Lunching at Rocky Point Restaurant with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Lunching at Rocky Point Restaurant with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget in Big Sur, California and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My family discovered the Rocky Point Restaurant when went to an Alliance Française lunch there.  After that we went back to Rocky Point for lunches as a treat on drives down to Big Sur from our home in Marina, California.

We always reserved ahead to get a table by the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the Pacific with a view of Bixby Bridge in the distance.

Bixby Bridge is the bridge used in car commercials on television.  It is very photogenic, but I do not dawdle when I am on it, because Highway 1 is a freeway not a place to stop and take pictures despite Big Sur’s beauty.  There is a place to stop and take photos before you get on Bixby Bridge.

The reason the Alliance Française was holding their lunch there was that they had some French items on the menu even if they were not named as such.

So, we could get eat French onion soup and a “Pacific Omelet” made with a pepper and onion sauce with sheet-pan baked potatoes, purple onion, and garlic.  The Pacific omelet with pepper sauce is really a Basque omelet in piperade sauce.

In the Spanish and French Basque countries, cooks use a pepper called “esplette” to make this Vitamin-C rich sauce.  (For more information on Basque food, the San Francisco-based cookbook writer and restaurant owner Gerald Hirigoyen has written two informative books entitled Pintxos and The Basque Kitchen.)

We always drink iced tea in Big Sur.  Bixby Bridge and Highway 1 hang on a narrow cliff on the side of the Santa Lucia Mountains that separate the Pacific Ocean from the Salinas Valley on the other side of the mountains.

Before driving down the coast from Rocky Point, my family would go out beyond the parking lot and get great photos of us with Bixby Bridge in the distance.  There are hiking trails down to the beach below, if you really want to take them, too.

Half the fun of going to lunch at Rocky Point is driving down the one-way road that leads to the restaurant.  They have pull-out space for when two cars meet, but we liked to drive down the steep road chanting, “Make way for the Pagets!” 

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Eating Eggs Benedict at Nepenthe with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget in Big Sur (California)

Eating Eggs Benedict at Nepenthe with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget in Big Sur (California)

Nepenthe has Hollywood history that insiders know about and smile when they shop for books by the poet Hafiz and Big Sur resident and poet Robinson Jeffers.  (Jeffers is also one of the poets chosen as a Big Read author by the National Endowment for the Arts.)

My husband and I would take our daughter Florence to Nepenthe as a child to eat at the Phoenix Café, which is the “Grand Terrace” used in the film The Sandpiper that starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in 1965.

The Phoenix Café has great brunch and a stunning view over the Pacific Ocean with cliffs dropping down into the ocean below.  You have to order at the counter, but waiters bring out your order.

Florence and I ordered Eggs Benedict, which is a poached egg over a thick slice of ham on top of toast.  The whole thing is covered in Hollandaise Sauce.  When I make Eggs Benedict at home, I melt grated Swiss (Emmenthal) cheese on top of them.  Florence can make these, too, even without an egg poacher just by sliding the eggs into boiling water.

At home, I serve Eggs Benedict with prosciutto or San Daniele ham from Northern Italy, if I can get it.

The restaurant upstairs is more expensive, but they have a deck where you can sit at a counter overlooking the Pacific Ocean and eat meaty Angus burgers with coleslaw and mounds of fries.  They will even bring you mayonnaise, so you can eat your fries with mayo like the Belgians do.  (The French do this too, but hide the mayo in cute tubes.)

I love the store at Nepenthe – the Phoenix Shop.  In the past, they used to carry French vanilla-scented perfume that I liked, blank-page journals in large format where you can paste brochures about historical monuments, wildlife, and wildflowers.  I would put purchases like this in one of their distinctive, purple bags to advertise the store.

Nepenthe also used to carry science and economics books for visitors from Silicon Valley.   Today the bookstore carries various books about other religions including many Asian and Native American beliefs, cookbooks, and poetry. 

On my last visits to Nepenthe, I have bought books about Saint Hildegarde von Bingen from Germany, travel as pilgrimage, and books about the “Nordic” lifestyle written by a Finn.  (Most Scandinavians from Sweden, Denmark, and Norway do not consider the Finnish to be one of them.  Their language, for example, is completely different from these other three languages.)

Florence always got something for her journal here or Putamayo music recordings from around the world.  I have always felt that you can find something cute to feather your nest at home with at Nepenthe.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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