Napa

If you don't care to go to Napa because you are not a wine person, please please please go for the food. Our day trip to Napa took place right smack in the middle of basically dry season for the vineyards so we compensated the lack of outdoor vineyard tours with what else!? Good food. At the first winery, we enjoyed free wine tasting at V. Sattui (separate entry for that coming later) and was excited to check out their plentiful deli of different types of cheeses and cold cuts. After sampling a deep chedder cheese (primarily used for soups) and an extra delicate Brie cheese, we tasted a fabulous spinach and artichoke cream cheese. If you're a cream cheese lover, it tastes as good and exactly as it sounds. Now remembr how I can't smell? Well now. Fast forward to the next day, I bring a toasted bagel spread with the purchased spinach and artichoke cream cheese to class and three classmates each inquired on what smelled so good after passing my seat. Obviously a great selection.

After snacking on complimentary pretzels and crackers dipped in various salsas and mustards (my favorite being the Crunchy Cranberry Dijon Mustard from Napa Mustard Co.) , Cha and I decide its time for lunch. Upon the recommendation of a vendor, we head to Rutherford Grill. This meal was absolutely more than we care to spend on food, but as the saying goes, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Upon looking at their selection of steak, chicken and salads, Cha and I were about to do the fancy hamburger route when our waitress convinced us to order the special of the day.

Halibut seasoned and grilled over live oak in a lemon butter cream sauce with lightly seared dungeness crab on top, mashed potatoes with choopped suateed cabbage and green onions mixed in and a side of carrots grilled in maple syrup. Come on, SOLD! The lemon butter cream sauce made the light and tender halibut practically melt in your mouth. The dungeness crab was thinly sliced allowing the lemon butter sauce to soak more intensely than the halibut resulting in pleasant sparks in your mouth. The mash potatoes were a bit too onion-y for my taste, but hot, creamy and buttery. The carrotts were the perfect visual and side to the dish. Yellow, orange and red carrots lightly painted in maple syrup colored the plate and was just the sweet pop of taste needed to compliment the potatoes.

Only regret was not ordering the iron skillet cornbread, apparently their staple appetizer. Eh, no worries because we'll be back ha!