Googie Grill I Deluo Pinto

Frikadeller

Say you wanted to know the most popular Danish plate in Monterey County. Yeah, I know – but just suppose the subject came up. It’s an easy question to answer. The folks at Googie Grill may not know precisely, but reasonable estimates settle at something over 200,000 orders of frikadeller in the past few years.

That’s right, frikadeller, a meatball presentation most often associated with Denmark. It’s a husky dish, with pan-seared ground beef served in a pool of rustic mushroom gravy that speaks of warm, hewn wood walls and soot-stained stone fireplaces – hearty and homespun. While pork may be more traditional, their ground beef meatball offers a rugged savor that gains swagger in the gravy, which shows off an equally unaffected character at once bittersweet and earthy, with an acrid glint.

There’s something indefinable here. Food Network words – umami, for example – come to mind, but it’s more a compelling flavor of swarthy pans that score a weathered aspect into meat and gravy, a stolid, hefty yoke that leaves a sturdy impression. It is seriously good – although you can’t help but try it out as a tongue-twister, as well. Just take a crack at saying “frikadeller” three times, real fast.

GOOGIE GRILL, 1520 Del Monte Blvd., Seaside, 392-1520.