the fish was just right, not too dry and not too greasy. The cajun remoulade was a bit spicy and didn’t over power the flavor of the fish. The baguette was fresh baked and soft. The coleslaw was really what I must say that I enjoyed the most however. It had dried cranberries, walnuts, and onion in addition to the traditional cabbage. The additions makes for a delicious mixture and was very enjoyable, I would definitely recommend it.

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N'Orleans Po'Boy sandwich

“Mondays in Mexico” aren’t too bad. Margaritas are $2 and tacos are $1. The tacos are pretty small, but for $10 you could get a pretty good balance of food and drink, lots of food, or lots of drink. ex: $10= 4 margaritas 2 tacos = 10 tacos = 1 margarita 8 tacos = 3 margaritas 4 tacos… you get the picture.

Margaritas and tacos

All margaritas $2