Hearth-Side Sushi: Robata Grill and Sake Bar - Part 1 - Reviewed by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Hearth-Side Sushi: Robata Grill and Sake Bar - Part 1 - Reviewed by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Robata is the sort of restaurant that I described to my daughter Florence as a little girl as “fancy” or “touristy, but in a good way.” 

I wanted people in Monterey County to know how fortunate they were to have a real Japanese-style inn restaurant in the area located conveniently off Highway 1 with lots of parking in Carmel, California.

I queried my editors at The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) about doing a review on Robata.  I told them in my query that going to Robata in Carmel was like taking a trip to Japan without having to leave Monterey County.

I think The Weekly editors just liked listening to my pitches sometimes.  They gave me the Robata assignment for the local restaurant that serves locals and tourists alike, which follows in modified form:

Hearth-Side Sushi: Robata Grill and Sake Bar

“Honored guests are here,” says Robata’s owner in Japanese that is loud enough for her staff to hear, as she seats patrons at their tables.  The effect is to make the Japanese surroundings even more inviting in a restaurant whose name means “fireside.”

Fireside dining is always available on Robata’s patio, but when we visited, my husband Laurent, family friend, and I chose to eat in the cozy indoors with dark woodwork, rice paper covering the windows, and hanging red lanterns.

Laurent picked up on the Japanese genius for design by noticing how one table would be covered with a blue tablecloth while the table next to it was covered with two blue cloth napkins laid out to look like diamonds.  Japanese music played softly.

Robata’s menu reflects the steakhouse and sushi tradition that became popular in the US due to the high quality of Kobe beef and various kinds of sushi that are hard to obtain in the US.

Laurent’s appetizer, called kushiyaki, was a filet mignon kebab with teriyaki sauce and qualifies as a Japanese steakhouse invention.  Green peppers separated the tender, grilled chunks of meat that the chef glazed with a sauce made of soy sauce, sugar, and sweet rice wine.

Sesame seeds decorated the kebabs along with wisps of fresh ginger, adding a lively flavor to this combination.  The kushiyaki came on a dark green ceramic dish with burgundy-colored flowers, which contrasted nicely with the color of the peppers.

End of Part 1.

To be continued.

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

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

Aloha Spirit in Monterey: Hula's Restaurant Review - Part 2 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Aloha Spirit in Monterey:  Hula’s Restaurant Review – Part 2 – by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The co-owner I spoke to at Hula’s says that the restaurant offers five choices of fresh fish nightly.  The co-owner also stated that they only serve fish that is on the safe harvest list from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The four fish that show up most often on Hula’s menus include:

-ahi (a slightly strong flavored tuna with light pink flesh)

-ono (a sweet flavored tuna with white flesh)

-mahi mahi (sweet-flavored dolphin fish with white fish)

-hapu (delicately flavored sea bass, also known as grouper, with lean, white flesh)

Diners have a choice of how they would like to have these fish prepared, including style as diverse as:

-coconut-encrusted

-Cajun

-lemongrass-encrusted

-pan-fried with onions

-macadamia-nut encrusted

-blackened

For his dinner, Laurent chose the wasabi fish special with mahi mahi, which is one of the most popular items on the menu.

Laurent’s order arrived blackened on a bed of pale green wasabi mashed potatoes that had the green, Japanese horseradish mixed in for flavor.

A cream sauce made with wasabi covered the fish.  The mashed potatoes were delicious.  The sweet flesh of the mahi mahi hardly needed the wasabi-cream sauce, but it still tasted good with it.

I ordered the luau pork plate that came with coleslaw and rice.  The co-owner I spoke with told me that in Hawaii, a pig for a luau would be roasted in a pit for several hours.

Hula’s roasts their pork with teriyaki and molasses.  They add pineapple at the end for flavor:  The pork almost tasted like a dessert except for the saltiness of the pork.

We drank a surprisingly good wine with our meal:  A Maui Blanc.  The wine is made from pineapple wine and tasted great with the blackened mahi mahi and the luau pork.  The wine has been made for 20+ years in Maui by Tedeschi Vineyards.

The two co-owners of Hula’s lived on Maui for 20 years.  They operated restaurants after graduating from college.

Article End

If you have never tried Hawaiian food, Hula’s is a fun place to sample without leaving Monterey County.

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

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

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

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

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

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie