Growing up with British Culture in Monterey County by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Growing up with British Culture in Monterey County by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Monterey’s all-season foggy weather has encouraged the establishment of British-style pubs where you can eat well, sample a beer from a variety of choices, and lunch with children.

One of the most affordable places to eat at one time in Carmel (California) was the Sherlock Holmes Pub in Carmel’s Barnyard Shopping Center.

I thought their menu was typical of the British pubs I had eaten in on vacation in the UK that included a few American items on their menus in addition to British ones.

When I queried The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) about doing an article on the Sherlock Holmes Pub, they were very interested.  The review follows:

Think of England

Cold, damp weather always makes me want to eat hearty British food.  This thought propelled me, my husband Laurent, and daughter Florence to the doors of the Sherlock Holmes Pub in the Barnyard during a recent spate of winter storms.

One of the owners greeted us as we walked in to the snug pub, which had a fire going in a corner fireplace.  The owners opened the pub after visiting England over nineteen years.

The menu features British and American favorites.  We started our meal by sharing an order of mozzarella bread.  Our five slices of French toast topped off with oozing mozzarella took the chill off our bones and whetted our appetites.

For our main dishes, Laurent chose the Deer Stalker Fish and Chips, and I ordered Bangers and Mash.  Florence went with a Dominion Burger to try out the American offerings.

The fish and chips had a crunchy crust, which did not dry out the cod on the inside.  The fish tasted great with lemon juice on it, but malt vinegar is the usual condiment.  Fish and chips vies with roast beef as the national dish of England.

Ale certainly ranks as the national drink of England, which encouraged Laurent to sample a Bass Ale on tap.  Bass hails from Burton-upon-Trent in the Midlands of England, and is Britain’s biggest beer maker.  Bass has a slight citrus flavor, although no fruit is added to it.

My hearty dish of bangers and mash warmed me up after the rain.  “Bangers” refers to the two plump and juicy sausages I had with my meal and “mash” refers to the hand-mashed potatoes and gravy.  Beans baked with brown sugar rounded out my “best of the breakfast and dinner worlds platter.”

I ordered an Irish Guiness on tap – foamy, sweet, and bitter all at once.  You either love Guiness or hate it.  It went well with the sausages.

Two other English specialties that diners might want to try are the Prince of the Pub Shepherd’s Pie and Soho Spectacular Steak and Kidney Pie.  Minced meat such as lamb covered with onions, topped with mashed potatoes, and baked till brown constitutes Shepherd’s Pie.  In the Sherlock Holmes version, top sirloin replaces lamb.

Florence’s Dominion Burger came with Canadian bacon, Monterey Jack Cheese, and guacamole with fries.

Potatoes did not become popular in England until the latter part of the 18^th century, although other parts of Europe knew this New World product before then according to Adrian Bailey in The Cooking of the British Isles.  The English like potatoes and even have a chip sandwich according to Bailey.

For dessert, Florence had a generous helping of creamy vanilla ice cream.  Laurent had a slice of chocolate fudge layer cake.  British cakes are renowned for being moist and delectable.  Laurent’s cake lived up to the reputation.  The creamy frosting melted in the mouth.

Sherlock Holmes offers fair-weather items such as salads, soups, and a variety of burgers.  There is a “Little Detectives” menu for children.

With the variety on their menu, it is no wonder a diner would choose Sherlock Holmes Pub as “my local” as the British say when describing their hangout.

End of Article

Note:

Sherlock Holmes closed has but, fortunately Monterey County has large numbers of British pubs (Peter B’s and Crown and Anchor), California brew pubs (Alvarado Street Brewery), and German restaurants (Stammtisch) for an afternoon family lunch.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France


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Hearth-Side Sushi: Robata Grill and Sake Bar - Part 2 - Reviewed by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Hearth-Side Sushi: Robata Grill and Sake Bar – Part 2 – Reviewed by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

A fresh green leaf along with tender lemon slices decorated the dish of octopus sashimi that I ordered.  I shared the octopus sashimi with our family friend.  We both agreed that it was chewy without being tough.

I could taste the ocean in the octopus slices.  I am wary of fresh octopus, though, since my first try of it left a sucker attached to my lip; I like fresh food, but not that fresh.

Sashimi is raw fish without rice.  It can serve as a prelude to sushi, which is raw fish with rice and wasabi and often nori, a black-green seaweed sheet.  California rolls, by the way, are usually cooked fish presented like sushi rolls.

I prefer Japanese omelets called tamago to sushi however.  My Japanese host mother made tamago for me when I was an exchange student in Japan.  (The owner of the restaurant came from the same town where I stayed in Japan I later found out.)

The flavor of tamago omelets disconcerts most Americans to begin with, because sugar goes into the omelet’s preparation.  The flavor of the rolled omelet I ate had rice inside and nori seaweed outside reminded me of salty-sweet French toast.  I liked this treat dunked in soy sauce without green horseradish wasabi.

Laurent ate grilled sand dabs with a Sapporo beer while I sampled a Kirin beer that seems to go well with sweet Japanese sauces.

A green tea ice cream put the finish on our lovely meal.

It was easy to say, “Thank you.  We have eaten well,” when we left.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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It's About the Cheese - Part 2 - Lugano Swiss Bistro Reviewed by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

  

It’s About the Cheese – Part 2 – Lugano Swiss Bistro Reviewed by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Raclette’s history evokes Switzerland’s pastoral heritage.  As snow melts in the spring, cow herder’s can take cattle higher up on the mountain slopes until they reach the lushest pastures at the foot of the glaciers.

The herders stay on these high pastures all summer and make rich cheese.  Villagers go up to the pastures where they heat half wheels of the new cheese over branch fires.

The villagers scrape melted cheese over steamed new potatoes, making raclette.

Lugano’s raclette lived up to my foodie musings.  Generous amounts of Swiss cheese covered the potatoes I ordered.  Sour-sweet cornichon pickles added crunchiness and a sour taste to the rich cheese dish I had before me.

My friend took advantage of the weekly savings to order roast rack of lamb with a demi-glaze and seasonal vegetables.  The tender lamb was juicy with a slight crust.  It takes decades of roasting to achieve that finish at home and make it look simple.

My friend’s dish came with Swiss Roesti potatoes as a side dish.  Roesti roughly translates as “potato pancake.”  The Swiss eat them for breakfast along with milky coffee.

To make roesti potatoes, the cook boils waxy potatoes, peels them, and, then, rubs them through a ricer.  Finally, the potatoes are fried in lard with a little bacon until they form a sturdier version of hash browns.

Lugano offers several interesting beers.  We drank Späten Oktoberfest and a Czech lager.  The Oktoberfest is a smooth beer while the Czech beer had more bite to it.

We ate chocolate fondue for dessert.  We dunked musk melon balls, banana slices, and strawberry halves in the chocolate.

I felt like a kid and still do when I eat fondue.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France


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It's the Cheese: Lugano Swiss Bistro Still Shows What Life is All About - Part 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

It’s the Cheese: Lugano Swiss Bistro Still Shows What Life is All About - Part 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The editors at the Monterey County (CA) Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) knew they had a treasure house of multicultural restaurants in a community each time I queried for an article with about five restaurant suggestions along with international dishes they served and distinctive herbs and ingredients used in the cuisine.

I loved Carmel’s Swiss Restaurant Lugano for its gemüchlikeit German charm in the German side of the restaurant and dolce vita charm in the Italian side of the restaurant. 

The editors of the Monterey County Weekly asked me to review Lugano and sample more than fondue despite its being excellent.  (They knew my mother’s family was from Wisconsin.)  My article follows:

It’s the Cheese

When my husband Laurent and I yearned for some Old World charm on our recent anniversary, we headed out to Lugano Swiss Bistro in the Barnyard in Carmel, California.

We used to sit on the German side of the restaurant enjoying its carved wood and beer tankard decorations, but now we prefer the Italian side with its painted street scenes of gelati vendors and florists.

The night of our anniversary, we ordered Swiss onion soup and original Swiss fondue.  Swiss onion soup tastes like French onion soup.  They both use beef broth and excellent gruyère cheese in their making.

We continued our cheese fest with fondue, a dish said to have originated in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.  The creamy texture made from bubbling gruyère, emmenthal, and appenzellar cheese makes it tempting to drop bread cubes into Lugano’s fondue and just fish them out with spoons of cheese. 

The penalty for doing something like this according to A Little Swiss Cookbook (ISBN – 0-86281-271-2 published by Appletree Press) by Jacqueline Martinet is to buy another bottle of white wine like Fendant du Valais for your party.

Laurent's favorite wine, though, for fondue at Lugano’s is Père Patriarche.  This slightly sour wine perfectly cuts the rich cheese flavors of the fondue and aids in digestion.

After my dinner with Laurent, I went to dinner with one of my writing group friends, who was looking for restaurants with “locals” menus during slow times during the week.

We went on a Tuesday night and started our meal with a Swiss specialty called Bunderfleisch, air-dried beef.  These are slices of beef that taste like a meaty prosciutto, but not as delicate. 

This was the first time I ate bunderfleisch, and I liked it.  Usually, bunderfleisch is served before fondue or another cheese specialty called raclette, which is cheese that melts out of cheese crust onto plates for spreading.  You eat sweet cornichon pickles with that cheese fest.

End of Part 1.

To be continued.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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