Sat Nov 29 - Slanted Door, Bouchon

10.14am - we were staying at this smallish movie themed hotel , but did we get to sleep in the Maltese Falcon room? No , we got Sister Act right across from it instead... come on, people... Sister Act???11.22am - a virgin Mary, for brunch at The Slanted Door, with Ritesh

11.25am - The Slanted Door is a Vietnamese restaurant (as well as a San Francisco institution and an OBVIOUS inspiration for RockSugar - down to the black sesame rice crackers), so we had to try their pho - this is the original, with beef, and it was amazing. I've had my share of good pho in Vietnam, but I think this is the best I've ever tasted...

11.32am - the hamachi collar - easily the best fish I've had all year, hands down. Ritesh agrees, and he's much harder to please than I am.

11.50am - lemongrass tofu with shitake mushrooms and red onion. this is the same tofu that they served at Greens, prepared differently obviously, but it's from the Hodo Soy Beanery right here in San Francisco

11.55am - fabulous eggplant

11.55am - the best kale EVER, with caramelized shallots and garlic. How on earth do they get Kale to taste this great? I can caramelize all the shallots and garlic I want, and it wouldn't turn out this way.

12.17pm - Ritesh's double espresso, of which I had a good few sips

12.19pm - red banana ice cream on black sesame meringue, very intriguing taste, definitely different from regular banana

2pm - a quick stopover in Berkeley on the way to the Napa Valley - I'd wanted to go to the Cheeseboard Collective in Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto to try their famous scones, but being a collective, they were closed the entire Thanksgiving weekend. Good for them! So we just got a (very good) little hazelnut-chocolate macaron from a pastry shop down the street

3.40pm - and here we are in Yountville, in the Napa Valley, home to Thomas Keller's French Laundry, Ad Hoc, Bouchon and Bouchon Bakery. Bouchon and Bouchon Bakery are right next to each other, separated by a lovely little courtyard, and our hotel was right across the street from both (this, as you may suspect, was no accident), so we unloaded the car and immediately headed to the Bouchon Bakery for a snack: green tea and a pistachio macaron which, unfortunately, was way too big and not that great, dry and chewy and just a tad old. Bit of a letdown, and made us lower our expectations for dinner. I mean, with macarons as lousy as this, what's all the fuss about?

6.44pm - Desperate times... I was starving, and it was another 2 hours until our reservation at Bouchon. Our hotel room is a cute, converted rail car, hence the oddly longish shape...

8.01pm - we got so hungry, we went out for appetizers at Bistro Jeanty down the street. Each of these glasses of wine (mine was a Pinot, Ritesh's a Zinfandel, both from the Napa Valley) cost the equivalent of about two entire bottles of the kind we normally buy. Every time I feel guilty for spending so much money on raw and vegan health food, I remind myself that any raw foodie thingie I might be splurging on is cheaper than most decent alcohol ( I could get almost three vegan rose-cardamom cupcakes for the price of one of these glasses of wine), so that puts things in perspective. Especially since I don't really drink all that much...

8.03pm - escargots, shared with Ritesh

8.44pm - and here we are, finally, at Bouchon! We had a reservation for Ad Hoc for the same night, but as they offer a fixed menu only and we weren't so excited about the day's entree, we decided to cancel that one and stick with Bouchon. This is some fresh baked bread w/ a white bean-basil dip. The paper sleeve around the napkin is actually the menu...

9.12pm - our appetizer, one of the specials of the day: oxtail ragout on roasted polenta, with some prunes on top. Very, very nice. The polenta was perfect, creamy on the inside, slightly crunchy on the outside, just beautiful. And the oxtail was so soft it just melted in your mouth. I don't think I've had any oxtail dish since I was a kid in Germany, so this brought back lots of good memories, but was of course light years away in terms of quality.

9.20pm - a simple salad to cleanse the palate - just the quality of this bibb lettuce is astounding. And the dressing, I think, is the one that I made once from the Bouchon cookbook, a lemon vinaigrette salted with blended cornichons and capers. Perfect.

Just the view to my left - pretty red velvet banquette...

9.41pm - another special of the day: the $15 black truffle fries - LOVED them!

9.41pm - and this was a revelation, there's no other way to put it. This is our entree, the salmon pot au feu: salmon poached so that it is barely done, with a horseradish crust on top, and then served on a bed of oxtail ragout (our theme for the night, apparently) w/ pearl onions. The combination of fish and beef was something we hadn't experienced before, and it blew us away. The intense flavor of the oxtail is just fantastic with the salmon, and the horseradish added another subtle element to it (although Ritesh wasn't too taken with the horseradish).
This was a fabulous dinner, and my only regret is that we couldn't eat any more than we did. As it is, we couldn't even finish the truffle fries. It would have been great for each of us to have had an appetizer and an entree, instead of sharing one of each as we always do. Or to at least try some dessert! But we were so full, there was just no way. We'll just have to go back some day...

I'm realizing just now that I didn't take any pictures of the wine! Ritesh had a Bordeaux, and I had the Cabernet blend from Napa, which is kind of like Bouchon's table wine. Both very nice and actually slightly cheaper than at Bistro Jeanty. This entire meal, actually, was only double of what we paid for an order of escargots and two glasses of wine at Bistro Jeanty, so way to go, Bouchon!