Day 3 - Brix restaurant and Jessup winery

Huh - forgot about this Napa post - last one!

Brix was our last destination for food at Napa. I had thought about going to Gilwoods or Soscol Cafe for breakfast/brunch, but ended up choosing something closer to where we were staying.

I think Brix is the most beautiful restaurant in the entire world.

Well, okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a tad, but you really can't beat the view from their patio.

After ordering I wandered through their kitchen garden which consists of raised beds, orchards, and vineyards. The garden provides produce year round for the restaurant.

The inside of Brix is nice as well, with lots of hard wood, wine colored fabrics, and whimsical touches like a clear glass bottle chandelier or a room separator made from large barrels.

Our love seat allowed us a nice view of outside. Unfortunately it was too chilly to dine on the patio.

I ordered the soft scrambled eggs with bacon and leeks which came with a side of brioche toast and roasted root vegetable hash browns.

Mr. Insomniac got the blt & egg sandwich with applewood smoked bacon and roasted root vegetables. I liked his dish better than mine.

After our meal, we headed to Jessup Cellars, which is in close proximity to the French Laundry (one day... lol ) and Bouchon Bakery. Mark Jessup, winemaker, used to work at Robert Mondavi and on the Opus One label. He left to start his own wine and is known for his fruit forward reds.

We didn't have an appointment like a few other parties did (which I think involves cheese and/or fruit), so we got the flight of red wines and hung out at the bar. Our server was new, so we ended up chatting with a guy behind the counter. We had a great conversation - he was studying to become a master sommelier and was in the process of studying. He had just barely passed an exam that he thought he failed which had "crazy multiple choice questions" like what temperature does room need to be during the second week of fermentation. Future tests will require him to distinguish and if he keeps going, he'll have to be able to distinguish vineyards or something. Crazy.

The bouquet of the reds was incredibly heady - full of berries - and it tasted fantastic. I also enjoyed the cabernet port which was served with dark chocolate. I enjoyed it so much, I got scared. I sort of joked (but was actually a little serious) that I could see myself eating chocolate and drinking port while watching RuPaul's Drag Race (Nina Flowers, locas!) at night, and it seemed like a very slippery slope. The woman serving us said that she drinks a small glass at night after her daughter goes to sleep. Hey, maybe that's the Napa way, I don't know. But that port was good. Especially with the chocolate.

The incredibly annoying (or really cool, I suppose) thing about Jessup is that they don't distribute their wines to any retailer (or so they say). Most of their drinkers are part of their wine club... I don't know if I drink enough wine to belong to a club and I'm the primary wine drinker in the house. I'd probably just end up stockpiling bottles or becoming a raging alcoholic. We ended up getting a couple of bottles of the Zinfandel and a Merlot, but no port, sad to say.

And just a quick recounting of the restaurant at Meadowood.

Our reservations were late (8:30) and so by the time we arrived it was pitch black which was unfortunate as the grounds are supposed to be beautiful. I brought my camera but the restaurant was too dark to take any pictures. I tried once, but chickened out. They have a dress code (jacket recommended) and I had already got chastized for taking pictures earlier in the day at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen, so I resigned myself to a pictureless meal.

Meadowood is a Michelin two star restaurant, one of only a handful on the West coast. They have a garden on site which provides the bulk of their produce and use local ranchers for protein. It's different from other restaurants in that it does not have an a la carte menu - you have the choice between a four-course Winter tasting menu, a lighter two-course bistro menu that is served at the bar, and the nine-course Chef's tasting menu. We opted for the latter.

Some of our dishes were on the current menu - like the cold smoked toro and caviar with crème fraiche, radish sprouts, and warm brioche, which was sublime. Other highlights were fried oyster on top of a double baked potato with bone marrow; the wild mushroom tea with black truffle pecorino crumpet; and the lobster sweetbread ravioli with truffle foam.

There were a couple of dishes I didn't like as much, though. One standout was the rabbit with two different preparations - poached and with a confit of olives. I typically avoid rabbit, as they are cute. And I had one as a pet (his name was Bunny. I gave all my pets rather generic names - Kitty the cat; Lizzie the lizard; my birds Birdy, Flyer, and Pecky; the hamster Nibbles that had those nasty octomom hamster babies... okay I digress). So I never really think of rabbit as lip smacking delicious. And then it had green olives which I realize I hate. The poached rabbit had a bizarre texture and tasted kind of flavorless. So I wasn't a fan of that.

But overall, the dinner was quite delicious. I think the dish that I was most impressed by was trio of fois gras. One preparation was seared, which is probably my favorite, the other was something I don't remember, but the last was fois gras paired with peanuts and grapes, a sort of play on peanut butter and jelly. It tasted sublime, but Mr. Insomniac both agreed that when we actually thought about it, it was sort of gross.

The service was amazing. Knowledgeable, polite servers were unobtrusive and attended to all the setting changes that go with a tasting menu with efficient ease. Christopher Kostow, the chef, came out at the end of the meal to speak with each table and spent several minutes conversing in French with a patron.

Napa Drinks - Day 2: ZD, St. Suprey, Del Dotto Wineries

Our first real tour of the weekend was at ZD winery. I'm a big fan of their chardonnays. ZD Winery has been farming organically since the 1980s and has recently installed solar panels that power the entire winery. They're the size of a football field - how neat!

Part of their philosophy is to encourage cover crops which provide organic material for the soil, attract beneficial insects, and decrease soil erosion. Case in point - the mustard that we saw everywhere during our trip. (There was even a mustard festival, but we didn't attend any of the events.) The mustard's root system opens up the soil to receive water and is allowed to flourish in ZD's vineyards. I just think they're pretty. :)

Lots of weeds emerge as well. The owners of the adjoining vineyards keep their fields pretty bare in the off season.

So we began our tour...

The library. We did some tasting in here. They are in the process of moving things around, hence the sparseness.

The large vat for mixing barrels from the various vineyard lots. The winemaker tastes the wine from these babies to make sure it's perfectly blended.

More barrels. I know you're probably wondering if there had ever been an unfortunate barrel incident where barrels rolled down the racks, shattering and spilling Chardonnay everywhere. Well, there hasn't been one. (I checked.)

Medium toasty. heh.

We got to drink out of a barrel which was a good time (even though the tour guide spilled some red wine on Mr. Insomniac's shirt). ZD only uses American Oak barrels and does a slow cool fermentation for their whites which takes 6-8 weeks (as opposed to 3-6 days) and prevents malo-lactic fermentation. The flavors of the fruit are retained and natural acidity is maintained.

The bottling production room.

The grape crusher. ZD does a lot of night harvesting so they can get the grapes at the perfect time.

When we finished the tour, we went to the wine bar and had more tastings. As we drank, we chatted with our tour guide. Apparently she and the other man behind the counter were born and raised in Napa, which impressed me greatly. I guess I have this image of all Napaians being disaffected city folk that have abandoned high-pressured jobs so they can drink wine, herd sheep, and harvest pistachios. She talked about how she hated growing up there because it was just farmland. "Our high school mascot was the Crushers. Like grape crushers," she explained with a twinge of embarrassment. In an effort to cheer her up, I helpfully pointed out that at least she wasn't a Banana Slug - which was possibly the worst mascot of all time.


Her comment? "I went to Santa Cruz, so yeah, I was a Banana Slug too."

Awkward.

But then we all laughed heartily.

I also bought some bottles of Chardonnay, so I guess it all worked out.

On with the fun. Next up, St. Supery. I didn't want to do a full tasting here, as I knew Del Dotto was coming up which was rumored to be a fairly intensive tasting experience.

One cool thing about this vineyard is that it has a self-guided tour and a couple of interactive exhibits.

This display shows wine production around the world. Napa Valley is the tiny rectangle all the way to the right. Directly to the left of Napa Valley is California, then USA. Italy and France tower over everyone else.

This display was pretty neat - you got to smell different essences from wine. I drank this one white wine (totally forgot the name) and had to pour it down the sink because it tasted disgusting. When I smelled the green olive essence it smelled *exactly* like that wine. So I learned that (1) I really hate olives and (2) I hate wine that tastes like olives.

There was a gallery displaying art submissions from the Napa Valley Mustard Festival Visual Art Competition and Sale. Nothing I'd buy, but I was happy to look. :)

I skipped the tasting room, but here it is. Mr. Insomniac got a call from his friend saying that they were at V. Sattui, so we had to cut the visit short.

By the time we arrived at V. Sattui, it must have been around 2pm on a Saturday. It was a madhouse. I couldn't even take any pictures inside the marketplace because of all the people.

There were so many cars in the parking lots that we were directed to park in the friggin vineyards.

Once we wrangled through the teeming masses to get food (Mr. Insomniac and I had just eaten at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen, so we didn't eat anything), we grabbed a picnic table.

C and A split a sandwich and their daughter K nibbled on some bread in between her explorations of the area. It was good to see them...

... but unfortunately, we had only an hour with them before we had to leave for our last destination - a 3pm tour at Del Dotto winery and caves.

We arrived a little late, and so were placed in a tour with a lovely family. Our tour guide was hilarious and provided much entertainment. As the hour wore on and after the fourth or fifth sampling, he got even funnier. He was also quite generous with the pours.

Me with my new extended family. This shot was taken at the end of our tour after we all had a nice buzz going on. Left to right: The old dad who works on a pistachio farm and has a small vineyard, his son in law (wearing the green shirt) that also works on the farm, the pregnant daughter who is blocking her mom (being pregnant in Napa has got to be torture), the tour guide in grey, the obnoxious drug rep girlfriend, the anesthesiologist son, and me!

At one point the son-in-law grabbed his mother-in-law's ass (he thought she was his wife) and much hilarity ensued. The mom was a real sweetheart - she was celebrating her birthday with her family and by the end of the tour we were like best friends. lol. She told me I was such a nice person, which is completely true. Alcohol brings people together.

The drug rep girlfriend was annoying. Once she found out we were from LA, she kept complaining about having to move away from Los Angeles to go live in the country where her anesthesiologist boyfriend lived. At one point she asked our faithful guide about employment opportunities at Del Dotto, saying and I quote, "you can train me and then I'll be a better salesman than you!" To his credit, he didn't tell her to STFU.

One tour highlight was getting a chance to see the inside of an oak barrel and to smell an actual bung hole - that is the technical name for it, says our guide, in response to our titters.
Here's the mom getting a good whiff of the oak barrel bung hole.

We got to taste wines that were aged in American oak vs. ones that were aged in French oak. I decided that I liked the American oak better. U-S-A! U-S-A!

Most of the tastings happened in the caves which were carved by Chinese immigrants. They are cool and dark with slimy limestone walls. If we didn't like one of the wines, we were told to throw the offending liquid against the wall. That was so decadent.

I read a lot of online reviews about how touristy Del Dotto is, and how corny the tour guides are. I thought it was great and had a blast. The wine was delicious, with a great mouth feel and finish. I particularly enjoyed the Cabernet. Mr. Insomniac ordered a bottle for his partner and had it shipped. Our tour guide was actually knowledgeable and not at all stuffy. His philosophy was that everyone has a different palate, and you just have to find something that works for you. I can get behind that.

Napa Eats: Terra and Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen

Even though we ate at these places on two different days, I'm smashing them in one posts as they're next door neighbors. (The stone building next to Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen is Terra.)

First up, Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen (which was recommended to me by LizzieB).

This is the bitchy hostess right before she told me that photography was not allowed in the restaurant. I was the picture of huffy indignation. And then proceeded to photograph everything with my iphone.

We were supposed to meet some friends here for lunch who were driving from San Francisco to spend the afternoon with us, but they got held up in traffic. There was much more congestion on Saturday than there was on Friday.

We ordered the Crispy Backstreet Flatbread with caramelized onions, garlic, sundried tomtoes, and blue cheese. Yum.

but my most favorite thing on the menu were the Oysters Pablo. They were baked with some sort of spicy pepper, a hearty dollop of cheese, garlic, and spinach. So delicious. Of course I didn't get a picture of these as I was too busy slurping them down. Nuts.

Mr. Insomniac got the duck burger with housemade shiitake ketchup and fries.

and I got the crispy rock cod sandwich with a jicama slaw. Thought the slaw could have used some more kick - either more acid or something - as it was pretty flavorless. Fries were good though.

We walked around St. Helena for a bit...

I wanted to have breakfast at Gillwood's before we left, but it didn't work out. Oh well - there's always next time!

Being the high-maintenance pet owners that we are, we stopped in here. Fideaux. How cute.

Then it was on to meet our friends at V. Sattui (blog post to follow).



The night before we had eaten at Terra, which is right next door to Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen.

Terra is a one-starred Michelin restaurant characterized by New American fare with a blend of French and Asian flavors. The owners, Lissa and Hiro, also own Ame which is in San Francisco.

Mr. Insomniac reported that he overheard some passerby in front of the restaurant opining that Terra has gone down in quality, which made us a little nervous but everything turned out fine. The restaurant is in an old stone building that provides an intimate backdrop.

We arrived for our 7pm dinner and were comfortably seated next to a charming older couple who chatted with us throughout our meal. The woman's birthday was last week and so the two were celebrating. They offered us recommendations and described how their move to Northern California.

We ordered a ton of food. After all, we were on vacation.

Panko fried Miyagi oysters on pork belly "Kakuni" in black vinegar sauce. This was heavenly - probably my most favorite dish here. You can't go wrong with fried + pork.

Burrata cheese with melted Cipollini onion anchovy bruschetta. This was also tasty... the onions had a delicious sweetness.

Warm salad of Hokkaido scallops with lemon coriander vinaigrette. The scallops had a wonderful buttery flavor and a great texture. They paired well with the acidic lemon vinaigrette.

Broiled sake marinated Alaskan black cod and shrimp dumplings in Shiso broth. It was delicious - very light and flavorful.

Grilled duck breast with foie gras tortellini, Kuti squash and winter greens. I wish I had turned the plate for this shot. Mr. Insomniac was getting increasingly embarrassed by my picture taking ways, so I just did a quick picture before he ate.

Yogurt panna cotta with tropical fruit salad in passion fruit sauce. This was good, but I liked the panna cotta at Hatfield's better.

Chocolate feuilletee with salted peanut ice scream and caramelized bananas. I did love the salted ice cream, but wanted something a little more substantial than the flakey puff pastry.