Lake Tahoe

Next month I'll be visiting Lake Tahoe. My partner will be giving a speech and attending meetings. Since it will be an American Society of Pension Actuaries meeting (quite the lively bunch there! ) I'll be on my own most of the time. Anyone have any suggestions in regards to restaurants?

We will be stayinghere.

Thanks in advance!

I live about 3 blocks from the Hyatt so if you tell me how much you want to spend and what kind of cuisine you're looking for, I can help you out.

Thanks...
I'm open to all types of food. I was hoping that there might be some sort of local speciality that I should try.
Since, I'll be eating alone, nothing too fancy or pricey. I'd like to be able to grab some take out and picnic. I'm sure there are lots of beautiful spots to to snack and enjoy a good book.

There's certainly many beautiful places to enjoy a picnic along the lake, however, your food choices are limited at the lower end of the range. There's no such thing as Tahoe cuisine, unless you head to the casinos for meat and potatoes. That being said, your best bet for picnic fare is a place called Sunshine Bakery on Incline Way. It's a small shop in a mini industrial type park that's owned by an incredibly talented chef making everything from scratch using the best ingredients available. Not a huge selection but everything she does is delicious. It's your only choice.

Another option for lunch with a great view is at your hotel. Across the street from the main building is the Lone Eagle Grill, right on the beach. Great atmoshphere and good food. A little pricey for lunch but ridiculous for dinner. Nice drinks and good lunch selection where you can eat outdoors enjoying the view. Stick to the bar menu.

My favorite inexpensive meal is a place called T's which does mesquite rotisserie chicken, pork, and tri-tip. A little hole in the wall type place that you will thoroughly enjoy. If you like seafood, a restaurant called Wild Alaskan has excellent salmon at a moderate price. They also serve a good yuppie type salad. Grumpy's has decent bar food.

On Thursday evenings, Fredericks has 1/2 price sushi at the bar. Good deal for locals. Otherwise, the cooking is fusion and a little pricey. My favorite high end restaurant here in Incline is Big Water Grille, with nice lake views and great California type cuisine. That's about it for chow in Incline Village. Other recommendations I'll give aren't very far.

If you feel the need to head to south shore and see all the casinos, there's a place called Naked Fish which has as good a sushi as any I've had in Chicago or San Francisco. Can't recommend any other restaurants down there. It's about a 35 minute drive. In Kings Beach(10 minutes) is a terrific little pizza place called Peluso's. Mainly carryout but there is 1 table in front and 2 in back. Thin, crispy crust with homemade sausage.

If you're dying for steak the best place is Open Range in Tahoe Vista(12-15 minutes). There's also a place in Tahoe Vista called Spindleshank that we love to go to for happy hour(5:30-6:30) at the bar. A bunch of appetizers for $5 and 1/2 price wine. Whether it's a special or not, get their roasted artichoke, which is the best I've ever had anywhere, and Oysters Bienzo. I'd recommend driving 1 evening to Squaw Valley. It's really pretty and about a 30 minute drive. A great restaurant is Plumpjack, which is pricey but their bar menu is also excellent with moderate prices. Extremely reasonable wines. Mamasake has good sushi in Squaw, but not quite as good as Naked Fish.

Other restaurants I really like but are probably more than you want to spend are Le Bistro(Incline), Wild Goose(Tahoe Vista), Moody's Bistro, Dragonfly,Cottonwood(Truckee/20-25 minutes). You can check their menues on the internet. You should also find the time to drive to Truckee. It's a very pretty old mining town. Also in Truckee is the Donner Museum, which is pretty interesting(if you know the story of the Donner Party emigrating to California in the 1880"s. You can look it up). You'll have a taste for ribs after seeing the short movie they offer.

A close friend who used to regularly visit Tahoe for a board meeting always said it was much more profitable to visit the pawn shops than to try to find anything beyond your basic meat and potatoes (which she quite liked).

Seeing what she came back with, I tend to agree

Thanks for the info! As a city boy, I always look forward to natural beauty and I'm quite excited to visit one of the few places I've not been in the US. School will have been in session for about a month by the time we visit, so I will probably have a ton of homework to catch up with, hence my thought of picnicing somewhere peaceful to snack and read.

Once again, thanks so much for the info!

Steve

If you have a car, you might want to try out on of the local Basque restaurants down in Gardnerville, NV. Look at some of Steve Timko's posts on the California Board for specifics.

Was able to sneak out of conference at lunch and found a couple chowish places in South Lake Tahoe on a recent trip.

"El Caballo Negro" (love that name) is a taqueria on the main drag Lake Tahoe Blvd at the intersection with Tahoe Keys, few miles south of the casinos but before you get to the "Y" going up the other side of the lake. Along with the usual tacos & burritos, their specialties are the sopes and the tortas. No beer, but aguas de frutas and mexican sodas. No caballo on the menu either. Mexican league soccer blaring on the TV, felt just like Chicago except Lake Tahoe is outside the window. Tried both specialties and they were outstanding, especially the Torta Especial #1 with roast pork. Nice crispy torta bread was perfect, was shocked how good it was - thought they'd be serving them on Wonder bread in Tahoe. Owner says he's been open 9 months, moved from San Francisco to give his kids better place to grow up (plus there's a panaderia right down the street). Says his business is decent, but not fantastic. At $1.50 a sope and $4 a torta they should be busting his doors down for this quality.

"Pupuseria & Restaurant - Santa Barbara" is also on the main drag, south and within walking distance of the casinos, by Johnson Blvd. Another mom & pop place, but Senora Gladys runs the show here - hence the spanish soap operas blaring on Telemundo. She's chef, cook and bottlewasher - she takes your order, then runs to the kitchen and you hear her slapping up the fresh pupusas. Relatively extensive menu compared to El Caballo, lots of entrees around $7-$10 and they serve beer too so it would be a good place for a cheap dinner. Senora highly recommended the camarones with the mojo de ajo, which was great. Decent shrimp, but the rice and the mojo made the dish. Pupusas were also very good, I liked the queso better than the beans, came with a big helping of the spicy cabbage on the side. She told me I'd have to get the carne asada next time, since she's the one making it I'll take her word that it's pretty damn tasty.