Monterey Trip with Mom - Day 1

My mom had some time off, and we haven't done a vacation together in a while. We decided to go to our family favorite, Monterey, CA and spend a couple days hiking and eating! We stayed at the Sunset Inn in Pacific Grove. We'd never stayed here before, but it was very nice and a reasonable price. We like staying in Pacific Grove because it's cheaper than Monterey, and most hotels there are close enough to the beach to walk there, and there's a nice trail to walk along the ocean. We were doing this whole vacation on a budget of $500 for the 2 of us, for 3 days and 2 nights. That included gas, food, things to do, and hotel. We ended up making it just under budget.


We got into town, and started looking for a place for lunch. I had gotten some restaurant recommendations from a friend who lives there, so we had lunch at one of the recommendations; Vivolo's Chowder House.


I decided I had to order some type of seafood, since it is Monterey. I finally decided on the fish and chips, which was an excellent choice! The fish was perfectly fried, and the tartar sauce that came with it was delicious and tangy, and went great with the fish and even the fries. 

My mom ordered their famous clam chowder bowl, and she said it was good, but not the best she'd ever had.

After going to the hotel to check in, we went out to dinner at another recommendation I had, which was Peter B's Brewpub. We had a heck of a time trying to find this place, but if you go through the hotel lobby that's there, it's behind that tucked away behind some trees. You can't see it from the street. We were told about their famous Fried Artichoke Hearts, which we knew we had to order. We also got a Raspberry Wheat beer, which was very good. As we're ordering, we find out they ran out of the artichoke hearts, and they had only been open an hour or two. We couldn't believe they hadn't thought this through and gotten more artichoke hearts for the night, as they were in season. 

So we decided on all appetizers, since it was happy hour and appetizers were cheap. We got the fried calamari...

The nachos...

And the buffalo wings...

Honestly, this meal wasn't that memorable. I don't care too much for calamari, and that was mostly for my mom. The nachos weren't that great either. The wings were my favorite of all the things we ordered. Maybe, we should have stuck with entrees instead of appetizers, because these were mostly just ordinary and kind of boring. I was worried that my favorite meal would be the fish and chips by the end of the trip, but luckily we went to a delicious restaurant the next day...