Danish Delights

On this last trip to California, I finally made it to a place I've read about. My interest in Solvang, California was piqued by its presence on every list of top ten interesting places to visit in the Golden State. It’s always number one on the “ cute” lists. It was indeed cute, but less real than I imagined and more Disneyesque. I’m still glad I made it there.

We drove in from Los Angeles, which is not an insignificant drive. I was reminded how far it was by the fields of produce that you only see near the Central Valley. We had traveled quite a distance before I realized how far it was. It’s at least two hours north of L.A. and after the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) becomes the 101, or Ventura Hwy. We passed through Ventura, Oxnard, Montecito, and Santa Barbara before we even started thinking about Solvang.

The car was full of Fitzmorris’, so our first order of business was eating. The family has been a few times and has a favorite place to eat, recommended to me as having received a “Michelin”  nod. The place is called Coast & Range, and it is recognized in the “ casual” category, but at night it morphs into a first-class steakhouse. I was impressed with the steaks I saw in a case upon entering. They were individually cryovaked and the marbleing was beautiful.

The place inside is kitschy Bavarian, but it is charming. Booth seating lines the walls, and next to each booth is a champagne bucket for use in the evening. It would be nice to return there for that experience. Our lunch was quite different. We had kids, which is always different than dining without children. Most of the orders were kid's meals, including mine. I also had grilled artichokes. There were two salads on the table as well.

The conversation at the table revolved around LA28, the summer Olympics to be held in Los Angeles in 2 years. Jude had a 10 minute window to purchase tickets as part of a first dibs offer to Los Angeles residents. The list of events was complex and lengthy, which took some time to formulate a game plan.

The food started to arrive before the ticket purchase window. We had a kid’s steak and frites, one kid’s chicken tenders, and I got a kid’s fish and chips along with one of the kids. Two salads were for the parents, and I ordered the artichokes for the table.

It was an odd presentation, but that didn’t mean it was bad. I’ve never encountered an artichoke anything I would turn down. This was a grilled artichoke in two halves, covered with Parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs, run under the salamander, but somehow a sauce was added before the broiling, sealing in the sauce. I probably wouldn’t get this again, but it was most interesting, and the sauce was nice. Usually anything accompanying a griilled artichoke is presented as a dipping sauce, but this was a straight sauce. The bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese were toasted into a seal. Strange but tasty enough.

I loved the fish and chips, made with cod and Tempura-battered. These were strips of perfect thickness, with a nice batter. They were served with a good tartar sauce and real “chips.” These “chips came with the kid’s steak as frites, and with the kid’s tenders as fries.

The chicken tenders were nicely battered and of good quality. These were very good. The kid with the steak was thrilled with his choice, a thin piece of meat but a nice portion well-prepared. It’s the frites/fries/chips that to me were the most noteworthy thing in this spread. Cut in the kitchen, they were like real “chips” from a UK chippery, sort of thick, golden brown, crispy outside and fluffy inside, hot, and greaseless. French fry perfection. I was thrilled with the sheer amount of them, and I ate to my heart’s content. We all did, and still took some home. One of my culinary fantasies come true! One salad was a Caesar with added grilled salmon, and the other was a wedge with grilled chicken. Neither of these $30 plus salads were up to that price, in my opinion.

We left and walked around the cute little town, looking for aebleskivers, a quirky Scandinavian pancake dish that has caught the fancy of anyone who has had it. Toast, right here in our town, has the best version of these hands down, in my opinion. We tried two kinds, and neither came close to our version. At our Toast the Nutella or jam is somehow magically inside the pancake ball.

We also went to a Danish bakery that was popping with offerings, getting carried away with large, small, decorative, sprinkled, and chocolate-dipped butter cookies. 

None of these were noteworthy, except a small bag of commercially produced ones from the old country. 

They were small and crunchy and buttery and delish.

Solvang is indeed a cute destination place filled with tourists, and it is far enough outside L.A. to leave all those negatives behind. That in itself made it worth the trip. Also those fries.