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.