Joe Rombi’s is in Pacific Grove, CA.  We were seated at one of the 12 or so tables.  The restaurant has a lot of cool posters on the walls and fresh flowers.  The waiter brought bruschetta to our table right when we sat down.  My dad loved it.  I ordered the crab cake.  It was one humongous crab cake and it had lots of crab in it.  It also had a lemony sauce and it was served on top of mixed greens.  Joe Rombi’s crab cake bumped Jake’s on the Lake’s crab cake into 2nd place.  Joe’s crab cake is now officially in 1st place!  Its the best crab cake I have ever had.  I really loved the presentation and the sauce was perfect.  The crab cake had a lot of crab which I really love and had just the right amount of breading and perfect texture and flavor.  My dad ordered a caesar salad.  It had huge shavings of parmesan cheese and it had great dressing and super crunchy croutons.  I really liked it.  My dad also ordered the half moon crab ravioli.  It had a good texture and my mom and dad loved it.  It had a pretty good sauce too.  I liked it.  My mom had the sole special with orzo pasta and vegetables.  It had soft, flavorful pasta.  The pasta looked like rice but it was actually pasta.  My mom said the fish melted in her mouth.  My mom and dad really loved it.  I sort of liked it too.  They also liked the broccoli that came on the plate.  My mom’s entree came with a house salad and soup.  She passed on the soup because it had chicken stock but she loved the salad.  I loved it too.  It had a wonderful dressing and super sweet corn.  I really love sweet corn.  My brother only ate the table bread. I tried a little bit too.  It was a really good focaccia bread–soft on the inside with a nice crust.  I really liked dipping it in the olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  For dessert we had tiramisu.  It was so light and creamy.  My mom says theirs is the best tiramisu she’s ever had.  We also ordered the chocolate cake.  Mmmm, so chocolately!  My dad said its the best classic chocolate cake he’s had.  My brother liked it a lot too!  Basically we all loved everything!  A fun thing was that Laurie and Joe Rombi came to talk to us. Laurie said that she was the dessert chef and I was really amazed because her cooking was excellent.  Joe’s food was so terrific too.  I thought it was really nice how he came to check on me to see if everything was doing all right. He was a little bit nervous about the review because he wanted it to be a good review.  Joe and Laurie looked at my web site while we were eating which was really cool.  My overall assessment is this restaurant is 100 stars!  My brother really loved the dessert and I really loved the crab cake. Joe Rombi’s is kid-friendly also.  Its fancy but its kid-friendly.  We’re looking forward to going back

www.joerombi.com

The Fishwife is in Pacific Grove near Asilomar.  When you enter restaurant, you see some seats with fish pillows on them.  There is a woman there who greets you who I was told has been there to greet guests for years.  I had Sparky’s Root Beer which is made locally in Pacific Grove.  It tastes just like root beer barrel candy, which is my favorite kind of candy.  I sure do like root beer!  I ordered crab cakes which were thin but really wide and had good sauce on them.  My dad ordered the Jumbo crab ravioli with swordfish.  My mom and dad enjoyed it but I didn’t really try it.  My brother had some garlic bread.  “This is what I call good!”, is what he said!  I kind of liked it too.  My brother says its 5 stars.  My brother also had some steak fries. They were huge and wide and tasted wonderful!  My brother liked them too.  My mother ordered the clam chowder.  My mom said it was some of the best clam chowder she and my dad have ever had.  This restaurant is really kid friendly, the greeter was very nice and its very close to the beach and you just might see a deer on the way!

We went to Lucca with a reporter and a photographer from The Sacramento Bee.  We sat outside and everything was beautiful. They had pretty blue, round, glass cups.  For a drink I has Hanks Root Beer and it was really creamy.  My brother’’s orange soda he says, was good.  We ordered some zucchini chips for an appetizer.  They were lightly salted.  They were like really tiny potato chips, but better, and made with thinly sliced zucchini. I would definitely order them again. We also had some table bread and it was really soft.  It was good with butter on it and the crust was really flour-y and tasty.  My mother ordered a Caesar salad. It has super crunchy croutons.  It had a nice dressing and it was lightly sprinkled with parmesan cheese.  My dad ordered carrot and fennel soup.  It had a good carrot flavor and was a little bit creamy. It had no chicken stock which is perfect for a vegetarian like me.  For an entree I had a crab cake Caesar salad.  The crab cakes were full of crab which is good for me because I love crab.  It had some cut vegetables in it and it was very delicious.  The Caesar salad was good too.  The only thing my brother ordered were french fries. He said they were some of the best french fries he’s ever had.  They came in a cup with a napkin wrapped around them and little dish of ketchup. I thought they were pretty tasty as well.  My mom had the gnocchi.  The tomato sauce was a little bit too spicy for me but it was perfect for her.  Did you know that sugar cuts the spicy sting in your mouth?  So if you have soda or root beer after spicy food, it helps.  The gnocchi part had a really nice texture.  My dad had the ahi tuna special.  It was pan seared, sesame crusted ahi with potatoes and asparagus.  He loved it.  For dessert we had Death By Chocolate and tiramisu. The Death by Chocolate was a warm chocolate cake with a round ball of ice cream on top and it had dishes of chocolate sauce and raspberry sauce on the side.  I loved the combination of raspberry sauce and chocolate together. The tiramisu was a little bit creamy and cold and I could taste the coffee flavor. It was very delicious.  Everyone should come here with their family and enjoy a nice dinner night together.  I also enjoyed spending time with the photographer and reporter.

Ju Hachi had really beautiful Japanese decorations.  There is a big bar you can sit at and watch them make the sushi.  I ordered sushi with shrimp and rice.  The rice was sweet and I had soy wrap instead of seaweed. Soy wrap is a pinkish wrap you can use instead of seaweed that makes it a lot easier to chew.  A nice chef named Ed made me sushi with apple and rice. It was sweet and sour at the same time.  Chef Taka made me sushi with crab inside.  The crab was very delicious. I really love crab.  My mom and dad ordered a Susan Roll which has tempura asparagus, snow crab, unagi and tuna sashimi on top.  My parents loved it.  It was a little hard for me to chew because of the seaweed wrap.  I should have tried it with soy wrap.  The chef gave me a dish of unagi sauce to dip my sushi into.  The sauce was sweet and very tasty.  I dipped every piece of sushi on my plate in the unagi sauce-that’s how tasty it is!  I tried the barbequed tuna. It was pretty good, had a wonderful texture.  I also tried a special roll with soy wrap, rice, crab, asparagus, yam and apple. I could definitely taste the crab.  It was very big and the presentation was beautiful.  For dessert, we had tempura cheesecake. It was beautiful and smelled so good.  It was a warm and crispy on the outside and had a small bit of raspberry sauce and chocolate.  For my overall assessment I think this restaurant is super kid-friendly because it has very easy chopsticks to use, and the chefs are really nice and they will make any kind of sushi you want.  I think everyone should go there.

You can see video of me reviewing Ju Hachi in the Fox 40 studio under the Videos tab.