Restaurants in Merced
Sharen Rund
restaurants here are either in downtown Merced or are along
Hwy 99 so they can be found easily
I just came back from a weekend in Merced, and here's some comments
First of all, mea culpa to the people I told about the wonderful
scalloni at Red Snapper Fish Grotto - they're GONE - building and all
a new building is under construction, but not for them - they just closed
up, much to the sorrow a quite a few people
but, here's what we did find:
- The Branding Iron on 16th St (along side the railroad tracks) has
outdoor patio eating and indoor - this is primarily a meat place
but they do offer other selections, in the past I usually go for
the pepper steak but this time opted for the prime rib (you can get
the regular cut or the chef's cut - I had the chef's cut which is
smaller) - to start off you have a choice of the soup of the day or
gaspacho (one person at the table had the soup of the day - Manhattan
clam chowder & sent it back) we all had the gaspacho which was filled
with chunky cucumbers, tomatoes, etc & served with tortilla chips - this
was great!; this was followed with salad (ordinary salad) I had the house
dressing of oil & vinegar over crumbled blue cheese and it was delicious
- a hot parmesean cheese bread is served with the salad - the main course
came (my prime rib rare was just that) served with a baked potato and a
selection of bacon bits (real), chives, parmesean cheese, sour cream
and/or butter - we didn't have any dessert - the bill came with a
chocolate cowboy boot for each of us - also, a bottle of Trefethan Eschol
Cabernet/Merlot accompanied the meal and was well balanced with the meat
- La Morenita Restaurant, on 13th St (since my fish place was closed we opted
to try a Mexican restaurant that is always busy) this was a good choice -
they served a salsa that was _hot_ and flavorful with chips, hot marinated
carrots and a delightful cabbage/jalapeno/tomato/onion salad - the main
course for my husband was Chile Verde and for me was Chile Colorado both
with flour tortillas - the meat was tender, you coud cut it with a fork,
the sauces were well seasoned, the spanish rice wasn't dry & overcooked,
all in all, very good - as I mentioned earlier, they were busy all the
time, it is a family restaurant - they have a couple of tables on the patio
BTW: (one's I didn't get to this trip, etc)
- Chianti's Italian (on Main) still good Italian food served either in
the beautiful old grey house-made-into-a-restaurant or outside on the
patio - one had the pasta seafood primavera which had the right amount of
scallops & shrimps balanced by the al dente pasta & veggies
- Lenny's Italian Deli & Restaurant on Main is so-so - the deli area
had a nice assortment of pastrami, cheeses, etc, but the food was
very average - I warned some freinds (I had been there last year) and
they came back saying they wish they would have listened - so it
hasn't improved
- The Wine Cellar on Main, which shut down two years ago has reopened as the
Basque Villa - freinds went there and said it was very good - I'll have to
try it next time
- the Cask & Cleaver is out of business
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