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.
As we figured, this wasn't an aguachile in conventional terms. It wasn't overly acidic, but quite mellow. Though I will say the seafood, especially the bay scallops were sweet and tender, so were the shrimp. Both of which weren't over-cooked and tough. The sweet and ripe avocado and the briny cucumber added another layer. But what clinched it all was the nicely toasted and salted sour dough, which was the perfect foil for the dish. Yes, it's not a conventional version of the dish, but we enjoyed it. We both wished that the octopus had that nicely toasted sour dough with it as well.
The highlight of the dish for us was the pillowy and warm pita. After that, well, everything was way too sour. Man, that chicken might have been ok, but the puckery-tartness overwhelmed things. Same with the green salad. Yikes, the sharp sourness just took over. Kind of a bummer.