mmm-yoso is the foodblog. Kirk does most of the posts and travels around the world. Cathy does a lot of posts and travels around the country. ed (from Yuma) posts once in a while (like today) and recently traveled to Julian.
Tina and I and Chloe, our new canine companion, decided to spend a few days in the Julian area. Our first meal on the trip was at the Lake Cuyamaca restaurant, which sits beside Lake Cuyamaca just north of Cuyamaca Rancho state park. Tina's dad told us that the owner of the place was Austrian, so we should try the sauerkraut there. I had visited the restaurant years ago, but I did not remember the food at all – only the beautiful scenery:
That picture and this were taken from the terrace where we could bring the dog:
On this visit, Tina had a tuna melt, which was not memorable and that's my excuse for having no picture. On the other hand, I thought my Reuben sandwich was pretty tasty:
The rye bread was adequate and nicely grilled. The Austrian potato salad on the side was okay, though too sour for my taste (I do a better German style summer potato salad at home). I liked that the thousand island/Russian (?) dressing was served on the side and not slathered all over everything. The sauerkraut was as good and flavorful and mild as advertised, and the corned beef was abundant and tasty:
Not a bad start for our little doggie vacation.
A couple of days later, we picked up sandwiches from Dudley's in Santa Ysabel and took them to beautiful Heise park, where we could eat them outside on picnic tables and then go walking with the dog afterwards. This is a photo of my beef and turkey sandwich with Swiss on German black bread:
In most ways, this was an excellent sandwich. It had been made to order and the turkey and beef were moist and fresh. There was enough tomato and lettuce and I had a choice of vegetables also, so there was green pepper and red onion on the sandwich as well. More than I could eat. The only disappointing part of the sandwich was the bread. I was expecting something with robust rye and/or whole-wheat flavors and a fairly firm texture. This bread, on the other hand, tasted a lot like regular bread darkened with caramel coloring.
In contrast, Tina loved everything about her turkey on rosemary bread:
While the bread was soft, she thoroughly enjoyed the rosemary flavor set off by a hint of sea salt. "The avocado was good too," she adds.
I have already posted about our dinners at Jeremy's. Our other two meals on vacation (since sticky cinnamon rolls don't really count as a meal) were both at Julian Grille:
We started with a lunch. I had the regular hamburger with potato salad as my side:
The third pound burger was tender, though cooked a little more than the medium rare I requested. The condiments and accompaniments were decent. It was a good burger. The potato salad on the side was clearly homemade and extremely good. The red skin potatoes were firm, the dressing was light and not goopy, there were small bits of crunchiness, and (if memory serves) a hint of dill.
More amazing was Tina's BLT, which she ordered with a cup of cream of squash soup as her side dish:
The sandwich deserves a close-up:
Yes, believe it or not, the bacon is nearly 2 inches thick over the entire sandwich. Not the world's greatest bacon, but so much bacon that we actually removed some of it and took it with us for snacking later. For my tastes, too much bacon and not enough tomato, but I think it may be against the law to complain about too much bacon.
In any case, Tina and I thought that the lunch was certainly good enough to deserve a dinner visit. Plus, the outdoor patio was very attractive and the weather was perfect:
In addition, it was dog friendly:
As you can tell, by this point of the vacation, poor Chloe was dog tired. Not only had we been walking all over the place, but she felt like she had to be on guard most of the time – "why else would they have brought a dog with them?" she must have thought. And she was a good guard dog, protecting us from the housecats that wandered in the neighborhood of the motel and making sure none of those fat park squirrels got their furry little paws on our sandwiches.
While Chloe was finally relaxing, our friendly and helpful server brought us bread to start our meal:
This was pretty much supermarket French bread, edible but ordinary. The butter was soft and spread easily over the slices.
As I was looking over the wine list, I asked about the Menghini Sauvignon Blanc, a wine from a local producer that I had never sampled. To help me make up my mind, our server actually brought an open bottle out to the table and poured me a little bit to taste. I thought that was considerate and helpful, and the wine was certainly good enough to order a bottle:
It was nicely dry and neutral, lacking powerful grassy or citrusy flavors, with a nice background touch of fruit. A good food wine.
Tina started her meal with a bowl of the same cream of squash soup that she had had previously:
The soup was full of the flavor of fresh picked summer zucchini. We noticed no discernible herbal or animal flavors. It was very good, smooth and tasty.
I opted for a salad with the house special apple pecan vinaigrette:
This attractive salad was mostly romaine, topped with baby greens, red cabbage slices, and shredded carrot. Nice and crunchy. While the special dressing did have apple flavors and numerous bits of pecan, next time I would probably order the ranch.
That evening as her entree, Tina chose a salad – the Caesar salad with grilled salmon:
The romaine was very fresh and abundant, but the dressing seemed generic, the croutons store-bought, and the Parmesan domestic. Nonetheless, the salad tasted fine. Even better was the perfectly cooked salmon, succulent, tender, and moist.
My entrée, called trout almondine on the menu, was somewhat more problematic:
The mixed vegetables – carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and even a couple of slices of overcooked squash – were pretty good as a whole. The rice, while perfectly edible, was somewhat dry, and its Mexican safflower added little flavor or color. The largely boneless trout was somewhat dry and its flavor was lost under a confused melange that pretty much covered the whole fish. That topping consisted of onion, scallions, mushrooms, and slivered almonds. The predominant flavor of all of the items was sour, and the almonds had lost most of their crunch. The mushrooms, in particular, had soaked up whatever vinegar or citrus the chef had used. Why use all these ingredients and then cover their flavors? The entrée was not inedible, but it was not especially enjoyable either.
Since the patio was filling up, we took our desserts (apple pie and strawberry/rhubarb pie) back to the motel. Oddly, we preferred the strawberry/rhubarb, but neither was nearly as good as the apple pie we got the next day from Apple Alley.
I don't mean to trash Julian Grille severely. The prices were reasonable (but I forgot to write them down). Overall, the lunch was pretty darn good. The patio was extremely pleasant with appropriate background music – Rod Stewart singing torch songs in the evening. At both meals, the service was first rate, and only my trout dish was truly sub par. I suspect a few visits would allow folks to discover what the kitchen does best.
The Julian Grille,2224 Main Street, Julian, CA 92036,(760) 765-0173, Open daily for lunch and Tues – Sunday for dinner.
The menu changes from time to time, though I'm thinking that some of the core dishes will probably be the same. Prices are on the low end for farm-to-table joints, so meat-huggers will love this place. And there was even a vegetarian offering as well.
It was a nice slab of belly with a frisee-apple salad as a counter-point. The pork had a nice crust and though it was a tad more chewy than I prefer, it was still nicely done. The glaze, which I didn't find very spicy, has a fruity component which is teeth rattling sweet eaten solo, but actually complemented the pork nicely. The frisee and apple I found too tannic and puckery for my taste. I realize that one would need something to cut the sweet-richness but it was just too much, sending me on this rather unpleasant rollercoater ride……
The woman manning the front counter, whom I believe is Sara, Carvin's partner in the shack, was a joy. I would suggest checking them out, though you may want to go when they open as the place seems to fill up quickly.
