Aloha Spirit in Monterey, California: Hula's Restaurant Review - Part 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Aloha Spirit in Monterey, California:  Hula’s Restaurant Review – Part 1 – by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I queried The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) to do a restaurant review of Monterey’s local Trader Vic’s – Hula’s.  I went to Trader Vic’s when I was a student at the University of Chicago and fully appreciate how Aloha Spirit can make you feel warm in winter.

I noted in my query that I had been to Hawaii (Twice now in 2019) and stayed with a Polynesian family upon returning from the People’s Republic of China in 1979. 

I thought Hula’s food tasted like the luau that Hawaii’s Polynesian and Japanese communities prepared for the youth tour I was on before going back home to Detroit, Michigan.

The Monterey County Weekly asked me to do an article, which I have modified as follows:

Aloha Spirit in Monterey: Hula’s Wows with Great Food and Kicky Atmosphere

Hula’s Island Grill and Tiki Room is the kind of restaurant that makes me want to smile the minute I walk in – especially at dinner time when flickering candles in red glass holders cast a hypnotic glow on the thatched roof over the bar and the Polynesian wood carvings.

Blue lights outline the bar, and colored lights frame the windows.  It is fun to be seen in this noisy, party-time restaurant that fascinates children and adults alike with its Hawaiian-inspired décor.

My husband Laurent and I began our meal by ordering some festive appetizers called pupus: surfrider sticks and tiki torches.

The surfrider sticks, which looked like surfboards sticking up in the sand, are chicken breast pieces threaded on skewers and planted in a thick slice of roasted slice of pineapple.

Both dipping sauces tasted yummy:  One was a slightly sweet Thai peanut sauce and the other was a mildly, salty soy-teriyaki sauce.

Six miniature drumsticks that came bathed in a spicy sesame-hoisin sauce made up of our tiki torch dish.  The hoisin sauce - made from soy sauce, molasses, and Chinese hot sauce – gave the chicken a luscious kick.  The sour cram dipping sauce made the already rich chicken very filling.

We drank one of Hula’s eclectic beer choices with our appetizers:  Longboard lager produced by the Kona Brewery on Hawaii. 

One of the co-owners said he likes to offer out-of-the-ordinary items to make eating at his restaurant an exotic experience.

End of Part 1.

To be continued…

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

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Goat and Cactus Petals: La Tortuga Torteria Offers Authentic Flavors of Mexico by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Goats and Cactus Petals:  La Tortuga Tortería Offers Authentic Flavors of Mexico by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I queried The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) with a request to review a restaurant that served “goat, cactus petals, and killer, organic strawberry shakes.”

The Weekly sent me off to a Seaside, California location where everyone could get a strawberry shake or “licuado.”  The revised article I wrote follows:

Goat and Cactus Petals:  La Tortuga Tortería Restaurant Review

My love for Mexican torta sandwiches lured me into La Tortuga Tortería located at the busy corner of Fremont and Harcourt in Seaside, California.

I invited my husband, family friend, and daughter Florence there for sandwiches one Saturday afternoon.  We changed our mind from torta sandwiches to meals when we saw the specials board and ordered every one of them:

-pescado a la Veracruzano (Veracruz-style fish)

-chili pepper relleno (chili peppers stuffed with chicken and raisins)

-carne asada with cactus petals (charbroiled steak with grilled cactus petals)

-enchiladas verdes (enchiladas with green sauce)

The waitress told us that the grilled trout for my pescado would take 20 minutes to cook.

The wait gave us time to sample drinks and learn soccer Spanish.  (The TV was on a Spanish-language station).

We tried the following beverages while we waited:

-Imported Mexican Pepsi.  It is more sugary than its American counterpart and fizzy, but not highly carbonated.

-Mango licuado or shake for me made with whipped milk and mango pulp and added vanilla, sugar, and a sprinkle of cinnamon

-Atole de Maiz – corn gruel made with ground corn and milk whose origins extend back to the Mayan Empire in the Yucatan Peninsula according to Alan Davidson’s Penguin Guide to Food.

Our Main dishes were superlative:

-Veracruz-style fish – a whole trout covered with strips of sweet red peppers, olives, capers, cilantro, and yellow peppers

-Chile relleno – stuffed pasilla pepper with chicken and raisin filling

-carne asada – char grilled steak with onions, sautéed nopalitos, and cactus petals (nopales) came with this dish

-enchiladas verdes – tomatillo and green pepper sauce covered enchiladas stuffed with fresh cheese

If you have never tried these dishes before, Tortuga is a great place to start.

End of Article

Note:

My favorite Mexican cookbooks are by Rick Bayless and Diana Kennedy.  The books by Rick Bayless are on Kindle.

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

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Big Little Restaurant: Taquito's Restaurant in Salinas (CA) Review by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Big Little Restaurant:  Taquito’s Restaurant in Salinas (CA) Review by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) editors gladly sent me off to review a big Mexican restaurant with lots of parking in an easy-to-find location in Salinas (California) across from the California Rodeo.

I liked the restaurant in 2004 and like it better even now in 2019; the restaurant is still there and getting better every year.  My reworked review follows:

Big Little Restaurant

Located in a strip mall across from Sherwood Hall (California Rodeo) in Salinas, Taquito’s reigns as my family’s “let’s eat one meal today” restaurant.  (The portions are rather large.)

Affixing “-ito” to the end of a Spanish word usually makes the word diminutive.  “Small” is not the case with Taquito’s portions, though.

However, I do think of something cute and spirited with the word “Taquitos,” and the restaurant certainly lives up to its name.

Ranchera music (Mexican country and western) greets visitors at the door, and salmon and green crêpe paper streamers stretch overhead between the booths with orange cylinder tile roofs.

Taquito’s has a seating capacity of 130 – perfect for birthday and office parties.

Little touches like heating the nacho chips makes eating at Taquito’s a gratifying experience.  The salsa that accompanies those chips has a definite kick to it, making the pungent cilantro seem even fresher.

I liked the variety of Mexican foods on the menu.  After eating at Taquito’s for the past two years, I have some favorite dishes.

The first is a simple taco salad filled with boiled tongue, lengua.  Tongue meat is tender and has a faint beef flavor.  At Taquito’s, minced, sweet onions come with this dish along with limes.  The combination of tongue, onion, and lime makes for an unusual treat on a soft, corn taco.

My other favorite is a specialty of Michoacan – pozole soup.  Pozole soup is made with lime – processed hominy, pork strips, chili peppers, garlic, and Mexican oregano.  I especially like the flavor that the condiment of shredded cabbage adds to this soup.

But last week, I branched out and ordered a Tostada de Ceviche as my starter, while my husband Laurent had a quesadilla.

Ceviche starts out as raw white fish pieces that are “cooked” by marinating the fish in lime juice for at least six hours.  You add chopped onion, tomato, and jalapeño peppers to the marinated dish along with a vinaigrette to make this a tangy appetizer.

Laurent’s quesadilla measured 7 inches across and was filled with melted cheddar cheese.  I would add some hot sauce to this quesadilla, but Laurent does not like it that way.

For my main dish, I ordered Camarones (shrimp) a la Veracruzana.  The shrimp came in a spicy, tomato-based sauce with jalapeños.  (You can order a milder version of this dish.)

Laurent ate a Sol y Luz platter made up of a charbroiled rib eye steak that came with four jumbo shrimp.

When our daughter Florence comes with us to dinner at Taquito’s, she orders carne asada, charbroiled steak, with flan as dessert.  Flan is made with eggs and milk, which I like.

Meals seem to taste even better on weekends, when the tables are filled with extended families, who meet here regularly for get-togethers.

Everyone seems to smile.

End of Article

Note:  I like mole poblano enchiladas made with Mexican cheese and spicy, chocolate-chili pepper sauce these days.

My favorite Mexican cookbooks are written by Rick Bayless and Diana Kennedy.  The books by Rick Bayless are on Kindle.

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

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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Thai-Style Feasting: My Thai Restaurant Review - Part 2 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Thai-Style Feasting: My Thai Restaurant Review – Part 2 – by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Galangal’s flavor makes me think of biting into perfume that lingers on the tongue.  The woody slices in the soup may not be to everyone’s liking, but I ate mine, because galangal is supposed to be good for the lungs and stomach.

I drank a Thai iced tea made with black tea, sugar, spices, and a healthy dose of cream.  This drink is a particularly good antidote for putting out chili pepper fires, if you order spicy food.  The default spiciness of food at My Thai is mild, so be sure to ask for spicy food if that is how you like it.

The food I ate for lunch was so good that I came back for a weekend lunch with my husband Laurent.  We started our meal with chicken satay – like chicken kebabs – and fried shrimp rolls.

The satay was made of flattened, marinated chicken breasts.  Their bright yellow color hinted at turmeric in the marinade and their sweet flavor signaled the use of coconut cream in the marinade as well.

The satay came with a peanut dipping sauce, cucumber relish, and strands of carrot and cabbage.  The peanut sauce was rich (high calorie).  I liked refreshing my palate with the sweet relish.  The tender chicken meat made me want to make a meal out of my appetizer.

Laurent’s fried shrimp rolls looked like skinny baseball bats filled with shrimp.  They came with a sweet sauce that accentuated the flavor of the shrimp.  We both liked this dish and felt we had made a gastronomic discovery for ourselves.

I drank a Thai Singha beer with my appetizers.  The crisp lager reminded me of Corona from Mexico.  Singha goes well with spicy Thai food.

Laurent ordered the most well-known Thai dish as his main course, Pad Thai, while I chose Dusit’s Delicious Duck.

The stir-fried noodles and tofu in Pad Thai hearken back to Thai food’s Chinese heritage.  The sour flavor of the dish makes it uniquely Thai.

Laurent ordered the Pad Thai with beef.  A generous helping of crushed peanuts came on top of the Pad Thai as garnish.

Dusit is the Thai name of My Thai’s owner.  Dusit’s Delicious Duck lived up to its name.  Many slices of duck with skin intact flavored a medley of vegetables made up of baby bok choy, carrots, sweet red pepper, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, and onion in a chili-basil sauce.  The baby bok choy tasted especially good with the duck, offsetting the duck’s richness (fat).

The Bangkok-born owner told me that he serves food as it is prepared in Thailand.  In just a few months, he had developed a regular clientele, who love the real thing.

End of article

My Thai has a new name and owner now, but the Dusit family helped created the love of Thai food on the West Coast as a lasting memory in our community.

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

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