ADVENTURES FAR FROM HOME: The Best Complimentary Hotel Breakfasts

You kind of feel like you're getting away with something when your hotel feeds you for free. It's also nice just to slip downstairs to eat and come back up to the room to get ready for the day without having to leave the building. A one or two minute commute from the room to the lobby is so nice and timesaving too.

Some hotels barely make an effort with a few pieces of fruit, some pre-packaged pastries, and coffee but others with fill you full of good, hearty food to tackle the day.

We're going to reveal our favorites but first a few honorable mentions. These chains offer full breakfasts, good food, but don't quite go the extra mile to make it special.

Embassy Suites
Drury Inn
Springhill Suites
Homewood Suites

Now on to the top-of-the-line hotels that really call to us at breakfast time.

5. Charter Inn and Suites is in the Central Valley town of Tulare, California. It's not a place too many go to for a weekend getaway but it is within driving distance to several places like the giant ice cream sundaes of Hanford or the giant trees in Sequoia National Park.  It's also one of the best hotels along Highway 99 and includes a great, hot buffet in their cozy library room.

4. Sure Stay Hotel, Bakersfield, California sits next door to the Crystal Palace, the country music club built by Buck Owens. You can still see the Buckaroos play there almost every Friday and Saturday night by just taking a few steps out the front door of this hotel. When you do, you'll walk by the onsite diner where you'll be able to order anything off of their menu in the morning for free. You might want to keep Sunday morning open, though. The Crystal Palace does a Sunday brunch that will blow your socks (and diet) off. That one's not free though.

3. Hotel Vi Vadi in Munich, Germany, is one of those hotels that have an arrangement with the next door restaurant. It's pretty common to find breakfast included in your room rate in Germany.  Here, the Italian restaurant next door puts out a nice spread of eggs, meats, pastries and more served in a very nice dining room with an assist from the waiters there. I found myself wanting to wake up early to take advantage of this great breakfast.

2. Best Western Station Inn, South Lake Tahoe, California, is another with an onsite restaurant.  Instead of a buffet, you are waited on and given a special menu with seven breakfast options like pancake combos, bacon 'n eggs, biscuits and gravy, and much more. Service is very good and afterward you still don't have to drive anywhere. The casinos, beach, and lift to Heavenly Valley are all only a block away.

1. The Buccaneer Hotel, Christiansted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, is not an all inclusive resort but they do include breakfast at a spectacular 40 foot long buffet. You can also order anything cooked to order from the kitchen and enjoy it while chatting with the friendly staff on their open-air veranda overlooking their beach in the Caribbean. The best complimentary hotel breakfast we've ever had.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

CLASSIC TRIP - Yosemite Ski Trip, California 1998

This report is dedicated to the late Nic Fiore, a legend in Yosemite, who taught over 100,000 people to ski during his 50+ years at Yosemite, including the day described below...

How about a ski trip? Yes, you can do it if you're in a wheelchair.  To prove it, we present a ski trip we took back in 1998.  Enjoy...

It's February and El Nino has finally hit as advertised. We have received over a year's worth of rain in just this one month.

The month has also started off gloomy with two people we know passing on and a million things to do with little time to do them. We're wet...we're depressed...we need a vacation.

  Luckily, the second half of the month perks up with Tim's birthday and our wedding anniversary. To celebrate, we decide to head back up to visit with Jon and Lois Moroni at their great bed and breakfast, the Restful Nest, up in Mariposa.

Are we tempting fate in this extra wet month? The weather reports for the area don't hold a lot of promise as the anticipated President's Day weekend is upon us.


Crossing our fingers, we load up our tire chains, cold weather clothes, and skis and head on up. To tempt fate even further we left at 3:00pm on Friday, February 13th.

The good weather in L.A. held up until we reached the summit of Tejon Pass (the Grapevine) where we promptly hit wind and rain. The rain stayed with us the rest of the way to Mariposa.

We stopped for a quick bite to eat at the In 'n Out in Fresno and to gas up before heading into the hills. Those hills were a gorgeous emerald green. It was not hard to think we had somehow been magically transported over to Ireland. Arrival in Mariposa was at 8:30pm.

Casey the Wonder Pooch

Jon, Lois, and their black lab Casey greeted us on arrival with a hot bowl of soup and a glass of wine. After exchanging greetings and catching up a little bit from our last trip, we unpacked into our room and went to bed.

Saturday dawned with even more rain. Lois cooked up a superb breakfast that included fresh fruit, bacon, eggs, waffles, muffins, and homemade rolls. This was washed down with some great hot coffee and fresh orange juice.

Today, we headed up to Yosemite Valley. It's about 40 miles from the B & B to the valley floor. The rain made even the tiniest of creeks into raging rivers of muddy water. Driving up the Merced River gorge towards Yosemite, we easily saw a hundred waterfalls...literally at each bend in the road.

The level of the river stayed below last year's flood levels. Once in the valley we saw numerous signs pointing out the high point of last year's flood...a level that was at least 3 feet above our heads!

Although it was still raining in Yosemite Valley, there was plenty of snow on the ground. This made for some seriously cold, wet, and slushy conditions. Determined to make the best of it, we drove a loop around the valley before settling down a bit at the store in Yosemite Village.

From there we took a walk over to Yosemite Falls on one of the few clear paths the wheelchair could take that day. Tim had a ball doing power slides through the patches of snow on the pavement.

Even in this wet and cold weather, Yosemite loses none of its majesty. The falls were spectacular and the walk nice but wet. We came back to the village and decided to do the rest of our sightseeing that day from the comfort of our heated auto. On the way out we pulled over to snap this picture of a coyote walking along the shoulder of the road.

Back in Mariposa, we stumbled onto the neighborhood herd of deer...who graciously posed for our camera...

That evening...being Valentine's Day...the Moroni's made a sumptious dinner for the inn's guest which had grown to include a race car driver and his wife from Newark, a policeman and his family from Vacaville, and another couple from Mill Valley.

The Restful Nest

Jon served a dinner of homemade French onion soup, salad, and stuffed shells. It was very good and very filling. Certainly we were not going to be losing any weight this weekend.

After dinner, the two couples went to the inn's spa while we family types retired to our rooms to watch videos and the olympics.

After another huge breakfast on Sunday, we headed back up to Yosemite. Today, the weather had cleared and we headed up to Badger Pass for an afternoon of skiing.

Nic Fiore, a young-at-heart 76 year old ski instructor at Badger Pass, had arranged for Tim to spend the afternoon skiing with one of the resort's instructors in a sit-ski. Fiore, who just celebrated his 50th anniversary at the resort, operates one of just 4 complete adaptive ski programs in California here at this little ski area located above the valley floor.

We met Tim's instructor, Jerry, who outfitted him with his equipment and took off with him for some serious slope time. This left my wife and myself with the afternoon to ourselves to explore the slopes of this mountain.

While small...the vertical from top to bottom is a mere 800 feet (you can see the entire mountian in the top photo)...the conditions were perfect and the uncrowded slopes gave us a lot of time to explore. The Pass was a comfortable if not exactly challenging place to ski.

The only downside to this day was having to put on tire chains to climb up the road to the ski area. Nic and his crew made sure Tim had the time of his life and in doing so also allowed his mother and I to have a good time as well.

Coming back down to the valley, we stop at Tunnel View to snap this picture of the view that just floored us.

Back down the mountain we went with a stop at the Pizza Factory in Mariposa for dinner. The food was good here but the kid with the ear-piercing scream was a bit much (note to the kid's parents: once maybe an accident and cute but to keep egging the kid on should be cause for criminal action!).

On arrival at the inn, we soaked our weary muscles in the hot spa...sipping a glass of good California Sangiovese while marveling at the millions of stars over our heads.

After sleeping like logs we had one more giant breakfast and spent some time in conversation with Lois while Tim played fetch with Casey. One more walk down to the inn's pond and one last breath of the fresh mountain air and then time to head home.

Another weekend in God's country leaves us with our spirits healed and ready to face another day of reality.

-Darryl
Copyright 1998

BREAKFAST: Classic Buttermilk Pancakes

So far on this blog, we've had a recipe for 49'r flapjacks (our favorite) and the Maui Jim pancakes, a good, no-baking-powder recipe. Both are great but sometimes you want the classic.

Here it is, just the basic buttermilk pancake recipe. And it's delicious.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons melted butter
Ghee (clarified butter)

Whisk all ingredients, except for the ghee, into a bowl.

I have a batter dispenser that I got from Amazon.  You can ladle in the mix but I use the dispenser.

On a hot, flat griddle, brush on a thin layer of ghee.

Put three or four 4 inch disks of batter on the grill. When slightly brown around the edges and bubbly in the middle, flip over. Cook until golden brown on each side.

Put the finished pancakes on a covered plate until all are done.

Makes 10-12 pancakes.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

BREAKFAST: Huevos para la Reina

The name simply translates into Eggs for the Queen and is a quick, little breakfast I made for my wife on Mother's Day.

A bit chilaquiles, a bit chorizo and eggs, a tasty treat served in a crown makes a protein rich way to start the day.

I came  up with this by rummaging through the fridge to see what I could throw together.  I've got a bit of chorizo, some small corn tortillas just languishing in the crisper, and some eggs. That's pretty much all I need.

So this is how I'll make two servings...

INGREDIENTS

1/4 pound Mexican pork chorizo
4 eggs
4 small corn tortillas
4 tablespoons olive oil

Heat up 3 tablespoons of oil in a 12 inch frying pan. Coat the bottom of the pan as thoroughly as you can after the oil is hot. 

Cut up the tortillas into small, triangle shaped wedges and cook for 4 minutes in the oil. Let drain on some paper towels on a plate. Set aside for later.

In a smaller frying pan, cook the chorizo.

Add two eggs, mix thoroughly while cooking with a wooden spoon.

Cover and set aside.

In a small frying pan, cook on egg over easy.

Put half of the egg and chorizo mixture into a flat circle on the plate. Make a ring of tortilla chips around the circle so it looks like a crown. Put the over-easy egg in the middle of the crown. Cook the other egg and do the same for the second serving.

We add red salsa and guacamole to finish ours off.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

BETTER BREAKFAST: Scrambling for Even More Leftovers

Hmm...still trying to make a decent meal out of our refrigerator leftovers.

Last night, my wife made sopes with some chile pork that she cooks up now and again (it's her secret recipe but basically, cook up some stew pork with hot chiles). They were delicious but we had a little more pork than we had sopes for.

This morning, I'm scrambling that up into some eggs and cheese. For the two of us, I start with 4 eggs, a splash of half and half, and a sprinkle of salt.

I warm up the left over pork in a skillet.

Add the eggs and sprinkle on some shredded cheese.

Heat up some flour tortillas on a griddle, wrap it up and serve as breakfast burritos (top).  Very delicious.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved

BETTER BREAKFASTS: A Scramble for Leftovers

We all tend to ignore our refrigerators and their crispers until the produce inside goes bad. Then, we're in the unenviable state of throwing out what was once perfectly good food, simply because we forgot it was there.

That's why from time to time, I like to look inside, see what we have, and then see if I can make a dish out of it.

This morning, I'm looking for something I can mash together for breakfast...let's see what's inside.  Here's some mild Italian sausage from Trader Joe's that I used for a pizza once. It was too mild for the pizza but I think it's make a good breakfast sausage.  Here's half a zucchini, some asparagus, and some corn tortillas.

I think I can work with this.

I chop up the zucchini, three spears of asparagus, and one link of the sausage. In a pan with one tablespoon of olive oil on high heat.

I put all that in and cook it up for 5-6 minutes and set aside in a bowl.

Next, I cut up three tortillas into eighths. I fry them till they're starting to get crispy. Then I add the sausage and veggie mixture back in.

Four eggs, a half a teaspoon of cream, a pinch of salt and pepper all go into a bowl.

I scramble this all up with a fork.

Pour the mixture in the pan with the rest of the ingredients. Sprinkle some shredded cheese on top and scramble until the eggs are set and serve.

I like to add some hot sauce and a little heavy cream on top. Now, I've got breakfast for two.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved

NAPA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA - Part 1

It’s a long, long drive from our base in the San Gabriel Valley (just east of Pasadena) to our destination of Santa Rosa. Eight hours of driving, not including stops. The final reckoning is ten hours.

Watch the video of this trip!

Up to the final days, it was touch ‘n go as to whether we’d even go here. The final week of the year can have terrible weather up north. Our alternate destination was Tucson but checking the weather forecast, the temperatures were the same either way with just a slightly greater chance of rain up in the wine country.

Our choice was sweetened by tacos. Tim lobbied hard to go to Napa for one reason…the lunch stop in Bakersfield would be at Los Tacos de Huicho. Huicho’s is known in our family as having the best tacos on the face of the earth. Yeah, we’ve looked hard…both north and south of the border…and have still yet to find a better taco. We’re still looking, but the crown still firmly resides on this neon-green outpost of carne asada, tripas, and al pastor sitting on a grimy side street in a forlorn industrial neighborhood.

The al pastor is rotating on a vertical spit as the cook slices of chunks of moist, juicy meat. The tripas, crispy little bits of intestine, are fried up. Battered fish filets are dropped into the deep fryer for my wife’s fish tacos. When we get our order, we prep our food with chopped onions, cilantro, green or red salsa, and Huicho’s ungodly good creamy guacamole salsa. Deep fried jalapenos are sitting at the end of the salsa bar…take as many as you’d like. At 99 cents per taco, the best food on earth comes cheap.

Bladders drained, gas tank filled, it was back on historic highway 99 north to Santa Rosa. Our room is at another historic location, the Flamingo Resort built in 1957. It was built to be a mirror image of the Flamingo hotel in Las Vegas. This restored property has the look and feel of a late 50’s or early 60’s Vegas hotel. It wouldn’t look out of place to see Frank, Sammy, and Dean lounging around the Olympic size pool.

Our room is a large, 500 square foot, second floor unit in the newer executive wing out back. It features a king size bed, queen size sofa bed, a large bathroom with a roll-in shower, and a view over a small farm that has somehow escaped the city’s rampant development.

One of the themes of this trip is to test the abilities of Guy Fieri in picking places to eat.  Our family is a fan of his show Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on the Food Network and my wife is always saying we should check his listings before we go on a trip.  Well, Fieri is from Santa Rosa so what better place to put him to the test.  We're going to have dinner at his restaurant, Johnny Garlic's, and test a diner, a drive-in, and a dive from the area he's had on the show to see if they are as good as they look on TV.  Either it will be, or I'm gonna be taking one for the team here. 

First up is a diner...

Hank's Creekside Cafe is just a short block from the hotel.  It's a tight fit, but we get the chair inside and order up our food.  Service is quick.  We get eggs benedict, french toast, pancakes with some bacon and eggs.  It is all very delicious.  The first couple of tables are wheelchair accessible but tight.  There is one parking spot in front of the door that's handicapped.

The next morning, after that delicious breakfast, we drive over the hill to Calistoga at the top of Napa Valley. A sign points the way to Chateau Montelena, one of many wineries in the area, that was featured in the movie “Bottle Shock” with Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman.

A big, vine covered stone building sits impressively on the hillside among a web of ramps leading into the winery, tasting room, and the small lake with its Japanese Gazebo used by picnickers. Drivers with a disabled parking placard or license place can park at the top of the hill, next to the tasting room.

Famous for its chardonnay that beat the French wines at a Paris tasting in 1976, the chateau capitalizes on that fame, charging a sky-high tasting fee of $20…refundable if you buy at least $100 worth of wine. No, those souvenir glasses, cookbooks, and the signed DVD of “Bottle Shock” don’t count. There is no rule against sharing, however, so we did the tasting and shared our five samples between the three of us. One relative bargain was a package featuring a copy of the movie, signed by winemaker Bo Barrett (portrayed by Chris Pine in the movie) and a bottle of their cabernet for $35.

Tim at the Chateau Montelena Lake, Notice the Chair Cam (watch the video)

We take some time to explore the grounds, which include a small lake with a pagoda gazebo on an island you can use for picnicking.

Stay tuned for part two, were we find a better tasting bar, a drive-in, and a dive.

Darryl

Copyright 2010, Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

BREAKFAST: Menemen

We've been gone for awhile. We were on an extended trip through Central Europe where we started off in Berlin.  Our hotel for the week there was in what I'd guess you'd call the Turkish Quarter or Little Istanbul.

It was a lovey, lively neighborhood full of great friendly people and outstanding cuisine. While our home of L.A. is full of "Mediterranean" restaurants, the food there is nothing like it is here.

One dish that really caught our fancy was menemen, or Turkish scrambled eggs.  The flavor was just off the charts good and a very filling and satisfying meal.

Of course, when I got home I had to try it, and it came out as one of the best breakfasts I've ever made.

INGREDIENTS (for three servings)
7 eggs
1 or 2 medium to large, ripe tomatoes (if you really like tomatoes in your eggs, use 2. If not, use 1)
1 large pepper of your choice (many people use bell peppers, I like a little more flavor so I used a pasilla chile. Whatever floats your boat. For my New Mexico friends, this is just dying for a large Hatch chile)
1/2 medium white onion
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 - 4 inch long soujuk sausage (my addition of a typical Middle Eastern sausage, you can leave out if you want to have a very authentic version)
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
salt and pepper to taste.

Dice the tomatoes, pepper, and onions. Cut up the sausage into small chunks.

In a 10 inch, shallow sauce pan, heat up the olive oil and butter.  Cook the pepper for 5 minutes. Add the onion and tomatoes and saute on medium heat for another 5 minutes.

Add the sausage and feta cheese and keep sauteing for another 3-4 minutes.

Add the eggs and stir for a minute. Rest for 10 seconds and stir again. Repeat this process until the eggs are thickened but just a bit underdone.

Serve and sprinkle with pepper flakes or salsa.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

This Week's Menu: Barbecued Pizza and Buttermilk Pancakes

Nothing says summertime like cooking outside. Pizza is a baked item but no one wants to turn on a hot oven in the kitchen during this hot season...especially in our neighborhood where over-100 temps are the norm this time of year.



But pizza is still a great summer food, especially with an ice-cold beer in your hand.  If you have a gas grill with a lid, you've basically got an outdoor oven...perfect for baking.



We'll use that to make our pizza.



For breakfast, we put up our third pancake recipe, this time it's the very classic buttermilk pancake recipe.



Everything you need are at the links below.

BREAKFAST: Buttermilk Pancakes

DINNER: Barbecued Pizza

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

This Week's Menu: Buffalo Style Chicken Thighs and Chorizo and Eggs

Chicken wings are so good but it's a lot of work for just a few bites of meat. We fix that by using thighs instead and a homemade Buffalo sauce that's easy and out-of-this-world good.

Some farmer's market dollar-a-pound squash makes a medley for the side dish and breakfast is one of our easy staples, chorizo and eggs.

Recipes are at the links below.

DINNER: Buffalo Chicken Thighs

SIDE: A summer squash medley using our basic super side barbecue vegetable recipe

BREAKFAST: Chorizo and Egg Burritos

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved