gutfud – the food, es ist gut

I thought Maurie was a fan of the Tee-Off and wanted to go there with him. He thought I was a fan of the Tee-Off and wanted to go there with me. Mass confusion turned to hilarity when we met at the entrance and figured out neither of us had ever been there before, but what the hell we went in…

And I promptly almost walked into a wall. Or maybe a table, or a person, because it was pitch dark inside. What, is this frequented by vampires? Doesn’t matter, we knew we stood out like the obvious newbies we were.  A waitress swooped us up and herded us to a table in the back, thankfully to an area with a wee bit more light, but not much more.

We’d been transported to another town in another time. Someplace in central California, after a long day working on a ranch. Such lumberjack shirts and handlebar mustaches the men had, and nice round bellies after years of careful beer cultivation.  The teased bangs on the women were admirable, as well as their stoned-washed jeans coyly perched above their hips. I was charmed to pieces.

I’d been driving all the way to Casmalia or Guadalupe for places like this. And now I know it’s just on freaking *upper State*, next to a doughnut shop in a half abandoned strip mall.

What makes this space so fascinating is its authenticity. Hipster places can only dream of decorating an interior as retro chic as this, but this is of the era, a living fossil.  If you didn’t walk in with a natural drawl in your accent, you might just have one by the end of the meal.

Our waitress was super friendly to strangers like us and Maurie, who’s the most unbelligerent vegetarian I know, happily pointed to some options he could eat. I only had eyes for the fried chicken.

Before we’d ordered, we tucked into a little platter of crudite with ranch dressing. Just like the little steakhouse in Casmalia I’m fond of. Then we shared a half order of onion rings. I’d pondered getting those as my side dish, but fried onion rings with fried chicken didn’t seem a good match on the plate. I know, my logic isn’t perfect at the time, as this resulted in me ordered more food as my side, and I still ate fried onion rings. Whatever. The onion rings were good! Ridiculous girth and height, which meant the onions inside still had some substance to them inside, but they were cooked through and sweet. Two hands were required to handle these babies.

Maurie got sautéed scallops and rice pilaf. It looked delish and he let me nick one of the scallops. Yum! I let him dig in and all I know at the end of the meal, his plate was cleared.

And here’s my little piece of fried chicken heaven. Little piece being an understatement, since I appeared to have half a chicken on my plate. Oooof! The chicken was hot and juicy, my mash and gravy was the perfect portion, not too much.

And there was so much more. All the main dishes on the menu come with a hearty rich beef soup heaped with goodies, and an ample salad with several options for dressing. I got the Thousand Island, it was the place for it. We also got a basket of hot bread rolls. Now, I can easily have a bowl of soup and some salad and call it quits right there. So the addition of half a fried chicken took me to the Gut Buster level. Hence, I only ate one chicken leg and declared myself full. No dessert!

We rolled out the door, back to modern day Santa Barbara, part laughing and part crying from all the food we’d just ate. I think Maurie said he’d “be full until September.” We had to take a walk through the strip malls to digest and perhaps readjust to the June Gloomy $1.2 million dollar median home Santa Barbara we’d left behind a couple hours earlier.

Don’t tell anyone, ok?

Tee-Off
3627 State St
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
www.teeoffsb.com