For the last leg of our trip, we stayed a night in Solvang.  On the way there, we stopped for lunch in Los Alamos at Bell Street Farm.  After reading their five star Yelp! reviews, we had to check it out.  It is close to the highway, in the middle of seemingly nowhere.  You order at the counter, from a friendly man in a cowboy hat.

We ordered two sandwiches: rotisserie pork: “hot and crispy pork belly-wrapped shoulder on ciabatta,
apple and jicama slaw, house mayo and pickled onions” and country grilled cheese & rosemary ham: “Bravo farms white cheddar cheese and framani rosemary ham on multi grain bread with whole-grain mustard”.

These were not cheap sandwiches, but the quality of ingredients was there.  It will be interesting to see if the rest of the area starts to follow suit with its “farm-to-table-hipster” vibe. 

After riding the surrey, we hung around Cannery Row for a little bit. 

The kids pretended to be statutes…

…and found a nice place for a tete-a-tete.

Next we went to Fisherman’s Wharf.  We stopped at a café, where “spill #2” occurred, this time courtesy of k.  Thankfully, no change of clothes was necessary this time.

We met up with Uncle Simon’s family for lunch at Old Fisherman’s Grotto.  This was probably our most impressive food highlight of the trip.  We were seated in the upstairs room, which felt semi-private, and had a nice view. 

This is Auntie Jackie’s niece from Taiwan, who is visiting the United States for one month, as a high school graduation gift.  She seems to really like kids!

Everything was excellent, with ample portions, as you can see.

In the afternoon we went to the shoreline on 17 mile drive.  It was breathtakingly beautiful, as always.

We ended up at Vito’s, in Pacific Grove for dinner.  The kids love the bread there, and you can’t go wrong with the pasta.

We decided to skip the Monterey Aquarium this time around and rented a surrey instead.  The kids enjoyed it and we had a nice leg workout.  Only n was able to sit in the front basket, but k enjoyed being in between mom and dad.  n rang the bell as a warning for others to stay out of our way!

On our way back to the rental shop, we ran into D’s brother, who was on his way to the Aquarium.  He was able to take a picture of all of us.

If you look close, you can see the seals on the beach.  Again, the overcast weather felt very nice.

On Friday morning we went to Katy’s Place for late breakfast/early lunch.  This place is popular, and we had to wait around 25 minutes.  A six year old girl started chatting up k during the wait.  D’s dad said it gained popularity when Jessica Simpson ate breakfast there with her dog.  Interesting.

It was chilly in Carmel, which was actually a nice change from the hot weather in the Bay Area.

For the kids, they had those water games that used to be really popular.  I thought that was a nice change from the usual crayons.  With all seriousness, n told me, “Mommy, put this in your purse.”  I had to explain to him that we had to leave them for other kids to play with.

The restaurant is known for eggs benedict, so we had to try it out.  The sauce was quite luscious and the eggs were perfectly poached.  What do they do with all of the extra egg whites?

They make egg white omelets, of course.  This was packed with veggies, and made us feel a little less guilty about indulging in the eggs benedict. 

Note: This place is cash only, and not inexpensive, so don’t be caught off-guard!

As usual, we ate a lot of good food during our trip.  For July 4th dinner we ate with D’s brother’s family at Saigon, a Chinese restaurant in Newark.  Everything was tasty, but we were especially impressed with the sea bass.

So buttery!  It was served with a side of butter, but I could not imagine adding more butter to the rich-tasting fish.

After sleeping over in Fremont, we headed to Bitter + Sweet to visit D’s cousin and his wife.  Here is cousin Ian helping out behind the counter.

Janice blends in so well with her café!

I tried the red velvet latte, which is their “specialty” drink.  Very nice—not too sweet, and smooth.  So pretty, too!  We ordered a hot chocolate for the kids, but unfortunately n spilled almost the whole cup—onto the table, k’s dress, shoes, and the floor.  Turns out this was only the beginning of a chain of multiple spills over the weekend.  At least the drink was not too hot so no one was injured.

We’re back from a trip to the Bay Area/Central Coast and just starting to recover.  Our trip began on the 4th of July, when we drove to Newark to visit our friends that have 10 month old twin girls.  This was our first time meeting them, and they were quite the charmers.  So good-natured and fun to play with!  Dave fired up the barbecue and grilled some delicious hamburgers, rounded out with Janelle’s macaroni salad, watermelon, jello and cupcakes for dessert.