Napa Day 3

If Saturday was all kinds of wonderful, Sunday was just perfection. It started beautifully with brunch at Brix. And boy does Brix live up to its buffet brunch reputation!
It started with the food. There weren't all the usual suspects from a buffet brunch (i.e. no omelette station), and there were fresh, unique twists on some good oldies (i.e. herb breakfast sausage). The departures from your standard brunch fare were clearly a function of their extensive garden and ready access to the great variety of fresh, local produce. In fact, most of our favorite items were off of the extensive salad variety: quinoa and cucumber, hearts of romaine with "cesar" vinaigrette, beet and dried cherries, mixed greens in a red wine vinaigrette. Also not-to-be-missed were the gulf shrimp cocktail with horseradish cocktail sauce, local Fatted Calf charcuterie, and candied almonds, which I could not stop popping into my mouth.
In between plates, we wandered the beautiful gardens in hopes of being able to eat more after each jaunt.

(rainbow chard forest)
(Who knew that chives were tipped with purple flowers?!?)

The garden area also was an ideal setting for relaxing in the sun after brunch to digest all the yummy food.
We didn't want to leave, but other activities beckoned.

We stayed so long at Brix, it was starting to get hot, but I had my mind set on renting bikes and I was not to be dissuaded. Mikey and Mark were crazy enough to come with me, while Wendy and Anthony opted for an air-conditioned movie theater.

Despite the heat, the ride was breathtakingly gorgeous. In addition to the expected views of vineyard upon vineyard, we also spotted some migrating cows strolling past a big, beautiful structure at the edge of a shady hill. It appeared to be just a storage shed, but was idyllic in that setting.
We saved the best dinner for last: Redd.

John and Jackie drove up to join us. We were seated on the patio, which was great weather-wise, but also meant fighting mosquitoes and hay fever for some (and by some, I mean Mark).
The food was undeniably delicious. The chef sent us a prosciutto and arugula pizza with shaved pecorino to start.

As a group, we ordered nearly every first course on the menu: caramelized diver scallops over cauliflower puree, sashimi of hamachi with sticky rice and edamame, glazed pork belly over apple puree, asparagus soup, tasting of cold foie gras preparations, yellowfin tuna tartare.
My main course was the roasted organic chicken with green garlic potatoes, asparagus and liver toast.
Mark had the special lamb pappardelle.

At a certain point, it became impossible to shoot pictures with my Canon SD750.

So I left it to the pros with the DSLR cameras to shoot the rest of dinner: see Wendy's blog.

The next morning, we hit both the Alexis Baking Company (in Napa, just a couple blocks from the house we rented) and Bouchon Bakery (Yountville), before heading back to civilization.

Napa Day 2

Day two was chock full of good food, beautiful weather, and classic Napa experiences, new and old.We woke up hungry on day two, maybe because none of us were used to a completely vegetarian dinner. We decided to try Boon Fly Cafe at the Carneros Inn because it is widely touted as the best breakfast in Napa.

Given the rave reviews and the beautiful Saturday morning, we expected a crowd, and were pleasantly surprised to find none, even though it was nearly 10am. The only catch was that by the time we got there and sat down, our lunch reservation was only a couple hours away; and we were all very much looking forward to lunch (see below). So we tried to be conservative in our ordering, though some of us succeeded more than others.

The Changs exercised restraint, ordering just Poppa Joe's Eggs in a Hole and a dozen bite-sized donuts to share with the table.


The Chuangs, on the other hand, not only had a donut or two each, but also ordered a breakfast flatbread, which turned out to be unexpectedly humongous, and the Boon Fly Benedict, which was so good I couldn't help but finish (Mark felt the same way about the hash browns on my plate).


It turns out Mikey's ideal weekend involves total carb meals, so in addition to a couple of donuts, he also had the triple stack of buttermilk griddle cakes, and finished them, even though they were served with pure Maple syrup, and he prefers the fake stuff.

Needless to say, we needed to walk it off if we had any chance of eating lunch. We tried to do just that at the farmers market, which was adjacent to the Oxbow Public Market and just starting up its season again. For those of us used to the farmers markets throughout the Bay Area, it was sorely disappointing. So we headed into Oxbow, which was a bit more interesting. All-in-all, though, none of it lived up to the SF Ferry Building, which it seemed to be modeled after.

Lunch hour was fast approaching and we still had no room in our stomachs, so I pushed back our lunch reservation another hour, and played a game of Agricola.

A little competition was what we needed to work up just enough of an appetite. So we headed to Bistro Jeanty for a late lunch.


Per usual, the beet salad, tomato soup, and escarole salad with soft-boiled egg and bacon dressing were favorites.

We also tried a few new items, including the rillette de canard (duck pate served with cornichons), langue d'agneau (warm lamb tongue and potato salad), grilled Jack Smelt and risotto with grilled rabbit loin.

Nothing disappointed, least of which the fresh desserts: strawberries with creme fraiche and brown sugar; vanilla bean ice cream (they actually serve gelato, but they don't call it gelato).


No one gave Bouchon Bakery a second look as we passed it on our way back to the car. We couldn't even think about it. Instead, we headed to Silver Oak Cellars to taste their current Cabernet offerings.

They were pouring their 2004, 2005 Alexander Valley and 2005 Napa Valley Cabernets, none of which lived up to my memories of their 2001-2002 offerings.

We did some more wine tasting, as well as olive oil tasting, at Long Meadow Ranch, which was a more productive adventure. Their 2005 E.J. Church Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve was excellent, as were both of their extra virgin olive oils.

Thanks to my unfailing foresight (or blind luck), our dinner reservations at Terra were late. Despite the restaurant's awkward layout (two dining rooms separated by a cramped entranceway, which the hostess had to lead us back through to get to our table), I found the ambience stylishly charming, from the handwritten menu to the larger-than-life minimalist floral arrangements.


Further minimizing our faith in the Michelin-star system, we really weren't that impressed with the savory dishes. The only really memorable main dish was the broiled sake marinated black cod.

The experience was redeemed by the desserts, however, for those of us that had room for dessert. The butterscotch pot de creme with apple funnel cake was richly divine and the best dessert of the weekend thus far.

A perfect end to a beautiful Napa Valley day. For better (and other) pictures of the food we ate, visit Wendy's photography blog.

Napa Day 1

One of my best friends, Anthony, and I have birthdays within several weeks of each other. We don't much like buying gifts for each other, but we love eating out together, playing board games together, and generally hanging out. So this year, we planned a trip to Napa together with our spouses and other eating/gaming buddy, Mikey (essentially the same gang I spoke of going to Vegas with over the holidays). So Anthony and his wife, Wendy, found a baby-sitter (grandma), a dog-sitter (aunt + uncle), and we took off for three full days of eating, gaming, and general tomfoolery.

After a very light lunch at Crepes-a-Go-Go in Berkeley, where I picked up Mark from his office, we headed to Napa. Dinner at Ubuntu wasn't until 7:30pm, and we were already hungry by 5pm, so we headed out to downtown Napa to graze a little. Along the way to the Oxbow Public Market, we passed what appeared to be downtown Napa's newest hotel, Avia. It was the brightest, shiniest building on First Street.

We continued on over the First Street Bridge, stopping to gaze out over Napa Creek and some of Napa's new development.

We found the Oxbow Public Market across the creek.

But before I could go inside Oxbow, Mark spotted the Fatted Calf in the adjacent building, a charcuterie selling fine meats and other fine foods, with a bakery, the Model Bakery, next door. From these two establishments, we were able to put together an awesome snack of mortadella on pain epi, 4505 chicharrones (pork rinds), peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie, and apple cider.

It was the perfect meaty precursor to our dinner at Ubuntu, an all-vegetarian restaurant (slash yoga studio) that features a lot of dishes that look like a beautifully-arranged meadow.


Ubuntu is known for having vegetarian dishes that appeal to a meat eater's perspective and palate, and their "mushroom soil," which tops the dipping sauce above and the Carta da Musica forest-on-a-flatbread below, does just that. None of us at the table were vegetarians, but that mushroom soil elevated the flavor of all the greens that touched it.

The portions are small, and relatively expensive considering, well, there's no meat. For example, the carrot salad below is a double portion. However, as you can see, it is often beautifully presented, and ...

... even when it's not, some of the dishes are a revelation, they're so good. For me, the beet dish was one such amazing plate, as was the kohlrabi dish with poached "Rhode Island red" egg.

The waitress explained that the kohlrabi was represented several ways in the dish: pickled, pureed, and made into bread chunks. Who knew kohlrabi was so versatile?

Unfortunately, the desserts were unimpressive, both their looks and their taste.

We were plenty full when we left, but with little protein and carbs on the menu, I found myself snacking on mortadella and pain epi again around midnight.