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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Fresh Taste of Lebanon: Tabouli's (Now Paprika) Review by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Fresh Taste of Lebanon:  Tabouli’s (Now Paprika) Review by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I grew up eating Greek and Lebanese food as a child in Detroit (Michigan) and took my daughter Florence out to lunch at what was then Tabouli’s (now Paprika) in Monterey, California after she finished school for early dinners to continue the family tradition.

When I began reviewing restaurants for The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000 – California), I queried the newspaper to review Tabouli, now Paprika, and was given the assignment I think, because I said I made many Middle Eastern food items at home.

I have changed Tabouli’s name to its present one of Paprika in the article that follows:

Fresh Taste of Lebanon

I can feel the vitamins course through my veins every time I eat vegetable-rich Lebanese cuisine at Paprika.  Chef and owner Christophe Hamadé offers a tempting array of vegetarian and vegan dishes alongside his traditional meat dishes.

The dish I order every time I go to Paprika is baba ghanouge, a roasted eggplant purée made with sesame seed paste (tahini), crushed garlic, and lemon juice.  Olive oil sprinkled with paprika and black olives decorate decorates the final product, which you spread on warm pieces of pita (Lebanese pocket bread).  I like to think of baba ghanouge as hummus without the calories.  You can order baba ghanouge as a side dish or as part of a combination plate.

My favorite feel-good plate comes with baba-ghanouge, hummus, and tabouli.  Hummus, a chickpea purée made with lemon juice, sesame seed paste, and crushed garlic, has become an onion dip substitute it seems.  At Paprika, hummus gets spread on pita like baba ghanouge and tastes like an exotic peanut butter.

For me, tabouli salad is like good-tasting Lebanese penicillin.  Finely chopped parsley and mint form the base of tabouli along with bulghur wheat that has been impregnated with lemon-oil dressing.  Pieces of tomato and spring onion add their flavor to this mix as well. 

These items that depend on freshness for their taste have always been good in the 20+ years that I have been going to Paprika with my family.

Adventurous diners might want to try the combination plate that comes with dolmas, tabouli, hummus, and spinach salad.  Dolmas are stuffed grapevine leaves that get rolled into cylinders and steamed.  Paprika’s version comes with tomato, onion, and rice.  Lemon juice and olive oil season the dolmas.  The vine leaves have a tart taste and are more tender than baked cabbage leaves.

A fatouche salad might be a new dish for some people.  This is an Arab garden specialty that makes use of the freshest lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, green onion, parsley, and mint.  The novelty of the dish comes from the sumac, used to season it, along with toasted pieces of pita bread.  The mint and parsley form an especially refreshing combination.

Refreshing also describes the tzaziki spread with pita bread.  Paper-thin cucumber slices hold this savory mix of yogurt, mint, crushed garlic, and sour cream together.  Tzatziki, a deceptively light spread, is a famous appetizer all over the Mediterranean.

The owner’s garlic chicken merits several tries.  This combination plate comes with hummus, tabouli, and rice.  You can also find shawerma, a relative of a Greek gyro, on the menu along with kafta kebab made with group steak.

All of the meat dishes can be placed inside a pita wrap.

Without doubt, Paprika’s food is excellent, but half the charm of the place is eating in the cozy interior decorated with oriental carpets that look like arches with lanterns in them.

A large supper tray hangs on the main wall with photographs of temples and Lebanese cedars under snow.  Large jars of preserved foodstuffs line the tops of the cupboards in the kitchen.  Arabic music plays while you eat and many times, Arabic and French language students from the Defense Language Institute come with their instructors to converse with the Beirut-born owner as they order.

Paprika’s owner worked in Paris nine years before coming to the United States.   While working in Paris, he met a couple from Carmel, who invited him to visit the Monterey Peninsula.  He agreed to come and immediately fell in love with the area, because it was quiet unlike Paris.

(Congratulations to Paprika for being named a Michelin Restaurant in 2019!)

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

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Cafe Rustica's European Flair - Part 2 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

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

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Cafe Rustica's European Flair - Part 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Café Rustica’s European Flair – Part 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Going to some of my favorite restaurants like Café Rustica in Carmel Valley Village when I was a restaurant reviewer for the Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000 – California) was an easy assignment thanks to their perfect food and wait service.

Even after twenty years, I still love dining on their terrace admiring grapevines at the wine tasting rooms across the street.  This restaurant merited two review trips and offers daily specials in addition to their set menu:

Café Rustica Blends Creative European Cuisine with Superlative Service

Dining at Café Rustica in Carmel Valley makes you feel like you have taken a European vacation.  The restaurant offers tasty fare from Italy, France, and Germany along with luscious Californian salads in a courtyard setting reminiscent of continental European restaurants.

My family likes the warm valley weather as well as the friendly ambience at Café Rustica.  On a recent visit for lunch, we conjured up Italian vacations by ordering limonata – a sour lemon soda from Italy with our meal.

For starters, I ordered escargots bourguignons (snails), a specialty of Burgundy France.  Butter, garlic, and parsley are the most obvious ingredients in the sauce, but the co-owner told me that her spouse uses a secret recipe for this sauce that utilizes no less than fifteen ingredients.  I used the slices of toast that came with the snails to soak up this delicious, mystery confection.

Laurent and I ordered 11-inch pizzas inspired by European dishes.  Laurent’s Lorraine pizza takes its name from Quiche Lorraine and is made up of maple-smoked bacon, caramelized onions, and melted gruyère cheese.  For me, these are the best ingredients in a quiche, so I really liked Laurent’s choice. (So did he.)

Caramelized onions were one of the ingredients on my flammekeuche pizza, a dish from Alsace (France), which shares a border with Germany.  I love the onions with cubes of prosciutto that sat atop a layer of crème fraîche.  I thought these ingredients would taste especially good with a slightly sweet white wine like Vouvry, which Laurent ordered on a subsequent visit.

Florence meanwhile was getting an eyeful and a bellyful of a large rib eye steak.  This steak came with a generous helping of herbed butter and French fries.  The meat was tender enough to be cut with a butter knife.

For dessert, Florence ate two scoops of Ciao Bello gelato from San Francisco.  Vanilla bean flecks colored the gelato and added flavor bursts to this creamy dessert.  Laurent and I had Lavazza coffees as dessert.

End of Part 1.

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

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