The First of Many Trips to Napa

Steve and I went to Napa to celebrate our first anniversary and it was AMAZING. We've already discussed going back. Wonderful people, great food and fantastic wine. And best company ever!

Whole Spice at Oxbow Market was incredible. I'm already planning my first online order.

Steve kept going from table to table smelling the different rubs, curries, salts and spices. Spice overload.

Oxbow: home to C Casa and some of the most delicious and inventive tacos EVER. Can't wait to go back! C Casa - come to DC!

 

Our tasting at Cardinale was a perfect way to start the trip...fabulous wine and beautiful views of the valley.

We had dinner at Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc Restaurant and sat next to this cute little piggy. I wanted to take him home!

For dinner at Ad Hoc: hanger steak with a mushroom ragu, fingerling potatoes and buttermilk onion rings. Food was good but sadly not as good as expected. Steak needed seasoning and salad was standard. Standouts: milk chocolate panna cotta, mushroom ragu and buttermilk onion rings.

Delicious pizzas (margherita and sausage/lemon/arugula) for dinner at Oenotri, right across the street from our hotel. Would love to go back and try more options there!

Amazing tomatillo and roasted poblano soup with creme fraiche and cilantro at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen.

Famed duck burger at Cindy's. So amazing I would fly back right now to eat one. Pretty please.

Beautiful bathroom at Darioush (most ridiculously overdone winery in Napa but so fun). Gorgeous turquoise tiles and beautiful mirrors!

The debate rages on about whether Thomas Keller's Bouchon was the best meal of the trip. We were so wrapped up in the meal (and talking with our neighboring table) that I forgot to to take pictures.

I DID snap a picture of the profiteroles at Bouchon. Steve decided that we'd have profiteroles there before we even left for Napa. SO worth it. Decadent, rich and absolutely dreamy.

Anniversary night in San Francisco!

Probably the single best dish of the trip (at the other best dinner) - Steve's braised black cod on foie gras-shiitake rice with charred bok choy at Baker and Banker. Heaven on a plate. We both agreed we could have eaten a plate of just the rice. (Side note: I got the braised duck with gnocchi, spring vegetables and ricotta salata. Quite delicious but definitely no foie gras rice.)

AMAZING trip. Can't wait to head back to Napa. Next time: The French Laundry.

Delicious wine, delicious food...great night!

Thanks to Lisa at Dining in DC, I lucked out and won tickets to Toast of the Town DC, a shindig thrown by Wine Enthusiast magazine.

Steve and I love love love wine (and love love love food), so we were both really excited to be able to go to the event. It was held at the National Building Museum, a gorgeous building near Chinatown. Steve and I joked that it would have been a great wedding or reception venue (take a look, any brides-to-be!). My BlackBerry photos hardly do it justice - it's just beautiful.

There were tons of people there already when we got there at 6:45 or so. We arbitrarily turned left at the doorway and made our first stop at the Aveniu tables - right by Sonoma's table.

Note: Since we tasted so many wines, there's no way I could document all of them. Plus I forgot a pen (stupidly) so I couldn't write them down (or juggle a BlackBerry and a wine glass). My favorite wines/tables are at the end - after all the food. :)

So. Sonoma. Their offering was a great taste of their housemade ham salad on a dill biscuit. The only down side was that the little sandwiches were TINY - barely bigger around than a quarter. They were still very delicious - creamy ham salad with just enough of the biscuit. I didn't see the salad on the restaurant's menu, so I'm glad we got a taste of it Friday night.

We moved on (tasting several wines in between) to Punk's Backyard Grill.

I actually saw someone walking away from their table with a plate and immediately made a beeline for it. And was SO happy I did - I was rewarded with a lovely little plate of duck confit salad - mixed greens, delicious duck confit, pickled grapes, manchego and a lemon vinaigrette and pinot noir reduction. I thought the manchego added a little too much salt (or maybe it was the lemony tang), but Steve argued the other way - that the pinot reduction made it too sweet. Either way - we both enjoyed the dish.

More wine (LOTS more wine). The people staffing the tables (both from the wineries or the distributors/importers) were pouring extra-large tasting pours. Really, they were glasses. I usually don't pour wine out while tasting (seems almost insulting to waste it), but I had to start doing it about an hour into the event. I just couldn't drink all of it!

Our next stop was the Ruth's Chris table. When we first walked up to the table, Steve wasn't that interested in it. I believe his exact words were, "It's a steakhouse. If it's not steak, I'm not eating it." Hah. They didn't have steak, but they did have a tasty, light crabtini - chunks of rich crab tossed in a vinaigrette and some remoulade. It was the perfect dish to pair with the New Zealand wines (especially the sauvignon blancs) at the next table. Steve eventually got his own little mini martini glass of crab - and liked it!

Our next stop was at Capital Grille's table and it was a definite favorite.

Sliced filet with cipollinis and roasted mushrooms. I mean, there's really no better combination than steak, mushrooms and onions, but this was absolutely delicious. The onions and mushrooms were so tender and juicy - the perfect complement to the filet, which was nice and medium rare. The only thing I would have appreciated was a knife - I ended up using Steve's fork (after he devoured his taste of the filet) to pull my slices apart into bites. I haven't been out to Tyson's to go to Capital Grille, but it's definitely on my summer list now.

After Capital Grille, we ventured to the other side of the room (because yes, we had only gone through half of the room). We didn't make it very far, though - we stopped at the first tasting table and ended up having a long conversation with one of the pourers. We started chatting about the wine (which was fabulous) but ended up talking about all kinds of stuff. He had some great stories about his younger days as a sommelier.

So after that detour, we headed over to the Morton's table.

Yumyumyumyumyum. Just looking at this picture makes me want to go back in time and grab another plate from their table. They were offering up filet mignon with a dollop of horseradish cream sauce and it. was. delicious. The filet (as you can see above) was cooked perfectly. Not too rare, not too well done. And the horseradish cream sauce was so tangy and spicy - went perfectly with the filet.

What goes better with good steak than a good dessert? Morton's also offered up a lovely little bite-size chocolate cake with a raspberry on top. It was perfect.

Hands down the best table of the evening.

Although...SEI's offerings were pretty awesome too. Not only did they serve up a delicious pseudo-ceviche with tuna, but they also had a wasabi cocktail.

It was almost the end of the night, so I don't remember all the components to the tuna, but it was fantastic. And it paired well with the wasabi cocktail - which, incidentally, didn't have any wasabi in it. It was made from ginger and habanero peppers. Tasted JUST like wasabi though.

I knew it was getting late when a woman leaned over and yelled, "Where'd you get that shot?" when I was tasting the cocktail. I don't know how long she lasted in her stilettos - they were reeeally tall and she was starting to wobble a bit. Then again...so was the rest of the crowd. Lots of wine + lots of people = tipsyness. There was a very loud crowd exiting the museum right as Steve and I were, and I think they had taken advantage of the tastings more than Steve and I had.

Our last stop was at Tonic Restaurant at Quigley's Pharmacy (a new-to-me restaurant). They had mini pulled pork sandwiches that, while not the best of the evening, were tasty and heavier - just what we needed at the end of the night. The pork almost had a smoky taste to it - reminded me of a barbecue place back in Texas!

We missed out on a few other places I would have liked to try, but it seemed like a fair amount of the food vendors closed up shop early...

Since I couldn't possibly post without mentioning our favorite wine tables, here goes:

Aveniu - Great sauvignon blanc and GREAT reserva pinot noir.
Carolina Wine Brands - The 2007 Reserva de Familia Carmenere was the favorite.
Beaulieu Vineyard and Sterling Vineyards - the BV Rutherford Cabernet was a knockout.
Moet Hennessy USA - the Newton 2007 Claret was truly amazing. A mix of Bordeaux varietals - my heaven. I would happily buy a case right now.

There were many many many more delicious wines, but documenting them all would have been impossible. The event was a blast and Steve and I both had a great time - can't wait for next year! I'd say we'll definitely be buying tickets, and I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys good wine, good food and good company to do the same!

Thanks again to Lisa and Dining in DC for the tickets!

I'm Julia Child...sort of.

Since this is an easier post to write up (I'm having serious issues trying to edit my honeymoon posts. Cannot. Stop. Writing.), I'm doing this instead of the 6 bazillion posts I've drafted on the honeymoon food. Preview: YUM. Food was awesome.

But back to Julia Child. I'll admit it - I'm a movie nerd, and after watching Julie and Julia on the flight to Europe last fall, I was determined to make boeuf bourguignon.

(Columbia Pictures)

Not because I thought it would be an amazing meal or the best thing I've ever had - just because it would be a kitchen triumph. And my parents will tell you that only a few short years ago, I could barely boil water for pasta. (The reality is that I could do more than that, but they don't acknowledge it. Ugh.)

So when we got our Le Creuset French oven from Steve's relatives as a wedding gift, I was ecstatic. It's a beautiful rosy red color and it makes me want to cook and cook and cook. (Photo from Le Creuset's Web site because my camera is still on the fritz.)
I digress.

Again.

Our friends had given us rides both to and from the airport - 45 minutes each way - for our honeymoon flights, so we wanted to cook them dinner as a thank you. We figured boeuf bourguignon would be a great way to thank them AND break in our French oven.

We found Julia's recipe online, along with side recipes for sauteed mushrooms and brown-braised onions. I love that her recipes all have little suggestions like, "This should be paired with a wine like a Chianti" or "This recipe is traditionally served with potatoes but you can use" x or y or whatever. So the boeuf bourguignon recipe suggested the onions and mushrooms and we happily went along with it.

The recipe seems to have this stigma of being difficult to make, but it really wasn't. It's just very specific and has lots of steps. Four minutes of simmering. Four minutes in the oven, uncovered. Flour, toss, salt and pepper, toss. And on and on and on. But it was SO worth it.

I would DEFINITELY have all of your ingredients prepped and ready to go. And give yourself (depending on how your oven cooks) a few hours. It can always be reheated. I had planned to reheat leftovers on Sunday, but there weren't any. That's a good sign, right?

So we took care of all the little steps and then put it in the oven to do the simmering for a couple hours. We just had one tiny glitch - I forgot to add the beef stock and went to take a shower. Steve knocked and said, "Um, did you want to use this beef stock?" and I shrieked and yelled at him to get out and hurry up and add it before it cooked much longer. I guess my sister gave me a metal case with this print on it for a reason.)

(Marigold's)

The onions, braised in beef stock and butter (of course - it's Julia Child), were freaking awesome. Perfectly tender and just oozing deliciousness. They were golden brown and I'm pretty sure we all could have eaten about 40 little pearl onions. The mushrooms were the same way - sauteed in butter and so rich and velvety and flavorful. How could they not be? They were cooked in butter.

Right before dinner, I whipped up one of my favorite go-to dessert recipes and threw it in the oven. I made Donna Hay's individual flourless chocolate cakes. They only have six ingredients - eggs, butter, dark chocolate, cocoa powder, almond meal and sugar - and are SO easy to make. And always taste amazing. We had leftovers and were pleasantly surprised that they stored well overnight. Not that they'll last much longer.

But dinner overall was a total success. No leftovers and we devoured a whole baguette sopping up the broth from the French oven. I'll definitely be making this recipe again. And maybe I'll branch out and make some more of Julia's stuff!

Take that, parents! Next time you come in town, I'm going to cook you under the table!