Last weekend, I spent the weekend with my friends in Santa Barbara. One of my friends lives in San Francisco and the other lives in Denver so we decided to meet in Santa Barbara for a small girls getaway. We rented an airbnb cottage a couple of miles away from downtown Santa Barbara.
We did enjoy some R&R but we also had a pretty active weekend. We had a chance to go hiking in Montecito which is something I highly recommend doing-you will see some of the most beautiful houses! After our 4-mile hike, we had lunch in the town of Montecito at The Honor Bar. If you’ve never had a chance to go to Honor Bar, I think I know the menu without even having to look at it (only because my office is right upstairs from an Honor Bar). I totally recommend the chicken sandwich, the honor burger, the kale salad and the osaka sushi. There are plenty of others but those are some of my top favorites. After our delicious lunch, we ran a couple of errands and perused the Montecito Country Mart and then home to our small cottage for a nap. Post-nap, we went to Milk & Honey-they have some amazing appetizers and cocktails (oh and they have a great happy hour menu). We ordered the ahi tuna tartare, date with a pig and the brie cheese plate. We only had a few small plates before we walked on to the next spot. We bounced around a lot before having dinner at Olio Pizzeria. They had a vast pizza list to which we ordered one and we also ordered the carpaccio and the burrata & prosciutto place-all of which were delicious.
On Saturday, we had some brunch and then headed kayaking near Isla Vista. It was a beautiful setting until we were noticed of a great white shark near the pier to which we soon kayaked quickly back to the shore. We went wine tasting, slightly different than wine tasting in Napa Valley but it was still so fun to hop around from winery to winery. There are different wineries for people who are laid back or for those who are looking for something a little higher end. One of the ones we attended was Riverbench Winery which a bit fancier than the first one we attended where we had a flight of champagne!
