01/18/2012

Back to Santa Barbara: Kunin Wine and Santa Barbara Shellfish Company

One of the wonderful tourist attractions,causing people to flock to Santa Barbara is wine tasting. If you’ve never been, it’s definitely something that trains your taste buds to know more about the things you like and maybe things you aren’t so interested in wine tasting. Michelle and I found our way over to Kunin Wines Tasting Room, a lovely little store near the Santa Barbara pier, also known as Stearns Wharf Santa Barbara. It’s definitely a lovely place to watch the glorious sun go down over the beautiful hills and gorgeous beach. We stopped in for a tasting before we went to the pier. We sampled five wines for 10 dollars; you could choose from white or red tastings as well a syrah tasting, which was an additional two dollars. I decided on the red wine tasting and Michelle had the white wine tasting. It was nice to sample the variety and the differences between varietals.

After our wine tasting, we headed down to the pier to take in the stunning scenery and find a bite to eat. The waterfront was a bit chilly, but you could hardly complain because of the immense beauty of the sunset. As we walked along the shops and other various restaurants, we found ourselves at Santa Barbara Shellfish Company, just as the sun was going down. We were seated on the heated patio with the perfect view of the beautiful hills and gorgeous waterfront. We ordered clam chowder in a bread bowl and fried seafood, which consisted of calamari, shrimp, oysters and scallops topped with fried onion rings; a perfectly indulgent and delicious meal to end this gorgeous day. I also ordered an Anchor Steam Christmas Brew, which perfectly complimented the crispy fried flavors and delicate flesh of the seafood and held up well with its dark rich flavor to the creaminess of the chowder. We watched a perfect day go to rest and found ourselves in awe of such an astonishing moment in time, thankful that we could share these awesome times together, with such an life-long friendship.