Another Harvest Hosts Stay - (Paso Robles, CA)

Yesterday, we made a call to a winery in Paso Robles, CA to see if they had spots available for this evening for us to stay as Harvest Hosts members. They did, so that was the plan to break up the trip to Sequoia National Park.

Side Note: Harvest Hosts Membership Increase Scheduled for January 1, 2019.

Now, before I go any further, we just got word that the Harvest Hosts membership is increasing to $79/year starting January 1, 2019 for NEW MEMBERS. If you are currently a member or sign up before the end of the year, you lock in the current $49 rate for now and your renewals. So, needless to say, we are encouraging our readers that are interested to sign up before January. AND by clicking on the banner below and signing up, you can use our coupon code at the top of that page to get 10% off the current $49 rate.

With only 110 miles to travel today, we took our time and pulled out of our campsite at Cachuma Lake a little after 11:00. Just outside the dump station was a place to fill our fresh water tank, and then we emptied our tanks at the very nice dump station.

We took CA Hwy 154 back north to U.S. 101. Just north of San Luis Obispo is the Cuesta Grade which our Mountain Directory described as a northbound climb of 3 miles of 7% grade. Our little gas motorhome towing the Jeep didn't like that, but Linda just fell in behind the truckers and climbed at about 30 mph with the flashers on.

Eventually, we picked up CA Hwy 46 at Paso Robles and headed east for about nine miles to the Tobin James Cellars winery. They asked us to arrived sometime between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m. but said it would be okay if we were a little early.

The parking area is a large, dusty, gravel lot across the road from the winery that doubles as a Park & Ride lot and a lot to park semi trailers that transport wine. There was a three-axle Airstream trailer and a large Class A motorhome already parked. We parked in the middle temporarily and walked over to see where they wanted us to park for the night.

We met Ben who was very nice and just asked that we parked along the edge of the parking lot so we wouldn't interfere with the trucks coming in and hooking up the trailers. He warned that it would be dusty, but we would be fine if we were basically just out of the way.

We returned to our rig and parked in the shade since our solar panels had our batteries fully charged by the time we arrived.

Once set up, we walked over for Linda to do some tasting.

It was packed when we were in there earlier, but it had thinned out a bit when we returned. They have three tasting bars, and Linda sidled up to one while I took pictures of the other two.

A nice young lady took care of us, and we chatted with some of the other folks. In the end, Linda chose a couple of red wines. And our wine pourer convinced us that we should go into downtown Paso Robles and walk around the park area where there are wonderful shops and restaurants.

She gave us a list of restaurants to consider:

Thomas Hill Organics - farm to table
Catch - seafood
Boano Tavola - Italian
Los Robles Cafe - Mexican
Brown Butter Cookie Company - cookies

We got cleaned up a bit and drove into town. We happened to get a parking spot right across from the Brown Butter Cookie Company, so we started there. The free tastings hooked us, and we bought a couple dozen cookies. The little touch of sea salt in the cookies make them rather unique and a good complement to the various sweet flavors.

Linda, still a little loose from her wine tasting, asked their recommendations for restaurants and they gave us a few within walking distance. But they also confirmed all the other suggestions we had were very good choices.

As we walked around the block, Linda randomly asked other locals where they would take out-of-town guests. They confirmed all the previous recommendations, and added Fish Gaucho which we had walked past earlier.

It was still early and Thomas Hill Organics wasn't open yet, so we chose Fish Gaucho. It was a little pricey but in line with the others on the list, and the service was excellent as was the food.

We started with a fresh crab guacamole special served with chicharonnes and/or fresh tortilla chips. Very nice.

Then, while we thought we would go with a fish dish, the following description swayed us toward the

Double Cut Pork Chop Al Pastor.

pineapple & brown sugar 48-hour in-house brine grilled pork chop + piña pepper salsa + heirloom cauliflower succotash + jalapeño mashed potatoes. topped with mezcal infused apple butter

We split it, and when it came out we knew we had made the right choice. Wow.

I sliced the chop in two and we separated the dish onto two plates. It was cooked perfectly and tasted fantastic. And, maybe for the first time in my life, I said "I wish there were more vegetables" as that succotash was amazing.

Our server told us that dish has its own fan club, and other people in the restaurant came over to see what we ordered.

We enjoyed it very much as you can see by the "after" picture.

We barely had room for dessert, but we ordered another special - bread pudding with a caramel sauce and blackberries.

If the food and service in those other establishments we didn't choose is as good as what we had this evening, Paso Robles is doing extremely well in their restaurant offerings.

By the way, we've referred to Paso Robles as "Paso Ro-blays" since the full name is El Paso de Robles and we went with the Spanich pronunciation. But we heard locals pronouncing it "Paso Ro-buhls", "Paso Ro-blez", and "Paso Ro-bless".

Being from Louisville, and being a bit sensitive about how our hometown is pronounced, we asked around to make sure we said it "correctly". We never really got a clear consensus as there were slight variations, but almost all of them told us "We just say Paso". Well allrighty then.

After a couple stops to pick up some items, we made it back to our rig while it was quite dark but still fairly early.

I checked on our camping options near Sequoia and Kings Canyon, but still hadn't made a decision by the time we went to bed. I guess we'll figure it out tomorrow, and you'll know when we know. Until next time.