The Perfect End to a Frustrating Restaurant Safari

Our first full day at Carmel Valley Ranch, I figured we’d do Carmel, starting with breakfast. Little did I know that it would turn out to be a day full of frustration.

Do you know you can’t find street parking in Carmel? But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’d searched Yelp and found a little restaurant called “Katy’s Place,” but for the life of me, I couldn’t find it. So we started driving around the area looking for another café to patronize. We saw a few little restaurants, but there was no nearby parking. Plus, none of these places had parking lots.

We crisscrossed Carmel looking for parking lots (I know they have them because we’d been there before), but I couldn’t find one convenient enough. Come to find out much too late, there was a parking lot about two blocks from where Katy’s is supposed to be.

I gave up, and headed on to Pacific Grove. When we got to the Carmel-Pacific Grove turnoff, we encountered – guess what, no surprise – a traffic jam with a long line of cars. I see where Pacific Grove got the “Stall Craig” memorandum as well.

By this time, I was starving, but we eventually entered the Pacific Grove commercial area full of cafes and Italian ristorantes. Unfortunately, the one we picked was closed on that particular day.

Just down the street, we found a little barbecue place with an oil drum smoker outside just pouring smoke into the air. That’s where we went – the Little Chicken House.

The place is small – a couple of guys handling the chores, a couple of tables, and chickens roasting right in front of a small three-seat counter. Everything was clean, and it smelled great in there.

It was the best move I’d made all day. Copious amounts of mouth-watering, facial-smearing, finger-licking food.

The wife had a pulled pork sandwich (which she couldn’t finish) and a side of cole slaw. I had a two-meat plate (chicken and pork ribs) with a side of amazing baked beans.

I don’t want to say it was the best barbecue lunch I ever had, but if I had a better one, I sure don’t remember it.

Sometimes our frustrations get paid off in the end, no?