This Week on the Central Coast…
Another restaurant in Carmel gains world recognition, MPC teaches STEM with Legos, and a Santa Cruz K-9 unit found a missing hiker.
Monterey
Grasing’s Wins Wine Spectator's Grand Award
This week, Grasing’s in Carmel earned Wine Spectator’s “Grand Award”. “It’s the world’s highest honor for a restaurant wine program, awarded to dining destinations that offer unique wine lists, unparalleled service and their own points of view on the wine world.“
The restaurant has been trying to achieve the award for decades, putting together their wine collection of over 3,000 labels (30,000 bottles!) from a starting cellar with six wines when they opened in 1998. “When we first started, we had six wines on the list. Our goal was to get to eight, and then to 12 and then to 16,” Kurt Grasing recalls. “I literally had to run to Safeway if we sold more than two bottles per night! Wine director Eric Ewers joined the team in 2020, just two days before the lockdowns. That gave him the opportunity to take extra time to organize the cellar and come up with a plan to expand and adjust. He uses a handwritten tags on each bottle and a daily-updated database, insisting that the level of detail is only a reflection of the restaurant’s operation.
Grasing’s is a steakhouse at its core, serving up everything from ribeyes to A5 Japanese Wagyu. However, being this close to the ocean means having a coastal influence and a touch of seasonal California cuisine. They are only the second restaurant in the Monterey Bay Area to earn a Grand Award, the first being Sierra Mar at Post Ranch Inn.
MPC’s STEM Camp Features Legos
The Monterey Peninsula College summer STEM camp is taking reservations for kids, ages 5-12. This year’s camp will feature Legos as the literal building blocks of the project. Play-well TEKnologies will provide instructions and legos for participating students.
“The summer camp aims to prepare younger students for the possibility of encountering STEM in their educational journeys.” You can sign up for the camp on MPC’s website.
Santa Cruz
K-9 Tracker Rescues Missing Hiker
Last week, State Park ranger Brett Weber and his K-9 Rino helped find missing hiker Lukas McClish. The Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office had been using drones to try to tighten the area where McClish could be. Eventually, they heard McClish call out to the drone that he was directly under it.
Weber and Rino ventured out to the area where they suspected McClish to be and Rino’s senses led them to an area where the CZU Fire had burned. Weber explained that since the vegetation is in the process of regrowing, the area is dense with plants at about head-height, making it easy to get lost. “We had a really steep hillside to the right side of us, that Rino wanted to pull to a few times, and in training we always say trust your dog. And so I said if he wants to pull up, that there's probably a reason. I'm gonna trust him on this one," Weber said.
When asked how it felt to be the one who found the hiker, Weber was humble in his response. “We played a very minor role. There was a ton of people out there. Everyone from the sheriff's office to CAL FIRE - they even had hand crews of inmates were out there with us too.”