Archive for the ‘in California’ Category
Napa/SF Recap: Day 3
t says: Our last full day in Napa. What to do, what to do! We started off the morning right with a trip to Boon Fly Cafe with k and cm. We had their trademark delicious doughnuts – they were pretty good. I think they were especially good because they were fresh, but, having had some fresh doughnuts from Mary Anne’s in Sea Isle City, I have had better. I had their chocolate chip pancakes, which were also quite tasty, but they reminded me a lot of something I could have made at home. Don’t get me wrong – the food at Boon Fly was good, it was inexpensive, and it was filling. But coming off of such great food the night before, I was kind of expecting to have my mind blown. Alas, my mind remained intact. Bummer.
We drove off to di Rosa Preserve, and, after a detour through Sonoma (we missed an important turn), we finally arrived … only to find that most of it was closed due to renovations. Double-bummer. We did see their car they had on exhibit:
Pretty wild, right?
We could have reserved a spot to tour their grounds, but we kind of didn’t really want a tour. We wanted to chillax. So we left. But at least we saw their sheep!
In any case, we journeyed across the street to make an unscheduled visit at Domaine Carneros! They seemed like they had patio umbrellas, which sounded like the perfect way to chillax on a beautiful day. First … we parked next to an inferior rental convertible …
Yea, their faux cheateau was a little … faux … but it got the job done. We sat on the balcony and peered over all that is wine country. It was beautiful. We enjoyed a cheese plate and g had a glass of … surprise … bubbly!
After an hour or so, we took their tour. And wow … Domaine Carneros was totally geared for tourists. They had big windows to look through, and a well-appointed tasting area. They did discuss the making of bubblies, which was fun, but it wasn’t really down-and-dirty – it was kind of like “look – we do it there – see?”.
Sorry for the blur – I was trying to be nonchalant!
These are their huge mechanized riddlers!
Touche.
So … where to next? Another bubbly winery!! We hit up Domaine Chandon for a slightly different experience. I won’t lie – Domaine Chandon was also geared for tourists, but there was more walking through the winery involved, which I appreciated. Also, our tour guide was fantastic. Yes, he was on auto-pilot mode (he must have given that tour a billion times), but he was still energetic enough to keep our attention. He also had a huge black eye, which I originally thought was a birthmark of some sort, but turned out to be the result of too much wine and “acting stupid” (his words).
They did tell us something interesting: when the winery was built, the surrounding area protested. They did not want a big ugly massive structure from LVMH. And so … they made a winery that you really cannot see from the road whatsoever. It was pretty well concealed. Here’s the front door. I’ll spare you the other photos of inside the winery … you’ve seen enough for this post …
We did a “mixed drink” tasting at Domaine Chandon. It was … interesting. Our tour guide hammed it up, and we have now learned the beauty of the ginger-mint mojito (with bubbly!) … but I think it was the people around us that made it most fun. cm sat at a table with some Turkish people who were involved “in textiles”. They apparently did not want to discuss their involvement. At the table with k, g, and me was a couple approximately our parents’ age who turned out to also be from the South Jersey area! When the woman found out we were from Philly, the first question she asked was, “So … do you go clubbing in Old City?” “Nooo … we just live there.” Throughout the course of the tasting, as she came to know more about us, she kept referring to us as “such good kids”. I guess the four of us are goody-two-shoes.
That night, we had dinner at Ad Hoc. We pre-gamed by hanging out at our hotel with a bottle of white from Castello di Amorosa, a loaf of bread from Bouchon, and a deck of cards. We had to get ourselves mentally prepared for Ad Hoc. It was going to be our only TK-inspired meal. We had high hopes …
When we arrived, I was impressed with how bright and open it was. Bistro Jeanty was a little dim, and Tra Vigne was dim as well. Not Ad Hoc – they wanted you to see everything that was about to go down. It was also a little loud – it reminded me of a crazed BYO in Philly. I felt at home … Let the feast begin …
Things started off with a salad. With bleu cheese. And Bacon. And Beets. You know – I will confess that I was disappointed with “salad” when I read the menu, but I was thinking of some sissy, summery salad. No, this salad is the salad that beats up other salads and takes their lunch money. It would have made kp proud.
Then we moved on to the main course, which was chateaubriand. Cooked beautifully. It was some of the best steak that I had had in a long, long time. I think what made it so noteworthy was that I had grown used to tougher cuts of meat like hanger steak and the like – but no – this was tenderloin … and it was tender. We added on two servings of the “optional” bone marrow and our jaws dropped when we saw the size of those suckers – they were huge! Normally the marrow is barely more than how much butter you’d use on a dinner roll. But I swear there was enough per bone to adequately cover the entire blade of a butter knife.
There was so much that cm couldn’t handle the richness past a single half-bone. It took some real arm-twisting, but I had no choice but to man up and enjoy three half-femurs of bone marrow. It was awesome. My blood probably flowed yellow with the amount of fat I ingested that night, but it was worth it. Vegetables? Yeah, there were some vegetables, too. There was a baked-then-fried potato with bacon, and there was some ?squash? – I really can’t remember, because by the time it mixed with the jus, steak, and bone marrow, it might as well have been meat.
The cheese course was fantastic. I remember thinking to myself, “you know – if this was the last thing I eat tonight, I’d be happy”. And that says a lot – because when it comes to dessert, I always have to have something sweet. But no – not this time – I was fine with cheese … until I saw the dessert:
Now, don’t be fooled by this picture. Sure, it seems like it’s one haphazardly arranged, normal-sized sundae. No – it’s a MASSIVE sundae (as everything served at Ad Hoc is served family style). And it’s not just a normal massive sundae, it’s a massive sundae inspired by s’mores. Graham cracker cookies, vanilla ice cream, marshmallow creme, and rich, luscious chocolate (the kind that puts meat on your bones and sticks to your ribs).
Really, in my opinion, as far as the food goes, Ad Hoc presented us with the most decadent food we ate the entire time we were on vacation. I’m not sure if that made it “better” than the food we had any other night, but it was executed perfectly – I had zero complaints (rare for me), and there was a lot of food. I think it was definitely worth the $50 price of admission.
And you know what … if you wanted more of any course, you were able to order more!! It was all you can eat! Holy crap! Who in their right mind could possibly eat any more than they had served? Afterwards, I actually thought to myself “darn, maybe we should hit up saladworks tomorrow or something for dinner instead of going out”. I snapped out of it, but you get the idea!
Napa/SF Recap: Day 2 (the rest of it)
t says: Yea, so I left you hanging on Day 2. Sorry about that – my bad! Just to finish off Day 2 …
After we failed to get into Dominus, we picked up cm and k and went off to our 5th winery of the day (although in actuality, we only really actually visited 1 of the four). We chose to go to Castello di Amorosa, a winery which primarily makes wines from Italian grapes. While one of their recent releases has earned great marks from wine critics, they are more known for the fact that their winery is a giant castle. For real:
Yes, there’s a drawbridge, and yes, there’s a moat. I will say that the tour was fun. They took us around the castle, which was definitely a tourist destination and not a “real” castle (I mean it was finished sometime in the past twenty years, so you know it’s not going to be a “real” castle), and taught us about … well … castles. It was interesting that they really didn’t focus on the wine too much. Yes, there was some talk of vini- and viticulture, but I really don’t recall much. Our guide was nice – she was Austrian (“G’day mate! Let’s put another shrimp on the barbie!” … Dumb and Dumber, anyone?) The tasting was … intense. There were a lot of wines. And because one of us got the regular tasting, and one got the “premier” tasting (or whatever they call it), g and I were able to taste every wine they had. What was interesting was that I (and maybe g) were the only ones not swallowing the wine (well, the pregnant woman was also not drinking wine, either – she looked so bored – we felt bad for her); as the DD, I was making extensive use of a spitoon. By the end of the tasting session, I would say that k was pleasantly buzzed and cm and g were quite smiley/happy (they were trying to master the art of jumping into a convertible). And one more thing … we were all hungry! After all of the Italian wines, all we really wanted was some pasta … and some meatballs …
Our guide told us of a place called Tra Vigne that was supposed to have good Italian food. I figured that she’d just tell us of whatever restaurant they had some sort of “deal” with, but still, it couldn’t be “bad”, right? Plus, at this restaurant, there was no corkage fee for the first bottle of wine (if it was a bottle from Castello di Amorosa), so that was $20 more to spend on food – woohoo!
We called them up, secured a reservation, and drove to St. Helena. We were leaving everything up to chance and being spontaneous. It was vacation … k and cm style! When we arrived, we used the pricing of the menu to determine whether we were dressed appropriately – we didn’t want to walk into someplace too fancy. All the pasta dishes were under $20 with the exception of the one with scallops – we were good to go.
It was awesome. The indoor space was big and open, but it was the outdoor space that was oh so beautiful. It was kind of like a very large backyard patio with lights suspended from trees. We sat on a little porch that looked out onto the patio and thought of how cool it would be to hold some kind of classy outdoor gathering there.
Then we met our waiter. He was an older gentleman. He had a very … monotonous voice. But you know what – he was superb. At first, I thought he was going to be a very dry character – there’s something about his voice that sounded like he was so bored with what he was doing. But it was part of his act. Using this voice, he had perfected the art of delivering punchlines with no change in expression – gotta love the dry humor. He was happy to tell us what he liked from the menu (e.g. he felt the fig pizza was the best pizza that they’ve offered in years), and he didn’t have a problem with saying a dish was only “ok” (one of the desserts). He even snuck in a little bit of song and dance when he was describing what would happen if we ate some other dish that was his favorite. I trusted him.
And he was right. Their food was fantastic. From their fresh mozzarella cheese and tomato caprese to their fig pizza to my dish, which was a braised rabbit and pappardelle (that was easily as good as anything I’ve had at Melograno – which says a lot!). It really was a most excellent meal. g took a picture at the restaurant, but I noticed that there wasn’t any food in the picture. I guess the food was so good that neither of us wanted to pause eating for a pic. I think k got one!
I remember that their desserts were also quite good, but I can’t remember specifics – maybe one of my dinnermates can fill in the details? The point: Tra Vigne was fantastic. I was worried that it wouldn’t have lived up to Bistro Jeanty the night before, but it did! Later on, we found out that Michael Chiarello had opened Tra Vigne (although no longer there); whoever’s there now knows what they’re doing! What a great night!
Napa/SF Recap: Day 2 (part 1)
t says: We wanted to start off day 2 in Napa with a bang. Because we were lodging in Yountville, the only thing that made sense for us to do for breakfast was to go to Bouchon bakery. We passed by the cafe next to our railway car/hotel room, crossed the street, walked 50 yards and bam! there we were. I got just a few things: chocolate bouchon, chocolate croissant, and something else that likely had chocolate in it. The bouchon was tasty – it was more cakey than Garces Trading Company’s, which are more fudgy – I can’t really say which I prefer. The chocolate croissant made me cry a little on the inside, as it had the chocolate concentrated in a rod in the croissant. I hate it when they do that. But then g brought up a good point – when was the last time I had the mythical chocolate croissant that had chocolate throughout? The last time was over a decade ago. They were sold by this little coffee cart inside the Johns Hopkins undergrad library circa July 1998. At the time, I was still in high school staying at JHU for the summer, but when I matriculated at Hopkins in 2000, they no longer served those croissants anymore. I think Au Bon Pain used to do it the good way, too. But now that Keller doesn’t do it that way, I’m beginning to wonder if it ever could have been done, period! Did my mind make it up? After all, if anyone would go through the extra effort to evenly distribute chocolate, it’d be TK, right? After all, he is the guy that suggested that you sift your chocolate chips before using them in cookies to get ride of those tiny pieces that might make the cookie look less appealing (?dirty?).
We next visited Quintessa winery. This was going to be our token “real deal” winery for the trip; we were visiting other wineries more for the experience of going to beautiful vineyards with a variety of “shticks”. Artesa’s “shtick” was that they were the first bottle of wine we purchased (and we’ll never purchase again). Specializing in bordeaux blends bearing its namesake (although we have come to find that they are involved in the production of a very small run of white named Illumination), Quintessa’s “shtick” is that they make great wine (although the winery is indeed beautiful, too!). We’ll reveal future shticks as we go on. a hooked us up with one of his friends who hooked us up with a 10am visit at Quintessa. We owe them both, big time, because as far as wine goes, these were the best we tasted on the entire trip!
From the road, Quintessa doesn’t look like much. It looks like a giant stone wall set into a small mountain – it’s hard to imagine in the pic because you only see such a small part of it. It’s amazing how much of the facility is hiding behind this wall and/or underground! This is apparently a great architectural accomplishment; I believe it!
This is the view from on top of the wall looking out onto the “front yard” as I would call it. They probably have a better name for it.
This is the “back yard” (my term). It was amazing to see all of the different vineyard blocks situated on hills, valleys, and flat lands, with the rows oriented in different directions. I guess I had just assumed that the geography for any winery would be relatively constant (e.g. it’s all on one side of a mountain), but here you see that it’s quite varied – and this is for a winery as small as Quintessa. Interestingly (although not surprisingly), each patch (block) may be considered a distinct microclimate and have different soil conditions, thus may produce identical grapes (e.g. Cabernet Sauvignon) of varying flavors. Therefore, the grapes from each is kept separate and blended together later to make one final wine.
Is there a better way to start off the morning than with a 10am glass of Illumination? I can’t think of many.
Some grapes up close.
We were also taken inside the winery and while we didn’t take any pictures of the vats or anything, we did take an obligatory picture of the barrels. Everytime I see views like this, I’m always overcome with peace. I think it’s because it’s dimly lit, quiet, and the barrels are all neatly arranged; it’s a sense of calm.
Of course, we also did a tasting. We tasted the 2005, 2006, and 2007 Quintessa wines, which were drastically different from one another. Between the different growing conditions for each year and the different final blends used in the wine, that was not surprising. g was partial to the ’05 which had a nice balance of fruit and not-fruit (highly technical terms here). The ’07 was tight still, with some bitter tannins up front, but I felt like there was a more powerful wine hiding underneath it than the ’05. The ’06 in our opinion had the lightest body of the 3, showing more fruit up front, but the flavors and mouthfeel dissipated very quickly. We bought a bottle or two of the wines we liked and are having them shipped to NJ in November. Because shipping to PA is either a no-no or extremely expensive (we did visit one winery that would do it, but it cost $100 for 3 bottles), I hope sr and ha don’t mind …
What next? Lunch. Angela, our guide at Quintessa (who was absolutely awesome) gave us a suggestion: Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen.
There’s a main street in St. Helena. Running parallel to that main street is a much smaller street. This eatery is off that much smaller street. (Do you like these directions? If you actually want to know where it is, google it like we did.) A little path led you to a small patio area with chairs, tables, a fig tree (with lights), and dogs. That’s right. Dogs. Apparently it is encouraged to bring your dog with you should you dine outdoors. Fortunately, they still took us even though we had no dogs. The food was fantastic. I had an arugula pesto gnocchi. The texture of the gnocchi was like a perfect potato gnocchi – a bit firmer than at Osteria. The arugula pesto had some of the peppery arugula taste to it, but I think I would have liked more! g had an “adult” grilled cheese with fig, tomato, and some kind of cheese we can’t pronounce. For dessert, we had the parfait which featured chocolate and coconut sorbets that were out of this world (for sorbets …). The food was great, reasonably priced, and g spotted Cindy Pawlcyn. She didn’t stop and say hi to Cindy, as it seemed like Cindy was in a serious conversation with a chef about the menu, but at least g’s chef-dar is up-to-snuff.
We next visited Clos Pegase a Michael Graves-designed winery built as a “temple to wine and art”. We took no pictures. We took no pictures because the place sucked. Actually, our Quintessa guide informed us that Clos Pegase was a bit “dated”, and she hit the nail right on the head. On top of that, the people manning the visitor’s center did not even recognize our presence when we walked through the door … which is surprising because no one else was in there. They just held conversation with each other and pretended we weren’t there. I hope that someone buys the winery, fires those people, bulldozes the winery, and starts fresh …
We went to Sterling vineyards because we heard that you can take a lift up a mountain. But then we found that they charged you up front at the bottom of the mountain for their tour and tasting. I wasn’t interested in tasting their wine as I was DD. Sorry Sterling – I’m not paying $40 or $50 up front if all I really want to do is ride the lift …
So g and I set out on a spontaneous adventure. At our rehearsal dinner, we shared with our guests a magnum of ’99 Dominus … that was the year we met! It was a delicious wine – one that held significant sentimental value … We were determined to find the winery. We googled it, stuck the address into Mustang Sally’s GPS and off we went. It turned out that it was in Yountville – the town where our hotel was! This is what we saw:
We saw the front gate … and that’s it. You see, Dominus is not open to the public. I’m 100% positive that if we had an “in”, we could have visited. Later on, we found that you can indeed arrange a tour if you’re a smooth talker or have an industry connection – but that even still they’d be reluctant to give you a full-on tasting (I guess unless you’re a really smooth talker). On our next trip, for sure, g and I will pull every string we possibly can to breach this impenetrable fortress …
Well, I’ll finish off the day at my next sitting. Sorry to leave you hanging on Day 2 – but work needs to be done!
Napa/SF Recap: Day 1
t says:
As hinted, we took a recent trip to Napa/SF. Here are the events from Day 1 of our adventure! WITH PICTURES!
We started off the day with a healthy breakfast:
There’s nothing like an airport terminal McDonald’s Egg McMuffin. g was impressed with the meltiness of the cheese. If you haven’t had one of these in a while, go and have one. It really brings you back to a better time …
We were a little disgusted to find pickles in the vending machine at the airport …
No, we didn’t try them …
The flight was ok. I sat next to a rather chatty, older woman with a pleasant Southern accent. She started off a conversation with a:
“Where are you from? Ooooo – Let me guess! … China?”
“No.”
“Okinawa?”
“No.”
“Japan?”
“N-”
“Oh, Okinawa is in Japan. I meant that other one …”
“I’m from New Jersey.”
“No, but your heritage. Where are your parents from?”
I eventually gave in and told the lady I was half-Korean. g chuckled the whole time. She thinks it’s funny when this happens. I guess there are worse conversations to be had …
The flight was long, but we finally arrived at SFO. Meet our rental car! Mustang Sally! Equipped with GPS, she was ready to show us California. Yes … we were stereotypical tourists. I asked for a red one, but the customer just before me got the last one – darn!
After g was sad that we did NOT drive through Sausalito to get to Napa (we took the more efficient, albeit, less pretty route), Sally led us to Oxbow Public Market … where a surprise awaited g (you can see it in the photo …).
This is not the surprise. This was lunch. It was from one of the indoor vendors named “C Casa Taqueria”. There are two soft tacos (one was spiced lamb with mint and goat cheese – we can’t pronounce the name of the other one) and some delicious nachos. I don’t know if we were hungry or what, but these were better than Distrito!
This was the surprise! Kara’s Cupcakes! There is a short-list of things that put g in a better mood … no matter what. They include glasses of sparkling wine, jelly doughnuts, convertibles (with the caveat of good weather), and … cupcakes. But these were more than just cupcakes. These were “the bomb”. The one on the right was a chocolate cake with blackberry filling and cream; g enjoyed it very much. The one on the left was the “fleur de sel” cupcake, featuring chocolate cake, caramel filling, dark chocolate whipped cream (almost like a ganache) and sprinkled coarse salt. I will go on the record right now and say that the fleur de sel cupcake was the single best cupcake I have ever had. Period. The cake was as soft as a cupcake’s cake could possibly be. The caramel filling was perfect. The topping was perfect. But it was the sea salt that made it unbelievable. Brown Betty is lucky that there’s no Kara’s Cupcake here. It was so good that I made sure to stop at another Kara’s Cupcake vendor in SF later on our trip. I ate four of them throughout our stay in California, each one as good as the first. I am now reminded that I should go to the gym, pronto …
Then we visited our first winery. This is what we saw:
This is Artesa winery. We were psyched to visit because the first bottle of wine we ever bought was an Artesa. As you can see, the view is beautiful from their estate. The grounds are spectacular with nice/modern/faux-infinity-pool fountains and a very modern-looking facility. But the people … suck. First off, the bar was mobbed. I guess I can’t fault Artesa for that – it must be because the wine’s really good, right? We reasoned that this was surely because they had improved a lot since that first cab we had some years ago (our recollection was that it was … not so hot). But when I wiggled in to the bar, the bartender completely ignored me. I reasoned that maybe it was because I was at the very edge of the bar without room for a proper tasting. So g and I walked around, looked at the pretentious art, relaxed on the outdoor patio, and took in the view. Gorgeous. Then we returned to the bar. This time, the bartender acknowledged we were there but was completely unwilling to do anything more than absolutely necessary. No history of Artesa. No description of the wine. Not even a “welcome to Artesa!” (although he did make sure to correct my pronunciation of Artesa – it’s Artesa, not Arteesa). I even gave him opportunities to talk to us by asking open-ended questions … but no – he wasn’t having any of it. Furthermore, only “club members” are given a splash of their higher-end wines, which I am totally fine with – but the delivery was more of a “neener neener” attitude than a “I’m sorry, I wish I could give you a splash, but I can’t” attitude. By the way, none of their offerings are at all that expensive/exclusive versus whatever else can be found in Napa, so they can keep their single-vineyard wines. Conclusion: we had come full circle to Artesa after 7 years … and now we’ll never again consider buying another bottle of their crappy attitude. Also – I’ve seen sippy-cups with thinner walls than their champagne flutes … just sayin’ …
We checked into Napa Valley Railway Inn. This place, despite the awful website, is awesome! Lots of room. Very clean bathrooms and bedding. Close proximity to everything in Yountville (i.e. Keller-ville). Free parking. The only downside was that the water temperature was a little temperamental; it kept you on your toes! Also, the railway cars are kind of “cute”. I’ve decided that when we do re-visit Napa, even if we do have more money, we’ll always return to Napa Valley Railway Inn …
For dinner, we dined at Bistro Jeanty in Yountville. It was wonderful for multiple reasons. The first was that we could walk to it. The second was how not-fussy the decor and environment were. Finally, they do rustic French food very well (and it wasn’t ridiculously priced!). The coq au vin was delicious with tender chicken and a powerful braising liquid (my braised chicken never comes out with that depth of flavor), and g had salmon dumplings and ratatouille, which were also fabulous. I think it’s either here or the cupcake where g started off her new “word of the trip”: “yummy”.
While the entrees were very good indeed, let me introduce you to the star of the meal:
What you see before you is a creme brulee … with a twist. The bottom layer is traditional creme brulee custard, which was creamy and delicious, as the inside of a creme brulee should be. This layer was topped with chocolate mousse, which was then sprinkled with sugar and bruleed. This was awesome. I mean, seriously, there is absolutely NO reason that ordinary creme brulee should ever be offered. However, because not all restaurants are reading this blog and therefore will be unaware that they should make the appropriate change to their menus, I guess I’ll just have to be satisfied with never ordering another creme brulee again unless it comes with a layer of chocolate as Bistro Jeanty has done. In any case, this dinner in its entirety was a superb start to the lineup of amazing dinners that awaited us.
after dinner sneeze 