End of the month I'll be driving to Napa for some wine studies, and I'll be taking Pacific Coast Highway/Highway 1 from L.A until Monterey, where I'll switch to interstate for rest of the drive.
I've done that trip before, but I've never found any interesting places to eat. At this time I need to leave Santa Barbara out, since I'll be leaving so early it's barely breakfast time when driving thru that town.
Does anybody know any places worth of stopping? I'd prefer sort of street food -type of eats, since I'm on the schedule after all. Roadhouses bars w/ good barfood, shacks, taco stands or very good diners?

Yep, two people,2-3 glasses of wine, something to eat... it's at leat $100 at A.O.C.

Not necessarily one for the each city, just one for everybody? Lack of that is the main reason I drift away from CH. I may be reading or responding to somebody on CH, a professional angle on it comes to my mind and I'd like share it with others who can comment on that one.

I've never manage to get any comfort out of bad cooking, discomfort, yes.
"What's your favorite discomfort food?"

In my case, that's why I bought the bottle because I noticed the word "smoked." The word "chipotle" didn't make me try it. Also, at the time I was helping out every now and then at this catering place, and the very same smoke T. craze was going on among the employees when having their own meals. Could not escape that word at the time. I also remember several camping trips, and people were talking about smoked T. while I can't recall enybody mentioning "chipotle." I am absolutely positive that word "smoked" was the second biggest word on that "burned" -looking label underneath "Tabasco."
I really hope it's the same stuff.

Does it read "smoked?" If so, I wonder why there's no "smoked" in their website.
The chipotle -label does look similar to the smoked one. Perhaps they just changed the label. Who knows; I'll buy chipotle and try it out, maybe it's the same as smoked.

Just, 3-4 years back I saw it in everybody's kitchen, the bottle was kinda big, lots of people, including I, who doesn't really care of about Tabasco, loved it. At my at-the-time household Smoked Tabasco was heavily over-used. It was just right, not too vinegary as the plain T, not too hot... I cannot believe that the product was withdrawn for lack of popularity, if that's the case. That big bottle lasted in our house for a week, the regular T lasted like 4 months. Everybody I know who is into food said they loved it. Anybody know what's the story? Or is it sold only at some secret locations?

What is that timy little shack on PCH, at Torrance blvd, right next to Bank Of America? It looks like a small diner, before the actual diners weren't even invented yet. U-shaped little counter, and there is patio behind the building, it's like somebody's home. Tiny sign only, I had a good breakfast there several times, not recently thou, just can't remenber the name of it (short name, like "Chuck's" or something like that.) Other than that, I can't recommend anything else in RB. Anyways, this place is a real deal in its own category.

Yep, it's burger place/coffee shop (I love coffee shops)but, no matter who mentioded Norm's name in their songs, out of my total, approximately 5 visits in there, my mashed potatoes (I didn't even expect it to be homemade)3 or 4 times were fridge-cold inside, burger burned, very tired salad and just... worst food ever.
Since it's coffee shop, I would expect them to get these basics right, but no, they fail, fail and fail. There is no excuse to charge for bad food even if the place is "coffee shop."
I went there first time because I'm aware of their role in googie/coffee shop -history. I tried many times, I always thought "maybe this was one time incident," but I'm done with them. There is plenty of much better coffee shops.

Slightly OT, but (I also checked out that link above by rworange) how come bringing your wine to restaurant is OK, but not syryp? Rest. may get the corkage fee from wine, but what they are really losing in syryp situation? Nothing, until their bad syryp is charged separately; or do they actually gain something, since they get to keep their own syryp? As for the liabilty question,if a person gets drunk after drinking his/hers wine at the restaurant, drunk-drives home, killing somebody, is the restaurant liable for it by allowing him/her to get intoxicated at their premises?

I can't see why they should have a problem with you bringing in a condiment that is not charged ( I assume) separately. Also, since at some point they will get curious about it, and ask most lkikely ask you why you're doing so, you'll have a great change to make a little statement about importance of quality syryp. Who knows, maybe they'll get better stuff too, and make it available for extra charge, or come up with some other solution to provide it.

The most disgusting food(S) I ever had was at Norms. It is amazing that place like that is in business.
But I'm happy for you, OP, if you had some edible stuff in there.

I always look for canned crabmeat for crabcakes, but that's one of the things they never seem to have.
I do check for exp.dates, but with most of the canned fish, for example, that date is years away. Also, exp. date is not the same things as the last day of "usage" (or how should I say it,) we had lots of about that stuff in culinary school.
The 99 Cent Store -chain seems, at lest to me, to be the best dollar store, I rarely see dented cans in there, and if I do sometimes, well, I just pick up one that is not dented. I never go to other dollar stores. Does anybody know if 99 Cent store is in CA only?

I pick up my cleaning stuff and toothpaste pretty often from that 99 cent store in Silverlake after having a breakfast at Millie's. They have so much canned seafood and other stuff and my plan's been for a long time to create some decent meals where most of the ingredients come from 99's shelves, but I never get around of it. A while ago I saw a simple recipe for Thai omelette with oysters in Gastronomica magazine, well 99 didn't have whole oysters but pieces of oysters. I had the omelette with some Thai beer and it was okay. I usually shop on that Mayfair on Franklin, and I'm not in a "student without money," -situation, but everytime at 99 I just think "SO much all kinds of stuff here, I should be able make something good out of this." (I also voluntarily shop for produce at Food 4 Less on Sunset; more options than, say, at Mayfair, and stuff is almost free. I mean, 3 pounds of limes $1 and so on.)
Anybody else worked on this challenge?

I've been there twice. In general, the whole experience was better than "good," but I wouldn't say that, if focusing only on what I ate, that the food was outstanding. To me and my friend it was just a great place to have wine and eat without having a serious, big meal. Both times we chose to sit at the counter, and we received good, attentive service. I'll go back anytime when I feel like having some wine, and maybe something to eat too.