The Perenn Trap

After an arduous day of flying, ML and I met up in Reno, the gateway to our Tahoe and Napa adventure. I have never had even the slightest desire to go to Reno. It always seemed to me to be a poor man’s Vegas, and perhaps it is. But it seemed pretty fabulous to us on this first visit.

We drove around downtown mouths agape, silent except for exclamations of delight. Unfortunately there was another one of those classic car parades seemingly everywhere, but these were not the hillbilly version in Biloxi. These were drop-dead gorgeous cars of all eras filled with proud families out for an evening adventure in perfect summer evening in the mountains weather. The desert air had cooled and I was reminded of my time spent in Arizona in my young adulthood. It was great to be back in my beloved west.

The car rental people advised us that we shouldn’t take the mountain and its hairpin turns at night, so we skipped dinner after riding all around and headed to Tahoe by way of Truckee. A few miles from the village we saw a little shopping area lit with festive lights and pulled in to get some water. A place called Truckee Brewery was part of this settlement, so we popped in to see what was there to eat. The food on the tables looked really good, so we asked for a menu.

There was a big wood pizza oven next to the bar where pizzas were baked using Truckee Sourdough “OO” for the crust, which was New York Style-crust and regular mozzarella. We ordered a wedge salad and  a pepperoni pizza. 

With no intention of eating it all, we ate it all. I particularly enjoyed the wedge which was plated nicely in a small lake of great buttermilk dressing. There were pecans and lots of tomatoes and great smoky bacon bits that were larger than most and best of all, pickled onions that reminded me of the kind my mom put on white beans when I was growing up. These had the exact same flavor, and are what really excited me about this salad.

The pizza was terrific, with its sourdough New York-stule crust, a very generous amount of that pepperoni that curls at the edges and lots of mozzarella cheese.

We left that settlement at about 10pm and went in search of our hotel,  a motel-turned-hip inn circa 2025, and I loved this place. Decorated with rugs and skis and rough wooden doors, it’s fun to reimagine spaces like this. And it was close to the lake. 

But mountain air is chilly, so we didn’t attempt the lake until the afternoon. The next morning we headed back to Reno to have another less hurried look, starting with bakeries, (of course.) We went first to a development called Rancharra, built on the property that was a mansion for casino mogul Harrah before the land was “repurposed” into a beautiful development of shops and open spaces used for concerts and evening festivals.

The bakery was called Perenn, and this was their second location. The first was in town. Out here by the mountains it was calmer and quieter, and the outdoor space was lovely. We sat there of course, but not before vexing about what to get from a very large menu of outstanding looking items.

I chose a “Seasonal Twist” and a stuffed sourdough baguette. There were two kinds: a vegetarian and a ham and bacon. I wound up getting both because they brought me the wrong one at first. I wanted the ham and bacon, of course, and the vegetarian one included mushrooms, which killed it for ML. And the kind of mushrooms “mushrooms“ means here is oyster mushrooms, which even I find pretty unpalatable. I am always eager to eat immunity-boosting mushrooms, but oyster mushrooms are tough for me.

ML got a breakfast sandwich, which was a tidy little bundle of buttery housemade seeded wheat bread as bookends for a square of scrambled eggs and a little melted cheddar with terrific bacon cooked stiff like we like it.

My seasonal “twist” was a light puff pastry with a dollop of goat cheese in the middle and a generous amount of everything bagel seasoning and seeds.

And for dessert we got a bouchon and a chocolate chip cookie.

We moved on from Perenn to another bakery because ML wanted to see what they were doing. It is called Beloved Bakery and is more in the city of Reno than Perenn on the outskirts of town. It was Sunday morning so there was a lot in the case. Of particular interest to her was an heirloom tomato tart with a basil leaf and a pesto base inside what she considered to be an expertly made puff pastry. Cross- lamination is the mark of real croissant-making skill, and everything in there was cross-laminated. She was powerfully impressed. I wanted to get the chorizo sourdough baguette but I just couldn’t do it. Too much. Everything at both bakeries had a quality that thrills me: it IS as good as it looks. 

Here’s the only problem with pastries in bakeries. They should be warmed when they are purchased. To not do this cuts down greatly on the enjoyment of the purchaser. Unfortunately, the lines at both these places prohibited such extra steps. Truthfully, most of these pastries were consumed hours later on a gigantic rock right off the shore of Lake Tahoe. For most of the day they hung in a bag from a broken branch of a tree that had fallen in the lake. Poor Charlie and his two poodle compatriots were tortured by the bag as they spent the day at the beach with their owners. We finally went to get the bag and moved to the big rock, trying not to trip in the sand and fall with lunch. We made it and had sort of a picnic. 

The vegetarian one had roasted tomato, basil and those gnarly oyster mushrooms intertwined with the sourdough and some cheese.

The bacon and cheese baguette was also chewy in its room temp state. In a situation like this though, they were still sensational.

The chocolate chip cookie hit the spot for Ml, who loves gooey melted chocolate chips. The brutal sun was happy to oblige. And the bouchon I had also had melted pockets of chocolate inside what was almost a crusty perimeter. The dense dark chocolate was very nice, especially with the light dusting of powdered sugar.

We went back to both bakeries the following day to try more things. This time I got the American breakfast, which was two perfectly cooked eggs and some crispy, thick, and smoky bacon. I got breakfast potatoes which ML had been eyeing the previous day. And some of that wheat toast came with this ensemble.

I loved everything on that plate, but the breakfast potatoes were sublime. They were fried to perfection and hot, with skin that separated from the potato very nicely. This bowl of crispy delights was served with a dill aioli that was irresistible. ML got another breakfast sandwich and another chocolate chip cookie, this time with walnut chunks added. I was happy when my navigator told me she was tired of flaky pastries. It was time to move on.

For dinner that evening we went to another adorable Gold Rush town. Truckee is on all the lists of California towns to see. It is about a four block long stretch of old buildings that are now restaurants and shops. A lot of the menus were similar. (They love their pizza here.)

We were a little wasted from treading water for three hours straight in the brutal sun and frigid Alpine lake temps, bookend by a steep hike through the woods to and from the shore. 

A small Caesar and a skillet of deliciously creamy and cheesy mac’n’cheese at Old Town Tap hit the spot. We left and went right to bed.