Tahoe, Napa and San Francisco--a holiday trip with pictures
Jan 11th, 2011, 10:55 AM
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Tahoe, Napa and San Francisco--a holiday trip with pictures
Thanks to help from folks on this forum, I was able to fashion a wonderful holiday trip for myself, my husband Val and our son Alex. For any of you contemplating similar travels--whether at Christmas or any time--here is the path we traveled, the places we checked out and the places we ate. I hope you find something helpful in my info as I was helped by your responses to my questions before we ventured out.
Here is a set of pictures I took during our trip. I gave San Francisco short shift only because of poor weather conditions. I regret not having pictured our meals, something we routinely do on European trips but that I never thought to do on this trip in spite of the wonderful meals we had.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/...leid=en_US&h=1
As I have come to do with the trip reports I make of our European travels on the Europe forum, I'll divide this report into parts: Planning and getting there, Sights, Hotels, and Dining with emphasis on the latter which is plainly my favorite part of travel. So, to begin....
Planning and getting there
For several years we’ve taken holiday trips with our grown children, most often to Europe—Garmisch, Salzburg, Barcelona, Paris, Rome. With 2 year old twins our daughter and son-in-law have been unable to join us for the last couple of years and we’ve concentrated on finding places where son Alex can ski and husband Val and I can just relax, see some new things and dine well. Last year we were in Chamonix and Lyon. This year I started looking at the Dolomites but got directed to consider Whistler but to add in someplace a bit warmer for after the ski part of the trip. Finally settled on Tahoe which would open up the option of the Napa Valley, après ski. And so the itinerary got set.
Al went ahead and flew from NYC to Reno via Chicago, rented an SUV with 4-wheel drive and drove to Squaw Valley where he stayed two nights at Plumpjack to ski there. He enjoyed the skiing and felt that the hotel was very good with some of the best food in town. He concurred with advice I’d been given on this forum by Suzie and others that Squaw, as a purpose built ski resort, just doesn’t have enough to do for non-skiers so Val and I were glad we’d made the decision to join Al only after he’d completed his Squaw skiing.
We flew Ft. Lauderdale to Atlanta to Seattle to Reno in an all day marathon but were pleased to find Alex waiting for us at the Reno airport where I signed on as a second driver and we were off for the hour long drive to South Lake Tahoe to check into our hotel—the Marriott Timber Lodge.
Weather--was a major factor for this trip. Before we took off, I watched ski reports and weather reports incessantly, torn by wanting Al to have lots of snow and wanting clear roads to drive from Reno to Tahoe and on to Napa. When I saw some reporter on the Weather Channel standing for a day and a half on the streets of Truckee, just ahead of where Al was driving to in Squaw, buried in snow and predicting 13 FEET more and showing semi trucks off the roads, my heart sank. I spent most of the day prior to our Christmas Eve marathon flight checking weather reports for all the airports involved. As it turned out we were incredibly lucky. There was bad weather at just about every turn—but always just ahead of our arrival or just after our departure. Snow storms in Tahoe, flash floods and snow storms in Napa and rains in San Francisco. Al skied one day under very windy conditions, so much so that they suspended operation of the gondola and he was forced to ski some areas he might otherwise not have chosen. The worst we had otherwise was a day of intermittent drizzle in San Francisco, but we never even broke down and bought umbrellas—other than the pink and green ones we bought for our granddaughters in Chinatown.
Sights
South Lake Tahoe
South Lake Tahoe was cute (when we got away from the casinos) and afforded some fantastic winter scenery when we took the gondola right outside our hotel door up the mountain. We spent most of our time just strolling around the area by the hotel. We did venture into the casinos for a few slots and some video poker but didn’t lose much and quickly got our fill of that form of entertainment. Val is a photographer and really enjoyed our gondola ride and the pictures he was able to get from the viewing platform. It’s a pit pricey at $28 for seniors/32 for adults, but worth it if the weather is clear and there has been recent snowfall. Mostly we relaxed in Tahoe, watched golf and food channels and ate for entertainment. More of that later.
Napa Valley
If South Tahoe was cute, Napa was beautiful—as was the drive between the two under immense, snow-covered pines. Some mustard was just beginning to flower in between the dormant vines and the sun on the hills was lovely. We made the most of our time there and took in several vineyards and wine-tasting rooms which we enjoy as much for their architecture and interior design as for the wine-drinking. Here’s a brief run-down of those we visited and our impressions of them:
Luna--was new to us and a beautiful place both inside and out. A really classy Italian villa theme is carried out with stenciled beams and lovely furnishings. The tasting room is fairly small, has a nice couch (where the server said you can take a “Napa Nap”), an enormous fireplace and a serving area to stand around in the center. It was all beautifully decorated for the holidays and the server couldn’t have been more gracious or helpful. She suggested we lunch at Oxbow Market in Napa—an inspired choice. Rating: A for décor, A- for wines.
Stag’s Leap—You go here for the wines, not the décor, though that has improved over previous visits. It’s usually quite full, as it was this time. The servers really know their stuff. The wine is fantastic. Rating: B- for décor, A+ for wines.
Cliff Lede—has always been one of our favorites from the time it used to be S. Anderson. It’s small, but welcoming and IMO a perfect blend of rural and classy. The tasting room has expanded and improved over the years and they’ve done more landscaping. The server was wonderful, took our pictures and traded music info with Al. Lede is connected in the music business somehow and names their vineyard plots for songs. Son Alex is a music buff and had a wonderful time naming the artists connected to each vineyard. Rating: A for décor, A for wines
Ragusi Family—is in a barnlike structure that was nicely decorated for Christmas but might look bleak at other times. A counter runs the length of the room and gives a bar-like feel. The servers provided less information than elsewhere. C for décor, B- for wines.
Darioush—is something to see. We’ve been before and enjoyed the somewhat opulent if garish extravagance of the place. Alex took one look and said he’d had enough; we needn’t go in. Rating: A+/F for décor, no wine considered.
Viansa—has a nice drive and walk up and beautiful views back down to a wetland below. In warm weather the opportunity to picnic here is irresistible. It has some of the best shopping in the valley both for wine-related gifts, gifts in general, and for picnic foodstuffs. It’s wine are, however, IMO not really that good, so we chose to shop and move on without tasting. Rating: A for décor, C for wines based on previous tastings.
Jacuzzi Family vineyards—is new to us and quite a good addition to the valley. As a new place, however, they are establishing themselves and offer free tastings. This means that lots of tour buses go there which packs the place, making it tough to belly up to the bar for a tasting. In fact, we looked around, tasted some of their very nice olive oils and gave up trying to battle our way to the tasting experience. The shopping here is good and the olive oil shopping is excellent. The décor is tasteful, especially for such a large place. Ratings: Décor A-, wine-unknown.
Gloria Ferrar—has been a long-time favorite of ours. Unfortunately the day was not nice enough to permit us to drink our bottle of sparkling wine on their deck so we could enjoy the beautiful views of the Carneros valley from there and the interior tasting room was quite packed, so our experience this time was not as good as those we’d remembered from past trips. The opportunity to split a bottle for larger groups rather than have everyone buy a glass, is a good one which is practiced more and more at many wineries, just as most wineries are quite happy to have a couple of people share a single tasting—to save both costs and lives given the implications for drunken driving that otherwise might be involved. Ratings: Décor B- (I was disappointed with the lack of holiday decorations and the dull lighting), wine: A
Domaine Carneros—is another place where they provide table service and you can buy a bottle as well as individual glasses, or get a tasting flight. The place is stunning overall—modeled on the Taittinger chateau in France—both inside and out. But again, I was disappointed by the lack of holiday décor. The light wood interior and fabulous hanging lamps seem made to be dressed up for the holidays and they weren’t. Wish this place had hired the decorator who did the interior of the Luna tasting room. It could have been spectacular. The wine itself is good but the servers , while pleasant, don’t really contribute much to your wine knowledge and are instead more like waiters in a restaurant. Ratings: Décor A-, Wine A.
Cuvaison—is directly across the road from Domaine Carneros but light years away in décor. While DC is designed to make you gasp at its opulence, Cuvaison seems designed to make you sigh happily and feel content with its clean simplicity. Their tasting room is new—built within the last 3 years or so, I think—and is one of two they have, the other being in the Calistoga area. The place is steel and glass in a sort of retro-modern, stripped down mode with light everywhere. There is a small counter, tall tables and stools and a separate room with couches and a dining table, so your tasting experience can be just about whatever you want it to be. We chose living room sofa and enjoyed the easy charm and the view out the windows of the winefields through grasses planted near the windows. Everything is totally aesthetically pleasing including the wine. The server was both knowledgeable and affable. As I left I realized for me it was the Goldilocks of winetasting—Everything was just right. Ratings: A+ décor, A wines .
In spite of how taken I was with this vineyard and its tasting room, I neglected to take any pictures. So here are some from Val’s collection from this trip. I hope the link works. I’m not great at this.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/...leid=en_US&h=1
Nicholson Ranch—is probably also one of the newest wine tasting rooms in the Valley. It has nice picnic areas and a two level tasting room with enough “stuff” around for sale to make it interesting as you stand around tasting the wines, but there was nothing especially unique or different about the place. Ratings: Décor B-, Wine B.
Artesa—has always been one of my favorite tasting rooms, especially when it was owned by the Spanish firm Cordornui. Again, it suffered because of climate since we had to stay inside rather than sit on their very modern terrace overlooking the grasses planted on the primarily underground facility and gaze at the beautiful vistas surrounding it. But the interior has declined. Admittedly they were in some sort of redecorating process but unless it’s the start of a major overhaul, the place no longer has the cache that took my breath away the first time I experienced it. The Artesa wines have never been favorites and they remain for me, an unwelcome replacement for the ones we used to drink there at Cordornui. Ratings: Décor C+ (the basic structure with its minimalist under ground location atop the hill is still there and a solid A, but the rest is gone) Wines C.
Chateau Montelena—has beautiful grounds including picnic pagodas on small islands. The building is also beautiful, appearing like a vine and moss enhanced castle atop a hill. The tasting room interior is very utilitarian. The servers are highly knowledgeable and pretty slick salespeople. It’s hard to argue with the judgers of Paris. Their wine is wonderful. Ratings: Décor A outside B- in, Wines A.
Clos Pegase—has wonderful art both inside and out and even on their bottles. I’ve never been a fan of their wines. The Michael Graves designed building is interesting but they’ve really cluttered up their tasting room since our earlier visits. It looks downright junky. Ragings: Décor B, Wines C.
Frank Family Vineyards-- is a tasting room that appears like it would be more at home in the more casual Sonoma Valley areas than in Napa. It’s a house. Nonetheless it’s larger than the old tasting room they used to have in a nearby shed-like attachment to their barn. What they do have is good sparkling wines including an interesting red sparkler that apparently all but sells out for Thanksgiving. We loved it. Ratings: Décor C, Wines B+
Castello di Amorosa –is the new Italian castle of over 100 rooms built by the folks who also own V. Sattui. It was the one place I was most anxious to see on this visit to Napa. We had just been talking about how great it is that in spite of its increase in tourism, the Napa Valley has resisted any real trend toward tacky tourism or Disney-like commercialism. And then this place appeared before our eyes. And all hope was lost. Alas, commercialism and garishness has come to Napa Valley. We parked (half expecting a trolley to come along to transport us to the building), walked up to the main entry where a young “greeter” welcomed us in a southern drawl (most un-Italian) and directed us to one of two places, one showing some kind of film, looked around for each other, all nodded in unison and took off back to our car. Too bad. Ratings: Décor C (there is some effort to build a faithful reproduction of an Italian castello) Wine Unknown and since I think they still only sell their wines at the winery, we shall never know because we shall never return.
I’ll be anxious to hear if others have gone through whatever experience awaits in the place and if they have different reactions, but I must say that ours was pretty strong and very negative.
Mumm—is a long-time favorite of ours and it didn’t disappoint us this time either. Nice gift shop. Lovely, somewhat rustic tasting room with a sit-down served tasting by the glass, bottle or flight. Always good wines. The photo exhibit in the nearby building was very interesting—pictures taken of family groupings with time elapsing in between of a few to several years and even decades. Ratings: Décor B+, Wines A.
St. Supery—is another long-time favorite. We served their Sauvignon Blanc at our daughter’s wedding. I have a lifetime tasting card. It’s still nice and worthy of a stop but it was too crowded to enjoy as much as we had on past visits and the instructive, self-guided tour seemed to have decreased in size from my recollection. Ratings: Décor B+, Wines –not tasted.
Peju Province—is open until 6 p.m. when most others close at 5:00 or 5:30 so I’ve always had it on my list to visit if time remains available at the end of the day. Thus it’s never been a destination, only a convenience for us. When we saw ads about their now having a yodel meister, it moved to destination. I always remember the line from Gypsy when one of the strippers tells you “You gotta have a gimmick” when I think about wineries and wine tasting rooms in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys. There’s the lavender fields at Mayacamas, the chateau at Domaine Carneros, the underground facility at Artesa, the art at Hess and at Clos Pegase, etc, etc. Well I got pretty excited thinking that Peju had taken up music as their gimmick and a yodeler at that. Unfortunately he was not in residence the day we were there and the servers seemed disinterested, so we gave up and left. The best thing the place has going for it is interesting structure for the building and wonderful birch or similar trees that fall gracefully over the drive that they line leading to the tasting room. Ratings: Décor B, Wine unkown.
Domaine Chandon—is a classic. It has lovely grounds, nice art (the stone mushroom garden is cute and quirky), great cala lilies, a beautiful vaulted winery, nice outdoor and adequate indoor seating on multiple levels and they handle a large crowd well. I had to wait a rather long time at their “bar” to get the bottle of sparkling I’d ordered for our table but I was pleasantly surprised when the server cut the price in half to compensate me for my wait and remarked cheekily that I was “wearing my patient pants” and deserved the deal. This was the perfect last winery to visit and cap off our wine touring. Ratings: Décor A- (the downstairs tasting room could be improved a bit) Wines A, always good.
Cornerstone Gardens--It wasn’t just wine tasting in Napa. We actually did do at least one other thing. I’d read about Cornerstone gardens, a kind of garden display area for landscape architecture with shops related to gardening or just good stuff. So, when we had a bit of drizzle on the day we were touring in the Carneros area, shopping in the pleasant stores there was a nice, dry diversion. We especially enjoyed Artefacts, a design and salvage store that had some of the most interesting displays I’ve ever seen—in a store, an art gallery or a museum. This is quality and very expensive stuff.
San Francisco
Our sightseeing in SF was pretty standard. We took in Pier 39 and the sadly dwindling population of sea lions, walked around Ghiradelli Square, saw a glimpse of the Ferry Building with its wonderful food stores enroute to a dinner at the Slanted Door, saw Beach Blanket Bingo at Club Fugazi (I swear the hats just keep getting bigger), walked about in the Yerba Buena gardens—one of my favorite public spaces in the world, saw exhibits at SFMoMA, walked about Chinatown and bought Chinese pant suits for the granddaughters, did some window shopping in the Union Square area and took in the King’s Speech at a theater in Embarcadero Center when the rain got a bit heavy. Rain prevented us from walking around Polk Street where we scheduled our last dinner. Too bad, it looks like a very fun street to just walk from bar to bar and check posted restaurant menus for future dinners.
We spent New Year’s Eve in the city having a dinner at Boulevard restaurant excited about the possibility of just hopping from there to the Ferry Building area to see the fireworks over the Bay Bridge at midnight but things conspired to keep us from the plan—rain, crowds, an upset stomach (mine), finishing our meal too early requiring a wait until the midnight hour, etc. So I wound up watching the fireworks, which were pretty spectacular, on tv in our hotel.
Hotels
Plumpjack in Squaw Valley—Alex liked this place a lot. Thought they had a good restaurant, a nice hot tub and he liked his modern room. The price was reasonable for a ski hotel at Christmas, around $220. Thanks, Suzie, for recommending Plumpjack for dining which led me to their lodging info as well.
Timber Lodge in So. Lake Tahoe-- is a Marriott vacation club property, so it must operate on some kind of timeshare basis, but we booked our room on hotel terms. I was surprised to open up a recent issue of Travel and Leisure to see it listed as 26 out of 50 rated ski hotels in the USA. Alex said he couldn’t agree with that exalted a ranking but felt that it was quite a decent place, especially given its position within about 20 feet from the base of the gondola lift. We paid $419 a night for a two room accommodation with a pull out couch in the living room with gas fireplace and a dining arrangement with a kitchenette. The master suite included a large bed area with a Jacuzzi tub and a shower in the separate bathroom with entrance either from the bedroom or kitchenette. It was spacious, built to last (no cheap floorboards or doors, just good construction using quality products) and nicely furnished, except for the hokey chairs whose legs were made to look as if they’d been made from tree branches to simulate a rustic look. For a family with small children, I’d say this is an excellent deal.
Napa Valley Lodge in Yountville is a place we’d stayed a good 10 or even 15 years ago and found nice. They have since added a new building, a large swimming pool and generally upgraded everything about the place. While they compete with places like the Vintage Inn, they have kept their prices more reasonable. Our spacious double with view of the vineyards (and Hwy 29) and a fireplace was around 250 plus taxes, and a similar unit without fireplace for Alex was 215 or so plus taxes. We had a large and nicely tiled shower, but no tub—nor did we want on. A nice buffet breakfast is included in the room rate, making the price even more reasonable. The hotel lobby was beautifully decorated for Christmas. They kept a pot of coffee always available, furnished free internet and had nice couches to sit in before the pleasant fire. The fireplace in the guest room was real and burned those fireplace logs for a real look fire. I think rooms at the Vintage Inn and Villagio nearby go for 350 and up. I presume they have more luxury, but for us this was plenty luxurious. The location—in Yountville a block off Hwy 29 is about as central to the Napa Valley as you can get. If intending to taste in both Napa and Sonoma, you’d do better to look at a place in Napa (like Elm House where we stayed comfortably on two previous trips) or in the lower part of the Sonoma Valley.
Prescott Hotel-- is about a block off Union Square on Post Street in San Francisco. The once (more) famous Postrio restaurant of Wolfgang Puck is there and as a member of the Kimpton chain, it has a nice modern vibe but it is becoming a bit tired and frayed about the edges. The bathroom in Alex’s room could use a new paint and wallpaper job as could the woodwork in the halls, but such is no small undertaking in a place of its size and age, so it’s understandable that they have put it off. However, they’d best not wait much longer. At $179 per night in a major US city though, it’s a very reasonable rate.
Tuscan Inn --is in the Fisherman’s Wharf area a few blocks from Pier 39. Val loves that area, touristy though it may be and we’ve always stayed at it during our visits to SF. It is also a Kimpton Hotel (but also in the Best Western Association) and could also use a bit of sprucing up, but again, you can’t argue with the price—about $200 a night for our 3 night stay though it varied with only about $140 for one night and quite a bit more for New Year’s Eve, etc. The rooms have cute, quirky touches typical of Kimptons—colorful bolsters and pillows on the beds, etc, but the hallways could use some new carpet, if they want to return to an earlier standard. The furnishings in the lobby are no longer as upbeat as they once were but the layout with a large fireplace and direct access to their restaurant is still nice and they still offer a nightly free wine tasting happy hour—which in 4 or 5 stays I’ve never been on time to enjoy.
All in all, I’d recommend all of our hotels as good value and especially the Napa Valley Inn as quite lovely.
Next up: Dining
Here is a set of pictures I took during our trip. I gave San Francisco short shift only because of poor weather conditions. I regret not having pictured our meals, something we routinely do on European trips but that I never thought to do on this trip in spite of the wonderful meals we had.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/...leid=en_US&h=1
As I have come to do with the trip reports I make of our European travels on the Europe forum, I'll divide this report into parts: Planning and getting there, Sights, Hotels, and Dining with emphasis on the latter which is plainly my favorite part of travel. So, to begin....
Planning and getting there
For several years we’ve taken holiday trips with our grown children, most often to Europe—Garmisch, Salzburg, Barcelona, Paris, Rome. With 2 year old twins our daughter and son-in-law have been unable to join us for the last couple of years and we’ve concentrated on finding places where son Alex can ski and husband Val and I can just relax, see some new things and dine well. Last year we were in Chamonix and Lyon. This year I started looking at the Dolomites but got directed to consider Whistler but to add in someplace a bit warmer for after the ski part of the trip. Finally settled on Tahoe which would open up the option of the Napa Valley, après ski. And so the itinerary got set.
Al went ahead and flew from NYC to Reno via Chicago, rented an SUV with 4-wheel drive and drove to Squaw Valley where he stayed two nights at Plumpjack to ski there. He enjoyed the skiing and felt that the hotel was very good with some of the best food in town. He concurred with advice I’d been given on this forum by Suzie and others that Squaw, as a purpose built ski resort, just doesn’t have enough to do for non-skiers so Val and I were glad we’d made the decision to join Al only after he’d completed his Squaw skiing.
We flew Ft. Lauderdale to Atlanta to Seattle to Reno in an all day marathon but were pleased to find Alex waiting for us at the Reno airport where I signed on as a second driver and we were off for the hour long drive to South Lake Tahoe to check into our hotel—the Marriott Timber Lodge.
Weather--was a major factor for this trip. Before we took off, I watched ski reports and weather reports incessantly, torn by wanting Al to have lots of snow and wanting clear roads to drive from Reno to Tahoe and on to Napa. When I saw some reporter on the Weather Channel standing for a day and a half on the streets of Truckee, just ahead of where Al was driving to in Squaw, buried in snow and predicting 13 FEET more and showing semi trucks off the roads, my heart sank. I spent most of the day prior to our Christmas Eve marathon flight checking weather reports for all the airports involved. As it turned out we were incredibly lucky. There was bad weather at just about every turn—but always just ahead of our arrival or just after our departure. Snow storms in Tahoe, flash floods and snow storms in Napa and rains in San Francisco. Al skied one day under very windy conditions, so much so that they suspended operation of the gondola and he was forced to ski some areas he might otherwise not have chosen. The worst we had otherwise was a day of intermittent drizzle in San Francisco, but we never even broke down and bought umbrellas—other than the pink and green ones we bought for our granddaughters in Chinatown.
Sights
South Lake Tahoe
South Lake Tahoe was cute (when we got away from the casinos) and afforded some fantastic winter scenery when we took the gondola right outside our hotel door up the mountain. We spent most of our time just strolling around the area by the hotel. We did venture into the casinos for a few slots and some video poker but didn’t lose much and quickly got our fill of that form of entertainment. Val is a photographer and really enjoyed our gondola ride and the pictures he was able to get from the viewing platform. It’s a pit pricey at $28 for seniors/32 for adults, but worth it if the weather is clear and there has been recent snowfall. Mostly we relaxed in Tahoe, watched golf and food channels and ate for entertainment. More of that later.
Napa Valley
If South Tahoe was cute, Napa was beautiful—as was the drive between the two under immense, snow-covered pines. Some mustard was just beginning to flower in between the dormant vines and the sun on the hills was lovely. We made the most of our time there and took in several vineyards and wine-tasting rooms which we enjoy as much for their architecture and interior design as for the wine-drinking. Here’s a brief run-down of those we visited and our impressions of them:
Luna--was new to us and a beautiful place both inside and out. A really classy Italian villa theme is carried out with stenciled beams and lovely furnishings. The tasting room is fairly small, has a nice couch (where the server said you can take a “Napa Nap”), an enormous fireplace and a serving area to stand around in the center. It was all beautifully decorated for the holidays and the server couldn’t have been more gracious or helpful. She suggested we lunch at Oxbow Market in Napa—an inspired choice. Rating: A for décor, A- for wines.
Stag’s Leap—You go here for the wines, not the décor, though that has improved over previous visits. It’s usually quite full, as it was this time. The servers really know their stuff. The wine is fantastic. Rating: B- for décor, A+ for wines.
Cliff Lede—has always been one of our favorites from the time it used to be S. Anderson. It’s small, but welcoming and IMO a perfect blend of rural and classy. The tasting room has expanded and improved over the years and they’ve done more landscaping. The server was wonderful, took our pictures and traded music info with Al. Lede is connected in the music business somehow and names their vineyard plots for songs. Son Alex is a music buff and had a wonderful time naming the artists connected to each vineyard. Rating: A for décor, A for wines
Ragusi Family—is in a barnlike structure that was nicely decorated for Christmas but might look bleak at other times. A counter runs the length of the room and gives a bar-like feel. The servers provided less information than elsewhere. C for décor, B- for wines.
Darioush—is something to see. We’ve been before and enjoyed the somewhat opulent if garish extravagance of the place. Alex took one look and said he’d had enough; we needn’t go in. Rating: A+/F for décor, no wine considered.
Viansa—has a nice drive and walk up and beautiful views back down to a wetland below. In warm weather the opportunity to picnic here is irresistible. It has some of the best shopping in the valley both for wine-related gifts, gifts in general, and for picnic foodstuffs. It’s wine are, however, IMO not really that good, so we chose to shop and move on without tasting. Rating: A for décor, C for wines based on previous tastings.
Jacuzzi Family vineyards—is new to us and quite a good addition to the valley. As a new place, however, they are establishing themselves and offer free tastings. This means that lots of tour buses go there which packs the place, making it tough to belly up to the bar for a tasting. In fact, we looked around, tasted some of their very nice olive oils and gave up trying to battle our way to the tasting experience. The shopping here is good and the olive oil shopping is excellent. The décor is tasteful, especially for such a large place. Ratings: Décor A-, wine-unknown.
Gloria Ferrar—has been a long-time favorite of ours. Unfortunately the day was not nice enough to permit us to drink our bottle of sparkling wine on their deck so we could enjoy the beautiful views of the Carneros valley from there and the interior tasting room was quite packed, so our experience this time was not as good as those we’d remembered from past trips. The opportunity to split a bottle for larger groups rather than have everyone buy a glass, is a good one which is practiced more and more at many wineries, just as most wineries are quite happy to have a couple of people share a single tasting—to save both costs and lives given the implications for drunken driving that otherwise might be involved. Ratings: Décor B- (I was disappointed with the lack of holiday decorations and the dull lighting), wine: A
Domaine Carneros—is another place where they provide table service and you can buy a bottle as well as individual glasses, or get a tasting flight. The place is stunning overall—modeled on the Taittinger chateau in France—both inside and out. But again, I was disappointed by the lack of holiday décor. The light wood interior and fabulous hanging lamps seem made to be dressed up for the holidays and they weren’t. Wish this place had hired the decorator who did the interior of the Luna tasting room. It could have been spectacular. The wine itself is good but the servers , while pleasant, don’t really contribute much to your wine knowledge and are instead more like waiters in a restaurant. Ratings: Décor A-, Wine A.
Cuvaison—is directly across the road from Domaine Carneros but light years away in décor. While DC is designed to make you gasp at its opulence, Cuvaison seems designed to make you sigh happily and feel content with its clean simplicity. Their tasting room is new—built within the last 3 years or so, I think—and is one of two they have, the other being in the Calistoga area. The place is steel and glass in a sort of retro-modern, stripped down mode with light everywhere. There is a small counter, tall tables and stools and a separate room with couches and a dining table, so your tasting experience can be just about whatever you want it to be. We chose living room sofa and enjoyed the easy charm and the view out the windows of the winefields through grasses planted near the windows. Everything is totally aesthetically pleasing including the wine. The server was both knowledgeable and affable. As I left I realized for me it was the Goldilocks of winetasting—Everything was just right. Ratings: A+ décor, A wines .
In spite of how taken I was with this vineyard and its tasting room, I neglected to take any pictures. So here are some from Val’s collection from this trip. I hope the link works. I’m not great at this.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/...leid=en_US&h=1
Nicholson Ranch—is probably also one of the newest wine tasting rooms in the Valley. It has nice picnic areas and a two level tasting room with enough “stuff” around for sale to make it interesting as you stand around tasting the wines, but there was nothing especially unique or different about the place. Ratings: Décor B-, Wine B.
Artesa—has always been one of my favorite tasting rooms, especially when it was owned by the Spanish firm Cordornui. Again, it suffered because of climate since we had to stay inside rather than sit on their very modern terrace overlooking the grasses planted on the primarily underground facility and gaze at the beautiful vistas surrounding it. But the interior has declined. Admittedly they were in some sort of redecorating process but unless it’s the start of a major overhaul, the place no longer has the cache that took my breath away the first time I experienced it. The Artesa wines have never been favorites and they remain for me, an unwelcome replacement for the ones we used to drink there at Cordornui. Ratings: Décor C+ (the basic structure with its minimalist under ground location atop the hill is still there and a solid A, but the rest is gone) Wines C.
Chateau Montelena—has beautiful grounds including picnic pagodas on small islands. The building is also beautiful, appearing like a vine and moss enhanced castle atop a hill. The tasting room interior is very utilitarian. The servers are highly knowledgeable and pretty slick salespeople. It’s hard to argue with the judgers of Paris. Their wine is wonderful. Ratings: Décor A outside B- in, Wines A.
Clos Pegase—has wonderful art both inside and out and even on their bottles. I’ve never been a fan of their wines. The Michael Graves designed building is interesting but they’ve really cluttered up their tasting room since our earlier visits. It looks downright junky. Ragings: Décor B, Wines C.
Frank Family Vineyards-- is a tasting room that appears like it would be more at home in the more casual Sonoma Valley areas than in Napa. It’s a house. Nonetheless it’s larger than the old tasting room they used to have in a nearby shed-like attachment to their barn. What they do have is good sparkling wines including an interesting red sparkler that apparently all but sells out for Thanksgiving. We loved it. Ratings: Décor C, Wines B+
Castello di Amorosa –is the new Italian castle of over 100 rooms built by the folks who also own V. Sattui. It was the one place I was most anxious to see on this visit to Napa. We had just been talking about how great it is that in spite of its increase in tourism, the Napa Valley has resisted any real trend toward tacky tourism or Disney-like commercialism. And then this place appeared before our eyes. And all hope was lost. Alas, commercialism and garishness has come to Napa Valley. We parked (half expecting a trolley to come along to transport us to the building), walked up to the main entry where a young “greeter” welcomed us in a southern drawl (most un-Italian) and directed us to one of two places, one showing some kind of film, looked around for each other, all nodded in unison and took off back to our car. Too bad. Ratings: Décor C (there is some effort to build a faithful reproduction of an Italian castello) Wine Unknown and since I think they still only sell their wines at the winery, we shall never know because we shall never return.
I’ll be anxious to hear if others have gone through whatever experience awaits in the place and if they have different reactions, but I must say that ours was pretty strong and very negative.
Mumm—is a long-time favorite of ours and it didn’t disappoint us this time either. Nice gift shop. Lovely, somewhat rustic tasting room with a sit-down served tasting by the glass, bottle or flight. Always good wines. The photo exhibit in the nearby building was very interesting—pictures taken of family groupings with time elapsing in between of a few to several years and even decades. Ratings: Décor B+, Wines A.
St. Supery—is another long-time favorite. We served their Sauvignon Blanc at our daughter’s wedding. I have a lifetime tasting card. It’s still nice and worthy of a stop but it was too crowded to enjoy as much as we had on past visits and the instructive, self-guided tour seemed to have decreased in size from my recollection. Ratings: Décor B+, Wines –not tasted.
Peju Province—is open until 6 p.m. when most others close at 5:00 or 5:30 so I’ve always had it on my list to visit if time remains available at the end of the day. Thus it’s never been a destination, only a convenience for us. When we saw ads about their now having a yodel meister, it moved to destination. I always remember the line from Gypsy when one of the strippers tells you “You gotta have a gimmick” when I think about wineries and wine tasting rooms in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys. There’s the lavender fields at Mayacamas, the chateau at Domaine Carneros, the underground facility at Artesa, the art at Hess and at Clos Pegase, etc, etc. Well I got pretty excited thinking that Peju had taken up music as their gimmick and a yodeler at that. Unfortunately he was not in residence the day we were there and the servers seemed disinterested, so we gave up and left. The best thing the place has going for it is interesting structure for the building and wonderful birch or similar trees that fall gracefully over the drive that they line leading to the tasting room. Ratings: Décor B, Wine unkown.
Domaine Chandon—is a classic. It has lovely grounds, nice art (the stone mushroom garden is cute and quirky), great cala lilies, a beautiful vaulted winery, nice outdoor and adequate indoor seating on multiple levels and they handle a large crowd well. I had to wait a rather long time at their “bar” to get the bottle of sparkling I’d ordered for our table but I was pleasantly surprised when the server cut the price in half to compensate me for my wait and remarked cheekily that I was “wearing my patient pants” and deserved the deal. This was the perfect last winery to visit and cap off our wine touring. Ratings: Décor A- (the downstairs tasting room could be improved a bit) Wines A, always good.
Cornerstone Gardens--It wasn’t just wine tasting in Napa. We actually did do at least one other thing. I’d read about Cornerstone gardens, a kind of garden display area for landscape architecture with shops related to gardening or just good stuff. So, when we had a bit of drizzle on the day we were touring in the Carneros area, shopping in the pleasant stores there was a nice, dry diversion. We especially enjoyed Artefacts, a design and salvage store that had some of the most interesting displays I’ve ever seen—in a store, an art gallery or a museum. This is quality and very expensive stuff.
San Francisco
Our sightseeing in SF was pretty standard. We took in Pier 39 and the sadly dwindling population of sea lions, walked around Ghiradelli Square, saw a glimpse of the Ferry Building with its wonderful food stores enroute to a dinner at the Slanted Door, saw Beach Blanket Bingo at Club Fugazi (I swear the hats just keep getting bigger), walked about in the Yerba Buena gardens—one of my favorite public spaces in the world, saw exhibits at SFMoMA, walked about Chinatown and bought Chinese pant suits for the granddaughters, did some window shopping in the Union Square area and took in the King’s Speech at a theater in Embarcadero Center when the rain got a bit heavy. Rain prevented us from walking around Polk Street where we scheduled our last dinner. Too bad, it looks like a very fun street to just walk from bar to bar and check posted restaurant menus for future dinners.
We spent New Year’s Eve in the city having a dinner at Boulevard restaurant excited about the possibility of just hopping from there to the Ferry Building area to see the fireworks over the Bay Bridge at midnight but things conspired to keep us from the plan—rain, crowds, an upset stomach (mine), finishing our meal too early requiring a wait until the midnight hour, etc. So I wound up watching the fireworks, which were pretty spectacular, on tv in our hotel.
Hotels
Plumpjack in Squaw Valley—Alex liked this place a lot. Thought they had a good restaurant, a nice hot tub and he liked his modern room. The price was reasonable for a ski hotel at Christmas, around $220. Thanks, Suzie, for recommending Plumpjack for dining which led me to their lodging info as well.
Timber Lodge in So. Lake Tahoe-- is a Marriott vacation club property, so it must operate on some kind of timeshare basis, but we booked our room on hotel terms. I was surprised to open up a recent issue of Travel and Leisure to see it listed as 26 out of 50 rated ski hotels in the USA. Alex said he couldn’t agree with that exalted a ranking but felt that it was quite a decent place, especially given its position within about 20 feet from the base of the gondola lift. We paid $419 a night for a two room accommodation with a pull out couch in the living room with gas fireplace and a dining arrangement with a kitchenette. The master suite included a large bed area with a Jacuzzi tub and a shower in the separate bathroom with entrance either from the bedroom or kitchenette. It was spacious, built to last (no cheap floorboards or doors, just good construction using quality products) and nicely furnished, except for the hokey chairs whose legs were made to look as if they’d been made from tree branches to simulate a rustic look. For a family with small children, I’d say this is an excellent deal.
Napa Valley Lodge in Yountville is a place we’d stayed a good 10 or even 15 years ago and found nice. They have since added a new building, a large swimming pool and generally upgraded everything about the place. While they compete with places like the Vintage Inn, they have kept their prices more reasonable. Our spacious double with view of the vineyards (and Hwy 29) and a fireplace was around 250 plus taxes, and a similar unit without fireplace for Alex was 215 or so plus taxes. We had a large and nicely tiled shower, but no tub—nor did we want on. A nice buffet breakfast is included in the room rate, making the price even more reasonable. The hotel lobby was beautifully decorated for Christmas. They kept a pot of coffee always available, furnished free internet and had nice couches to sit in before the pleasant fire. The fireplace in the guest room was real and burned those fireplace logs for a real look fire. I think rooms at the Vintage Inn and Villagio nearby go for 350 and up. I presume they have more luxury, but for us this was plenty luxurious. The location—in Yountville a block off Hwy 29 is about as central to the Napa Valley as you can get. If intending to taste in both Napa and Sonoma, you’d do better to look at a place in Napa (like Elm House where we stayed comfortably on two previous trips) or in the lower part of the Sonoma Valley.
Prescott Hotel-- is about a block off Union Square on Post Street in San Francisco. The once (more) famous Postrio restaurant of Wolfgang Puck is there and as a member of the Kimpton chain, it has a nice modern vibe but it is becoming a bit tired and frayed about the edges. The bathroom in Alex’s room could use a new paint and wallpaper job as could the woodwork in the halls, but such is no small undertaking in a place of its size and age, so it’s understandable that they have put it off. However, they’d best not wait much longer. At $179 per night in a major US city though, it’s a very reasonable rate.
Tuscan Inn --is in the Fisherman’s Wharf area a few blocks from Pier 39. Val loves that area, touristy though it may be and we’ve always stayed at it during our visits to SF. It is also a Kimpton Hotel (but also in the Best Western Association) and could also use a bit of sprucing up, but again, you can’t argue with the price—about $200 a night for our 3 night stay though it varied with only about $140 for one night and quite a bit more for New Year’s Eve, etc. The rooms have cute, quirky touches typical of Kimptons—colorful bolsters and pillows on the beds, etc, but the hallways could use some new carpet, if they want to return to an earlier standard. The furnishings in the lobby are no longer as upbeat as they once were but the layout with a large fireplace and direct access to their restaurant is still nice and they still offer a nightly free wine tasting happy hour—which in 4 or 5 stays I’ve never been on time to enjoy.
All in all, I’d recommend all of our hotels as good value and especially the Napa Valley Inn as quite lovely.
Next up: Dining
Jan 11th, 2011, 11:01 AM
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Oops. Here I thought I was being so smart and I sent one set of pictures twice and omitted the correct set. Here is the set of pictures for the whole trip that should have been the first link. sorry.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/...leid=en_US&h=1
hope I got it right this time.
Now on to dining
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/...leid=en_US&h=1
hope I got it right this time.
Now on to dining
Jan 11th, 2011, 11:08 AM
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Dining
Any of you who have read my reports on the Europe forum, know that eating is my favorite travel activity. We had some fantastic dining experiences on this trip—the equal of anything we’ve had on most of our European trips. Following the description of each place we dined is a rating. We gave these based on something so nebulous as “overall experience” combining a primary concern with taste of food, with presentation and restaurant décor as well as service.
Dining in South Lake Tahoe
Kalani’s--My thanks to Dayenu for recommending this wonderful restaurant. We got there almost as soon as we hit South Lake Tahoe and we practically never left, eating one dinner and two lunches there. The place whose food is billed as Hawaiian, is modern and trendy with tall ceilings shortened by hanging pieces of cloudy white glass—at least in the bar. Though the décor is not off-putting, the space is angular and with a bar area, a sushi bar and dining space, it seems a bit incoherent and somewhat messy from an interior design/architecture standpoint. The food is however, solidly excellent. The restaurant appeared in Bon Appetit magazine not too long ago.
Al started with ribs with a sweet but not sticky coating. I had escargot with mushrooms and thai basil in the butter sauce. Val had a variety of sushi both as an appetizer and main course. Al and I followed with the signature dish of the chef which was featured in the Bon Appetit article, a seabass with greens over mashed potatoes in a puddle of slightly sweet, thickened mirin sauce. Everything was great.
When Val and I walked about South Tahoe the next two days searching for a non-burger lunch, we just naturally seemed to gravitate back to this wonderful place, delighted to find it open on both Christmas Day and the following Monday. Other dishes we tried included kalbe ribs from the bar menu, Hawaiian meatloaf over wasabi mashed potatoes with Tutu (means grandma in Hawaiian and is what my granddaughters call me) gravy, more of the signature pork ribs, potato skins with seaweed, pone and cheesy mirin sauce and more sushi. Val had the kimchi cucumbers three times. The menu—menus actually, since there’s a dinner, lunch, sushi and bar snack menu—provide endless variety. Rating—solid A, in spite of minor quibbles with the décor.
Sage—a steakhouse inside Harvey’s casino was a nice throwback to the 60’s. We went here at the insistence of my hairdresser who claimed he’d had the best, most memorable chateaubriand of his life there. The place was a treat but more for the ambiance than the meat, although that wasn’t bad. Like most steakhouses, it’s dark inside the dining area just off the main casino area, so décor is fairly unimportant. What is important is the service. Men in tuxes scurry to greet, seat and treat you to an experience that harkens back to the 60”s complete with carts where they prepare Caesar salad, baked potatoes with everything, flaming coffee drinks and bananas foster tableside. I felt like June Cleaver on a night out with Ward and the Beav’.
We couldn’t resist and all three of us went for the full treatment—caesar salad, loaded baked potato and prime rib. The salad was excellent, the “boys’”prime rib was very good—ordered medium rare. Mine, an end cut, was perhaps the largest hunk of meat I’ve ever been served in a restaurant that doesn’t compete on some food channel show, but it was more done than I like—which was however, my fault for ordering that cut, so I can’t complain. Rating B+
Swiss Chalet—is a place I found on the internet and booked us at in spite of getting no positive feedback when I asked about it on this forum. On our Christmas trip last year, we stayed in Geneva at a kitschy , but really nice little place called Hotel Edelweiss and had a fantastic dining experience with traditional Swiss entertainment including alpine horns, yodeling, the works. The opportunity to recapture some of that ambiance was more than I could pass up, so we booked. Décor was all I could have wished for—Swiss alpine architecture and décor down to giant cowbells posing as chandeliers. Alas the food did not live up to the décor. The raclette came not in one of those raclette contraptions but in a small fry pan and was basic melted cheese with chopped potatoes swimming around in it. The beef fondue was a bit better and came with 6 different sauces, most quite tasty. Rating C+, the + for décor.
Dining in Napa
Hog Island Oyster Company in the Oxbow Market—This place, in Napa, next door to the sadly defunct Copia, is a sort of mini version of the SF Ferry Plaza market. Many of the same purveyors have installations here. We were steered here by the lovely lady who served us at Luna Vineyards and we were very grateful to her. The place is interesting just to walk around—as is any place that specializes in food IMO. But I was overjoyed to find the Hog Island Oyster people there. Several years ago,in 2004, I was at the SF Ferry Building market and had their cheese sandwich made on ciabatta bread with three different cheeses from the Cowgirl Creamery and named it the best single dish of the year for me—a year when we’d eaten in several Michelin three starred restaurants in France, so this was no easy accolade, gratuitously given. The sandwiches Al and I had at the Oxbow didn’t disappoint, nor did the three different types of oysters we shared on a platter of 2 dozen for the three of us. Val’s fish soup was likewise swell. This is a wonderful place and a perfect casual lunch. Rating A-.
Cantinetta Piero at the new Luca Hotel--was right around the corner from our hotel in Yountville. It hadn’t been our intended dinner venue the night we dined there. That had been Bistro Jeanty, a tiny place we’d eaten twice before on previous visits and loved. Our ill-fated attempt to dine at Jeanty again on our first night in Napa proved problematic (we found a packed house with several other groups of diners both outside and inside the restaurant awaiting their reserved tables just as we would have) ended with a quick explanation to the hostess and a call to Piero to obtain a table and we were off.
Walking back from Jeanty we spotted an old building with a discreet brass sign lit up showing it to be a Relais and Chateau property and a member of the prestigious Tables Prestige or something or other that I recognized from touring in Europe. I sent Al across the street to check for the name of the place and to see if it appeared to have some empty tables just in case we needed another dining option if Piero didn’t work out for us. He returned from his mission laughing at my gastronomic naivete and said the name of the place was The French Laundry. Who knew!! I had always pictured this world class place to be someplace in the countryside, surrounded by manicured gardens, lit up and exuding charm from the outside in. Chastened for my gastronomic faux pas, I steered us on to the more humble but ambitious Cantinetta Piero.
The place really didn’t stand a chance. By this time Val, who isn’t known for his patience, was more than a little grumpy, so when we were made to stand for several minutes at the hostess stand without even being acknowledged by the passing servers, I had a momentary concern that we might be leaving this place too and headed for the starved pavements of no food. Luckily someone took pity on us and seated us just at that moment. The restaurant is attractive enough, designed to look like a modern trattoria with open kitchen—which it is. High ceilings make for a likewise high noise level. The menu is typical, upscale, trendy Italian and so was the food. My pizza with mushrooms, onion and fennel sausage was nicely done and the lamb shank with greens was good as well. They offer several charcuterie options which would be fun to try with a large group. Overall the place is good. Our experience was not the best due only in part to the service of this restaurant. Rating B
Fremont Dinner—is on the highway between Carneros and south Sonoma valleys. I can’t believe I’d never read about this place in doing my research for the trip. It has to be a foodie darling. We, however, chanced upon it without any prior knowledge while driving to our first winery stop on our second day in Napa. The buffet breakfast at our hotel had been crowded so we decided to just strike out for our tasting itinerary hoping to find something along the way. No one responded when I asked if they wanted to drive into Napa so I just kept going. Al spotted the diner with its ancient, rusty pick-up truck parked in front (a prop, I’m sure) and we knew we’d hit culinary pay-dirt the moment we popped our heads in and got a whiff of the frying chicken.
This place turned out to be Al’s casual favorite of the trip and we wound up eating two breakfasts and a lunch there. Orders are taken and paid for at the window between the indoor seating area and the kitchen. The menu is on clipboards. Old-fashioned memorabilia is scattered around for décor. The chairs don’t match. A trip to the toilets means you have to go outside to enter. And the food is fantastic!. I had the best buttermilk biscuits ever—really, ever. Once I had them with just sausage in a kind of haute mcmuffin and the other time I had them with sausage and gravy. Heaven. Though Val thought their deep fried chicken a bit underdone, Al and I both delighted in it. You can get it with mac and cheese for lunch or with a waffle at breakfast. At lunch I also had their ribolitta, a thick, rich vegetable soup/stew that rivaled some I had on a recent trip to Italy. Rating A/A+
Redd—is yet another upscale restaurant in Yountville. IMO Yountville is the best place to stay if you’ll be doing most of your tasting in Napa. It’s center of the valley, well-situated for driving, and has the largest selection of restaurants. In fact, during the warm time of the year, you could walk from Napa Valley Lodge to any of those we dined at (and we did, on our ill-fated trek to Bistro Jeanty when we wound up at Piero)
Redd is fairly new, I’m guessing, and a restaurant that takes itself and its cuisine seriously. The décor is downright austere. Wood floors, plain tables and chairs, windows and some mirrors on the wall are about it—along with some annoying tiny bare bulbs for lighting. The bar is a bit less austere and would be the place I’d choose to be seated if I had a choice.
The food, however, was excellent and almost comforting. It was also amazingly plentiful for such a serious restaurant. For starter both Alex and I had lentils and spaetzle with duck confit and fois gras meatballs, at only $16 or so, this was an incredible bargain. Val had a dozen oysters with champagne mignonette, then he and Al both had seabass over potatoes with Brussels sprouts and bacon and I had steak slices over carrots and celery with short rib meat. The carrots were done but not mushy and the gravy was slightly sweet. Actually, comfort food all the way around and beautifully executed. Rating a solid A.
Go Fish –is Cyndy Pawlcyn’s fish and seafood oriented place in St. Helena. We loved this place. It had nice fake snow covered silver trees for holiday décor, and a great white and blue décor with yellow accents in a sort of valley meets Nantucket décor. Besides table seating in the spacious place there is a nice counter lining one wall with seafood atop ice all along it. Our 2 dozen oysters were the perfect beginning. Al and I both had the tune reuben—excellent --and Val loved his sushi rolls. Hard to think of how we could have chosen a better lunch place. Rating another solid A.
Bottega—is the new Michael Chiccherelli (sp?) place in the shopping plaza in downtown Yountville. It’s large, rustic, with stone walls, and Italian reminiscent of Tra Vigne, the place where he established himself. It must be the hottest ticket in town because this was the one place (besides our NYEve venue) where we were required to call to reconfirm—48 hours in advance. We did our part right, so it was annoying to be made to wait about 15 minutes for our scheduled reservation. When places get just too popular, I’m of the opinion that you really should avoid them or suffer this kind of high-handed behavior and I should have taken my own advice. Once seated, we had a competent but not extraordinary meal served by a very helpful server but I don’t recall any of the dishes that stood out. Rating B.
San Francisco Dining
Neptune’s Palace—on Pier 39 is what you would expect—big, touristy, great views of the wharf and the sea lions, but mediocre food. Sometimes you do the wrong thing even when you know it’s wrong. Rating C.
Slanted Door—in the Ferry Building but entered from the outside so they can serve after it closes at 7 p.m. As much as I’ve read about this place being the favorite of the SF foodie community, I was not prepared for what it was. Knowing that it was in the Ferry building I had visions of a small, mom and popish place with rather typical but modern Asian restaurant décor and was amazed when this enormous, modern, almost cafeteria-like restaurant presented itself. Full as they were, and popular as they are, we did not have to wait but rather were ushered to our table almost immediately.
Our server was excellent, guiding us to good choices and steering us away from over ordering, a practice we are always prone to and especially so with Asian food. The place has a noisy vibe with lots of hard surfaces and there were lots of families with children there (we had 5:45 reservations since that was our night for Beach Blanket Babylon.) The little circa 7 year old boy next to us bravely ate his first oyster and appeared headed in the direction of becoming the next Tony Bourdain. We shared hoisin ribs, duck in soup—crispy but in a soup base with lots of cilantro, and crispy sardines. Other stuff too, but these were the standouts. Everything was good and we would definitely return. Rating A-.
Yank Sing—on Stevenson (there are two, the other being in the Embarcadero Center) was a crush but we didn’t have reservations and I’d read that it’s one of the best dim sum places in SF if not THE best, so we waited. The place is so good, that people actually are probably always waiting. It’s in a downtown building rather than in Chinatown and it has windows on two sides and very little décor, close tables, but wonder of wonders a large outdoor seating area. Val loves Chinese food and he loves to dine outdoors. Seldom do the two passions come together and this is one place where he could have both—if only it had been warm enough. But another time in a different climate he will.
Even though the place is snug, the dim sum is still served on carts so the atmosphere is very scrunchy feeling but still very “worth it.” In addition to all the standard shu mai, shrimp dumplings, etc, etc, we had great chicken feet, the wonderful signature soup dumplings (you must pop them into your mouth completely and then bite down to get the proper effect and to remain without soup all over your shirt) and best of all the incredible cod in sweet , slightly thickened miso sauce. Some of the best dim sum we’ve ever had. Rating A
Café de la Presse—is a real French bistro kind of place just across the street from the Chinatown gate with a bar serving snacks, breakfast and coffee up front and a larger seating area in the true French tradition behind. We had intended to just stop for coffee but wound up doing a late breakfast/brunch before taking off to see a movie. Al had a Croque Madame which he pronounced pretty authentic, Val a charcutries plate and I, an omelet of spinach, feta and tomato. Rating B.
Pesce—is, as you might guess from the name, a fish centered place, on Polk Street. I selected it for its small plates format, thinking that grazing would be a good way to go for our last dinner in SF which was also our dinner on New Year’s Day. It was just right and fit the occasion. Another 2 dozen oysters to start. Val loves oysters and will have them for every meal if they are available. Silver anchovy bruschetta, scallops in scallion crème, and pork roast with mushrooms, were just the dishes I remember. We had about that many more. All were good and many were excellent. Rating A-.
Boulevard—I’ve saved the best for the last. This wonderful art nouveau décor classic on the Embarcadero is where we chose to celebrate New Year’s Eve. We’d dined there on a previous trip and loved it. The food had been wonderful and the service like a carefully choreographed ballet. We were prepared to be a trifle disappointed, reasoning that no restaurant can be truly stellar on New Year’s Eve. Au Contraire. If anything the food was even better than we’d remembered. The décor was made even more festive than usual by the addition of the requisite number of gold, black and white balloon bouquets. We chose the second, later seating and were treated to our choice of two starters from a list of 8 or so, a main from among a choice of 4 or 5 and a dessert from a list of 6 or so. Every option sounded great.
Among the many options, I selected dungeness crab salad with grapefruit and avocado, tomato broth with shrimp and potatoes, lamb chops perfectly done with mashed potatoes, and dessert with blood orange cake and slices. Al selected much the same as I did. Val opted for the filet. All of us were very happy with everything and Al pronounced it the best New Year’s Eve dinner we’d ever shared and that he’d ever had. That’s saying something. Rating A+
So there you have it, 19 meals eaten at 15 restaurants and a tally of 9 A ratings, 4 B and 2 C. Not bad, not bad at all. Pretty good planning and selecting and even better, lots of good eating.
Again, my thanks to those of you who responded to both of my pre-trip planning threads on this forum. We had a wonderful trip, due, in large part, to the expert guidance we were given here.
Any of you who have read my reports on the Europe forum, know that eating is my favorite travel activity. We had some fantastic dining experiences on this trip—the equal of anything we’ve had on most of our European trips. Following the description of each place we dined is a rating. We gave these based on something so nebulous as “overall experience” combining a primary concern with taste of food, with presentation and restaurant décor as well as service.
Dining in South Lake Tahoe
Kalani’s--My thanks to Dayenu for recommending this wonderful restaurant. We got there almost as soon as we hit South Lake Tahoe and we practically never left, eating one dinner and two lunches there. The place whose food is billed as Hawaiian, is modern and trendy with tall ceilings shortened by hanging pieces of cloudy white glass—at least in the bar. Though the décor is not off-putting, the space is angular and with a bar area, a sushi bar and dining space, it seems a bit incoherent and somewhat messy from an interior design/architecture standpoint. The food is however, solidly excellent. The restaurant appeared in Bon Appetit magazine not too long ago.
Al started with ribs with a sweet but not sticky coating. I had escargot with mushrooms and thai basil in the butter sauce. Val had a variety of sushi both as an appetizer and main course. Al and I followed with the signature dish of the chef which was featured in the Bon Appetit article, a seabass with greens over mashed potatoes in a puddle of slightly sweet, thickened mirin sauce. Everything was great.
When Val and I walked about South Tahoe the next two days searching for a non-burger lunch, we just naturally seemed to gravitate back to this wonderful place, delighted to find it open on both Christmas Day and the following Monday. Other dishes we tried included kalbe ribs from the bar menu, Hawaiian meatloaf over wasabi mashed potatoes with Tutu (means grandma in Hawaiian and is what my granddaughters call me) gravy, more of the signature pork ribs, potato skins with seaweed, pone and cheesy mirin sauce and more sushi. Val had the kimchi cucumbers three times. The menu—menus actually, since there’s a dinner, lunch, sushi and bar snack menu—provide endless variety. Rating—solid A, in spite of minor quibbles with the décor.
Sage—a steakhouse inside Harvey’s casino was a nice throwback to the 60’s. We went here at the insistence of my hairdresser who claimed he’d had the best, most memorable chateaubriand of his life there. The place was a treat but more for the ambiance than the meat, although that wasn’t bad. Like most steakhouses, it’s dark inside the dining area just off the main casino area, so décor is fairly unimportant. What is important is the service. Men in tuxes scurry to greet, seat and treat you to an experience that harkens back to the 60”s complete with carts where they prepare Caesar salad, baked potatoes with everything, flaming coffee drinks and bananas foster tableside. I felt like June Cleaver on a night out with Ward and the Beav’.
We couldn’t resist and all three of us went for the full treatment—caesar salad, loaded baked potato and prime rib. The salad was excellent, the “boys’”prime rib was very good—ordered medium rare. Mine, an end cut, was perhaps the largest hunk of meat I’ve ever been served in a restaurant that doesn’t compete on some food channel show, but it was more done than I like—which was however, my fault for ordering that cut, so I can’t complain. Rating B+
Swiss Chalet—is a place I found on the internet and booked us at in spite of getting no positive feedback when I asked about it on this forum. On our Christmas trip last year, we stayed in Geneva at a kitschy , but really nice little place called Hotel Edelweiss and had a fantastic dining experience with traditional Swiss entertainment including alpine horns, yodeling, the works. The opportunity to recapture some of that ambiance was more than I could pass up, so we booked. Décor was all I could have wished for—Swiss alpine architecture and décor down to giant cowbells posing as chandeliers. Alas the food did not live up to the décor. The raclette came not in one of those raclette contraptions but in a small fry pan and was basic melted cheese with chopped potatoes swimming around in it. The beef fondue was a bit better and came with 6 different sauces, most quite tasty. Rating C+, the + for décor.
Dining in Napa
Hog Island Oyster Company in the Oxbow Market—This place, in Napa, next door to the sadly defunct Copia, is a sort of mini version of the SF Ferry Plaza market. Many of the same purveyors have installations here. We were steered here by the lovely lady who served us at Luna Vineyards and we were very grateful to her. The place is interesting just to walk around—as is any place that specializes in food IMO. But I was overjoyed to find the Hog Island Oyster people there. Several years ago,in 2004, I was at the SF Ferry Building market and had their cheese sandwich made on ciabatta bread with three different cheeses from the Cowgirl Creamery and named it the best single dish of the year for me—a year when we’d eaten in several Michelin three starred restaurants in France, so this was no easy accolade, gratuitously given. The sandwiches Al and I had at the Oxbow didn’t disappoint, nor did the three different types of oysters we shared on a platter of 2 dozen for the three of us. Val’s fish soup was likewise swell. This is a wonderful place and a perfect casual lunch. Rating A-.
Cantinetta Piero at the new Luca Hotel--was right around the corner from our hotel in Yountville. It hadn’t been our intended dinner venue the night we dined there. That had been Bistro Jeanty, a tiny place we’d eaten twice before on previous visits and loved. Our ill-fated attempt to dine at Jeanty again on our first night in Napa proved problematic (we found a packed house with several other groups of diners both outside and inside the restaurant awaiting their reserved tables just as we would have) ended with a quick explanation to the hostess and a call to Piero to obtain a table and we were off.
Walking back from Jeanty we spotted an old building with a discreet brass sign lit up showing it to be a Relais and Chateau property and a member of the prestigious Tables Prestige or something or other that I recognized from touring in Europe. I sent Al across the street to check for the name of the place and to see if it appeared to have some empty tables just in case we needed another dining option if Piero didn’t work out for us. He returned from his mission laughing at my gastronomic naivete and said the name of the place was The French Laundry. Who knew!! I had always pictured this world class place to be someplace in the countryside, surrounded by manicured gardens, lit up and exuding charm from the outside in. Chastened for my gastronomic faux pas, I steered us on to the more humble but ambitious Cantinetta Piero.
The place really didn’t stand a chance. By this time Val, who isn’t known for his patience, was more than a little grumpy, so when we were made to stand for several minutes at the hostess stand without even being acknowledged by the passing servers, I had a momentary concern that we might be leaving this place too and headed for the starved pavements of no food. Luckily someone took pity on us and seated us just at that moment. The restaurant is attractive enough, designed to look like a modern trattoria with open kitchen—which it is. High ceilings make for a likewise high noise level. The menu is typical, upscale, trendy Italian and so was the food. My pizza with mushrooms, onion and fennel sausage was nicely done and the lamb shank with greens was good as well. They offer several charcuterie options which would be fun to try with a large group. Overall the place is good. Our experience was not the best due only in part to the service of this restaurant. Rating B
Fremont Dinner—is on the highway between Carneros and south Sonoma valleys. I can’t believe I’d never read about this place in doing my research for the trip. It has to be a foodie darling. We, however, chanced upon it without any prior knowledge while driving to our first winery stop on our second day in Napa. The buffet breakfast at our hotel had been crowded so we decided to just strike out for our tasting itinerary hoping to find something along the way. No one responded when I asked if they wanted to drive into Napa so I just kept going. Al spotted the diner with its ancient, rusty pick-up truck parked in front (a prop, I’m sure) and we knew we’d hit culinary pay-dirt the moment we popped our heads in and got a whiff of the frying chicken.
This place turned out to be Al’s casual favorite of the trip and we wound up eating two breakfasts and a lunch there. Orders are taken and paid for at the window between the indoor seating area and the kitchen. The menu is on clipboards. Old-fashioned memorabilia is scattered around for décor. The chairs don’t match. A trip to the toilets means you have to go outside to enter. And the food is fantastic!. I had the best buttermilk biscuits ever—really, ever. Once I had them with just sausage in a kind of haute mcmuffin and the other time I had them with sausage and gravy. Heaven. Though Val thought their deep fried chicken a bit underdone, Al and I both delighted in it. You can get it with mac and cheese for lunch or with a waffle at breakfast. At lunch I also had their ribolitta, a thick, rich vegetable soup/stew that rivaled some I had on a recent trip to Italy. Rating A/A+
Redd—is yet another upscale restaurant in Yountville. IMO Yountville is the best place to stay if you’ll be doing most of your tasting in Napa. It’s center of the valley, well-situated for driving, and has the largest selection of restaurants. In fact, during the warm time of the year, you could walk from Napa Valley Lodge to any of those we dined at (and we did, on our ill-fated trek to Bistro Jeanty when we wound up at Piero)
Redd is fairly new, I’m guessing, and a restaurant that takes itself and its cuisine seriously. The décor is downright austere. Wood floors, plain tables and chairs, windows and some mirrors on the wall are about it—along with some annoying tiny bare bulbs for lighting. The bar is a bit less austere and would be the place I’d choose to be seated if I had a choice.
The food, however, was excellent and almost comforting. It was also amazingly plentiful for such a serious restaurant. For starter both Alex and I had lentils and spaetzle with duck confit and fois gras meatballs, at only $16 or so, this was an incredible bargain. Val had a dozen oysters with champagne mignonette, then he and Al both had seabass over potatoes with Brussels sprouts and bacon and I had steak slices over carrots and celery with short rib meat. The carrots were done but not mushy and the gravy was slightly sweet. Actually, comfort food all the way around and beautifully executed. Rating a solid A.
Go Fish –is Cyndy Pawlcyn’s fish and seafood oriented place in St. Helena. We loved this place. It had nice fake snow covered silver trees for holiday décor, and a great white and blue décor with yellow accents in a sort of valley meets Nantucket décor. Besides table seating in the spacious place there is a nice counter lining one wall with seafood atop ice all along it. Our 2 dozen oysters were the perfect beginning. Al and I both had the tune reuben—excellent --and Val loved his sushi rolls. Hard to think of how we could have chosen a better lunch place. Rating another solid A.
Bottega—is the new Michael Chiccherelli (sp?) place in the shopping plaza in downtown Yountville. It’s large, rustic, with stone walls, and Italian reminiscent of Tra Vigne, the place where he established himself. It must be the hottest ticket in town because this was the one place (besides our NYEve venue) where we were required to call to reconfirm—48 hours in advance. We did our part right, so it was annoying to be made to wait about 15 minutes for our scheduled reservation. When places get just too popular, I’m of the opinion that you really should avoid them or suffer this kind of high-handed behavior and I should have taken my own advice. Once seated, we had a competent but not extraordinary meal served by a very helpful server but I don’t recall any of the dishes that stood out. Rating B.
San Francisco Dining
Neptune’s Palace—on Pier 39 is what you would expect—big, touristy, great views of the wharf and the sea lions, but mediocre food. Sometimes you do the wrong thing even when you know it’s wrong. Rating C.
Slanted Door—in the Ferry Building but entered from the outside so they can serve after it closes at 7 p.m. As much as I’ve read about this place being the favorite of the SF foodie community, I was not prepared for what it was. Knowing that it was in the Ferry building I had visions of a small, mom and popish place with rather typical but modern Asian restaurant décor and was amazed when this enormous, modern, almost cafeteria-like restaurant presented itself. Full as they were, and popular as they are, we did not have to wait but rather were ushered to our table almost immediately.
Our server was excellent, guiding us to good choices and steering us away from over ordering, a practice we are always prone to and especially so with Asian food. The place has a noisy vibe with lots of hard surfaces and there were lots of families with children there (we had 5:45 reservations since that was our night for Beach Blanket Babylon.) The little circa 7 year old boy next to us bravely ate his first oyster and appeared headed in the direction of becoming the next Tony Bourdain. We shared hoisin ribs, duck in soup—crispy but in a soup base with lots of cilantro, and crispy sardines. Other stuff too, but these were the standouts. Everything was good and we would definitely return. Rating A-.
Yank Sing—on Stevenson (there are two, the other being in the Embarcadero Center) was a crush but we didn’t have reservations and I’d read that it’s one of the best dim sum places in SF if not THE best, so we waited. The place is so good, that people actually are probably always waiting. It’s in a downtown building rather than in Chinatown and it has windows on two sides and very little décor, close tables, but wonder of wonders a large outdoor seating area. Val loves Chinese food and he loves to dine outdoors. Seldom do the two passions come together and this is one place where he could have both—if only it had been warm enough. But another time in a different climate he will.
Even though the place is snug, the dim sum is still served on carts so the atmosphere is very scrunchy feeling but still very “worth it.” In addition to all the standard shu mai, shrimp dumplings, etc, etc, we had great chicken feet, the wonderful signature soup dumplings (you must pop them into your mouth completely and then bite down to get the proper effect and to remain without soup all over your shirt) and best of all the incredible cod in sweet , slightly thickened miso sauce. Some of the best dim sum we’ve ever had. Rating A
Café de la Presse—is a real French bistro kind of place just across the street from the Chinatown gate with a bar serving snacks, breakfast and coffee up front and a larger seating area in the true French tradition behind. We had intended to just stop for coffee but wound up doing a late breakfast/brunch before taking off to see a movie. Al had a Croque Madame which he pronounced pretty authentic, Val a charcutries plate and I, an omelet of spinach, feta and tomato. Rating B.
Pesce—is, as you might guess from the name, a fish centered place, on Polk Street. I selected it for its small plates format, thinking that grazing would be a good way to go for our last dinner in SF which was also our dinner on New Year’s Day. It was just right and fit the occasion. Another 2 dozen oysters to start. Val loves oysters and will have them for every meal if they are available. Silver anchovy bruschetta, scallops in scallion crème, and pork roast with mushrooms, were just the dishes I remember. We had about that many more. All were good and many were excellent. Rating A-.
Boulevard—I’ve saved the best for the last. This wonderful art nouveau décor classic on the Embarcadero is where we chose to celebrate New Year’s Eve. We’d dined there on a previous trip and loved it. The food had been wonderful and the service like a carefully choreographed ballet. We were prepared to be a trifle disappointed, reasoning that no restaurant can be truly stellar on New Year’s Eve. Au Contraire. If anything the food was even better than we’d remembered. The décor was made even more festive than usual by the addition of the requisite number of gold, black and white balloon bouquets. We chose the second, later seating and were treated to our choice of two starters from a list of 8 or so, a main from among a choice of 4 or 5 and a dessert from a list of 6 or so. Every option sounded great.
Among the many options, I selected dungeness crab salad with grapefruit and avocado, tomato broth with shrimp and potatoes, lamb chops perfectly done with mashed potatoes, and dessert with blood orange cake and slices. Al selected much the same as I did. Val opted for the filet. All of us were very happy with everything and Al pronounced it the best New Year’s Eve dinner we’d ever shared and that he’d ever had. That’s saying something. Rating A+
So there you have it, 19 meals eaten at 15 restaurants and a tally of 9 A ratings, 4 B and 2 C. Not bad, not bad at all. Pretty good planning and selecting and even better, lots of good eating.
Again, my thanks to those of you who responded to both of my pre-trip planning threads on this forum. We had a wonderful trip, due, in large part, to the expert guidance we were given here.
Jan 11th, 2011, 11:14 AM
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Trying again to make the links to my pictures work
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLan...localeid=en_US
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Jan 19th, 2011, 10:22 AM
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What a great and thorough report! Thanks so much for sharing!
Sad to hear about Artesa, but am in agreement pretty much with your assessment of the wines that you tasted, although I haven't been to all the wineries that you listed. We tend to favor Sonoma wineries.
Loved your photos! You have quite the eye for framing certain views. I've been to Chateau Montelena several times, but never thought to take a picture of that side of the building.
This is the first time I've read one of your trip reports, but look forward with pleasure to reading of your European adventures.
Thanks again for sharing!
Sad to hear about Artesa, but am in agreement pretty much with your assessment of the wines that you tasted, although I haven't been to all the wineries that you listed. We tend to favor Sonoma wineries.
Loved your photos! You have quite the eye for framing certain views. I've been to Chateau Montelena several times, but never thought to take a picture of that side of the building.
This is the first time I've read one of your trip reports, but look forward with pleasure to reading of your European adventures.
Thanks again for sharing!
Jan 20th, 2011, 03:32 AM
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Thanks easy, glad you enjoyed it. Artesa is still beautiful outside but if it's a bad day causing you to stay inside, it's not worth the visit. We like Sonoma as well but decided to keep thing simple and just concentrate on Napa this time. I do think that the food options are better and more plentiful in Napa though. Hope to get back to Sonoma again soon and really want to see Mendocino, Paso Robles and Coastal areas as well so a longer trip may be in the offing.
