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July 17, 2006
Go For the Food, Stay for the View
My wife and I got hooked on the Central Coast wine country during a trip to Pismo Beach this year in celebration of Valentine's Day and her birthday.
It seems like we've made a monthly pilgrimage to the region ever since.
And each time we blew through Mussel Shoals, a tiny community between Ventura and Carpinteria, we noted the Cliff House Inn and Shoals Restaurant on the ocean side of Highway 101, the Ventura County portion of which is know as “The Screaming Eagles Highway� in honor of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division.
“We've got to check that place out," I always said.
That's because a couple of well-seasoned travelers suggested it to us during a prior stay at the Cliffs Resort in Shell Beach several years ago. They were retired, made numerous trips north and always stopped at the Cliff House Inn and Shoals Restaurant for dinner on their way back down south.
So we bombed up north again on July 4 and reserved a room at the Cliff House for that Friday night ($185).
This is an exit that comes up quick for southbound drives, and those heading north must turn left across traffic. A quick (and I mean quick) right and left put us in the hotel's parking lot.
It was about 12:30 p.m., and since our room was not ready, we headed to the Shoals for some lunch.
This is a small facility, and there are some quirks. The restaurant spans the bottom of the hotel, but it doesn't have a bar. It's just a couple of big rooms with windows looking out onto the pool and the ocean. A bunch of round tables with umbrellas and white plastic chairs are scattered about the patio and pool area.
We took a table on the south side of the pool, close to the boulders that are constantly pounded by the Pacific. And this was the perfect day for seaside dining. The sky was nuclear blue, meaning free of clouds save the high contrails of jets heading to and from airports in the region. And it was hot enough that the umbrella provided just enough shade for relief.
I ordered a bottle of Firestone riesling ($17) and the braised local mussels in a chardonnay herb-tomato cream broth with garlic and leeks ($7). Chris wanted clam chowder, but our pleasantly chatty waitress said that the chef only makes it on Saturday. And I thought clam chowder was the soup of the day every Friday in restaurants everywhere.
So she ordered the pan-roasted vegetable salad tossed with mixed greens, maytag bleu cheese and toasted walnuts in a sherry vinaigrette ($9.50).
Our PC waitress promptly arrived with the wine and an ice bucket. She had ample time for conversation because the cork gave her fits. Her corkscrew had a bent screw, and the cork refused extraction.
It finally budged.
Then it cracked.
“The cork's stuck,� I said.
“I'll break it,� she replied.
Indeed she did.
The she eased the remaining bit from the bottle without depositing any cork in the wine, which was quite good (that eventuality and the wine.)
Then lunch arrived.
The retired travelers were right.
This is a place you come for the food, and the view is not half bad, either. And don't be put of by the spartan surroundings. I don't think there is a restaurant table along the Southern California coast that was closer to the surf than our's at dinner.
And the food comes pretty close to upstaging the view at both lunch and dinner.
The mussels, a sizable amount, poked up from a soup-sized portion of broth that featured the perfect marriage of flavors. No one dominated, which is good in a marriage.
I'm not a big fan of nuts in my greens, but Chris said the salad was delicious.
And there was nothing left for the sea gulls to nibble on.
Our room was ready after lunch.
These are neither luxurious nor spacious accommodations. But all rooms offer an ocean view and most days a sea breeze. I had chilled a bottle of Brander Sauvignon Blanc we'd picked up from the winery in Los Olivos, and we took that and headed for a couple of lounges between the pool and the ocean.
It wasn't long before the soothing slap of the surf on the rocks lulled Chris to sleep.
Then a crew, mostly students from nearby Brooks Institute, arrived and began setting up some film equipment.
Then the girls in bikinis began emerging from one of the rooms.
I asked the producer-director what was up.
He said he was making a swimsuit calender for an online casino and shooting a documentary about the making of a swimsuit calender.
Then a young woman with a video camera began filming one of the models and talking to her while another young woman took pictures with a still camera.
Nobody else seemed to pay much attention until it was time to set the pool area for dinner.
And dinner was even better than lunch. Bigger, too.
Now I'm not the world's biggest fish fan -- and the menu did feature a a prime chef's cut New York steak nicoise ($28), pan-seared with garlic, anchovy and capers, haricot verts (green beans) purple potatoes and nicoise olives.
But given the heat and proximity of The Worlds Biggest Fish House, I opted for sea bass $25, pan-seared with a caper sauce and pesto mashed potatoes. Chris ordered the grilled wild salmon ($22) served with tomatoes and artichokes in a lemon dill sauce again with pesto mashed potatoes.
We split a Sunstone chardonnay.
This was probably one of the best plates of fish I've ever had (and certainly the best view).
Chris, who is a salmon fan, agreed.
Dinner ended with the sun beginning to set.
And soon that nuclear blue sky was filled with pastels and then moonlight on the water.
This turns out be an exit well taken, no matter which direction you're headed.
Notes
The Shoals menu is not huge but is packed with tasty offerings, according to some of the couples dining nearby.
Lunch starters range in price from $5 for the soup of the day and simple mixed green salad to $13 for the seafood cioppino (local mussels, clams, shrimp and scallops). On the dinner menu, it's called Shoals cioppino and slightly reworked to justify its $24 price. The nighttime version includes a combination of fresh fish, and crab. But no shrimp. Also on the lunch menu are eight salads priced from $8 to $11.50, four sandwiches, all $9, and four fish entrees.
The dinner menu has five beginnings from $5 to $9.50, three salads $8.50 to $9.50 and 10 entrees at $18.50 to $28.
There is also a Sunday brunch with pricing similar to the lunch menu.
The wine list features 17 whites ($16 to $57) with seven by the glass, 14 reds ($25 to $44) with five by the glass and seven sparklers ($19 to $53) with two by the glass.
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Posted by Greg Wilcox at July 17, 2006 4:25 PM
Comments
I'm so proud of you, feel like I'm re-living it in vivid color! Lots of love!
Your sweety.
Posted by: Chris at July 17, 2006 6:34 PM