Where Guy Fieri Ate in Bakersfield

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives pulled up to the aqua vinyl counter in season 22, episode 8, and the order ran Cajun seafood omelette, berry crepes, biscuits and gravy. The corner had been cooking that breakfast for sixty years before the cameras arrived, and the pies were already in the case by the register.

Season 22, episode 6 of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives found the alley off Eye Street and came out with churrasco tri-tip, chicken paillard and Latin fried chicken. Tri-tip under chimichurri is the treaty this kitchen has signed with Kern County, and both sides did well out of it.

When Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives filmed here in season 22, episode 8, the run was the grilled mac and pork sandwich, the 24-hour burger and bacon ice cream, every part of it made on site down to the bread. The Truxtun Avenue address in that footage is gone, and the same kitchen now works out of a 1928 chop suey house downtown.

Basque shepherds came to Kern County in the late 1800s to run sheep, and the boarding houses that fed them put everything on a long shared table before anyone was handed a menu. Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives sat down to that same service in season 22, episode 9, eating through oxtail stew, osso buco, pickled beef tongue and fried garlic chicken. The bar out front has been pouring since 1887 and has yet to find a reason to stop.

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives came to F Street in season 22, episode 6 and went straight at the deep end of the menu: porterhouse, steak with a lobster tail, and the lobster mac and cheese. Beans and salsa still land before anybody has ordered, a habit the Basque boarding houses pressed onto every steakhouse in Kern County.

The 20th Street counter turned up in season 22, episode 9 of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, with a chicken pita plate assembled to order and the case by the register ambushing the exit. Rum balls and baklava both made the segment, which is the correct order of operations in this room.

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives first stopped on Rosedale Highway in season 22, episode 5 for the brisket sandwich, chili beans, tri-tip and the grilled chicken dinner, then came back for a second visit in season 27, episode 4. Tri-tip cooked fast over red oak is a Central California invention, and Salty built the whole operation around that one fire.

Season 22, episode 9 of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives drove out past the Midway-Sunset pumpjacks into Taft and ordered sweet and sour lobster, garlic calamari and a deluxe pizza off one menu. An hour from anywhere, a kitchen that refuses to specialize is doing the town a favor rather than hedging.