Posts Tagged ‘Bouchon Bakery’
The return to Napa – it starts …
t says: It’s been about a year since our last Napa trip and g and I were looking forward to a revisit of wine country as well as visiting kp in SF. We made up our list of wineries and tasting rooms to visit, booked our virgin America flights, and off we went … after a several hour delay leaving philly …
We started off day 1 with some quiche and donut from Bouchon Bakery. The quiche was second only to some of Talula’s Daily’s creations, while the donut was a little too butter-laden for us..
But we did think it was cute that hey gave you a donut AND a donut hole!
We then went to Maisonry – a great place for rapid-fire tasting in a serene setting. The ’10s and ’11s we tasted were very lean and green – it was going to be a tough time for wineries to pry money out is my wallet this trip! Oh and there was a dude hawking his late harvest Sauterne-style wine (and Trader Joe cheese) – quite good for the amount of sweetness it had (g and I tend to avoid sweet wines). But if it’s going to be $75 for a half-bottle, it better make me cry with how good it is.
Lunch was courtesy of Reddwood, a new addition to Yountville, and right next door (kinda) from Maisonry! It had some kickass food, from a delish chopped salad …
… to a crazy burrata (which inspired g to say: you know there is nothing better than burrata and bread …)….
… To meatballs and greens …
Newton was our first winery visit this trip and the winery was beautiful, with nice gardens and sweeping views of rows and rows of vine. The wines, themselves were pretty good – g liked the ’09 Puzzle – but I wasn’t convinced that any were worth the price tag so I held out – two wine stops and no wines purchased! A new record!
We went to Bottega for dinner. g was initially embarrassed to take pictures, but when this hamachi came out, I told her I was overruling her and did as I pleased …
. The pastas were out of control, too! g did a version of carbonara and I had the sweet corn pasta with squab ragout. Quite a great meal (and WAY better than Bouchon).
bw > tk
t says: Our newest castmember, bw, has been showing off quite a baking repertoire over the past 6 or so months. But this time … he made a dish especially for me. Ok, that’s totally not true, but it might as well have been – look at it:
bacon cheddar scones!
Ok … so … I don’t want to offend bw with this next statement, but I have to say it: it reminds me of a McDonald’s bacon egg and cheese biscuit. Well – but it’s better! It doesn’t have that mouth-coating-grease sensation, but packs a wollop of bacon and cheddar in a nice airy scone (and I didn’t even get ’em straight from the oven!). Now I know what you’re thinking: “t … you like everything with bacon … so this isn’t fair”. I figured you’d say that … so I brought out the one pig-eating person who doesn’t feel that bacon automatically increases deliciousness: g. g ate hers in 60 seconds flat. Afterwards she proclaimed, “wow – this is way better than at Bouchon Bakery”.
WHOA. Hey there now. Did she just go there? Did bw just take down Thomas Keller? Yea he did.
After her comment, I brought her attention to the truth: bw actually used the recipe from Bouchon Bakery cookbook (probably reproduced accurately here)! So … bw versus full-time paid professionals … and bw for the win! We tried to figure out how/why this could happen. g suspected that it was due to the larger bacon pieces and larger size of the scone, allowing it to have more substance in the center. I feel that bw’s was seasoned more aggressively, with brighter chives. Well, whatever it was, we give him an A+! And … because [according to TK] “you really only begin to learn the second time you prepare a dish” … we eagerly await the second time … although not too soon: my cholesterol levels are still recuperating from the 2.5 I ate this time …
after dinner sneeze 