This was my second trip to Carmel. The first was last summer, where I spent a weekend there, but barely getting much of a taste of all the wonders that exist. This place is like my mecca. It’s Clint Eastwood’s town. CLINT! I dreamily fantasize about running into him in his bar, Hog’s Breath Inn. One of those moments where I walk in and order a beer and glance over to see a stranger’s back right next to the framed photo from Dirty Harry. You know the one I’m talking about, with the gun pointing out and an amazing depth of field. At the moment I sit down and the stranger turns around only to reveal that it’s him! The very same Clint from that photo, side by side!
The actuality of this happening is so slim, but a girl can dream right? Anywho, Carmel is a really nice quaint place to visit. We decided to hit it up for breakfast before returning to the unending road and actually getting to San Francisco.
After walking the streets for a bit, and being completely ravished, we decided to stop at a small casual looking restaurant that boasted its freshly baked breads in the window. An obvious chose for two Italians from NY I might add. This little treasure is called La Bicyclette, a place I don’t even recognize from my adventures a year earlier. We ordered what turned out to be adorable cups of coffee in glass mugs with a whimsical handle that wanted to weave around your fingers. Cream was in a small cylinder. There was no sharing here. The little tray that it sat upon looked like some sort of art exhibit. I really enjoyed that. It’s not often I allow myself to experience pretentious coffee. I know it was pretentious because each coffee came with a mission statement. And I quote, “The cafe is where people from all walks of life, whether they are artists and writers, or business people and politicians, can come and interact freely…” Oh it goes on. It’s funny because in the moment I absolutely loved this little piece of paper. The idea that a cafe is more than just food and drink. I think it was a combination of the road and blissful vacation that skews your perspective on such things. Or maybe it was just the magic of Carmel, making it ok to leave such propaganda with each patron’s coffee. Because if I ever went to a cafe in LA that had something like this, I would spit on the floor, knock my table over and leave in a huff. Or probably something much less dramatic, but I’d be THINKING about doing those things. Regardless, I decided I was enjoying this adorable little cafe, with its adorable loaves of baked bread, and its adorable cups of coffee. It also helped that it was adorned with bowls of red onions and strings of garlic.
The menu was surprisingly small, a relief. I wanted to just close my eyes and let my finger pick something for me this morning. I settled on the quiche. Why? Because it had spinach, cheese, AND bacon. That and the other option was a baked eggs dish, which you should all remember I didn’t take well to a few months ago. If you don’t remember, check out my baked eggs post and the seething despair in those words. I digress. The quiche was a gigantic slab with crusted cheese on top. In the end it was just far too rich for me. I ended up picking through it for all the bacon (shocker) and leaving scraps that a child would have created to make it look like they ate more than they actually did. Delicious, but too much for a girl who ate an insane amount of subpar seafood the night before.
The place had a great beer and wine selection, complete with a chalkboard menu of delicious sounding pizzas. I almost wished we could stay for lunch or dinner because I was intrigued at the quality based solely on the fresh breads that were sitting next to us. Taunting us. We had to have them. And we did. But we didn’t go overboard, which was kind of amazing. We bought 4 very small bread sticks to go with the cheese we were about to buy. You know, very end of the title of this post. The Cheese.
And now we get to my real motive for the trip to Carmel. The two things I remember from the trip I took last time were amazing oysters and The Cheese Shop. I wouldn’t shut up about it. I bought 3 small wedges of cheese that I nibbled on for as long as I could. So with this trip on the horizon, I kept planting that seed to my mom. We could just ‘pass through’ and stop for cheese. Honestly, she didn’t need much convincing. After all, same genes, same love of cheese.
So at 11am we sauntered over to the plaza, down the stairs, and into The Cheese Shop. (Yes, I remembered where it was… slightly sick on my part, I’m aware.) My favorite thing about this cheese shop is that you walk in and someone is thrusting cheese at you. They don’t take no for an answer actually. We were immediately in the hands of Blake, who took very good care of us, unknowing that we would be in there for probably close to an hour. I came for the unnamed gouda, I announced. This is the cheese I remember savoring the most, never able to get enough. A taste and a wedge later we moved to the Netherlands, which had a surprising amount of fantastic cheese. Blake took us through all kinds of delicious and surprising cheeses. I honestly could have stayed there all day, shooting the shit and eating cheese, but there is only so much cheese one can eat before 12pm, so we decided to call it quits after deciding on 7 of our favorites to take with us. Like an idiot, I didn’t write any of them down, so I’m going off of memory and the cheese brochure I left with. Here goes:
- Unnamed Gouda- packed with flavor crystals! FLAVOR CRYSTALS!
- Koko, which quickly became my new favorite- a cheese from The Netherlands made with coconut milk. Those crazy kids are geniuses.
- Un- named Honey Bee- also from The Netherlands. Very mild in flavor in comparison to the other booty, but still delicious
- Noord Hollander (another from The Netherlands)- a whiskey cheese, which was the most exciting for me. Though I never did get around to trying it with a glass of scotch.
- Sharp Cheddar- can’t remember the name of this one, but he was an intense mofo. I have Old Quebec Cheddar starred on my sheet, but who knows what was going on in my cheese- cracked out mind at the time.
- Raspberry Bella Vitano- a cheddar I remember from the last go around. I had regretted not getting it, something quickly corrected this time. These cheese was about to be all up in my mouth.
- The last was a soft cheese that we devoured when we got to San Francisco, obviously because it would have gone bad. I know it wasn’t a brie because Blake made my morning with the pun he let slip out. “It’s not but it should brie.” (Puns about cheese- a man after my own heart.) I am at a loss for its name though. Fail.
We left in a daze, clutching our cheeses and ready to get back on the road. All of the other cheeses lasted back to LA. I wonder now what they would have tasted like later that day, rather than letting them sweat for 3 days before tearing into them. They sure were sweaty guys by the end. But that didn’t stop us from eating 3 very epic platters of cheese. So thank you Cheese Shop, for bringing just a little more joy into my life. Why it is I feel the need to travel 6 hours north to hit a cheese store is beyond me, but it’s always worth it.
Roaring Tiger 
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