2 days & 3 nights in Napa

The good things in life never seem to get old. I never turn down ice cream, a cup of coffee in the morning, a free sample. Movies that I've watched so often I can't differentiate between autobiography or fiction. The company of a good friend. An exquisite glass of wine. The sound of perfect and seductive French being spoken around me. A resolute conversation. A first conversation. An old letter. A new, crisp, unworn sundress. Fois gras.

Road trips.

I don't know what it is about our species, but along with lavishing ourselves in convenient modern-day luxuries, we also very much enjoy torturing ourselves. Trapping myself in a moving vehicle with four other people for six and a half hours is not only voluntary, but planned. The ride becomes bearable though, with Anna's gluten free peanut butter chocolate brownies, homemade granola, and a really really sad game of ghost. Xylomelum? Xylariaceae? But I am a partial believer that we are all in some way Machiavellian in thought and in this case, the end did justify the means. Even if it meant needing to go the bathroom every 20 minutes because you drank too much coffee to wake yourself up and screaming at the driver to avoid any potholes so as not to push that invisible "self-destruct" button on your bladder. Even if it meant staying up too late to watch "Rules of Attraction" (which, by the way, was so horrible it baffled me) and waking up at 7 am. Even if it meant getting to Michael's house an hour after the designated time only to find out that he decided last minute not to join us and thus forcing us to spend the rest of the morning calling up our entire combined phonebooks to find a fifth diner to drop more than $300 because French Laundry would not accept a party less than five and would also charge a $100 cancellation fee. Even if it meant having to spend three days with a crazed wild-eyed lunatic.

That's right, even through all that.
But what lies within a little building on 6640 Washington Street, Yountville, CA was entirely worth it.

Before last weekend, my experience of Napa Valley consisted of me watching my parents enjoy wine and painfully listening to my dad call different wineries asking if they carry "wine without alcohol." Now I know that Napa is really where you go when you're ready to die. Because there will pretty much be nothing left to look forward to. Marriage? Nah. Kids? Who needs 'em. A great career? Pfftt... It's like a different world up there. White peepo everywhere! Kidding. But really, aside from our maniacal Indian hotel receptionist, few have infiltrated the Napa racial pool. Good thing we had Anna there to gain trust from the locals. So I googled "Napa Valley history" and clicked on a website that had the header, "A Brief History of Napa." Once my browser redirected me however, I found that the history was not brief at all. It was actually ridiculously long. The gist of it was this:

The name 'Napa' is derived from the language of the Wappo Indians a Napa a tribe of Native Americans who once shared the lush green valley with deer, grizzly bears, elk and panthers. [...] In 1850, when counties were being organized, Napa became one of the original 27 counties of California, with "Napa City" as the county seat. By 1870, the white man had inhabited the Valley and the Native American who had once roamed freely were wiped out by smallpox and other diseases brought to them by the white man.

Well apart from its depressing origins, Napa today is home to over four hundred wineries and is teeming with quality restaurants, accomodations, and is rated one of the world's top wine regions along with France and Spain. And they have a wine train. Which of course, brings me to my next subject elaboration.

Wine.

I love wine. It makes me feel pompously elite. (Even if it was bought for $4 at the local liquor store) I remember my first sip. It was from my mother's glass at the Thanksgiving table. My mother (like all mothers. Or all women, perhaps) has always had a taste for the sweeter wines. I think I sampled an ice wine, from Canada, no less. With my 9 year-old palette of TreeTop Apple juice and neon-flavored Sunny-D, I winced at the taste of alcohol. "What's with all the hype?" I thought to myself. It was as disappointing as the new Pokémon movie: Mewtwo's Revenge. Of course, as I got older, and consequently, less intelligent, alkeehall played a different role in my life. Drinking became a sort of clandestine high, helping me to explore any lesbianic tendencies I might have been curious about. But anyway, ahem, that's all I'll say about that. As I scrapped the whole "getting wasted" habit rather quickly, factoring out the trashier beverages: Tequila and Rum, I learned to appreciate a simple glass of wine. I prefer wine because it takes care of you. It titillates your senses, heightens your taste buds (the right wine makes food taste marvelous), and soothes your nerves. Wine is like a sexy, romantic, tender lover, lulling you to sleep. Hard alcohol is like a Vegas showgirl with herpes. You always wake up regretful. But wine. Wine is like a soft whisper.

I suppose I should thank God for being born of asian descent. Because of my genetic makeup and my admitted vanity, I never drink much, and when I do, I never go overboard. The simple reason is that I turn tomato red if I drink more than 5 sips. So yes, I'm a sipper. That's why wine is the perfect alcohol for me. We were made for each other :) There's no quicker way to sound like an asshole than to sip wine and haughtily describe what you're tasting. I remember my first tasting in the Loire Valley (of all places) with Heather, and then later in Bordeaux. It's difficult to build your foundation of wine on regional French wines because afterward nothing really tastes as wonderful. I spent an entire afternoon at Barnes and Noble last week just reading up on the art of tasting wine and winemaking because I wanted to actually know how to train my palette. I was fascinated. All I had ever known had been tidbits of what friends have told me and everything else during winery tours I had kind of tuned out because I was so excited about tasting the wine, and also because I couldn't really understand the wine terms spoken with a French accent.

So while all my friends are at the bar shoving shots down their throats and licking the rims of Margarita glasses, I'll sit in a dark, candlelit corner and stick to my slim stemmed, wide rimmed glass of red ;)

The drive up, Chicco drove 90% of the way.

Mama Anna

Our janky motel room. Sacrifices, my friends. Sacrifices.

Saturday morning farmer's market.

Susie! By the way, she died.

*Breathes deeply* Smell that?

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!

We spent literally like 5 hours at this cheese stand, sampling all the different kinds of cheeses.
We walked away with a smidgen of the Honeybee, Prima Donna Gouda, Aged Mimolette, and I bought some Truffle cheese at our lunch place.

This was our fromagier's favorite.
mmm.

Heehee.
Of course I begged them to go to the lavender fields.
In all honesty, forget French Laundry and wine tasting. We all know the real reason for going up to Napa is for taking gorgeous photographs in vast fields.

Yes. I'm whipping out the sepia.

Our first winery: Corison, was recommended by a tea merchant at the farmer's market.
We sampled I think 5 wines and my favorite was, of course, $98 a freaking bottle.
Lovely wines overall though, I recommend it.
The lady seemed very passionate.

Our second winery: Folie à Deux
We ran in at the very last minute to sample a couple of their wines. I think it might have been like 7 or 8 in total. Lighter wines, lots of zinfandel and the like.
It was only $5 a tasting, and they let you share.

We headed over to V. Sattui for lunch.
I guess it's a winery + delicatessen, but I didn't know it at the time.
They had a beautiful picnic area and a barbecue.
Although it was quaint and lovely for a sleepy afternoon, there was much too many people.
The most touristy place I've seen in Napa.
But I guess if you're in Napa, you're asking to encounter rampant tourism.

Ever the loyal Thomas Keller patrons, we decided to dine at Bouchon.
As I've already previously posted, I've been to the Beverly Hills branch.
It seems that in any classy city, Keller chooses to plant a Bouchon. Maybe I should
visit the Vegas one, but honestly the food doesn't blow me away.
Still love the décor, but the BH branch was more impressive than the Yountville one.
Although neighboring the Yountville restaurant is also a Bouchon bakery, which is quite impressive.

Warm goat cheese salad

Parisian gnocchi

Oysters. The single most memorable thing about Bouchon.
They didn't have the Japanese ones that I LOVE.

Chick'n

Lobster Bisque (au contraire, not biskay)
Was a tad salty for me.

Walked around downtown afterwards.
This is our sitcom ad.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to stand in line for fresh bakery goods :)

What I'll be working in all summer!

Wasn't blown away by their macarons.
Maybe it was just my batch, but I was disappointed.
The Lemon macaron though, So good. And I never order lemon flavored things.

Courtney, I can't tell you the amount of photographs I had to scrap because your eyes were closed. This photo looks cute though, you look sleepy-eyed with your cup of joe.

More food? Yes.
We went to Ubuntu for lunch.
If you want to categorize this place, let me just say that this restaurant doubles as a yoga studio.
That might give you the gist of the type of food they serve here.

I pretty much did not understand 75% of what was on the menu.
Who knew so many vegetables existed in the world?
It was good, but not very substantial -- which I guess is what we wanted knowing that
we were going to be downing 9 courses that night.

This was some sort of noodle/soup ordeal.
They don't have it posted on their website menu and I can't recall all the 4950 obscure ingredients that were in it.

marinated ‘ruby queen’ BEETS with goat’s milk labneh *

BEET tartare, ‘red cardinal’ SPINACH, rhubarb confit

Yeah, their menu shouted at you, literally.
I don't think I like that.

stewed checkpeas a la catalan with sauce romesco *

our farm EGG, slowly poached, ‘sylvetta’ ARUGULA

This was quite fabulous. Put a poached egg on anything and I'm sold.
I especially liked the fried chickpeas on the side. It was perfectly seasoned.

Let me tell you how places like this stay afloat.
1. Rich people who "care about the environment"
and
2. Fantastic food photographers. I mean just look at their website
They can probably get me to eat pebbles and turd wraps with those photographs.

Where did we go next?
You'll never guess.
Ha. We found the ONE outlet mall in Napa and scoured it.
Admired the Cole Haan pumps at 40% off, fabulous barely discounted J * Crew cardigans, and
shhhh a 50% BCBG draped dress. Love it.

Dressing up for the big night!

The French Laundry.
What can I say?
Happiness means having your expectations met, or exceeded, right?
Well then I experienced happiness.
Tucked away on Washington street, this restaurant has quite an interesting history.
According to Wikipedia...

"In the 1920s the building was owned by John Lande who used it as a French steam laundry, which is the origin of the restaurant's name. In 1978 the mayor of Yountville renovated the building into a restaurant. Don and Sally Schmidt owned the French Laundry for much of the 1980s, and the early 1990s. In 1994 Keller bought the restaurant, making it into a 3 star Michelin establishment" and has been garnering awards under its name since.

"Current Chef de Cuisine Timothy Hollingsworth won the Bocuse d'Or USA semi-finals in 2008, and represented the U.S. in the international finals in January 2009, placing sixth."

With a miniature candle-lit courtyard, an upstairs and downstairs service, and a tiny little kitchen, The French Laundry was like eating at a really rich friend's home. All the servers seemed to be impeccably French, or at least, well trained to have a thick French accent. Of which, Chicco accused me of ogling at (I wasn't). We wined and dined at a steady pace for almost 5 hours. By far the longest dinner I've ever had. The table of 10 next to us were seated before us and were still going strong by the time we left (close to around midnight). When we first sat, I looked around and noticed that we were probably the youngest in the establishment that night. We were asked by the Maître d' if we were even interested in the wine list. (ha) But I think despite their initial reservations about our right to be there, they eventually warmed up to us. Except maybe the guy who asked us for coffee and we rejected him, not knowing that it was free -- later changing our minds because Guillaume offered again, reiterating that it was free.

2 tasting menus.
There was a vegetarian option, but we all stuck to the Chef's tasting menu, which,
apparently, is updated daily: with no ingredient used more than once throughout the meal.

Pain au lait

Gougères
:)
There was also a different salmon canapé, but I couldn't get a good photo of it.

Even their salt is high class.

Oysters & Pearls
Sabayon of Pearl Tapioca with Island Creek Oysters & White Sturgeon Caviar

I wish I could bath myself in this.
When I was finished with my portion, I wanted to reach over at Courtney's or Anna's and nibble away at the remains, but when I looked over, they had all wolfed it down too.
All around the table were sounds of "mmm's" and "uhhhhsdgghh's"
The Sabayon tasted like warm love and the caviar were like little dark edible pearls.

Finally our sommelier came with our wines.
I think we scared him because God forbid we ask his opinion on which wines to pair with our meal. The wine selection at French Laundry is phenomenal. I would have snuck into their cellar and snatched a couple bottles if I wasn't an honest woman.

It was a funny sight after we all had our individual glasses poured -- each with their own taste.
Courtney ordered a German (or was it Alsaceian?) Riesling, Chicco a Muscat, Sarah a Champagne, and Anna & I both Pinot Noirs of differing vintages and regions. After we had each sipped our own, we began sliding glasses across the table, trading and tasting. I'm sure it looked classy.

And while they all tasted delicious (some sweeter than others ;)), I loved the pinot noirs.
Mid-meal, Courtney asked for the wine list again and I began jotting down the names.
Guillaume (our charismatic French waiter) came by and saw me in my noobescence, scrambling to write down the long & superfluous French names.

"Are you taking notes? I like it! So studious! Are you writing down the names because you enjoyed the wine?"

I replied, ever so timidly. "Y..es."

"How about I bring out the bottles so you can take photographs of the labels instead? That would be more memorable!"

Williams Selyen 2007 Pinot Noir

Savigny-les-Beaume Les Vergelesses
Premier Cru
2005

Moulard Duck "Foie Gras en Terrine"
Juniper-White Honey, Bing Cherries, Endive Relish, Piedmont Hazelnuts and Aged Balsamic Vinegar
& Toasted Brioche

Smooth, creamy, and just the right amount.
I loved the fois with cherry.
Had they switched the traditional brioche with the microwave brioche à la Michael Voltaggio, it would have been stupendous.

"Brittany Turbot à la Truffe D'été"
Ramp top Raviolini, Globe Artichokes, Herb Salad, and summer truffle jus

Cooked medium rare, this was one of 2 options.
I felt the Japanese bluefin tuna was much better. This was a lighter dish, so light that it tasted like it wasn't... there.
The tuna was more present & flavorful, I thought.

"Thomas Farm Squab"
Santa Rosa Plum, Turnips, Charred Scallions, "Soubise," Watercress and Green Peppercorn Jus

Too gamey, couldn't finish it.

It was at this point in the meal that everything slowed down.

"New Bedford Sea Scallop 'Poêlée'"
Ibérico Ham, Fava Beans, Piquillo Peppers, Eggplant, Basil & Extra Virgin Olive Oil

I do love a good scallop. And this was a perfectly seared scallop. I really to this day do not know where they hid the eggplant though...

"Chateaubriand" of Marcho Farms Nature-Fed Veal
"Ris de Veau," Young garlic, Green Asparagus, Yukon Gold Potatoes, Parsley and Brown Butter Emulsion, Fried sweetbreads

I had never tried veal. Nor sweetbreads. Ya know, as a fastly compromising pescetarian, this dish took me to new dark-hearted carniverous heights. Don't worry, I didn't even finish it. This dish came at a late point in the meal when the last thing my stomach wanted to see come at it was a big perfectly-cooked hunk of meat.

"Persille de Tignes"
Baby beets, "Pommes en Feuille de Bric," Frisée, English Walnuts & Apple Cider

Delightful little cheese & fruit platter

"Royal Blenheim Apricot Sorbet"
Toasted Barley-Brown Sugar Streusel, Mint & White Apron Ale Foam

The sorbet was good, but the foam was a little overpowering for me, because
I'm not much of an ale fanatic. Though I don't know how much ale fanatics would love it anyway, seeing as it's such a delicate tasting & looking dish.

"Crémeux aux fruits de la passion"
Silverado Trail Strawberries, Pistachio "pain de gêne, & white chocolate sorbet

YUM! The sweetest homegrown strawberries on a perfectly light finish to the 9 course meal.

Chicco got his own personalized dessert because he told Guillaume to "surprise" him.
So he got a congratulatory platter of chocolate love.
This was originally for his graduation celebration.
I don't remember what it was on it, but some sort of molten chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and black currant sorbet topped with Thomas Keller oreo crumbs, which we concluded that Thomas Keller himself came personally to crumble with his magic culinary fingers.

If you thought for a second that for a fixed price of $250 that it was over, you thought wrong. Then came a slew of free additions.
This cheesecake tart thing above, coffee (as you like it), shortbread, and a platter of different homemade truffles.

Anna got her cheesecake alternative.
Some sort of blueberry tapioca ... thing.

BUT that's not all!
I don't know if Guillaume took a fancy at our endearing culinary naivité or if we had it on our faces that we had sadly reached the peak of happiness in our lives, doomed to never enjoy another frozen meal, but as Anna requested for him to thank the chef for catering to her gluten free needs, he asked if she wanted to tell him herself. Wide-eyed and gaping mouthed, the entire table stared at him in shock, trying to quell the juvenile excitement that brought to all our minds.

"Um... YES."

So here it is: firsthand.
The 3 Michelin starred kitchen.

I was at first embarrassed because of course, I had my monster of a camera with me, and we were a party of 4/5ths asian, so I felt a bit touristy, but I really so excited to see the kitchen. The crew glared out us in humorous pity as we teetered into the small kitchen, having Guillaume graciously give us a miniature tour of the workings.
I'm not going to play it down though.
It was REALLY COOL.

Of course we shook hands with the chef of little words & took a photo with him.

Guillaume himself.
What a guy, what a guy.

And what did it all cost?
$1,621.46