Green Dragon Tavern & Museum

A former fruit-and-nut farm in Carlsbad now holds a 22,000-square-foot brick building built to look like New England colonial architecture, inside which a free museum displays original documents and antiquities tied to Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Executive chef Darren Denny, formerly of the San Diego Yacht Club, runs a seafood-leaning kitchen with New England clam chowder, a lobster roll and fish and chips, served in a dining room with wall hangings and a working fireplace meant to recall the 1700s. Lunch alone runs past a dozen choices, and admission to the museum stays free whether or not anyone eats.