Yesterday I enjoyed an afternoon in downtown Visalia. Visalia is a little town in central California. It is the closest place to where I live that has the electronic store I wanted for my computer. Yes folks, I have to drive 30 minutes to get to a town with a proper electronics store.
So Visalia. The locals are proud of it. It has a cute downtown which is a couple of blocks of short, older buildings which lends charm. There are boutiques aplenty for brousing. And there are some nice eateries.
After strolling the street and taking some inspiration pictures of the details on the architecture, I stopped into a promissing looking pub. The pub in question is Brewbaker Brewing Company. The atmoshpere was charming, the food nice, and the company outstanding.
I got the chance to chat with some locals. I chatted with a lady who has lived there for several decads and she told me all about how the town has grown. (If what I saw today is grown I can't begin to image how teeny tiny it was some decades ago).
Next was the gentleman down the way who was having difficulties with his new iPhone. So I lent him a hand which led to a lovely conversation over the next hour or so. He gave me multiple tips of places to go near where I live.
The iPhone gentelman then introduced me to his bar friend (a bar friend is the local regular you always see and chat with at the same bar, on the same night, at the same seat). The bar friend was an interesting looking character. A dude with long, curly, bushy hair and a full beard and the baseball cap. And so we all had a lovely chat about this and that.
At this point I noticed a cute guy on the other side of big hair guy speaking french on his phone. I love the french language! So I lean over and start chatting with him. Turns out he is from Quebec. Well I have ancestral family that moved to Quebec! So we also had a lovely chat about the American revolution and how the loyalists moved to Quebec during the war.
Now onto the food critique. The beer was so good. I had the Honey Wheat - tastes like a good Hefeweizen. The beer battered avocado - yes you read that correctly - was awesome! The beer batter was crisp and fluffy and the avocado inside was so nice and creamy. Now my big hair friend did say that when he got the beer battered avocado it was too rich - like eating butter. I didn't get that at all, it was just sooooo goooood!
I also got the pepper crusted seared tuna and was most displeased. This is one of those dishes that the chef doesn't know how to prepare properly and threw on the menue because he is attempting to keep current with the food trends. It's like the bar manager watched a bunch of cooking shows, keeps seeing the pepper crusted seared tuna and decided it was a food fad he had to have. So he instructs the cook to make it and the cook has no idea how to do this correctly and doesn't take the time to research it. So he uses a piece of tuna that is intended to be a tuna steak and not sushi grade tuna. Yes, I can taste the difference. He then cooks it - not sears it. A grey outside is what you get and not the yummy carmalized sear your looking for. And the pepper crust - just litterally pepper corns mashed onto the outside of the tuna. Not a propper crust at all. So that was tottally gross.
Also worth nothing are the so very beutiful tiffany stained glass lamps everywhere!
So there you have it. If your open and friendly and hanging out in a bar, chances are your gonna have some fun with interesting conversation. And that's basically life and traveling - the search for good food, good brew, and good company.