CALIFORNIA'S HIDDEN WINE COUNTRY

 

CALIFORNIA’S HIDDEN WINE COUNTRY

California has 100 American Viticultural Areas (AVA).  An AVA is a distinct wine grape growing region with boundaries set by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF).  Some you’ve heard of…Napa Valley, Paso Robles, Sonoma Valley, Mendocino, Russian River…others may have escaped notice such as North Yuba, Seiad Valley, or Covelo.

Once, the MAJOR wine producing area of the state was 40 miles east of Los Angeles in the Cucamonga Valley, better known today as the Inland Empire.  With commercial vineyards dating back to 1838, it is among the oldest wine grape growing areas in the state.  At over 20,000 acres at the start of Prohibition, it was also the largest.  At that time, it had more vineyard acreage than Sonoma and Napa Counties combined.

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With the booming expansion of the Los Angeles metro area, development pressures hit this area hard.  Skyrocketing land prices found many vineyards being sold, plowed under, and becoming housing tracts, shopping centers, highways, factories, and warehouses.  Little is left of the wide-open countryside I enjoyed as a youth.

Still, the old, historic vines have not completely disappeared but they still face enormous pressure.  Now, two larger producers and a couple of very small boutique wine makers are all that are left.  Sitting beneath the snow-covered peak of Mt. Baldy, this is California’s most endangered wine producing region.

It’s a Saturday with rain off and on, mostly on.  We start our day at the Original Pancake House in Orange County’s Yorba Linda.  After a filling breakfast of 49’r Flapjacks, we head over one of the last rural roads in the area, Carbon Canyon Road, which connects the area to the Inland Empire community of Chino Hills.  From there, we make our way over to our first stop, Galleano Winery in Mira Loma.

My grandmother lived a few blocks away when I was a kid.  We’d ride our motorcycles and horses for miles over the wide-open countryside here.  Now, it’s covered with houses, factories, and warehouses but at the junction of the 15 and 60 freeways, if you look to the east , there’s several acres of grapes being grown in the sandy soil.  On the street, you’ll be surrounded by warehouses.  If you turn at just the right stop sign (at Wineville and Merrill), you’ll enter a time machine and be on a small country lane with barns, farmhouses, animals, and the winery itself. 

This is exactly the way I remember Mira Loma from when I was a child.  It’s also so out of place these days as to be called “historic.”  The area is known for growing big, bold red grapes.  Zinfandel, Grenache, Mission, and Mourvèdre…all good grapes that stand up to the valley’s intensely hot summers.

At the back of the former truck mechanic’s garage is a small house that now serves as the tasting room.  Five tastes are $5 per person, price will be applied to any purchase.  While white wines are available (Galleano sources these grapes from other areas or contracts with other wineries to produce them), the reds are the star of the show here.  Cucamonga Peak Red, Legendary Pioneers Zinfandel, Old Vine Zin, Port, and Sherry are made very well here.

The valley terroir has a strong taste that infuses the wines made here.  Galleano is very good…and also very reasonable in price.  Wines here start at around $5 a bottle…good wine, too.  Many of the wines are also available in 4L jugs which make the price even lower and are great for parties.  We particularly like the haute sauterne, port, and Chianti in the jugs.

Be sure to grab a flyer from Centro Basco, a local Basque restaurant, which includes a coupon for two free glasses of Galleano wine with your dinner.

If you bring a picnic, this is a great place to grab a bottle.  Borrow a couple of glasses from the tasting staff, go outside to their little park, and have a nice relaxing lunch.  Nearby is a small zoo with farm animals such as geese and donkeys.  Hundreds of guinea pigs roam in their enclosure and a few peacocks preen.

I could spend an entire, relaxing day here but we’ve got another stop to make.

A few miles to the north, in the town of Rancho Cucamonga, is the other large wine maker here.  Joseph Fillippi has a winery and tasting room set up on Baseline Road, just east of Day Creek Boulevard off of the 210 freeway and a few blocks north of Route 66.  While there is a very small vineyard here, you can see the houses built right up to the winery’s walls…an eerie reminder that this place may not have too much of a future left.

More businesslike and industrial than Galleano, Filippi’s tasting room is a large retail establishment.  Tasting is not free here…$5 gets you five poker chips.  You trade a chip for a taste of wine.  With over 20 wines available for tasting, those five chips won’t get you very far.  If there are a few of you, share tastes with each other so you can try a larger variety of wines.

We taste several wines starting with the chardonnay and the Alicante rose and ending up with their cab/franc, zinfandels, and a variety of ports.  It’s all good but not quite as good as the wine we had earlier in Mira Loma.  That, and the fact that we just spent our money on tasting, meant that we bought the day’s wines at Galleano…not Filippi.

When will wineries stop being greedy with the tastes?  I always end up buying more where I can at least deduct my tasting fee from my purchase…this is not the case at Fillipi.

Still, they have decent wine and bottles starting at $3.95, which makes them quite a bargain compared to wineries up north and to the south in Temecula.

There is also a small appetizer bar here.  You can buy a bottle to take outside and share an app.  Not a bad way to spend the day.

I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about the area’s other major tasting room, San Antonio Winery off of the 60 freeway in Ontario.  It’s also a nice place with complimentary tasting and they too have a small zoo.  A branch of the main winery in Los Angeles, this winery does not grow or produce wines here in the valley…it is strictly a tasting room.

At the end of the day, we drive back over the Chino Hills to Anaheim and have a nice dinner at the Phoenix Club, a private German club which has a restaurant and pub that is open to the public.  Here we finish the adventure, dining on schnitzel, sausages, and pretzels and wondering how much longer that handful of wine makers over the hill can last.

Darryl
Copyright 2011 – Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

ADVENTURES CLOSE TO HOME: Exploring Agricultural History in the Inland Empire

There's a smell to a farm. Many don't care for it. To me, however, it just smells like the country...nothing citified about it. While we live in a crowded, suburban area of Los Angeles, there's also a horse ranch behind our house. When the wind blows just right...yeah, that's it...the aroma of manure wafts over.

I love it.

In decades past, the suburbs ran out somewhere around Pomona. Going eastward from here...into Chino, Corona, Ontario, Upland, Mira Loma...you'd be deep into farm country getting nostrils full of the smell of cows, pigs, chickens, and more.

Today, Los Angeles has grown. It's more urban than suburban far into the Inland Empire. Most of those old rural features like farms and ranches have disappeared.

At The World on Wheels, we've made it one of our missions to keep visiting what's left to record it before it's gone. Let's take a drive to see if we can make a meal from what is still hanging on.

In 1920, Giovanni Filippi and his son Joseph immigrated from Italy and planted grapes in the Cucamonga Valley. At the time, this was the largest grape growing and wine producing region of California.

With real estate booms, prices rose and demand for open land increased so that many of these vineyards were swallowed up by housing developments and industrial parks.

Still, the Filippi Winery hangs on with their winery and tasting room on Baseline Road in Rancho Cucmonga, not far from the massive Victoria Gardens shopping center.

Like many wineries today, Filippi does not offer free tasting anymore but $7 (refundable with a purchase) will get you five tastes. You can sip while imagining what it had been...the small vineyard and production facility now hemmed in by housing.

Before the big boom at Ontario Airport, you could picnic in the shade of eucalyptus trees amid the quaint old village of Guasti with the Filippi tasting room at one end, the massive pancakes of the Homestyle Cafe at the other (now relocated to nearby Chino), and great views of jetliners taking off across the street.

Now, a new terminal blocks the view. Most of the old buildings have been demolished, and a few that remain for historical purposes have been shrink-wrapped while the City of Ontario builds yet another business park here.

Luckily for us, the other winery that still exists in the area, the Galleano Winery in Mira Loma, still sits in a time-warped property of barns, animals, tractors, and vineyards amid the giant warehouses with names like "Costco" on them.

It's like driving through a portal into the past where one second, you're in the sterile land of factories and warehouses. The next, you've stepped through a portal with barns, fields, animals, and their smells permeate the area.

At the end of the old tractor garage, a shack invites you in for a friendly round of wine tasting. It's $5 for five tastes...refundable with purchase, of course...and you're bound to find something you like from the ultra-cheap jugs of local zinfandel, chianti, and port to some of their award winning reserve wines.

There's also a small branch of Los Angeles' San Antonio winery nearby in Ontario but it's just a tasting room...no vineyards or winemaking there.

We'll go with some sherry for cooking and a bottle of chianti to go with our dinner later from Galleano.  If you have some extra time, you can also bring a sandwich or two and have a picnic with their barn animals in the little park across from the wine-making barn.

(Check out our California's Hidden Wine Country article for a more indepth look and a video about these Cucamonga Valley wineries.)

Heading back west a few miles, not far from the old downtown section of Ontario on a quiet residential street, we pull into Graber Olives. Since 1894, the Graber family has been processing olives here for canning. The original Mr. Graber planted orange trees, like everyone else around him (you can still see a tiny plot of the original trees just west of the gift shop) but wanted to do something to stand out.

Olives were the solution he hit upon. One thing he did different than other olive farmers was to let the fruit ripen on the trees. Most other growers picked green and artificially ripened them for easier canning. The Graber olives became very sought after because of their tree-ripened flavor.

Take the free tour here and see how they still brine and pack the olives the old-fashioned way. You won't even see a computer in the office where the bookkeepers still add everything up on old adding machines and send out paper bills in the mail.

We'll grab a bottle of olive oil from here. See our Tasting History article and video for more about this Olive ranch.

Next up, while we're still in Ontario, we'll head to the southern section of the city where there is still a bit of the farmland that gets gobbled up at every housing boom. Amy's Farm is a small one that hangs on by not only growing crops, raising animals, and selling the output but also by charging groups to come through, take tours, and learn about farm life.

You don't have to pay if you just want to come to the farm stand and maybe walk around to see the animals.

That's the fun part...going snout-to-snout with a cow, scratching a goat behind its ears, or watching the piglets scamper about their pen.

We do know that farm life isn't about raising some different kinds of pets, though, so we pick up a little of their farm-made Italian sausage, garlic, onions, and tomatoes for our dish.

If we weren't cooking, however, we would head to nearby Centro Basco, on Central Avenue in Chino, for an authentic Basque dinner.

Since 1940, this boarding house for a area's Basque shepherds has been slinging their hearty food in the communal dining hall up front. In the back is a regular dining room where you can have a table to yourself.

Either way, you might want to come a little early to have a strong Picon punch in one of the two bars.

We'll finish up at Claro's, a local chain of Italian delis that's been around sine 1948, to pick up some lasagne noodles and a couple of cans of San Marzano tomatoes. Out here, we can stop at their Upland location or just swing by the easier Covina location on the way home.

Now that we've spent the day picking through some of the remaining historical gems of this former agricultural Mecca, we'll head home and put it all together for a fantastic, historical, scratch made lasagne...sherry from Galleano winery in Mira Loma; olive oil from Gaber Olive House in Ontario; sausage, garlic, onions, and tomatoes from Amy's Farm, also in Ontario; and some pasta from Claro's.

We'll sit back and enjoy our haul with a glass of chianti and hope that civilization can be slow to erase these gems of the Inland Empire.

If you'd like to make the lasagne, just click here for the recipe.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018
All Rights Reserved

Los Angeles's Best Eats...Eastside Edition - Part 2

See Part One here...

The Best of L.A. food lists seem to stop at downtown. We're trying to rectify that by building a "best of list" for the east side of things...

Southern California is teeming with food variety. It helps that we're such an assortment of the world's ethnicities. In fact, we documented all the ethnic food varieties we could find in the San Gabriel Valley a few years ago.

A lot of it is a vast collection of mediocre establishments but a few rise above the fray. In the eastern portion of the area, it helps to have a guide...and that's what we're here for.

In downtown Los Angeles, the Little Tokyo neighborhood is a warren of great, Japanese cuisine. To the east, it can be just as good...just a little more separated by distance.

Right now, our favorite Japanese establishment also has the confusing name of Little Tokyo. No, it's nowhere near downtown but in the for-now Western themed downtown of San Dimas. You remember San Dimas, don't you? Home of Bill and Ted, where the Circle K was actually a time portal and they had the excellent adventure with Rufus (George Carlin) and became the legendary Wyld Stalyns?

Yes, it really does exist. At least the town, not so sure about that time portal.

In a strip mall next to an Alberstons and a Dollar Tree...on the corner of San Dimas Avenue and Bonita...is where you'll find Little Tokyo, sitting in the shadow of a cell phone tower disguised as an old west water tower.

We've always been partial to the excellent and fresh sushi here. The list is daunting, lengthy, and creative. Fatty tuna, roe, eel, squid, yellowtail....it's all here and very fresh and tasty made by a Japanese sushi master.

My wife now raves about the poke bowl they've added, which is the best she's found in the entire L.A. area. Salmon and spicy tuna sit atop sushi rice and a bed of vegetables which is like a whole sushi entree.

Not being much of a fish eater, I'll go with their excellent beef teriyaki which, even in the a la carte mode, comes with a fresh salad with their exquisite sesame dressing and the best miso soup I've had.

The savoriness of that miso, the chewy and slightly gelatinous tofu, and seaweed combine for such a shot of comfort food flavor that I could easily sit here on a cold winter night eating nothing but that soup.

In El Monte, which is beginning to feel the Asian pressure on it's west side from the fine Vietnamese restaurants of neighboring Rosemead, Daikokuya feels a bit out of place between the Pho and Bahn Mi places marching ever eastward on Garvey and the long established Mexican restaurants that have forever been a fixture in this town.

This outpost of the original in Little Tokyo is new to this avenue of gangbangers, trailer parks, and hourly-rate motels but is a little oasis of great cuisine among the lovable riff-raff of my hometown.

While you can come here for sushi and such nuggets as shrimp lollypops and tofu nuggets, the real reason is ramen...that brothy, noodle soup perfected by the Japanese.

This is not the cheap, sustenance, instant ramen of your college dorm days. Here, exquisitely brewed soy-infused miso broth cradles medium boiled eggs (with the jellied yolks), floating pieces of kurobuta pork belly, bamboo shoots, and green onions all sitting on the perfectly textured ramen noodles. A large bowl is $11.00.

For an extra dollar we'll go with the spicy option, which adds very little spiciness actually, that uses three different kinds of miso that adds a deep, savory taste to the broth.

It is a very delicious, satisfying, and filling way to part with just a little over ten dollars.

We'll continue on this list another time, I've already made myself hungry enough today.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2017 - All Rights Reserved

Los Angeles's Best Eats...Eastside Edition

You can find a lot of lists of the best restaurants in Los Angeles such as Jonathan Gold's 101 Best Restaurants, the L.A. Weekly's 99 Essential Restaurants, and Eater LA's 38 Essential Restaurants. All good lists but also very heavy on Central Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley, and the Westside.

What's missing are places most of those people pretend don't exist like the non-Asian parts of the San Gabriel Valley, the Inland Empire, Orange County, and more.

We're going to do our bit to rectify that here at the World on Wheels as we present our top restaurants...the inclusive report.

We'll start with pizza...while Casa Bianca is a very good, old style pizza parlor and deserving of it's place on the lists above, it's also hard to find parking, you have to endure a wait (probably on the sidewalk) to get in, they don't deliver, they don't take credit cards, they don't open for lunch, they are only open five days a week, and tend to take a 2-week vacation whenever the urge hits.

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La Verne is a pizza mecca in the Inland Empire, just over the hill from Glendora and San Dimas. Locally legendary pizza joints include Warehouse Pizza (adjacent to University of La Verne), Pizza Barn, Pizza 'n Stuff, and the similarly named Pizza 'n Such down the street in Claremont.

The star of the La Verne pizza scene, though, is Joey's Red Devil Pizza in a shopping center at the corner of Wheeler and Foothill Boulevard. Red Devil used to be a chain, like Domino's or Papa Johns, but eventually collapsed leaving franchise owners with the name. There are still a few Red Devils around but they have no connection to each other.

The Monaco family's franchise in La Verne soldiered on with dad Roland mixing his wife's hot and spicy sauce and some of the best old-school pizza around.  A fresh tomato sauce on top, great dough with that olive oil savoriness to it, topped with a thick layer of mozzarella and your toppings.

We go with the pepperoni, bacon, and sausage version.  It's our favorite pie in Southern California and, yes, they're open everyday, take credit cards, deliver, and have plenty of parking.

Tony's Little Italy, down in the Orange County town of Placentia is another favorite of ours. We have to go sparingly, however, since a slice of their Chicago deep dish pizza comes in at well over 1,000 calories.

Saving up our calories and working up our appetites can make it all worth it. This is about as authentic a deep-dish pie you'll find in this area.  We like the stuffed version with has the sauce, cheese, and toppings under a thin layer of crust then they do it all again with another layer of sauce, cheese and toppings on top of that. The pies are so thick, it takes around 45 minutes to bake.  Call ahead and they start it up. Time it right and your pizza will be done just as you arrive.

Not only are the pies massively thick, all the ingredients are top-notch, fresh and tasty. That's the problem...you'll definitely want more than one slice. Better have two or three thousand calories you can spare for this one.

Bakersfield is known for great, Basque restaurants, none more famous than Noriega's with the Pyranees nipping at their heels. Our favorite, Benji's sits across town from those and Woolgrowers. There are differences but the experience is very similar...start with a picon punch and a little socializing in the bar. Move to the dining room, where cheap red wine either sits on the table for pouring or is easily available. Massive tureen of the day's soup to share with bread, butter, and maybe some salsa for dipping. Another big salad bowl with jack cheese and pickled cow tongue. The entry, a side of potatoes, some vegetables, maybe some pasta. Dessert, if you have room.

In the L.A. area, we drive a little less than a hour east where farms clash against tract housing in Chino to dine at our best Basque experience south of the Grapevine, Centro Basco on Central Avenue on the south end of downtown.

Park in the shadow of the giant handball court and make your way into the cozy dining room. Or wait until 7:00 on Friday or Saturday to sit at long, communal tables in the front dining room where you can make some new friends.

Either way, the friendly folks here will not let you leave hungry. Choose a succulent rib eye, covered with red wine mushroom gravy; roasted garlic chicken or chicken done Cordon Bleu style; lamb is always a specialty of these sheepherder families.

Don't come for a quick meal, though. A Basque dinner is meant to linger. Savor over the hearty flavors and good company. There's no need to rush here. Ask for seconds if you think you can handle it. They'll be fine with it...just don't go hungry.

Not too far from Centro Basco, at the edge of Chino and Ontario, is a certified truck weigh station. Parking in the dirt lot, you can smell the nearby cows of the dairy farms and the grease from the neighboring truck service center.  A nearly windowless building sits next to the scale, it's yellow sign blown apart by too many windy days.

Inside, you'll find a divey bar along with some utilitarian tables and chairs.  Between 6am and 3pm, you can sit there and order some fabulous and cheap rib eye or tri tip.

It's nominally Basque but the owner married a Mexican so you'll get her influence on food, too.  It doesn't come out family style at Taylor's Cafe, more of a delicious greasy-spoon/dive bar style, but the portions are still massive.

We came here for the rib eye, a local cheap eats legend.  It's good, succulent, and delicious but still doesn't hold a candle to their smoky and juicy tri tip, served on Saturdays with a heaping helping of eggs, potatoes, and beans.

More than these three big eaters can fit in, a take home bag means we can repeat this meal at home the next day.

Stay tuned, there's more to come...




Darryl Musick
Copyright 2017 - All Rights Reserved

Fall Crawl in the Inland Empire

To be honest, we were originally going to head up the mountain to the Oktoberfest in Lake Arrowhead but when we found that this 'free' event would cost us a minimum of $60, we changed our mind.

Instead, we decided to buy a case of wine, sip a beer, and have a great dinner instead aided by a $50 gift certificate for Galleano Winery we'd been sitting on.

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It's a wonderful day for it, mid 70's, mostly sunny weather (turns out a big thunderhead was sitting over Lake Arrowhead, so that's another plus for changing our minds) and easy traffic.

The time-travel portal that is the entrance to the Galleano ranch takes us from warehouses so big they can be seen from space into a century old farm wedged between them and Interstate 15.

There are a lot of cars here today at this normally sleepy little vineyard. Inside the tasting room, we find out why...a class reunion has descended on it. 

It's packed and Jorge, one of the employees, sets us up at a nearby butcher block table to taste.  I let Letty and Tim do most of the tasting and we end up with a mixed case plus a jug each of port and sherry to take home.

On the porch outside, we find a quiet little table to have a picnic of bread, cheese, and summer sausage from Usinger's in Milwaukee.

Next, one exit down the freeway, lies an industrial park in Norco that hosts Sons of Liberty Aleworks. This constitutional themed microbrewery serves delicious beer and ale in a dark, revolutionary-era setting. 

We sipped a few samples, with their special Oktoberfest brew my favorite, while Letty liked the chocolate porter.

It's their Oktoberfest celebration here...kind of a quiet affair (ok, a VERY quiet affair)...with a barbecue trailer out back cooking schnitzel and brats.

The constitution is more than a theme here...the owner will be very happy to hand you a pocket constitution when you check into Facebook and a local college hosts constitution educations classes on Tuesday nights.

Winding up this day across the IE, we end up at one of our favorite restaurants, Centro Basco, a great Basque restaurant in Chino. We're about a half hour early for dinner so we chill in the bar with some diet cokes and the bartender who chats us up until dinner time.

Dinner is a feast of soup, salad, bread, tongue, cheese, beans, fries, chicken cordon bleu, and ribeye steak.

Very sated, we head out and call it a day of old and new Inland Empire landmarks.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Back to School - The Ivy League of the West, Claremont, California

It’s only 40 minutes away in good traffic but riding the train out here seems like you’re on the east coast, taking  the  Metro North out of the city. The streets are lined with leafy, mature trees…many that drop their leaves in late fall…the coffee bars filled with bearded college professors and students trying to get a degree within this lifetime.

Known as the “Ivy League of the West,” the handful of universities that make up the Claremont Colleges are names that regularly appear on each year’s list of the best… Claremont-McKenna, Pomona College, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Scripps.

There’s money, talent, and knowledge wandering around here. It’s also a good reason why so many people fall in love with the Inland Empire town of Claremont separated by two sets of hills, a valley, and four freeways from Los Angeles and bumps up right against the San Bernardino County line.

The heart of Claremont is a 10 square block area halfway between the 10 and 210 freeways along Indian Hill Boulevard known at The Village. It’s here where you’ll find the best of what the town offers.

Possibly the most transit-enabled town in the Inland Empire, Claremont is served well by Metrolink commuter rail from Union Station in Los Angeles and the buses of Foothill Transit. The trains and buses converge on the beautifully restored train depot at the south end of The Village making everything within walking distance and eliminating the need for a car.

If you do want to drive, that’s okay too. There’s plenty of parking and the area is bracketed by two major freeways.

Arriving in the morning, you can grab a quick breakfast at Crepes de Paris at the new addition to The Village, the Packing House, on the west side of Indian Hill Boulevard. The Packing House is an old citrus packing shed that’s be redesigned into a space for shops, restaurants, and nightclubs.  Night owls will want to visit the Hip Kitty jazz club here or the comedy club upstairs.

Walking off breakfast, head east to Yale Avenue…one block east of Indian Hill…where The Village’s “downtown” is.  The last Rhino Records shop exists here along with the world famous Claremont Folk Music Center. This little music shop, crammed with every instrument you can imagine, and many you can’t, is a popular stop for some of the world’s top musicians to stop by and give impromptu concerts.

Going a couple of blocks further east you come across the campuses of the colleges, all kind of mixed together.  Check bulletin boards…you can catch some free entertainment such as concerts or plays. The colleges are associated with SCIAC, a NCAA athletic conference, and you can catch some college sports there too such as football, basketball, and baseball.  The stadium where the Claremont-McKenna-Scripps Stags play…located in a little pine forest…is one of the prettiest you’ll ever see.

If you’re hungry for lunch, stop in one of the several cafeterias on campus or Café Sagehen, a full-service sit down restaurant serving upscale meals with wine and beer available. Back in The Village, a number of restaurants serve a great lunch too.  Pizza ‘n Such, Village Diner, and Espiau’s  are suitable for a nice midday meal.

After lunch, options include going to Bert and Rocky’s at the north end of Yale Avenue for ice cream and dessert; going up to the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Gardens a few blocks north on Foothill for some great wheelchair accessible hiking trails; or taking in a matinee at the Laemmle Theatre on Indian Hill and Bonita Avenue.

If you’re still around at dinner time, Claremont has two of the gourmet burger places in Southern California. The Back Abbey (in the alley behind the Laemmle) serves its signature burger…a large patty with aged gouda, mustard aoli, carmelized onions bacon, and fresh greens served on brioche… along with a nice selection of Belgian beers.

Just around the corner, back at the Packing House, is Eureka!...serving a range of gourmet burgers that is as good as the Back Abbey…along with their selection of local craft brews.

Looking for something more than burgers? Aruffo’s serves quality Italian fare in a relaxed atmosphere back over on Yale.

Some people fall in love enough to spend the night. Casa 425, across from the Packing House, is the area’s trendy boutique hotel.

If you’re in Southern California, save a day to visit this pretty college town just a short drive…or train ride…east of Los Angeles.

For more information, visit The Village's website: http://thevillageclaremont.com/

-Darryl

Copyright 2012 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved