Chicago Meal at Pub’s (Growers Pub) in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget
One of my favorite Italian restaurants in Chicago, Illinois was Danilo’s. I thought of Danilo’s on a recent dinner outing to Pub’s in Salinas, California.
I started my meal at Pub’s with fried coconut shrimp, which are not Italian, but available in almost all bar-restaurants in Chicago. There is a strong influence in Chicago from now-closed Trader Vic’s with its Polynesian-inspired food and décor that looked like a set from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
The décor was kitschy, but the sweet, fried coconut shrimp paired well with exotic daiquiri and piña colada cocktails. When Trader Vic’s closed, a large number of Tiki bars with similar food, drink, and décor opened and remain in operation today. Other bar-restaurants added the fried coconut shrimp appetizer to their menu.
Tropical coconut tastes great in Chicago winters and hot Salinas summers. Seafood was expensive when I lived in Chicago in the 1980s, but I could afford coconut shrimp and was happy to have some iodine-rich shrimp when I ate them.
The coconut shrimp at Pub’s tasted great. You get five large ones in your order, which is the right size for a once in awhile treat.
What I really wanted to try at Pub’s this visit was the chicken a la Marsala, which I ate a lot of in Italian restaurants in inland Chicago.
I love mushrooms, but I was really in for a treat at Pub’s.
The mushrooms they served in the Marsala sauce were wild and indigenous ones from Sicily – Caesar mushrooms draped over the chicken breast and fresh, sautéed procini mushrooms that were arranged around the moist and tender chicken breast.
Chicken marsala is sautéed chicken that you serve in an equally sautéed mushroom sauce that is usually flamed with Marsala dessert wine from Sicily.
Marsala is a fortified wine, which means it is a sweet white wine that is blended with brandy and aged in barrels in what is called a solera system.
There are usually 5 levels of barrels stacked on top of each other on different shelves in a solera system. The barrel with new wine is place on top of the shelves and eventually will be totally emptied into the barrel beneath it on the fourth level.
The Marsala wine you buy comes from the barrel on the bottom of the stack. The wine from the barrel above the bottom barrel on the second level is used to top off the wine in the bottom that is removed.
The wine from the barrel on the third shelf tops off the wine that was removed from the second barrel. The wine from the barrel on the fourth shelf tops off the wine on the third shelf. The wine in the barrel on the fourth level is topped off with wine from the barrel on the fifth shelf containing the new wine.
Basically, you remove wine to be sold from the bottom barrel and replace wine taken out from a barrel with that above it. When the new wine in the fifth barrel is gone, it is replaced with more new wine.
Spanish sherry and Portuguese porto are also made using a solera system. The solera system allows wine makers to bolster up weak wine years with wine from better years to maintain dependable flavor and quality.
I have digressed, but if you know how Marsala is made you can understand why it also has a price comparable to steak. The primo mushrooms also make this a premium menu dish in a steak house.
I thoroughly enjoyed my Chicago meal at Pub’s in Salinas, California and highly recommend it.
Note: Total Wine in Sand City, California carries several brands of Marsala, Sherry, and Porto, if you would like to try something like Marsala chicken at home with button mushrooms.
Note: Thank you to the University of Chicago where I learned about sherry and other fortified wines before sherry hour discussions on art and architecture.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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