Big Sur & Carmel (Monday May 13 thru Wednesday, May 15)

Marine Layer at Lucia CA

     Having completed a strenuous 2-mile stoll along the boardwalk of Moonstone Beach boardwalk, the southern terminus of the Big Sur Drive (California’s Rte 1 from Cambria in the south to Carmel in the north), we motored north. The marine layer that blanketed our early morning (10:00 a.m.) walk gradually moved off-shore and the sky was clear when we entered the parking lot at Nepenthe, our lunch destination, which has served California’s Central Coast since 1949 and still retains its 1960s charm, the era when it first came to national prominence.

     

     After checking in to the dismal Carmel Village Inn (link omitted deliberately) and catching a quick nap, we visited the lounge at Grasing’s restaurant for pre-dinner drinks. The lounge was comfortable with a convivial crowd of tourists and business people and we were quickly engaged in conversations with new acquaintances. Jeff, the barman on duty that evening, was knowledgeable about the products he vends and eager to share his creations and knowledge with his clientele. We enjoyed ourselves sufficiently that we ended up returning the following night before dinner.  

     The food at Casanova’s restaurant on Monday evening was first rate, as was the ambience. Unfortunately, a squabble over the size of the table at which we were seated put a slight damper on an otherwise interesting and tasty meal. For our first course, we shared three appetizers: asparagus panna cotta, Spanish octopus, and duck carpaccio. (The evening’s squabble arose out of the fact that our table was too small to hold all three plates and our server proposed solving the problem by withholding one of the plates until we had finished eating the other two. After a firm request from me, we were moved to a larger table--but immediately adjacent to the servers’ entrance to the kitchen). We split our main course, a wonderful seafood linguine in a light cream sauce that featured a hint of tarragon.

     Tuesday morning, we drove back 4 miles south of Carmel to hike the 6-mile shoreline of Point Lobos Reserve. There may be equally beautiful walks elsewhere in the world but this is right at the top of anyone’s list—waves crashing and spewing on the rugged shoreline, 4 otters and a pup frolicking in a small cove, seals basking on the beach, wind-shaped trees and abundant wildflowers.

     Good clam chowder and potato pancakes with smoked salmon at Flagherty’s for lunch.

     We ate dinner Tuesday evening at Andre’s Bouchée whose owner, Elizabeth Lemaire, we had met in August of 2012 at a wine dinner in Carmel Valley. Andre’s bills itself as in the style of a classic French bistro and succeeds eminently in that endeavor. For main courses we ate ris de veau and an enormous veal chop, both accompanied by a wild mushroom/wine reduction and both excellent. But those were simply choices that we made on that particular evening. There were 20 other equally tempting offerings on the menu, all animating our collective memory of earlier meals on the other side of the pond. A highlight of the evening was the seafood carpaccio. If you order the carpaccio with a glass of Reisling and know the right people, it is served on a bed of foie gras, a delicacy that it is now illegal to sell (but not give away) in the grand Republic of California.

The Entrance to Andre's Bouchée