Alpine Inn Beer Garden in Portola Valley, CA
Wow! Given my fondness for complete dives, I can't believe I'd never been to the Alpine Inn Beer Garden until a couple of weeks ago. If you're interested in going to an honest-to-goodness roadhouse, this place is for you. In the middle of nowhere in sleepy Portola Valley, this place pops out like a beacon of light in the black night on the corner of Alpine and Arastradero. You have to enter on Arastradero, and MH and I ended up doubling back (dangerous in the pitch black on an unlit road) to get in.
The Alpine Inn, fka Rossatti's, or just "Zott's" is truly a restaurant from another era. A good article about it can be found here. The decor? Well, the decor is what you'd expect from a building built in 1852. It was originally founded as a gambling house by Felix Buelna (a former mayor of San Jose). The original fixtures remain, although the tables have been replaced and it has been redone as a restaurant. Huge wooden tables, a big wooden bar, and a skillet-topped stove, as well as a couple of TVs are what pass for decoration. There's also a big beer garden in back. One really doesn't go to a place like this for the decor, though.
The food? Greasy goodness. Rectangle-shaped burgers on ciabatta rolls, crispy fries (and lots of them if you get the "large"), Polish sausage, ham and cheese, peanuts-in-shells, and tons of beer. I had a double burger with fries, and MH had a double cheeseburger. My burger was awesome, meaty, and satisfying. The fries were decent, and could have used a bit more seasoning, but had a nice crunchy outside and a fragrant, fluffy inside.
The Alpine Inn has Fat Tire and Devil's Canyon (Bay Area fave) on tap, as well as some other non-noteworthy brands. There is also a huge selection of bottled beer from which to choose. We had both Fat Tire (a clean, ambery ale), and Devil's Canyon Full Boar Scotch Ale (a thick, viscous ale that wasn't really ale-like at all). Stick with the Fat Tire.
When we were there, celebrating BP's birthday, the clientele ran the gamut from Stanford students to grizzled bikers to yuppies. One customer with stringy hair and a manaical gaze watched us from the bar (think Bobcat Goldthwait). I have to say that I have a fondness in my heart for sketchy roadhouses in the middle of nowhere. This place was, for lack of a better word, awesome. I will definitely be returning.
The Alpine Inn Beer Garden
6.5/10
The Alpine Inn, fka Rossatti's, or just "Zott's" is truly a restaurant from another era. A good article about it can be found here. The decor? Well, the decor is what you'd expect from a building built in 1852. It was originally founded as a gambling house by Felix Buelna (a former mayor of San Jose). The original fixtures remain, although the tables have been replaced and it has been redone as a restaurant. Huge wooden tables, a big wooden bar, and a skillet-topped stove, as well as a couple of TVs are what pass for decoration. There's also a big beer garden in back. One really doesn't go to a place like this for the decor, though.
The food? Greasy goodness. Rectangle-shaped burgers on ciabatta rolls, crispy fries (and lots of them if you get the "large"), Polish sausage, ham and cheese, peanuts-in-shells, and tons of beer. I had a double burger with fries, and MH had a double cheeseburger. My burger was awesome, meaty, and satisfying. The fries were decent, and could have used a bit more seasoning, but had a nice crunchy outside and a fragrant, fluffy inside.
The Alpine Inn has Fat Tire and Devil's Canyon (Bay Area fave) on tap, as well as some other non-noteworthy brands. There is also a huge selection of bottled beer from which to choose. We had both Fat Tire (a clean, ambery ale), and Devil's Canyon Full Boar Scotch Ale (a thick, viscous ale that wasn't really ale-like at all). Stick with the Fat Tire.
When we were there, celebrating BP's birthday, the clientele ran the gamut from Stanford students to grizzled bikers to yuppies. One customer with stringy hair and a manaical gaze watched us from the bar (think Bobcat Goldthwait). I have to say that I have a fondness in my heart for sketchy roadhouses in the middle of nowhere. This place was, for lack of a better word, awesome. I will definitely be returning.
The Alpine Inn Beer Garden
6.5/10
posted by epicure | 8:11 PM
2 Comments:
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Hey! Portola Valley is not the middle of nowhere! Our neighbor Steve Jobs, and more importantly, we live here!
(But we don't like the Alpine Inn.)
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