Napa Valley, Food & Drink Favorites

As I've already said a million times, I think Napa Valley hooked me with food.  It's no surprise - a popular place to travel, especially for the wealthy, would only attract the best.  And there is a lot of competition to be the next best place to eat in such a popular destination.

And we don't have to say too much about drink.  Duh, it's wine country.  Knowledge of great wines runs rampant.  Microbrews are widely popular, but there are a handful of places that we thoroughly enjoyed.

A few of our favorites:

Calistoga Inn & Brewery
The beers were de.lic.ious.  Their Oatmeal Stout was smooth, creamy, & so incredibly drinkable.  Our first night, we weren't very hungry but instead decided to try some appetizers.  Their crab cakes & seared tuna were perfection - the crab cakes were not overly breaded & processed like so many crab cakes & the seared tuna as cooked just perfect with a pink center & a surprisingly tasty seaweed salad.

Casa Nuestra
By far my favorite winery.  Totally off the beaten path with very friendly staff and an owner they claim is a self-described hippie.  And they allow dogs.  No better way to enjoy a winery than with a couple cute dogs hanging out.  Delicious wines.

Silverado Brewing Company
The only place we went to eat twice.  Two words: Lamb Burger.  Their beer was tasty, but their lamb burger was out-of-this-world delicious.  The flavors in the burger meshed so incredibly well - locally raised lamb, rosemary aioli, & feta were the three major players in a bite that was heaven in my mouth.  Angels sang, the heavens parted, & sun rays shone down.  Something about their feta was different than typical store-bought feta - it was creamier, slightly less tangy, & more similar to a shredded feta than crumbled feta.
Excuse me while I wipe drool off my laptop.

Gott's Roadside
According to the Milat winery owner, Gott's is a yuppie roadside diner.  It totally is & definitely a tourist trap, but they make some damn good "diner" food.  Thick, juicy burgers, tasty hot dogs, & super yummy garlic-parsley fries.

Zuzu's
Hands down, without a doubt, my favorite place.  It's a bit "fancier," but well worth the prices.  Service was excellent (a server that made excellent recommendations based on true knowledge of the products), food was ahhhhhhhhhhmazing, & atmosphere was warm.  I would recommend a trip to Napa Valley solely to eat at ZuZu.  We shared three tapas: Jamon Iberico de Bellota with Grilled Garlic Bread & Olive-Anchovy "Garum," Pan-Fried Manchego w/Roasted Poblano Chiles & Guajillo Sauce (we think the manchego would have been better without being fried), & Niman Ranch Pork Meatballs w/PX Sherry & Piquillo Pepper Sauce.  Since we were splurging, we went for dessert & had tres leches cake with mango curd.  I just fainted from memory of that dessert.  The cake was not soggy like many tres leches can be, but perfectly moist.  And the mango curd.  The mango curd.  Oh my.  The mango curd.  Words escape me.

I loved it all.  There are more places we ate & drank not mentioned, but we enjoyed everywhere we went.

Napa Valley, Part 3

I wholly admit...we did a horrible job taking pictures on our vacation.  The rain really put a damper on the desire to hop out of the car & take pictures in front of every winery we visited.  So the rest will have to do...

Our third & fourth night were spent at Mountain Home Ranch.  Trip Advisor, HUGE fail.  Sure, Mountain Home Ranch is quiet & peaceful, but for the money we spent on one of their "nice" cabins, we were sorely disappointed.  The cabins are piecemeal & not the comfortable experience we were picturing.  The proprietors are very nice & cooked us a wonderful breakfast our last morning, but we don't plan to return in future visits.

 Shane, Krystle, & Steve standing in front of the lone wall heater.  I'm pretty sure the heater is vintage 1960's & hadn't been cleaned since installation.  Burning dust was a common smell.

 More rain!

 The Napa Valley Wine Train looked like it might be a fun splurge.

 Many places in Napa Valley have the stamp of approval from Guy Fieri of Diner's, Drive-In's, & Dive's.  We  ate at Putah Creek Cafe & Gott's Roadside Diner, both apparently featured on the show (unknowing to us before we ate at above-mentioned places).

 They had amazing garlic & parsley french fries.

 Our hippy cabin from the front.  What's that...SUN??  Our last day in Napa Valley & the sun came out.

 Look closely at the picture & you'll see airplane propellers.  The propellers are commonly used as fans above the vineyards - when a frost is forecasted, the "fans" are turned on & can move enough air to prevent the frost from settling on the grapes.

 SUNSUNSUNSUNSUNSUN

 Oh look, you can see colors other than gray!

 Common opulence in Napa Valley.

 Not sure what's going on here but the trees just looked cool.

 Another version of the "fan."

Robert Mondavi Winery.  No, we didn't go there.  When you see tour buses in winery parking lots, you lose interest.

Napa Valley, Part 2

Our first two nights in Napa were spent at the Calistoga Inn & Brewery.  It's more similar to a hostel than an inn (mainly, shared bathrooms).  However, it was well-priced, had a brewery on location (yes!), & rooms were spacious & clean.  The town of Calistoga turned out to be our favorite town in Napa - it was much quieter & laid-back than Napa, Rutherford, St. Helena...  If you're bothered by music late into the night, don't stay at the Calistoga Inn - they regularly have a DJ or live music in their bar, which is below all the rooms.  Their beers were delicious & the food was amazing (my first glimpse of what I consider Napa's finest feature - FOOD!).  With all the rain, we lacked the gumption to take pictures & thus did not manage to get one picture of our room.  Fail.

 We did, however, manage to snap a picture of our first night's dessert - a local wine & a super yummy peanut butter pie from the Calistoga Inn's restaurant.  The wine we found at Wine Garage, a place we knew we had to visit.  They proved to be a great wine store of friendly, knowledgeable, & NOT fancy shmancy stuck-up wine snobs.

 The next day, we made a trip to Milat, upon recommendation from the 'rents.  A family-owned vineyard, we met one of the owner's, Mike.  Very interesting guy.  Certainly not your Napa "standard" - in fact, he steered us away from the "yuppie restaurants" (his own words) & to the more local, less touristy, food places.

 Stunning California Poppies sent against the gray/green background

 Olive oil is another big venture in Napa Valley & I almost jumped out of the car when we drove by this place.  Olive oil tastings??  You betcha!  I convinced Steve to stop & check it out - we thoroughly enjoyed the incredibly variety of oils & flavors, but couldn't decide on one particular oil (& were slightly swayed with the $42 price tag for a small bottle).

RACE DAY!  It rained.  And there was lots of mud.  I lost my drive & ended up running only the half-marathon while Steve toughed it out to complete the full.

As we were trying to leave the park, a family was standing in the middle of the road, trying to take pictures.  Many of the adults in the family had completed the race; they obviously didn't care about time or the weather - they were just so proud of each other & enjoying their time together (seriously, I think there were 15-20 family members).  Needless to say, when they saw us waiting for them to move, the family member trying to take the picture came running over to our car & said "since you're waiting, would you mind...?"  We hopped out, took their picture, & in return, requested they snap our photo too.