California Road Trip!

It’s hard to believe I started a blog to share all my fun (mostly food and drink) adventures with you all and haven’t bothered to blog in 4 months.  There are some half written blogs hiding somewhere on my computer including an entry about my Restaurant Week adventures from May and one about a great wine dinner I went to as well… Maybe one day they will get posted!

In the mean time earlier this month I went on what I’d like to consider my first ever adult road trip with my friend Maureen. I went on a road trip to Yellowstone when I was a kid that included stops in Yellowstone, Denver, Reno and a night in Utah but other than that and what used to be pretty frequent trips to Portland and two drives alone down to LA I’ve never been on a road trip with friends.

We started our trip with a stop in Portland. We stayed the night with my good friend Jessica! We went to Teardrop and saw Daniel and Art ( a new face to me). I hate when I forget to take notes about what I have to eat or drink at a place.  I picked an awesome drink of the menu and totally don’t remember what it was called L.

The next morning we were off to East Bay to stay with my family in Walnut Creek for a couple nights so we could A) not drive 15 plus hours and B) so we could go to Napa!

I was very fortunate to have seen my friend Chris Nishiwaki and spoke with him and his good friend Bryan Otis about some places I needed to visit in Napa. I narrowed it down to three wineries (and let me tell you we barely even had time for lunch with these three!). First we went to Pride which not only had a fantastic Merlot but also has a great Cab Franc that we were just in time to sample as they typically sell out of it a few weeks after it is released! This winery sits up on a crazy hill that is both in Napa and Sonoma Counties.  The road is so crazy they sell shirts that say I survived the ride to Pride! We then quickly moved on to our appointment at Cakebread. This was my least favorite of the three wineries we visited. I don’t know if I felt the experience was to rushed, that we tasted all six wines at the same time and didn’t really walk around or the fact that I didn’t really love any of the wine but all in all I’d rate it last out of the three.  Out of the wines we tried I think I liked the Chardonnay Reserve the best.

Maureen and I at Pride

After Cakebread we needed to squeeze in some lunch. Our guide at Cakebread suggested going to Oxbow Market which reminded me of the Ferry Building  San Francisco. Now I won’t remember who to me but it makes perfect sense that they seem so similar as I learned they were built by the same developer. We did a quick jaunt through the building and decided on a Peruvian pardon me Venezuelan place called Pica Pica. It was awesome! I had a Cachapas and my friend had a Maize’Wich. We each had a side.  I had half globes of fried plantain filled with chicken, guacamole and ham and Maureen ordered Yuca fries. After we got our lunch we stopped by Kara's Cupcakes which I knew from the Marina area of San Francisco. I had a yummy chocolate cupcake filled with caramel and was topped with some sea salt. Maureen who isn’t a cupcake lover even agreed that Kara's was pretty yummy!

Cachapas (corn pancake) with Pabellon (shredded beef, sweet plantains, black beans and queso fresco from  Pica Pica

After our super quick lunch we headed over to Hendry in Napa, our last winery of the day. This was the longest of our tours at two and a half hours.  We were going to walk the vineyards, learn about the wine making process and then taste all 11 of their wines that they produce with grapes from their site.

What was Unique about this winery was the tight knit group of people that ran it from George Hendry ( who’s lived on the property since he was two I believe) to the 12 or so year round staff they have. The least tenured has been there somewhere around 15 years I believe.  The staff does everything from grafting to pulling leaves on the plants to helping out inside when they are producing.

It was really interesting to learn about the different types of grapes, how they graft all their plants (most wineries don’t and this gives them a large advantage when they have plants with problems) and the process of making the wine.  We learned how many of the more sugary white wines often get diluted with water to lower their sugar content. Hendry has a process of separating the sugars out and they use it in their rose. Shortly after this I tuned out as I was hot, tired and ready for some wine.  I’m sure Maureen could tell us all even more interesting wine production information.

So both of us decided Hendry was our favorite winery.  Not only was our guide Jeff great we really enjoyed the wines.  We even bought a case of their Pinot Gris which we really enjoyed. The unoaked chardonnay and Block 28 Zinfandel were also great.

My friend Tom had mentioned to me that The Culinary Institute of America had a campus near Napa so we went to check it out.  The grounds used to be a winery and they were gorgeous. It was the end of the day so we poked our heads in looked around the store, saw some students making some chocolates and headed over to The Wine Spectator to grab a bite to eat.  The view was beautiful and the food was good. We had lamb keftka with garbanzo beans and a chef’s assortment of appetizers.

All in all the first few days of our trip were great!

Food For Two

Okay so I started this blog so I can write. Mostly about food but I’m sure other things will find their way in as well.  I haven’t written a blog in two weeks not because I haven’t wanted to but I seriously have been almost too busy eating!

Where to jump in? I am in the middle of writing a post from a great wine dinner I had at Elsom Cellars that was prepared by chef Tom Black.  Hopefully I’ll finish that post in the next few days so you can read all about my great dinner.  The last two weeks have been a total blur. I had a yummy broccoli frittata at my friend Anna’s the next day at a little brunch she had at her house. She also made an interesting dish that looked almost identical to ceviche but had grapefruit, avocado and no fish or seafood in it (I need to find out exactly what it was).

 In 24 hours I went from a few culinary highs including an amazing dinner at Cuoco which you heard all about in my first post and the dinner at Elsom Cellars to a culinary low.  These meals were followed by a drastic drop off in good eats. I ended up in Graham that Sunday afternoon at a girls basketball tournament for Elyse.  On our way home she wanted dinner she asked for pizza or pasta (note Elyse is 14) I told her we could go to The Rock or that I assumed we could find an Olive Garden.  I sold her on breadsticks and soup, favorites from back when I was in high school with friends and we went to The Olive Garden.  How one can go from an awesome new Tom Douglas restaurant and dinner prepared by an esteemed chef to Olive Garden?  I’m not quite sure but I managed to pull it off and am still here to write about it.

That Sunday was also the start Seattle Restaurant Week which just concluded Thursday.  I didn’t make it to as many restaurants as I would have liked and will go into great detail about those meals soon.  I had dinner at Jimmy Mac's for my Dad’s birthday on the 11^th followed by a late night trip to Rob Roy where Jamie Boudreau made me a great drink with burbon and sweet vermouth.  I currently have no idea as to what I did on the 12^th but maybe it will come back to me in a later post. Wow I had to look at my bank statement to figure out what I did on the 12^th.  I went to a  Glenfiddich event at the Columbia Tower Club followed by snacks at The Walrus and Carpenter and a drink at The Golden Beetle. The 13^th I went to Toulouse Petit for a Restaurant Week lunch, went to a tweetup at Ivars and went to the launch party for Seattle Cocktail Culture an awesome new app that the lovely Wendy Miller who runs LUPEC Seattle created. The 14^th I didn’t go out and the 15^th I went to La Bete with girlfriends to celebrate a birthday followed by a late dinner at Spur. My friend enjoyed the burger so much at Spur we ordered a second before the kitchen closed. Just in case you were concerned two dinners isn’t exactly the norm for me.

Last weekend was quite the culinary adventure.  My friend Alex who used to live in Seattle came for the weekend. I’d have to say both of our favorite activites include eating. Saturday commenced with a wonderful brunch at Art. As I may write more about these meals in the week I’ll leave you with you must try the crab cakes.  After Art I stopped in Frans Chocolates and had a tasty sweet.  Then it was off to Pike Place Market where my friend and learned about Copper River Salmon from the fish throwers, sampled and bought truffles from La Buona Tavola an amazing piece of Alder Smoked Salmon from Pure Food Fish Market. Later that afternoon we tried to go to Le Reve Bakery for a double baked almond croissant.  They were closed so we ventured on to West Seattle to Bakery Nouveau.  Their almond croissant doesn’t disappoint.

There were a few hours where I attempted to recover from the self induced food coma that I was in from eating all day before we went to dinner.  I had high hopes for dinner at Le Gourmand unfortunately it was quite a disappointment ( although the drinks, at least the ones they could make were good). We finished the night at Amber.  Lets just say the last time I went there was for a cocktail competition that was close to a year ago. Not my idea of a fun way to end the night.

I will culminate my dinning adventures of this past week which included three restaurant week dinners, a bar birthday bash, macaroon and meringue making, Easter egg decorating and a trip to the Zoo in the near future. Until then hopefully I can log my dining experiences so they make it into the blog. Reading back through this post I seriously have no idea how I fit so much in to 8 days! I think maybe I need a vacation to recuperate.

The New Kid on the Block

Last month Frantic Foodie, http://franticfoodie.wordpress.com sent an email out about 3 dinners Tom Douglas was doing at Palace Kitchen to see what people thought of his new restaurants opening in South Lake Union (SLU).  I already knew that Serious Pie had opened and had been reading for a long time that he would have an additional restaurant in SLU but had know idea it would be three!

After seeing a few reviews and updates on Facebook regarding people checking out Cuaco, Tom's new Italian restaurant I decided my friends and I should go check it out.  When we got to the building we decided to check out Brave Horse Tavern upstairs first.

The place was packed at 9pm on a Friday night which is awesome since most people I know don't even know it's open.  We decided to have a couple pretzels with dipping sauces, cheese curds and some snack mix. I won't lie I loved the space, the oxtail jam  ( which was really a side for the burgers I think) was awesome, the peanut butter with bacon was not.  The cheese curds were yummy but I like the cheese curds at Pearl in Bellevue just as well. 

One thing that was random was our whole group got carded ( no one was under 25) my friend Lincoln's birthday was Wednesday and our servers was last night when we were there.  The boys tried to make a joke about it being her sweet sixteen which she totally didn't pick up on and Lincoln debated on weather or not to buy her a birthday shot.  Also important were the strangers sitting to our right.  We asked how they knew about Brave Horse and it sounded like mostly from Urban Spoon which I thought was random.  We played six degrees of separation and I knew one of the coworkers of the girl we were talking too.  Why is all this small talk relevant you ask?  Well I have been urged to make a blog for months if not years and couldn't come up with a name I liked.  So random strangers boyfriend came up with Take a Bite Out of Jew and I loved it.   So there you have it.

After Brave Horse we went downstairs to Cuaco http://cuoco-seattle.com/ for dinner.  OMG it was amazing.  I saw Herschell Taghap http://twitter.com/#!/SpecialDark who is a cook for Tom Douglas.  I asked him what to try.  His suggestions were spot on.  We started with the duck gizzards and sweet breads and piln, lasagna and gnocchi for our entrees.  They were all amazing.  The piln was filled with rabbit, pork and veal and each little pasta had an amazing flavor.  I don't even know where to begin with the gnocchi they were soft and fluffy and basically melted in your mouth.  They had a nettle pesto on them which was great.  I never had tried gizzards of any sorts before.  They were great.  We went with the hazelnut torte for dessert which was also out of this world.  I am so excited I tried both of these places last night.

On a side note after Cuaco we went up to Capitol Hill we had great drinks at Liberty followed by one of the most awkward experiences ever.  We stopped into the first night at Varro up on 12th.  It was really strange.  Weird crowd, DJ playing ( which on occasion is okay), and crazy mural on one wall.  My friends thought the space was best suited for an eclectic burger joint.  They weren't serving food any more even though people seemed to be getting food after we arrived.  We had 5 different drinks, a Hemingway, a spin on a French 75 called the Ital 75, The Hill and a few others.  I applaud them for having a ton of amaros and having a variety of drinks however out of the 5 we had only one or two were particularly good.

To finish the night we went to an old friend, Tavern Law.  Brian made me a drink called a Bobby Burns, an out of this world scotch drink and I sipped on it until we got kicked out at 2.  It was great trying Tom Douglas' new places I highly recommend Cuaco don't however no rush to get to Varro.