Café Rustica’s European
Flair – Part 2 – by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
Laurent
and I came back on another warm summer night for another gastronomic treat at Café
Rustica. I ordered lamb fillets, and
Laurent had the capellini pasta with shrimp.
The
meaty lamb fillets came three to a serving and surrounded an impressive piece
of vegetable architecture: a perfectly
round mound of au gratin potatoes on a bed of sautéed spinach with strands of
roasted red pepper draped over the top of the potatoes.
Sautéed
tomato squares flowed down the sides of the au gratin potatoes. The freshly prepared vegetables all retained
their individual flavors.
A
cabernet-shallot sauce covered the lamb fillets with pine nuts sprinkled around
for flavor. The sauce enhanced all of
the flavors in the dish without overpowering any single one. The savory lamb, like Florence’s rib eye
steak on our previous visit, was tender enough to cut with a regular knife.
I
ordered the Yalumba Cabernet Sauvignon from Australia to go with my meal. The wine smelled and tasted like blackberries
and had a strong, lengthy finish.
Laurent
love the capellini pasta that came with sautéed shrimp. The savory marinara sauce paired perfectly
with the briny shrimp. Halves of sweet,
cherry tomatoes made up the vegetable contingent in this light, yet filling
dish.
Laurent
drank a Pichot Vouvray from the Loire Valley in France with his meal. The mildly sweet taste of this wine went well
with the marinara tomato sauce.
The
pleasant, hardworking staff at Café Rustica make dining there such an appealing
experience. One of the co-owners told me
that they treat all of their employees from dishwashers to hostesses with
respect.
“Everyone
contributes to the restaurant’s success,” she said.
This
philosophy comes from the fact that both owners have been employees in
restaurants as well as owners. They are
both chefs in their own right: One trained at the Internant School in Germany
while the other trained at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.
The
owners’ dedication to cooking and their high regard for restaurant
professionals have helped them create a restaurant that merits a trip out to
Carmel Valley Village from the Monterey Peninsula.
(Congratulations to Rustica for being a 2019 Michelin Restaurant!)
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
