My new fiance and I have been setting up our own business, which has taken off quite well. But as new pilots of our independent business, we’re in no place to be spending large amounts of cash on a trip, however special the occasion. Hooked on finding the cheapest hotel available, we scoured all the AAA and United Mileage deals we could, and settled on Best Western Pea Soup Andersen’s.

The room itself is just fine. Clean, roomy, comfortable. The bathrooms were kind of strange and only had those tiny soaps and an assortment of oddly sized towels. What’s to complain about when you’re staying in Buellton for less than $100? Most of the other hotels we passed along the way looked like prime locations for a Psycho shot-for-shot remake, and quite frankly, I didn’t want to die.

After a night at The Hitching Post II, we decided to check out this self-proclaimed World Famous Split Pea Soup. Who was this Andersen, and why should he think his Split Pea Soup is the best? Compared to whom? From the hotel, you can literally roll your way over to the restaurant for breakfast, which is kind of what we did, still being full from the night before. Totally deserted on this sunny, bright, Sunday morning in May, we appeared to be the only guests until I noticed a troupe of leather-clad motorcyclists wandering in a similar state of wonder and disbelief. You know, the way the kids look when they arrive at Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory?

As we walked in the door, I flashed my fiance* a melon-sized grin. This place can only be described as a House of Extreme Tat: Wall to wall tacky souvenirs and pea soup memorabilia (is that the right word? I hadn’t experienced it yet, but now I really, really wanted to.) There is a Christmas gift shop, a jewelry gift shop, a sweet shop, and tinned goods piled on every shelf, all over the place. Postcards, t-shirts, magnets, pens, pencils, little boxes of crayons, all emblazoned with the bold alpine font, “Pea Soup Andersen’s Split Pea Soup World Famous Since 1924″. There was even a display reading “Try our famous Cheddar Cheese and Crackers”, but as I had no clue how long it had been sitting there, I backed away slowly.

In the restaurant, I ordered the Travelers’ Breakfast which consisted of a bowl of split pea soup, and a plate of bottomless pancakes (of course), eggs and a choice of breakfast meat. And whaddaya know – it wasn’t half bad. In fact, it was pretty good for a soup I don’t care for and still won’t order anywhere else. How’s that for a review?

Leaving what I thought was the dining room of the restaurant, I noticed a series of other rooms and seating areas, all decorated differently. Presumably they use different rooms for different occasions. And clearly myself, my fiance and our fellow diners who were on a Harley Davidson tour of Central Coast did not qualify as reason enough to be seated in the Room of Chintz. (My own title applied there, at Andersen’s they call it the Pavilion Room.) Everything in this building and in the decor of the hotel next door bears a remarkable resemblance to the colours of a breakfast danish. Which is why I think the Danes are to blame for this cultural sediment.

All in all, I was not shocked in the least to find that Buellton is the setting for the final sequence of Death Proof. The Pea Soup Andersen’s website says it “remains a slice of Americana”, but I would tack a word on to that sentence to ensure its accuracy: “Congealed”.

* The gratuitous use of the term “fiance” is entirely intentional and justified because I am extremely excited about our new state of affairs. If you don’t like it, you’re a Scrooge.

Think I made this up? See for yourself!:

http://www.peasoupandersens.net/

An old video I found with a Split Pea Andersen’s Commercial: See 1 minute 22 seconds to about 2 minutes 22 seconds

I have a bee in my bonnet. It’s called Buellton. Possibly the creepiest town I’ve ever visited in my life. I can’t put my finger on what it was exactly that made me feel weird to begin with, but I can tell you that by the time we made it to the Hitching Post for dinner, I was pretty creeped out. If you want to eat the most amazing steak in the world and be literally scared shitless while chewing, visit The Hitching Post in Buellton, CA. Me and my fiance (of 2 days- hooray!), checked into our hotel, hopped in the car and headed straight for the excitement of the famous “Sideways” restaurant.

We knew there would be a wait, because I called beforehand and they said there would be. Also, if you’re reading this and planning a trip, they won’t take reservations over the phone. So we went anyway and after a few minutes a seat opened up at the bar, so we decided to wait there instead. I read a review on TripAdvisor that said, “the decor very dated” which puts it kind of politely. Overall, I had the sense of the place being a little too worn, as in, not terribly clean. Both the service and the side vegetables confirm that this is a place that is famous for its steaks and wine, and the fact that an unusually good movie was filmed there (for three days), and not much else.

Our neighbours at the bar were pretty friendly. Maybe too friendly. Some guy flat out ordered my husband-to-be a Pinot Noir HIGHLINER, at $14 a glass. He didn’t even start a conversation first, nor pursue one afterwards. (Am I weird to find that creepy? He was sitting right next to us. And no, he didn’t work there.) The menu at The Hitching Post has this to say about it’s oeuvre: “Aromas of berries and sweet Frenchy oak, bright young fruit tastes rich and round, poised to improve over the next 5 to 10 years”, and it was indeed, brilliant. But the feeling of claustrophobia and impending doom persisted.

Sitting down at our table didn’t improve things: On the wall to the far right of my fiance’s head, a gigantic post-modern, Andy Warholesque, slightly-out-of-focus and extremely brightly coloured painting of Saddam Hussein wearing a safari sun hat was grinning at me inanely. At this point, I thought I’d been drugged for sure, which was making the visible flames from the kitchen alarming. But I will also point out that I seemed to be the only person there who was alarmed by anything at all. It had been a crazy two days (did I mention I’m engaged now?!?). I thought, “You’ve had too much wine. With all the excitement, you should just go to the loo, splash some cold water on your hands. You’ll be fine.”

What a fool I was. The ladies room was like some nightmare maternity ward. With pink tiles all over the place, it had curtains for cubicle walls and doors on noisy, rattling chains hanging from the ceiling. I honestly couldn’t tell if this was meant as a sort of tongue-in-cheek joke, or if the owners were tripping when they ordered this. I would have run out of there screaming if it hadn’t been for the food.

You honestly cannot beat a plate of fresh mussels and a steak grilled over an open fire of red oak with a glass of their Highliner. At excellent, and I mean excellent value for money. Double whammy. Will I go there again? DEFINITELY. Will I order food to go? Probably. And it actually turns out that Saddam was really a painting of the owner, who looks utterly charming and friendly here:

More on The Hitching Post II:

http://www.hitchingpost2.com/

For Reservations:

http://www.opentable.com/single.aspx?rid=4495&restref=4495

For more pictures of the owner of the restaurant where he looks nothing like Saddam:

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=rLz&q=Frank%20Ostini&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi