After checking into our room at the Green Lantern Inn we rested a bit and then decided to do some shopping before having a rather early dinner. The place I picked; because it was just a few blocks away from where we were staying…..the sidewalks are small and traffic both pedestrian and autos are pretty bad during peak times; was the Road Trip – Treehouse Café (Carmel) and the 17 Mile Drive. It’s a very cute location.
On the terrace of a charming little building. There’s a nice outdoor eating area.
Carmel claims to be the most dog friendly cities in the US. And heck, there were no less than 8 pooches hanging on the terrace. Including these two!
The pooches were so well behaved….even more so than their two-legged counterparts, many of whom seemed snooty and demanding. And I gotta say; the service here was on the abrupt side…..though that could have been because of the customers. And quite slow to boot.
Treehouse Café has an interesting menu. There are Thai, Mediterranean, and Italian dishes on the menu. A crazy mix that I would usually avoid….but because of how pooch friendly the place was, I thought we’d just have our first dinner here.
I started with an Allagash White, clean, citrus tones. Which went well with the bread and the herbaceous olive oil.
Being quite curious; I ordered the Thai Pork Sausage.
Very porky with a good amount of rice stuffed into it. Lacking in the herbaceous tones and spice I look for though.
Because I could not get enough bread…..I ordered the roasted garlic. Which was interesting as the garlic was still hard and bitter….not soft and spreadable like I prefer.
The olive oil it was soaking in was quite good though.
And for more carbs….we got the Veggie Combo Platter. Along with the overly chewy pita included…counterclockwise; Dolmas, which were too chewy and bland, some incinerated falafel….not good eats, both the hummus and baba ghanouj were good though…nicely blended, creamy, full of flavor.
And to finish off, a basic Greek Salad.
Overall, a fairly mediocre dinner, that took quite long…..and most places were closed by the time we finished.
Treehouse Café
7th & 8th San Carlos St.
Carmel, CA 93921
So, we just walked on back to our accommodations and called it a night. I did a post; while someone totally crashed out.
As for our full day in Carmel…well, we decided to do something that we had done once before, when we still lived in LA. We decided to take JJ on the 17 Mile Drive from the Carmel Gate.
But first, I took JJ to get some coffee. Carmel is a totally different city in the morning.
Peaceful and relaxing.
Though I did find that the Seagulls here feel quite entitled as well. I actually saw seagulls taking their time crossing the street, stopping traffic three times! I managed to get a photo of one of those occasions!
When you have time to relax and stroll you notice things……I hadn’t taken notice of Carmel’s City Hall before, though we walked past it twice the previous day!
I went to the Carmel Coffee House and Roasting Company to get the Missus a latte and myself a cold brew.
The Missus enjoyed Her latte; my cold brew was quite smooth and easy to drink.
Carmel Coffee House and Roasting Company
Dolores St.
Carmel-By-The-Sea, CA 93921
And then we headed out. We paid our $12.25 fee at the Carmel Gate, then headed out to see some of the sights. We made a few stops.
Of course we had to stop at that symbol of Pebble Beach, the Lone Cypress.
It is said to have started growing in the mid 1700’s and has survived so much. Even several arson attempts. A symbol of resilience it has been declared the most photographed tree in the world.
We made a stop at Crocker Grove.
There are only two Monterey Cypress Forests in existence and this is one of them.
Bird Rock Vista Point for both the view and a bathroom break.
And JJ seemed to be enjoying himself.
There was just one more stop I wanted to make. When we did our previous visit, China Rock.
Which was once the site of a Chinese Fishing Village.
For some interesting stories and history, check out these two posts.
By this time, we’d kind of had our fill and decided just to head on out to Pacific Grove. We turned on a familiar street; Lighthouse Avenue, where we enjoyed exploring the city on the self guided historic houses tour several years back. The Missus had really enjoyed shopping here and so we stopped and the Missus got some shopping in.
And then it was time to head back to Carmel….we still had the afternoon to do more exploring.
The food did take a while with the Huevos Rotos arriving first.
Though the eggs were overcooked; the yolks dry. 
Well, this was quite a hefty lunch! The miso soup was fine; not watered down like many other versions these days.
The rice was moist, tender, and fragrant; though the portion size was a bit too large for me. I think if I go solo again I'll make sure to get a half portion of it. I was really heading into 
I waffle between getting the filet or loin cut….after this meal, I guess I'm back on "team loin"? I really like the meaty texture, fat content, and the porkiness. The sauce tends to the sweeter side in my opinion, so I use it sparingly.
This was pretty bad. The dan bing was rubbery…speaking of rubbery, the skin of the duck was not crisp, the fat hadn't been rendered from the duck properly and it had way too much sauce. This is what happens when you can't "do your own thing" with Peking Duck.
I quickly noticed something about these almost $3 a piece shumai…..do you see it? Well, the wrappers were really too thick, but all of them had 
First off, look how these lack uniformity, second, how haphazardly the wrappers are placed. Third, the filling was hard and dry. It was also overly salty. The shape was like someone rolled a meatball and just threw wrappers over it.
This came with two poached eggs….I would have preferred sunny side up with nice crisp edges; but the eggs were fine, with the yolks still runny.
So, here's the score using the 
STUFFS: While eating, I noticed a gluey component under the eggs. Not a fun texture and quite bland. Looking over the menu; I guess they also include sausage gravy with this? Overkill in my opinion. 1.0
Not sure about the Pico de Gallo as a side….funny, at first glance I thought it was Lomi Salmon! Four rather slices of Port Sausage; based on the texture and taste, I'm thinking this seemed like Redondo's? I'm fully "team Purity", but this was fine. Two scoops rice and two easy over eggs completed the set. The scoops of rice seemed on the smallish side; but I can't put it away like I used to, so this was fine. The rice was perfectly cooked and the eggs nice and runny.
