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Author Archives: The Jab
Palm Springs Weekend
UPDATE: Since I wrote this post Lyon’s English Grille has closed permanently and the Horizon Hotel had an ownership change, was closed for extensive remodeling and has reopened as L’Horizon Resort & Spa, a more upscale and pricier hotel.
I’m going to try something different this time and post on the go, in Palm Springs! This may give the reader an impression of my typical weekend excursion.
Saturday
4:30pm – checked in to the Horizon Hotel, built in 1952 by William Cody in the modernist post and beam style with his flair of using oblique angles. The hotel was commissioned by movie producer Jack Wrather and his wife, actress Bonita Granville as a private retreat for them and their guests, and was restored into a hotel in 2004 using original plans and historic photographs. I love this adults-only hotel but prefer its original name, L’Horizon. Of course!
William Cody aka “Wild Bill” designed many other important buildings in Palm Springs, including residences for Walt Disney and Frank Sinatra and commercial buildings such as the Del Marcos Hotel (still open, and highly recommended) and the Huddle Springs Restaurant (sadly demolished in 1991 for a proposed hotel that wasn’t even built).
Huddle Springs Restaurant, William Cody, 1957 – photo by Palm Springs Preservation Foundation
Lord Fletcher’s – image by The Jab
6:00pm – dinner at Lord Fletcher’s (sometimes called Lord Fletcher Inn) in Rancho Mirage. Opened in 1966, it was the first restaurant on what is now called Restaurant Row on California highway 111. The restaurant is filled with antiques, art, bric-à-brac, and artifacts in the Olde English style, all collected by Ron Fletcher in England. The restaurant is still in the same family, now run by Mike Fletcher, Ron’s son.
image by The Jab
There are three rooms: the pub, with a fireplace and a large collection of Toby character mugs, the main dining room, which shares the fireplace with the pub, and the Shakespearean dining room that is decorated with dozens of 200-year-old etchings depicting scenes from Shakespeare’s works. The restaurant is jammed full of things to look at, in the best way possible, and there is nothing new or tacky to distract the eye (apart from a small TV behind the bar). No mini white lights – thank goodness!; all the lighting appears to date back to the 1960s.
main dining room, Lord Fletcher’s – image by The Jab
Shakespearean room, Lord Fletcher’s – image by The Jab
The menu is what you would expect from an Olde English restaurant – meat and fish dishes prepared in the classic way. Their specialty is prime rib of beef, which comes in two ways: the Lord’s Cut without a bone (about one pound of meat!) and the King’s Cut, served with the bone. For serving the dishes come out with covers and are placed on folding trays and served – a nice touch that you don’t see in restaurants very often anymore. Entrees come with homemade soup or salad, tossed tableside.
Lord’s cut of prime rib w/Yorkshire pudding, spinach and creamed horseradish – image by The Jab
The sand dabs Queen Anne sounded enticing, but I had to try the prime rib, which was excellent. The spinach was not creamed style so it was a bit dry, but I mixed in a little creamed horseradish and voilà! The potato leek soup I had was very delicious and served piping hot. Also excellent was the house made bread served with a large ramekin filled with butter. The service was very good. I asked for more au jus and was promptly served a large sauce-boat of it. They have several Fuller English ales available in the bottle. Perfect accompaniment to prime rib. Try to save room for the rice pudding, made in-house daily.
fireplace, Lord Fletcher’s – image by The Jab
Sunday
view from my patio at Horizon Hotel – image by The Jab
9:00am – complementary continental breakfast (Le Continental breakfast, if you please!) on patio outside room (pic above is the view from the patio).
1:00pm – brunch at The Tropicale, a newish restaurant that has been decorated in a great swanky 1950s tropical style. And it has terrific food to boot. Lucy and Ricky Ricardo would have felt right at home here!
5:00pm – Martinis poolside by the fire pit at the Horizon Hotel!
7:00pm – pre-dinner cocktail at Lyons English Grille. This Olde English restaurant was opened in 1945 by the Lyons family. David Lyons is owner, and to my knowledge has been since the opening! Jeff Lyons is the manager. Previous co-owner Arthur Lyons, a successful writer of crime novels and nonfiction, member of the Palm Springs City Council, and co-founder of the Palms Springs Film Noir Festival, passed away in 2008.
UPDATE – Lyons English Grill closed in 2014 and was gutted of its Old English decor (except for in the foyer), reopening as Mr. Lyons in 2015.
entrance to Lyons – image by The Jab
Similar to Lord Fletcher’s in decor, but perhaps a bit more “over the top”, and I mean that in a good way. Coats of arms, heraldic flags, suits of armor, large stained glass portraits and scenes, art, Toby mugs, and much bric-à-brac. Much of the decor was collected by David Lyons, who is originally from England.
main dining room at Lyons – image by The Jab
There is the main dining room of large vinyl booths and tables, and the piano bar dining room with wonderful sparkly red vinyl high-backed chairs and red vinyl booths. Tuxedo-jacketed, bow-tied waiters will be at your service in either room.
Bar dining room at Lyons – image by The Jab
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to dine there this time. The menu is mainly hearty English fare prepared classically, such as prime rib and steak that are aged on the premises. The prices are less expensive than Lord Fletcher’s, so it’s a good choice if you are on a budget (they offer early bird specials nightly) or if Lord Fletcher’s is closed (Sundays and Mondays). But you should try to visit both, as they are equally wonderful in atmosphere. If I had time I would have tried the aged New York Steak at Lyons since I had prime rib at Lord Fletcher’s.
Sir Winston Churchill – image by The Jab
8:00pm – My favorite restaurant and bar in Palm Springs is Melvyn’s, a place I dined at on my second visit to Palm Springs in 2000. Melvyn’s originally opened in 1975 at the Ingleside Inn, which was built as a private estate in the 1920s and later became a small inn that catered to an exclusive clientele of movie stars, politicians, and prominent businesspeople. Melvyn Haber, a businessman from New York, purchased the Ingleside Inn in 1975, restoring it and opening Melvyn’s restaurant and the Casablanca lounge and piano bar. Since that time the inn has again hosted celebrities and politicians.
image by David Lansing (davidlansing.com)
Melvyn’s is a fine dining restaurant with elegant decor and atmosphere. It is dark and soothing – the perfect amount of light, day or night, as there are no windows in the dining room I was seated in. There are four dining rooms: the Ruth Hardy Room, the Garden Room, the Carrie Birge Room, and the Renaissance Room, where Sinatra used to dine, and where I dined on this visit. I didn’t want to bother other diners with a flash so my picture is pretty dark.
Renaissance Room – image by The Jab
The menu at Melvyn’s is true Continental, and quite extensive. They offer several dishes that are prepared tableside, some that are flambéed (steak Diane, steak au poivre, bananas flambé, cherries jubilee, and crepes Suzette). Steak Diane was Sinatra’s favorite, and it has long been a favorite of mine, since my mom made it for our family back in the 1960s. The classic version: thin beef tenderloin medallions, sautéed in butter, with a simple pan sauce of shallots, mustard, and a demi-glace, flambéed with brandy. Melvyn’s also adds Worcestershire sauce and garlic, which is fine with me. No mushrooms, thank you very much.
steak Diane tableside – image by The Jab
The service was wonderful. Attentive, gracious, and friendly. It was easy to strike up a conversation with my veteran waiter. He notified me that in Palm Springs it is impossible to open a new restaurant with flambéed dishes these days as it is illegal to do so! Only old places like Melvyn’s can continue to serve flaming food. Such a shame! It makes me appreciate such places all the more. I think the Iron Gate in Belmont is the last restaurant left in the Bay Area that serves flambéed dishes (since Buena Vista closed)!
After your dinner at Melvyn’s be sure and visit the famous piano bar the Casablanca Lounge for after dinner drinks and dancing.
One final tip: people eat early in Palm Springs (at least in the older restaurants), so plan accordingly. Lyons English Grille offers early bird specials nightly except Tuesdays from 4:30-6:30pm.
Lord Fletcher’s
70385 California 111, Rancho Mirage, CA 92270
(760) 328-1161
Open Tues-Sat 4:30pm-8:30pm, closed Sun-Mon
Lyons English Grille
233 E Palm Canyon Dr, Palm Springs, CA 92264
(760) 327-1551
Open Mon-Sun 4:30pm-10:00pm, closed Tuesday
Melvyn’s
200 W Ramon Rd, Palm Springs, CA 92264
(760) 325-2323
Open Mon-Fri – lunch 11:30am-3:00pm, dinner 6:00pm-11:00pm
Sat-Sun – brunch 9:00am-3:00pm, dinner 6:00pm-11:00pm
Jake’s Famous Crawfish, Portland, Oregon
On my first visit to Portland (that started my love affair with the city) in the 1990s the first place I remember eating at was Jake’s Famous Crawfish. We stayed in the venerable Mark Spencer Hotel, only a block from Jake’s, so when we saw their neon sign we knew where we wanted to eat (without the help of smart phones or online reviews).
photo by The Jab, 2013
We were very pleased with the food, atmosphere, and service. As I recall our veteran waiter was from San Francisco, where he had worked at the Blue Fox until it closed in 1993 (now Alfred’s Steakhouse). Since then I found out that Jake’s is owned by a large chain, McCormick & Schmick’s, and I also learned that it’s mainly a tourist place that few locals visit, with so many other better choices in the food scene in Portland in the last ten years. But it will always have a place in my heart, as a warm & comfortable historic landmark that serves great fresh local seafood (if one orders with savvy).
image by Citroendork on Flickr.com
Jake’s Famous Crawfish opened in its current location in 1911 in the Whitney & Gray Building (1910), making it Portland’s second oldest restaurant, after Huber’s, which dates back to 1895 using my guidelines. It opened as a saloon that served crawfish called Mueller and Meier, which had existed in a previous location since 1892.. In 1913 the name changed to the Mueller and Meier Cafe, staying open through Prohibition by switching to soft drink service. In 1920 the restaurant was purchased by Jacob “Jake” Frieman, a popular waiter in a local crawfish restaurant called Quelle, who was responsible for the restaurant’s good reputation as a seafood house (and I assume when it started being called Jake’s). The restaurant went through several ownership changes until 1972, when it was purchased by William “Bill” McCormick, who hired Doug Schmick as his manager. The pair would later form the restaurant corporation McCormick and Schmick’s.
Jake’s bar. Image by mondodinner.com
As you enter Jake’s you come to the hostess stand. On your left is the bar (the back bar was shipped around Cape Horn in 1880), where seating is unreserved so it is a good backup plan if there is a long wait for the dining rooms (and there often is). The room is fine for dining with wooden tables and chairs in front of large windows overlooking the street and full menu table service by a waiter. But if you want a more formal dining experience you may prefer to eat in the dining room on surrounded by dark woods and oil paintings of Northwest scenes, lit by chandeliers that date back to 1881.
image by http://anadventurouspalate.tumblr.com
The menu changes daily and features listed at the top various fresh Northwest seafood specialties of the day, including several oyster varieties (all have location of origin). When crawfish is in season during the months of May through September do not miss their crawfish specialties. Among the scads of seafood dishes they have a few steak and other meat dishes. On my most recent visit I had grilled steelhead (an anadromous – spawns in freshwater after living in the ocean – rainbow trout) from Washington. It was moist, tender, and perfectly cooked, served in a basil-butter sauce. The prices are pretty high, as in all quality seafood restaurants in the west (not like in Florida, where super fresh seafood can be inexpensive).
But as in most restaurants and bars in Portland there is a bargain happy hour every day of the week, and late at night on Friday and Saturday! Another reason I love Portland: happy hours are long, usually every day, and offer better deals than in the Bay Area (where $1 off drinks from 5pm-6pm M-F is the norm – big whoop). Bars have to serve food in Portland so it’s a great town for drinking but not getting too loaded!
Here’s a clip from Elvis’ best movie, King Creole:
Jake’s Famous Crawfish
401 SW 12th Ave., Portland, OR 97205
Phone: 503.226.1419
Open M-Th 11:30AM-10:00PM, Fri-Sat 11:30AM-12:00AM, Sun 3:00PM-10:00PM
Huber’s Café, Portland, Oregon
Since Thanksgiving Day is almost upon us and I just returned from one of my favorite cities in the U.S., Portland, it’s a good time to feature Huber’s Café, Portland’s oldest restaurant.
Huber’s Café claims to be in operation since 1879. But does it really go back that far?
There are three important factors when looking at a claim of oldest restaurant in any place: the name, the owner(s), and the location. In my opinion, if all three factors change several times it is unreasonable to claim that it is the same restaurant. However, if one or two of these factors remains unchanged over the years then it is close enough to being the same restaurant. In the case of Huber’s, the name has remained the same since 1895, it has existed in the current location since 1910, and the management has been in the same family since 1912, so it is reasonable to claim that the restaurant originated in 1895, but not in 1879. However, that still makes it Portland’s oldest restaurant.
Another restaurant in Portland that sometimes makes the claim to be the oldest restaurant in town, Jake’s Famous Crawfish, says it originated in 1892, but its current location opened in 1911, became Jake’s in 1920 through a change in ownership, and has been through several more ownership changes, most recently by the McCormick & Schmick chain in 1972. So by my rules it dates back to 1911, not 1892.
Huber’s dining room entrance. Image by The Jab, 2013.
Huber’s History
Frank Huber started working as a bartender at the Bureau Saloon (established in 1879) at First and Morrison streets in 1884. He took over ownership in 1888 and hired a Chinese cook named Jim Louie in 1891. In 1895 Huber opened Huber’s bar on Washington Street, with Louie as the cook. In 1910 Huber’s moved to its present location in the Pioneer Building, formerly the Railway Exchange Building. Jim Louie took over management of the bar when Frank Huber died in 1912, and converted it into a restaurant when Prohibition was enacted. In 1941 Jim’s nephew Andrew joined as the Louie family entered into joint ownership with the Huber family. Upon Jim’s passing away in 1946, Andrew took over management, and became sole owner in 1952. Impressively, the Louie family are still owners of Huber’s.
Huber’s classic wooden booths. Image by The Jab, 2013.
The main bar and dining room are accessed via a long hallway from the main 3rd street entrance (I recommend you avoid the newer bar area’s entrance to the left). The room features mahogany wood paneling, tile floors, a beautiful arched ceiling with massive stained glass skylights, and wrought iron lamps, all dating back to the 1911 opening.
Image by The Jab, 2013.
Jim Louie. Image by Menuism.com
Let’s talk turkey! Jim Louie started featuring turkey dinners with all the trimmings at Huber’s back in the 19th Century (check out the oil painting of Jim in the restaurant), and it’s still a specialty today along with turkey sandwiches, turkey gumbo, turkey piccata, marsala, and cordon bleu, as well as turkey drumsticks and wings. They also serve a great sliced ham dinner, or you can get a combination turkey/ham dinner, which is what I had on my recent visit. The turkey was moist and tender and the ham was also very tasty. I liked the sage dressing and mashed potatoes but the vegetables were a bit undercooked.
Turkey dinner at Huber’s. Image by Menuism.com
Another specialty at Huber’s is Spanish Coffee, a sweet blend of Bacardi 151, triple sec, Kahlua, and coffee, made tableside with plenty of flame and flair, and topped with whipped cream and nutmeg. It was developed in the 1970s by James Kai Louie, Andrew Louie’s son, but one online source claims he got the idea from the Fernwood Inn in Milwaukee.
Huber’s Café, where every day is Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving to you, dear readers!
Huber’s Café
411 SW 3rd Ave., Portland, OR 97204
503-228-5686
Open Mon-Th 11:30am – 10pm (bar open until midnight), Fri-Sat 11:30am-11pm (bar until 1am), Sun 4pm-10pm
The Iron Door, Johnsville, California
Every fall I like to do a long weekend drive into the mountains of Northern California to see the fall colors. If timed right there are some areas that rival anything back east or in the Rockies, such as massive groves of aspen turning gold in front of dramatic snow-crowned mountain peaks. My favorite areas for fall color are the eastern Sierra along U.S. 395 and the surrounding roads, such as the spectacular June Lake Loop highway, and the Feather River Canyon from Oroville to Portola in Plumas County. This year I went with some friends back to the Feather River route (we previously went together in 2010), but this time instead of starting in Oroville to a base in Quincy this time we started in the overdeveloped gold country towns of Grass Valley & Nevada City, heading northeast on scenic highway 49 through sparsely populated Sierra County (pop. 3,240 and only one traffic light) to the hidden Lakes Basin, then on to Portola to spend the night. The next day we drove to Quincy and down the beautiful Feather River Canyon.
image by http://www.fromvalerieskitchen.com
Along highway 70 between Quincy and Portola lies the charming small town of Graegle, which used to be a company town for the Graegle Lumber Company, a box manufacturer for the California Fruit Exchange in the 1920s through the mid-1950s. The town consists of several small red houses from the company town (some converted to businesses), the friendly Knotty Pine Tavern, a few motels and cabins, and, surprisingly, three golf courses. It makes a great base for exploring the Lakes Basin Recreation area nearby, a beautiful mini-Sierras of cragged peaks and dozens of lakes. Nearby to Greagle is the tiny town of Johnsville and its only business, the Iron Door restaurant.
Placemat art at Iron Door. Image by Joel E. on Yelp.com.
In 1951 gold was discovered on the slopes of Eureka Peak in Plumas County. Johnsonville was founded in 1876 at the base of the peak to house and cater to the growing mining population. The building that is now the Iron Door was built in 1906 and served as a general store and post office, but the mine closed in the 1940s (some of the mine’s artifacts, buildings, and equipment are preserved in the interesting Plumas Eureka State Park next to Johnsonville). In 1961 the Iron Door restaurant opened; and it remains in the same historic building (the only commercial building left in the small town). When entering the restaurant you pass the bar on your left and then enter the main dining room, a large room with an open ceiling of beams and rafters and a floor of pine. The room is filled with antiques and artifacts, making for a cozy, homey atmosphere, and giving you plenty to look at when nature calls. Be sure to look at the longboard skis on display above the bar. In 1853 a Norwegian miner introduced longboard skiing to the region and in 1861 the miners on Eureka Peak started the first downhill ski competition in the western hemisphere! Every winter longboard ski races are still held by the Plumas Ski Club, with the skiers wearing period attire. Our waitress told us that she even participated in the race, and that you reach very high speeds because you have to go straight down the mountain!
The menu at the Iron Door consists of steak, seafood, German schnitzel, and pasta dishes, with some daily specials such as veal piccata. Everything is house made and delicious. I went with a steak, which was tender, flavorful, and done perfectly. After dinner we tried the house “Johnsville special” dessert of vanilla ice cream, crème de menthe, and Ovaltine sprinkled on top, served in a parfait glass. It sounds strange but it was good! And it was old-fashioned, which I always appreciate.
I cheated and took a bite before taking the picture! Image by The Jab.
The Iron Door is only open in May-October and is very popular among locals and visitors-in-the-know so it’s best to make a reservation. And go early (they have a lovely bar for that before dinner cocktail) because most small towns in the mountains roll up the rugs at around 9:00 or 10:00. Although I like fall best, the Plumas County area is also great in the spring and summer. There are some nice lakes and the fishing reportedly is some of the best in the state. The area is much less crowded than the mountains south of I-80. Just don’t tell everyone. Let’s keep it our little secret, OK?
Here are some fall color shots I took on this trip and last year in the Eastern Sierra. See you next fall, fellow leaf peepers!
Walker River Canyon, CA, Oct. 2012. Image by The Jab.
La Porte Road, Plumas County, Oct. 2013. Image by The Jab.
June Lake Loop, Oct. 2012. Image by The Jab.
Convict Lake, Oct. 2012. Image by The Jab.
The Iron Door
5417 Main Street, Johnsville, CA, 96103
530-836-2376
Open from May until the last Sunday in October, Wed through Mon 5pm – 9pm
