Hi-Times Chili-Cook-off - Costa Mesa, CA

This is a week late, I know. I’ve been trying to formulate a way to compose this and have it sound exciting. Since the heat this past week has gotten to my brain, I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you the plain facts and hope you don’t fall asleep.

So…

As I’ve mentioned in the last post, Kevin and I live across the street from Orange County’s biggest liquor store, Hi-Times. Since April of this last year, they’ve been advertising the 1^st annual Chili-Cook-off for Charity. The Cook-off wasn’t to be held until August…talk about pre-planning. At first I debated entering myself in the cook-off; I make a decent chili mac that I thought would be worthy (and what a better new this weekend idea!). But as the Cook-off date got closer I got lazier. I didn’t want to make batches upon batches of chili mac. I couldn’t afford to make batches and batches of chili mac. Hell, I didn’t have the pots to make more than 8 servings. And besides, if there was ever an event to attend just for the sake of attending, it has to be one that’s practically in your own back yard.

The Chili-Cook-Off started at 10AM Sunday morning. Kevin and I were still in our pajamas, drinking coffee and reading the Sunday paper when the band started in on Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl”. Did I mention that Hi-Times is right across the street? It was like Rick Springfield and his band were singing in the upstairs bathroom. They were reading off raffle ticket winners around the time I thought maybe I should jump in the shower. I thought Kim P. who won the Jack Daniels Golf bag was going to run through our living room to claim the prize.

A few hours later we were ready to head over. It was $20 to get in, but that included drink tickets (or if you prefer, raffle tickets, they worked for both) and free water, soda, and of course, chili.

I was pretty amazed at the crowd. The Hi-Times parking lot by nature isn’t all that big. They sectioned off half of it for the Cook-off, and there were approximately 40 vendors\chili giver-outers. Most of the chili came from local businesses like the Harp, Pierre Street Annex, Mother’s Market, but there were individuals (like I would have been) that didn’t have flashy signs or trinkets but simply had a camping stove and a bit ole pot of chili. The place was packed. I’m not sure if it was the amount of people exactly or that the parking lot was shoved with so many other things that a small crowd made it looked packed.



They didn’t design the layout very well either, which makes me wonder if they knew that so many people would show up. For example, the sole place where you could buy drinks was in the same place where the bathrooms were, which was the same place where you drop off your raffle tickets, which was also the same place where the band was playing. So you had a line of people waiting for drinks trying to navigate through the people waiting for the bathroom who were trying to navigate around the people who were dancing to the band.

But the chili….the chili was really good. I’ve never been to a chili cook-off of any kind and I was really wondering what differences chili could honestly have. But there were tons of differences. Pasta chili, veggie chili, spicy chili, chili with fancy cheeses, chili with tequila, the list goes on. And overall, I liked all the chili I tasted except for the 100% organic chili from Mothers (it was too…I don’t know…earthy). My favorite chili was the pasta chili from Garduno's Ristorante Italiano. I even voted for it. The chili from Surf Side seemed to be the favorite of everyone else until the chili with the fancy cheeses came out.

Patrick, Michele, Mari and Gunter stopped by soon after we got there. But then they left right away. It was crowded with no place to sit down, and the micro beer they were serving was pretty bad so I understand why. However, Kevin and I didn’t want to miss an opportunity (it was right across the street!) and stayed for quite a few hours using up our friends drink tickets. I’m sorry to say that we did not win anything in the raffle but we had a good time talking with Richard and Squishy and watching people dance to the band. I hope they do this again next year but use the entire parking lot instead of just the half.

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Of course, that was two weekends ago. This past weekend, which was Labor Day weekend, we did do something new (albeit stretching the new thing) but since I was a dolt and forgot my camera, I’m just going to give it a mention instead of an entire entry.

We ended up going to the newly re-opened, under new management, Sam’s Seafood in Sunset Beach. It’s the closest thing I know to a Tiki joint in Orange County. Kevin and I used to go to the old Sam’s a lot. The old Sam’s bartender was Polynesian or Hawaiian and whenever we came in he’d say, “Oh! You want Scorpion, huh? For lovers only!” He would serve the Scorpion (for lovers only) in a gigantic plastic seashell with two huge straws that would poke your eye out if you weren’t careful. I was close to tears when we stopped by last year and saw that they had closed.

I was excited to learn that they were re-opened but a bit disappointed when I got there. It’s definitely under new management. Where the old Sam’s was like Elvis in Blue Hawaii, the new Sam’s is like Matthew Fox (from Lost) having his trendy lunch in Hawaii. It wasn’t the same even though they still had the Scorpion (but with no one to say, “for lovers only!” we didn’t get it). They do have an hour long happy hour on Sunday from 4 - 5PM where you can get half price appetizers (which are around $11 a piece regular price) and a $1 off beer.