Hey everyone good morning hope you're having an amazing day. It's mark wiens, i'm in the beautiful santa barbara california. Today, i'm going to take you on an amazing tour of santa barbara, where we're going to focus on the local seafood box crab head my first time we're going to take a sailboat ride and see some of the spectacular sights of santa barbara. Hey guys we'll be eating lobsters we'll be eating santa barbara uni.

This is what i came to santa barbara for that just completely liquefies on your tongue. It's gon na be an incredible day. I'm gon na share all of the sights the natural beauty and all of the seafood with you right now in this video. So again it is a beautiful morning and welcome to santa barbara california.

I love the mountains, the beach and the coast, the harbor. I love the lanky palms, the spanish architecture and i was invited on this trip with visit, california, the tourism board of california. So thank you to visit california for sponsoring my trip here and for also making the arrangements for everything that we're going to do today. We're going to begin this tour today here at the harbor at the port, we met up with kim salko, i'm the executive director of commercial fishermen of santa barbara, our local fisherman's association, all right - and this is and i'm vr hoover and i'm the assistant uh for The commercial fisherman of santa barbara in our port.

We only have one commercial pier out here and so all the boats have to get along and cooperate and slot their time to unload their catch and get their boats out in the morning. And so it's a very close-knit compact harbor, with a lot of activity going on what are some of the main seafood? That's caught off the shores here, santa barbara is really famous for the california spiny lobster and they also have the red sea urchin and also black cod. Okay, you guys heard that yeah. Oh, it's so good um.

We have one of the most diverse uh set of species landed in the country um, and so you can get all sorts of stuff. You can get bluefin tuna, you can get swordfish, you can get white sea bass, you can get octopus sea cucumber mussels and oysters are grown right off the shore here in abalone, abalone is farmed and br actually works at the abalone farm part time right. Another thing that i was uh that i had seen is something called a box crab, but i've never yeah. I've never seen it before.

I've never tried it before and that's local too right, yeah yeah. Are they seasonal um? I don't think so. They live in really deep water and i think that um, it's really hard to find them and they'll, be like some fishermen who come up with empty empty pots, every time and other fishermen who just have tons of it, and they won't tell anyone how they're getting Them we're just taking a little stroll walking around great to hear about the fishery and some of the local fresh seafood that's available, and so we made it all the way to the end of the pier, absolutely beautiful views the sea crashing the mountains in the distance. You can see the pier the wooden pier out there as well, and then the entire boat harbor.

What a spectacular viewpoint. So there is one place called the santa barbara fish market here at the end of the harbor, where there's some restaurants, also where you can buy fresh seafood, where they unload some of the fresh catch. And hopefully we can maybe taste some santa barbara une. So they have a variety of local fresh-caught fish and then they do have.

You can't see the urchins, but they they have sea urchins in the back. So we're gon na get a couple sea, urchins and they're gon na pop them open here to try them. Thank you very much, wow wow. Yes, thank you.

I think it's one of the greatest ingredients, single natural things. Man i mean when you get a good, fresh piece of uni. It's like it literally, is like sweet ice cream that just melts on your tongue, and these are beautiful, urchins just to crack them open, fresh, just absolutely packed full of virgin. Look at the size of that urchin.

That's so much so much in there. I'm gon na scoop in for my first chunk: yeah, it's huge and so textural. Look at that so much texture on there. Here we go.

This is the moment. This is what i came to santa barbara for the uni first bite santa barbara uni. Oh, oh wow that just completely liquefies on your tongue, wow that is nutty, sweet, it's so incredibly complex and then you've got this bitterness that finishes. Oh man, that's meaty too, but i love how it just melts on your tongue, since they did provide us with some lemons i'll do one where i squeeze lemon lemon on it.

I don't think i've ever had uni with lemon making sure you don't eat a spike while you're at it scoop it right out of here, oh with a squeeze of lemon too. It's just straight up the ice cream of the sea wow, that's incredibly complex! So, incredibly, good santa barbara uni! So much look if you play with it with your spoon, it literally kind of just liquefies. So this is kind of the bottom of the uni. You can see how it's just liquefying squirt of lemon juice.

Oh, what an uni start to this day of seafood in santa barbara? Oh, you are wonderful! You, cracked them in half, but look at the size. Oh man, you got to see the size of this sea urchin if it was full and then just men pop that open, so beautiful, just like it's made to hold something delicious a little bubble, a little balloon, a little spiky vessel of deliciousness wow. Imagine uh over easy or a sunny-side-up egg and the yolk just melts. That's like almost what it feels like in your mouth.

Just that that yolkiness it's pudding. I think it's the greatest way ever to eat uni, it's just like a straight up. It is a pudding. Amazing, you know how, after you eat ice cream and your lips are kind of sticky.

I've got the sticky uni lips right now from man, it's just so sweet. Oh man, okay from here, we are just walking down the harbor a little ways to the santa barbara sailing center, where we're gon na catch a sailboat. We are gon na jump on a sailboat and take a cruise seeing some of the sights around the coast of santa barbara, hopefully seeing some wildlife as well and wow. This is our sailboat right here.

Spectacular. Thank you. Johnny is our captain how's it going very good. What type of sailboat are we on? We are on a 42 foot catalina, it's a popular boat for a while made locally here in california, but it's a uh, yeah all-around, great cruising boat.

So right now we're in the harbor we're gon na. Do a quick, little tour around the harbor and then we'll cruise out to the coast and see some of the coastlines sounds great and now would be the perfect time to start digging into the snack trays. There's some nuts, some cheeses, some raisins, something about immediately being on a boat, always makes you hungry nice. I love walnuts.

Oh yeah, really good! It's like a spice on it, an herbal, an herbal crushed, i'm gon na move into the the cheeses. Oh there's some dried fruits under here too some apricots and some some raisins try. Some of this cheese am i gon na. You want some cheese and a slice of salami.

I know. Luckily, i don't think the captain will be perfect snacks for a sailing trip and we are getting out of the harbor now heading to the sea. Yeah apricot love, dried, apricots, oh really, recently, all right, mega sea, lions, sea lions, mica, look how close they are. Hey guys, micah look, they look like they're, just relaxing hanging out enjoying that sunshine and yeah.

As soon as you come to them, you can smell the aroma of fish that they've been eating. Captain jonathan says it's time for the sale wow the sails are fully dispatched. We are on the sea catching the wind, using the breeze using the wind, the naturalness of it, the peace and the calmness, and what a beautiful day too. I think the water is pretty calm spectacular out here today.

One of the best seats right here at the back, but if they trust me i'm gon na take over the steering, do you have to steer towards the um the wind or not, not really, i have a sail set, and so so it's just wind direction. We just keep a steady course: okay, okay, good job. Oh it's not quite as sensitive yeah. It's like an old car, okay, okay! There we go now we're steering back in the right direction.

Thank you. There's just nothing like sailing through the wind, the peace without the motor running. Oh absolutely, a beautiful day from here we drive up the coast to the rosewood hotel, where we're gon na meet with chef and he's gon na prepare for us, some local spiny lobsters. Welcome to the beautiful rosewood, miramar beach resort man.

The grounds here are spectacular facing the sea we're here to meet up with chef, massimo who's going to cook us some lobster and we're also going to meet up with stephanie, who is a local sea urchin diver. Mark nice to meet you nice, to meet you chef, nice to meet. You mark nice to meet you, so these are okay. These are the ones that we use for the for the roll.

Then a little bit smaller, okay, uh, you know stephanie, she cut. She picked them up for whatever size, and then we separate them. Okay, um. This is the lobsters too.

Yes, not just when they come here and the bigger one they go in caruso, you keep them with the mouth. Usually they got ta stay up, yeah, ah so that little hole that now that is the mouth, so they got ta stay up. These are all ready to go okay, so once in a while, they do flip themselves. So we got ta come in and just make sure they're there yeah, but this is the size that we get consistently it just arrived not too long ago.

This morning i mean it was earlier this morning you see so we get these from stephanie. She catches them, drops him off early in the morning and then uh. You know the guys with the guys who are literally coming in a little bit and then they'll start fabricating and then putting them out to the outlet. So we're going to be cooking out of the food truck today and chef massimo is going to be showing us some of the beautiful spots.

Yes beautiful, and these are local spiny, lobsters absolutely from santa barbara from santa barbara, okay. So, first, first, what you do you need to roll a little bit the lobster which is a technique to keep the motion of the butter you cut the butter in cubes, you put a little bit of very cold water in the pot. Then you add the cute. So father, you keep emulsified this lobster.

Roll recipe is kind of a twist on a on a lobster roll, yes, okay! So it's kind of your own, your own creation of a lobster roll. This is brioche. Okay, you know: let's try them in pieces, we give them a full up tail for one roll, a full tail in one row, so half there, so the double spoon wow just cracks it open. Okay! So what you do? Oh wow see.

This is the feeding part. Okay, then we're gon na have to run them under water to remove their algae. Then what they're, feeding they're feeding with the red cow yeah? Remove this part man so fresh and those are those are from stephanie who we just met, who fishes them? Who harvest them? Pop them open you remove all of that uh kind of like little membraney tissues and little fibers uh, there's some kelp stuck within them, and then you just want to take out that yellow golden urchin, which then chef massimo includes, on top of the lobster roll i've Had a lot of lobster rolls i've never had urchin on the top of a lobster roll to make it easy for the guys to eat. Okay, seasoning is made the way it's made with a little bit of spicy paprika.

So that's how it is together, lobster all right so lobster roll by chef massimo here with that uni on top is a beautiful touch. Thank you, chef. You're welcome. I can't wait to try it go ahead.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, chef.

So joining us for lunch today is stephanie very nice to meet you nice to meet you and stephanie you've harvested these urchins and the lots and lots i harvested the urchins i sourced the lobsters okay, okay, so one of your main things is sea: urchin, yes, and How long have you been harvest is called harvesting or fishing for lunch. Diving like diving, okay, um, 15 years 15 years now, wow, and do you what's? What does the process involve briefly? Oh, it's just you get on a wetsuit and you dive down. We pick them. One by one off the bottom of the ocean with a rake in a bag wow.

So it's just manual yeah manually picking up urchins. Do you uh free dive or is it it's a hookah system, so surface-supplied air? So it's just like scuba diving, but your tank is on the boat instead of your back and you're attached to the boat okay, so then you have a like a hose a hose going down and typically how deep would you go to get the urchin uh 20 To 40 feet, okay, some people go a little bit deeper. I got ta do this for a little bit longer. Okay, i can't wait to try the uni that you've harvested and chef massimo has prepared.

I've had a lot of lobster rolls, but i've never had a lobster roll with uni, especially uni, that he shucked open, put cleaned up put directly onto the lobster roll, oh wow, oh, oh, the firmness of the spiny lobster and the sweetness of it and then the Uuni is just sitting on top, so you just it's just like a. I mean it kind of liquefies, with just a a little bit of sweetness and bitterness. It's a harmony of seafood. You've got the crunch of the the celery.

The softness of the brioche urchin is really one of those things that it has to be fresh because i i've definitely had urchin that wasn't fresh and it gets no. It's just not good. It's like a massive. It's a massive difference between what's fresh and what's not absolutely and it's my friend and that's spiny lobster it is so firm, so sweet, wow, okay, let's move on to some of these other dishes.

I'm gon na try the aki tostada next, all right i'll! Just pick this whole thing up the freshness of that tuna cool; it's refreshing not like really spicy, but really nice and flavorful. Next up for the pibil, which is uh a pork dish, that is from the yucatan squeeze on some lime juice, some cilantro on there pickled onions, it's juicing, it's really good yeah. What what type of fish did? You say this was hamachi: okay, hamachi with pomegranate. Oh, oh man and then served with some kind of a chips and pomegranate chamoy.

He said oh wow. That is wonderful, that oh, that chamoy has a nice kind of almost hard to pinpoint it's like a wheat but saltiness. At the same time, the fruitiness of the pomegranate, the freshness of the hamachi, that was truly a luxurious, an elevated lobster roll. But what i like, especially, is that they were using sustainably sourced seafood by stephanie who we met and for me that's what uh stood out about the entire experience from here.

We're going back to the center of santa barbara and we're gon na go we're gon na walk, take a walk down the pier to one of the greatest seafood restaurants in santa barbara, we're back in the center of santa barbara walking down stern's wharf, which is one Of the most iconic places and sites in santa barbara at the end of the wharf is one of the most iconic one of the restaurants. I was most looking forward to eating at in santa barbara and they specialize in locally caught santa barbara seafood. Just a quick bit of history as we're walking down the wharf, the stearns wharf it was built in 1872, with funds borrowed from wwe hollister and at the time when it was built, it was a major fishing, pier and passenger pier. I really love how the entire wharf is built from wood.

It feels like you're walking down a railroad at the very end of stearns wharf. You will find santa barbara shellfish company, and this is the place. I've been most looking forward to eating very excited to order. Some local fresh seafood here and some more uni beautiful, so they do have a an indoor section.

They have a bar section and then they have this beautiful outdoor patio on the wharf. It's like right along the water, but we chose to sit here kind of sheltered. It's pretty cold and pretty windy uh. So this is the.

This is a perfect place to sit right here. Looking for a big one, but meanwhile, oh man yeah this guy's really nice. This is the california key crab. California, king crown yeah deep ocean crabs.

They have this spikier shell, they're gon na be sweeter than the meat in this guy right here: okay, yeah um. We do have big spiny lobsters the season just started about like a week and a half ago, huge they're known to really focus on local santa barbara seafood. They support local fishermen and they also have some of the unique products. That's i mean seafoods that santa barbara has to offer like local, uni local box crabs, which i've never seen anywhere before this will be.

We've got to get a box crab. It will be my first time. I've never had a box crab before this guy's two pounds. Okay, um we're trying to look for bigger, but that's, i think, the biggest one that we have, unfortunately, cool.

Whichever one looks good and so alfonso was telling me that this is the only restaurant in santa barbara, where they have live fish tanks of seafood, where the water is feeding directly from the sea to the tank. So that's natural habitat salt water preserved until you eat it. It is fresh fresh as possible when i was eating those unis this morning from the from the half shell. It was just like liquefying in my spoon, but he just washes them cleans them cleans off.

All that uh all the guts and they stay intact and they're gon na build out one of their signature dishes here, where they put a piece little piece of scallop raw scallop on a wedge of lime and then top it with the uuni cool. Thank you very much. Oh yeah awesome wow! Thank you! Yes, beautiful! Thank you! Oh and that's the abalone cool. It's the breast test right here, the fresh test.

Oh so you squeeze lime on it and look at how it's still moving. The only reason i'm gon na eat this first is because it's sort of balancing right here this is the soup and broth from the head of the box. Crab. Look at that's like the head, tamale butter juices, all just accumulated in a puddle.

It's actually a puddle within the head, the goblet box crab head my first thing, my first time wow. Oh, that is fragrant but salty. Oh man, you just taste the flavor of the seeds, but look at that. That's a two pound box crab! So spiky.

If you feel it spikes, it's so sharp and kind of hairy. At the same time, i'm gon na try that uni next, not sure exactly what this sauce is, but i'll i'll try it wow. Oh, that scallop is just like a slice of butter. Then you've got that you've got that lime juice.

The uuni just is the melted ice cream, topping oh man, so buttery, just liquefies in your mouth, wow a single, superb bite: oh oh man! That is so good all right. Let's dig back into the the crab! First time for the box crab, and i think i'm just going to tear into one of these claws - oh you know what look at phil, it's so soft, it's spiny, but it's soft! So that's why they don't even crack it open! Just pull apart this. Let's try to crack open this. Oh wow, it's like jelly on the inside.

Oh that's, sort of the jelly then inside is the okay. Here's! The here we go. There is the nugget of box crab the flavor of the box. Crab though it's so sweet.

It's so silky, it's like more moist and not quite as firm as a king crab, but like so incredibly juicy, not overly as opposed to the head, which is very briny very salty. The meat inside is not that briny very neutral tasting, but very like silky moist. Oh okay, oh yeah! The meat inside is not as quite as big for this. I might dip it in the butter okay.

So it's not. The box crab is not nearly as meaty or as full as a king crab, but that sweetness that moist silkiness extraordinary flavor. Next up for these oysters sorry, the ice is already melted, um i'll, try it with a little bit of horseradish a little horseradish horseradish and some of the cocktail sauce melts in your mouth, so soft, so tender love that horseradish that cocktail sauce, sweet and briny. Okay, then, the final dish we got here is rice, topped with fresh local abalone, so there's some abalone on top rice, some tomatoes, probably some butter sauce.

Oh look at that. It's a one biter abalone, the abalone itself, the freshness similar to a clam but much more meaty and much more um like firm and muscular great flavor. There's garlic in there there's some tomatoes, some herbs, some onions in there really good all the seafood, and i think everything that we ordered everything that we got is local. It's fresh, it's sustainable, it's from.

They support the local community, the local fishers in this area. From the harbor that we walked around that we toured this morning, and so that's kind of like connecting the two together and what a spectacular location as well overlooking man there's so many boats sailboats out right now, it's cool, it's breezy! It's refreshing, great seafood, great location! Last bite it just creamifies in your mouth: oh, it got cold as soon as that sun went down a little ways: whoa that just goes straight down lamp. It's like a diving board, and so with that amazing meal at the santa barbara shellfish company. That completes our time our one day in santa barbara, and i want to say a big thank you to visit santa barbara to visit california for sponsoring my trip here for showing me around.

I was a learning experience and a delicious experience and forever. I will remember santa barbara by that sea urchin, so that's going to be it for this video. I want to see a big thank you for watching. Please remember to give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it, leave a comment below i'd love to hear from you and if you're not already subscribed, make sure you subscribe for lots more food and travel videos and also make sure you check out there's going To be a few more videos in this visit california series we're going to be up in san francisco, so don't miss the dungeness crab and the food that we eat in san francisco and then we're gon na head up to napa valley for some unique food experiences.

As well so make sure you subscribe lots more food videos on the way - and i will see you on the next video thanks again for watching goodbye from santa barbara california.