Friday, April 18, 2014

Monterey Bay: Day 4 of California

Today, we moved from Santa Barbara to Monterey Bay, a 5.5 hour long drive. Oh joy... :P

Actually, it wasn't all that bad. Breakfast first thing in the morning was at Coffee Cat, a small cafe in the town. It was a cute little place, with a menu featuring a variety of cats. 


If you can't read it, basically every heading is something with cats. Then began the long drive.

Along the way, we visited Heart Castle. Well, sort of. The tours for the mansion itself were all sold out, so we just looked at the exhibit in the main building. Based on the pictures though, it looked like a gorgeous place. 

Other than that, it was just lots of driving in the mountains. The view was amazing, overlooking the clear blue Pacific Ocean. We passed through Big Sur, which we're traveling to tomorrow, apparently. The views should totally be worth it! Unfortunately, there's no cell service ANYWHERE, which means no music from Spotify, which means no learning songs for the musical. Oh well. I should really get to that sometime though. 

I've been to Monterey Bay/Carmel once before. That was a few years ago, when we went to San Francisco and Sunnyvale to visit my friend who had recently moved. Walking around in Carmel gave a sense of déjà vu as I remembered the experiences from that previous vacation. 

We had dinner at Mundaka, a Spanish restaurant in Carmel. I LOVE Spanish food, especially paella, so I was excited from the start. Outside, there was a paella station, complete with the huge signature flat pan. 


That picture was taken on our way out. Just looked at the rice in the pan (yes, that's rice. It's just cooked with squid ink.)! Beautiful! Though we didn't get to taste the paella from the pan, what we did have was also delicious. We had fried garbanzo beans, which tasted like little beads soaked in oil and topped with truffle salt. When I say "soaked in oil", I don't mean it grossly. I mean that it was dripping with the flavor of the oils that it was cooked it. The Crudo salad that we had was quite good, too, cutting through and cleaning the palate. The second best dish was the fidéua, a pasta dish with squid ink and clams. The ink had a creamy feel to it, though still light, making it smooth and enjoyable. The highlight of the night was definitely the paella. The saffron rice soaked up all of the seafood flavor, giving it a delightful briny taste. Since it was served right from the pan, the edges were still slightly crispy. It was the second best paella I've ever had, second only to the paella from Barcelona, Spain! 

The first day here at Monterey Bay has been a lot of fun! Hopefully tomorrow can be just as amazing! So the night ends now, with me writing another blog post. Until next time, this is Rachel Ma, and, in the words of Alton Brown, I bid you good eating.

Song I'm humming tonight: Not a Bad Thing by Justin Timberlake

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