534: Southern California Road Trip: San Diego, Carlsbad, Oceanside

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. by the Los Angeles wildfires. We are all thinking about you and hoping for a fast recovery. And listeners, if you would like to donate to support the relief efforts, we have included links in the show notes. And for those of you in and around LA or planning a visit soon, we also encourage you to get out and dine. It's one of the best ways to show the hospitality community you care. Now onto the show.

1:05You are beholden to the immigration that decides to open up a restaurant with their culture in mind. And they might be from Oaxaca. They might be from Chihuahua. They might be from the heart of Mexico. The nice thing about San Diego is that it's so proximal to the border that you just get a hodgepodge of stuff. This is Taste on the Road in California, presented by Visit California. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard. Today we have a very special episode. Visit California invited us out of the studio and over to the West Coast for a road trip around San Diego and the North County, including stops in Carlsbad and Oceanside.

1:45We're starting our road trip at the source at the legendary Chino Farms in Rancho Santa Fe, where the third generation of Japanese-American Chino family is busy cultivating specialty vegetables, fruit, and herbs beloved by chefs around California, including Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck. We stopped by the farm on a busy Saturday to check in on the family, the crops, and the future of the farm. Do you want to tell us where we are today? Vegetable farm at Rancho Santa Fe Chino Farms. So out of all the stuff you guys are growing right now, how much of it is coming out of the greenhouse versus like, is it all being grown there?

2:24It's usually like the temperature sensitive stuff. So although like micro herbs, the regular size herbs for the most part. Yeah. Eliza is speaking with Matsu Chino, who with his cousin Makoto helps run the farm and the popular Saturday farm stand. Matsu walks us around the farm's greenhouse. Originally, my grandparents were they had a nursery up in Carlsbad, California. It's like flowers, that kind of stuff. and then World War II happened and the Japanese on the west coast were interned and that was actually heavily lobbied by white farmers in the Central Valley who saw, because there's a lot of Japanese people in agriculture, they saw like, oh, we could just take the land and their farms and stuff.

3:09So they lobbied heavily in California and the west coast. Basically all the Japanese were interned. They were sent to the Poston internment camp in Arizona. and then after the war they got out they farmed around LA for a couple years and then they came here in 46 and then my grandfather essentially planted vegetables for like mass-produced vegetables to send to the farmer's market up in LA and then it wasn't until 69 it was like our parents generation they started the farm stand and I guess they wanted to branch out and do their own thing and because my grandfather grew all these varieties but it was like for the family for himself it wasn't really like you know you can't it's hard to ship up a specific radicchio to you know a market if there's no market for it um so yeah they started the farm stand and ever since it's been here yeah can you tell me about like the kinds of produce you guys grow here at the farm yeah for sure uh most of our vegetables are varieties that you wouldn't find in your supermarket so we do a lot of heirloom varieties a lot of you know four different types of broccolis so right now we've got a gailon which is a chinese broccoli similar to a sprouting broccoli uh purple broccoli regular broccoli and then uh broccoli spigarello uh we have because it's getting colder a lot of winter greens fennel's really big right now we should be planning kohlrabi soon which i really i i like kohlrabi for the historical fact like charlemagne ordered that kohlrabi be planted across this kingdom because it was like a very versatile vegetable and it's like it's a strong vegetable yeah a lot of winter greens uh kales we'll do like three different types of kales radicchio's treviso's a lot of like bitter italian greens uh we've got probably five different varieties of potatoes right now usually we'll have sweet potatoes and squash but we had a we had an irrigation issue during the summer and it like killed one of our fields and it was just like it's like all right great well you know like I can't just plant something and it'll be ready next month it's like all right well I just got to plan for the next season I suppose yeah yeah that's the thing about farming I guess is that you're not just looking like a week ahead but almost like years ahead and like what will come to fruit in the future right and like even with like crop rotation like you know just you know we plant corn in one field one year and we'll rotate it out and same with the strawberries and everything else so a lot of what Chino Farms is known for I think in the food scene is the connections that you've built with restaurants and chefs over the years.

5:39Can you tell me like a little bit about how those connections have kind of impacted the business or what kinds of restaurants you guys are working with today? Yeah. I mean, absolutely. Like Alice was probably like the biggest friend of the farm in that sense. Wolfgang Puck too. Like when the farm to table, like California cuisine thing took off, Like, I think we were one of the few places that, like, actually did what Alice was looking for. And, like, it was incredible. Like, I mean, we'd have, you know, Julia Child came by, like, Mario, like, all these guys. I mean, yeah, it set up the prestige for us, absolutely.

6:19And, like, we'd have Wolfgang and he'd stop by, right? And people would be like, oh, I just thought he was on the TV you guys have here. I didn't know he was actually here coming through. So, like, that's always really cool. I'm curious how much you guys think about like the future of Geno Farms. Is there any things you guys have been working on like the ice cream or like new things that you're introducing or ways that you want to see the farm evolve in the future? yeah i mean i again like i've you know i was away for a while so like coming back now it's like i'm in my cousin's head essentially where i'm like how can you you know not continue what you're known for but also adapt and improve i mean i think there's a very japanese mindset that like you can never perfect your craft so you always have to be improving uh but yeah i mean for example makoto's ice cream is like a big thing now too where people are coming you know they hear about the ice cream and they realize, oh, you guys sell vegetables too.

7:07You know, it was COVID and not many things were making me happy. This is Makoto Chino, Matsu's cousin, who along with helping run Chino Farm, is the guy behind Aisu Creamery, an ice cream company that has earned a cult following with flavors inspired by Chino's Farm's produce. No one's upset about ice cream. I think the farm is very traditional. Everything's almost like it was 40, 50 years ago, except for the diversity of crops, but I wanted something more approachable. Like, you know, say if like the generation before me was like the immigrant generation and they want to like replicate home here, I wanted to make something that's a little like, I guess watered down, but more approachable to the people like the next generation, kind of like how you grow up, it kind of implicates like what you're making, I guess.

7:56And then now you're selling the ice cream here at the farm. When did you guys start doing that? Whenever I was making sourdough, I started selling pints of ice cream. I want to make you like play favorites to close if you don't mind doing that. I'll ask you some questions. Okay. Your favorite summer produce you guys grow here. Oh man. I mean watermelon for the flavor and eggplant for the nostalgia. Eggplant for the nostalgia. What's nostalgic about it? So my aunt, she passed away a few years ago, but she was like our matriarch. She did the cooking. Like when you have, you know, nine kids on a farm, you can't raise nine kids and work your farm.

8:32So she was the eldest daughter. She was like a mother figure to my father. And I kind of saw her as my grandma, but she would make, uh, Marcella Hazan's, uh, eggplant Parmesan, but she'd use, uh, some of like our Japanese eggplant varieties and stuff. And like, I could, I just knew every summer, like one day a week, I was going to get eggplant Parmesan. That's a nice way to live. Your favorite like fall winter piece of produce on the farm. Ooh, uh, right now, uh, I really like rapini and like broccoli Rob. Like we do like, Like, it's a really nice pasta. It's just sausage, rapini pasta. It's delicious.

9:06A little lemon juice to cut the bitterness. But yeah, I'm going to like the rapini right now. Okay, my final question is, like, the most iconic crop or produce you guys grow here. Like, what do you think Chino Farms is most known for? Corner of the strawberries. I mean, it's literally, like, we've got our sign up there, and it's literally two things. Corner of the strawberries. Open, corn, strawberries. So, it has one of those. I'm going to pour your beer out of the bright tank, all right? Like I said earlier, this is the nectar of the gods. Ballast Point is an absolute legend in the Southern California craft brewing game.

9:32Beginning way back in 1996, the San Diego Brewery has become a destination for fans of their West Coast IPAs, California Kolsch, and more experimental beers brewed for their San Diego tasting room, located in the historical Little Italy neighborhood. We are joined there by Jeff Lozano, the brewery's jack-of-all-trades, who gives us a tour. If you ever go on a brewery tour, if you ever hang out with a brewer, if you know anybody, what you want is for them to offer you what I'm about to give you guys right now, which is a pour right off the bright tank. So the bright tank, BBT, it's a bright beer tank, is the last real safe space, let's say, for a beer before it enters a world of manipulation.

10:14So it hasn't been kind of like nudged by oxygen. It kind of hasn't been tickled by light. It hasn't traveled anywhere. This is 100 % what we intended as a brewery to give you. This is an Imperial IPA, which is beautiful because I want to take you places. We are in the back room of your brewery. Just set the scene. Not everybody gets to be here, by the way. Really? Oh, yeah. We got the pass. Oh, you're sitting where all the magic happens, dude. VIP amongst all the screens. Yeah, yeah. We got to see the experimental brewing. You walked us through. but set the scene for us. You were walking in. Where are we right now?

10:56You're in little Italy's Ballast Point location, which is the main R &D facility when it comes to our experimental brewing chops. One of the nice things about this particular slab of land, if you're ever in San Diego, for those of you that are not really too familiar with San Diego, this is like literally a hotspot. You know, there's a lot of great food. there's a lot of great drinking establishments they're on the hoity or toity or kind of end of the spectrum and once in a while you just want to pop in and have a good beer dude look the fact that there's a debate about what city is the craft beer capital of the united states that's fine the the what i like is that san diego isn't part of that debate you know i mean like you really distill it down to like three spots and to a lot of folks i would say they understand san diego being a craft beer mech of the United States, not just because of the history, not just because of the Stones and the Carl Strausses and the Ballast Points and the Coronados, but because of what actually got spit out of the meat grinder because of it.

12:04Now you can't throw a rock without hitting a great brewery now here in San Diego. And I don't know what the metrics are, right? But like one of my metrics is, well, how many great breweries can you find in a slot of land, right? Like per capita or whatever. I'm not looking at awards. Yeah. I'm not looking at, I'm not looking at who's on the shelf or who has distribution. I'm looking at who has the best beer and can you find it ubiquitously around town, no matter what alley you go down, you know? And, and, and San Diego is, is one of those cities where you come to San Diego and you come knowing that you're going to find some great beer.

12:42In fact, most people, a lot of people rather, They come because of that. That is their hook line to sink. Well, let's talk about the tourists who are here because there's obviously the beach. There's obviously a lot of golf. There's a lot going on in San Diego. But really, you have to hit up one or eight breweries. Right. How do you talk to the folks coming from the Midwest, the folks coming from New York where we're from, when they come to San Diego, how do you do the craft beer scene? How do you do it? I like the Bourdainian approach. Yes. I like telling my language what I like respecting people's intellect and research that they've probably done and not bringing up the spots that they probably already know, or at least that I can imagine that they already know.

13:23So I don't even bring up ballast point. Quite honestly, they're going to, they're, they're, they're most likely if they're asking me, they already know that that's probably going to be one of their spots. I like the hole in the walls that, um, even granularly, like that. I just know that they happen to be in town at the right time to get this particular beer oh cool you know i i it will change where i send people you know i if i know that you know virgin or barley and sword down on alcohol boulevard just tapped something really interesting and they just happen to be i go hey go get it while you can yeah and you're gonna love it because there's almost no spot that's worthy of mentioning that isn't going to give you a worthwhile experience i love that no jeff when you're not here at the brewery or or at an event for Ballast Point, you got to be catching beers somewhere.

14:10Yeah, too much maybe. Yeah, what's the craft beer bar scene like here? Are there a few craft beer bars that you're interested in? Yes, but you almost have to like, one of the things that San Diego does really well, it highlights little pockets in the county where you got North Park, you got South Park, you got the coastal area like Mission Beach or PB, you got East Village in downtown, and all of these places have their brewery or their little circuit, right? Of great beer. So it's really kind of, my conversations have turned to go here because it's a great brewery. It's gone a little bit more towards where you're staying.

14:53And I can tell you where to go. And how far do you want to branch out? Like I would say North Park here in San Diego, you got to go. Like you, if, if, if what you want to do is drink good craft beer, then you can't, you gotta almost without, without exception, go to North Park. North Park, North Park. And that's like a cluster of. It's a cluster of spots. I mean, you got, obviously you got North Park Brewing Company there, right? You got Fall Brewing Company, which is one of my favorites, if not my favorite. And I work for Biles Point. You got a little pocket, a little slab of land called the Igniter Project, which is a really interesting concept, right?

15:30You got three breweries on one little slab of land that they're all pre-built out breweries, right? And so the idea, hence the Igniter name, is you go in there and you kind of make a name for yourself. It's more of like a launching pad, right? So these are pre-built out stuff. They're literally right next to each other. And one of the nice things about that is if you're visiting, you got like a little beer court. Yeah, it's like a crawl built in right there. Exactly. You got three breweries. I love going to Barley and Sword. they're one of the few spots that really hone in on traditional style ales they have really true true cast condition beers like all these little spots are all in north park and not only that not limited to production facilities you got great craft beer bars you got blind lady ale house you know they're offering the best craft beer that you can uh think about like from all over the world from all over the world you know what i mean but then there's also other spots right La Jolla has some, you know, East County has some, you know, you go up to Vista and they're blowing up right now with the Bespers.

16:31Shout out Black Plague. Shout out Northern Pine. We're hearing some of the beer being made in the background of this interview. And we're here literally in the middle of this of this beautiful space. Let's talk about what you're doing here right now in terms of the beers. What can we get excited? Let's get a little beer geeky. All right. Let's get for a beer geeky audience. All right. Now we're talking. Now we're talking. What are some of the styles that you feel? You mentioned you're bringing back some older recipes. Tell me about that a bit. Yeah, well, look, so Ballast Point has reverence and Ballast Point can't have all of the best beers on the shelf at all times.

17:05So one of the nice things about Little Italy is that we're able to recreate the beers and have them kind of like flood our tasting rooms for a small amount of time. I kind of broke it down into three things, right? One, we're brewing the beers that you love that you don't see on the shelf anymore. but you can come down and get, right? So like there are these rebrews. It's our little, you know, scratching the historical itch. And then we have, what I'm really excited about is we have a true R &D facility. So we are researching like hop growers, molsters, like people that are in the flavor game with extracts and stuff or purees.

17:45They come to us to see how their product is gonna do before they really start really selling it What's a wild flavor combination that you've had come across? Can I tell you something wild that we should never do again? I'm glad we – hopefully it never happens again. Steaks on a plane. We made a beer with Montreal steak seasoning. And we're like, why the hell did we do that? Like literally, as we were drinking, we're like, who thought this was a good idea? But anyways. That's what R &D is about. That's what R &D is about. Development can be negative. Right, right, right. No, no, we've done everything from messing with chipotle peppers.

18:18Right now in the brewery, we're gearing up for Victory at Sea Days, which is our Imperial Porter, but we spice it, right? So we have Mexican chocolate, Victory at Sea Porter. We have a salted caramel, and we have Victory at Cereal, where we throw in a bunch of Captain Crunch. And it's beautiful. We're having a lot of fun here. Well, Jeff, I have to ask you before we close. It's a restaurant city. And Jeff, where are some of the places in San Diego that you would call your go-tos from the restaurant? To go eat? Yeah, man. Well, one of the nice things is that I do a lot of beer dinners. That's kind of like what I do.

18:56It's part of my job. I go and I host and I curate these beer pairings, right? So I'll give you broad spectrum, like anywhere from this place called Crazy Burger in North Park, where he's doing like ostrich he's doing wild boar he's doing kangaroos like that a gamey stuff and stuff where beer can kind of come in and start really playing a nice little tune with it um i have a buddy that just opened up his new spot that i like it's called pony boy he went into an iconic uh san diego hotel like a boutique hotel establishment in point loma and he's doing this retro awesome cocktails they have beers but he's just cooking up like crazy stuff yeah um and it's a little bit more like fine dining, high-end stuff.

19:40And then there's honestly like right next to one of my favorite breweries in fall in North park, there's a place called the friendly burger, which is all the talk of the town right now. Dirty flat top. You go in there, they're bumping Wu Tang. It's just like a shotgun a beer at their bar. And they're doing like basically like dirty flat top burgers that are delicious. Especially if you're kind of buzzed at one o 'clock in the morning. I mean, the hamburger is, is, is iconic in California. Oh, it's iconic. So, you know, you lived around L.A. You're now living in San Diego. What's the best burger in California?

20:14In California? I'm putting you on the spot. Jesus Christ. How dare you? On the spot, my friend. Before I answer that, I do got to say, because you brought up L.A., San Diego, shout out to San Diego Mexican food. Because if you're not messing with Mexican food here in San Diego, you're not messing with Mexican food. Well, let's go there. Tell me what we're missing. Oh, dude, you're missing the real tacos. You're missing. You go down to Chula Vista and you find a good hole in the wall. Tacos El Gordo might be the one that everyone talks about. But, dude, sometimes you're going to see someone post up on the side of the street and they're going to be a street vendor.

20:50Kind of like the L.A. kind of community. There's really, really, really good tacos. You know, California burritos are, you know, Filibertos. Go find that place and get yourself a nice California burrito. But as far as the burger, San Diego is known for, let's say, Rocky's Burger in PB. It's one of the most iconic spots to grab a burger, and they deserve it. You know, you got Ho Dads. Yeah. Ho Dads, who, by the way, brews. Ho Dads brews their own beer now. Look at that. Iconic burger spot doing their own beers. But if I had to pick right now just because it's been my kick, Crazy Burger in North Park.

21:27Yeah, you led with that. By the way, the guy that owns that spot, his name is Edgar. He was the master grill magician for Rocky's for a long time. Oh, so it's an offshoot. He went off. You know, just how like we prime up a good brewer and they go out and they do their own thing. Rocky's did that for this guy and he ended up opening up or taking over Crazy Burger. He's making some of the best stuff. on the on the mexican food tip tell me in san diego is there a dish that you would say like a mexican dish that is is absolutely iconic to the city to san diego yeah man ah dude so because of our proximity to tijuana yeah you you end up getting it's very hard to answer that i know it's a really hard question because no well because sometimes when you go to a big metropolitan city or you go to some place like in ohio or something where where you you are beholden to the the immigration that just decides to open up a restaurant with their culture in mind and they might be from oaxaca they might be from chihuahua they might be from the heart of mexico where carren sujugo is big and they might be from wherever the nice thing about san diego is that it's so proximal to the border that you just get a hodgepodge of stuff and there's really it's really hard to pick the one dish that you go like you know what that is a san diego dish because you can go to el borrego and you can get a beautiful um you know like uh pozole or menudo you can go to this other spot where there's always like uh las cuatro milpas you know what i mean we were gonna go this afternoon we skipped out we were gonna go oh bro if you really want a good spot Super Cocina.

23:09I think it's on University Avenue. And it really is like a cafeteria. Like you go in there and you go like, it's a line of like hot plates. And it's some of the best Mexican food that you'll ever have. I bet. I'm not saying that you should do this, but maybe sneak in the craft beer because I don't think they have a lot of craft beer, but sneak one in and crack that. Get in a ballast point. Get in a can. Get in a crawler. The debate has always been, who makes the better Mexican food, LA or San Diego all my LA friends because I have a lot they know this I'm not saying anything out of school that they wouldn't sorry San Diego let's go I will take that Jeff I love I love that those are fighting words we're doing fighting words here bring it and by the way that's a fight I want to be a part of I want people to go and go and support everything that's going on in LA and then bring it back to San Diego and if those fighting words bring everybody from LA to come down and I got to taste it for myself.

24:07No. Good. Jeff Lozano, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you guys, man. That was awesome. Our California road trip heads up the Five Freeway to Carlsbad, a sun-soaked coastal playground known for hiking, golf, the incredible flower fields in the spring, and of course, a booming restaurant scene. We stopped by the very newly opened Wildland to catch up with a talented chef and partner, Eric Bost. We also hear about a really exciting tasting menu restaurant he's just about to open. We're here on day one of Wildman. I mean, rare opportunity to be in a restaurant on day one.

24:45And, you know, you're sitting down for an interview and there's like a crazy dining room happening. Yes. Like feet away. How are you feeling? Good. Good stress. It was definitely a busy morning. We opened at 8 a.m. We're going to run it tonight until 9 p.m. There's no reservation. So we kind of didn't really know what to expect. But fortunately, we had to line out the door at 8 when we opened. It didn't stop until what hasn't stopped yet. But I feel good. We have a really good team. People I've worked with in the past, people I've worked with for many years. So I feel super good about it. And when you open Wildland, it comes on the heels of Campfire, which I've been to.

25:23And I had a terrific meal a couple of years ago. And you're really starting to make Carlsbad a culinary destination. What were you looking to do with Wildland in terms of differentiating from all the great food that's happening here in San Diego and North County? Sure. I think Wildland specifically was about a community restaurant that was no reservations first all day, which we don't do at the other restaurants. So breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We want somewhere that you can just walk up. It could be coffee and a croissant working on a laptop in the morning. It could be meeting friends in the nighttime.

25:53we wanted things that were familiar foods, but done kind of with our own stamp on them, meaning we have a full scale bakery in house. We're making all our own bread. We've got rotisserie where we run rotisserie chicken. We run porchetta. We also have wood fired pizzas. We have pasta. So again, it's familiar foods. We wanted something where people, the community could gather and just celebrate being up here. So let's talk about Carlsbad. It feels like one of the more slept on cities in Southern California And, you know, your restaurants are really the foundation of this. But there's plenty of other things happening here.

26:28You know, why should our listeners come down to Carlsbad where, you know, we fly into LAX and we're hitting all of our spots in LA, but maybe travel south a little bit? Sure. I mean, a couple of reasons. First, it is a small town. It has tons of charm. We're right on the coast. We do have quite a few great restaurants in the city or in the town, the village. But it's not very far, right? So we're like 45 minutes from San Diego. So it's a great trip up if you're in the south. We're an hour and a half south of LA. Orange County is right across the military base. So we're close to a lot of things.

27:03I think the vibe in Carlsbad is still very open, coastal, beautiful beaches, tons of things to do. So you write on your menu that Wildland is really inspired by North County, the landscape and the community. and talk about how both have inspired the opening of this restaurant. Sure. Well, first, it is a small town, so there's really about community. You see the same faces. We're a small team of people. We're just now with this opening, 200 people on our team. But we have like, we still recognize a lot of our guests. You know what I mean? It's like a very tight-knit community. So I think that was super important.

27:41Coastally driven, there's tons of amazing family farms around, probably the highest concentration of family farms in the country. So we're working seasonally, we're working locally, we're making sure that the terroir speaks through the food. So the things that you will find growing around here are going to be on the menu. Plus we get to work with our friends who have places around. So I feel like it's a bit of all those things. Early in this episode, we spoke with the cousins at Chino Farms, and we got a little tour of what's happening here in December. But let's talk about what kind of produce you're using in the area.

28:13what maybe is surprising to some of our listeners about what these local family farms are offering? Sure. I mean, if we think Southern California right now is tons of persimmons. So we have hachia persimmons, we're turning into hoshigaki. We have fuyu's that you'll find on the menu. There's quince that grows. There's tons of young lettuces. We have turnips. There's tons of herbs. It really depends on where you go. I mean, you mentioned chinos. I met Tom forever ago when I lived here 20 years ago and and makoto who's i see there all the time so uh it is it is like a very small um group of people and we're all like i think even just the chef community loves to support you know great product for sure but like just good people so you worked in la at a couple restaurants and you know you've worked around the world and i you know i can't wait to have you back for a longer conversation because i want to hear about singapore because it's amazing what you're in there definitely was but but talk about are you like recruiting some talent to come down from la down to Carlsbad?

29:08I feel like there's this huge opportunity here. I mean, there is. First, I think some of our chefs, so Caitlin, who's the chef of cuisine, she came down from LA. We worked together in LA before. She was at the Rose in Venice. She worked at Auburn with me. So she definitely came from LA. Duchamp, who's going to be the chef of Lilo to be open early next year, was the chef of cuisine when I came to Carlsbad. We got to work together for a year. He went back to Europe. We brought him back for the opening. James, who's our baker, We brought him in from New York. So he was at Lafayette with Andrew Carmelini for 13 years, was at Per Se for five years before that.

29:44I mean, these are people who have a ton of skills and a ton of depth of knowledge and are just like great people. So really went through the recruitment, through like putting the team together, was find people who are passionate, who understood our culture, who understood what we were trying to build and like had the skill set to do it well. Well, you know, Eric, we're sitting in the – there's dust everywhere. We're sitting in the future dining room of Lilo. And give us a little hint of what you're going to do here. I know it's going to be tasting menu. It's going to have a few seats. There'll be some movement happening.