Ubuntu - Anniversary Dinner

For our second anniversary Eric and I planned on going to Ubuntu. For those that have never heard of it, Ubuntu is a farm-to-table vegetarian based restaurant headed by Chef Jeremy Fox and his Pastry Chef (wife) Deanie Fox. Along with the restaurant, Ubuntu also includes a yoga studio and a biodynamic garden.

The inside of Ubuntu. Upstairs is the yoga studio, which you can see into when your dinning through the windows. There is a bar to the left and the hot prep area is in the back. The rest of the kitchen is behind doors between the bar and the hot prep station.
We started off the meal with Crispy Beet Green Fritters. The horseradish creme was paired really well with this dish.
The menu, which changes depending on what is in season in their garden. Everyday they print out new menus, with a lunch and dinner version.
I made Eric dress up for dinner.

Benzinger Salad: cucumbers and smoked eggplant. Probably one of my favorite dishes. The miso bathed cucumber was totally aligned with my taste-buds.
Heirloom Tomatoes, simply sliced, "polka" corn pudding. My least favorite dish of the meal, but still good. I love tomatoes, but for me it was too sweet. I felt that it needed something more savory to balance it out.
Expression of Summer Squash, scented with Vadouvan. Another great dish. The squash wasn't too soft or too hard. And the broth had a nice summer "hearty" taste.
Homemade gnocchetti pasta with split French beans. This dish was Italian with a strong Middle Eastern influence. Delicious, smelled and tasted a bit like perfume, but the kind you'd like to eat.
Desert was "Cheesecake" with a berry preserve. The rolls were honey crisps with powdered sugar. Now I generally dislike cheesecake, but this wasn't as cheesy as some or as sweet as others that i've had before.

All in all I give this place two huge thumbs up! Great food, interesting atmosphere. I do think that they need more servers, because they were running around like chickens with their heads cut off when they started to get busier. I'll be back here again in the Fall, I've heard that their baked cauliflower casserole is spectacular.

Siam Thai - Total Miss

Good asian food is something that I have yet to find in Napa. But I am on a hunt, and Siam Thai did not fit the bill. Thai food isn't my staple in Asian cuisine, but when it's good I will not turn it down. For example, last month in Sacramento I had Thai twice in one day. Both places were good, the last being so exceptionally good that I was very much over being mad that I had to eat the same type of food twice by the first bite.

In other words, here's the reason why I disliked this place. The food was BLAND! A true detriment to the type of food that was being served. Thai food is something that I associate with such flavors as cumin, lemon grass, curry, coriander. This meal was like the geriatric home of thai food.

First we started out with fresh spring rolls. They were supposed to have rice paper, rice noodles, mint, tofu. It was more like rice paper and noodles. I'm not the biggest fan of mint, but even bigger mint pieces would have been better than tiny afterthoughts. The tofu looked like the stuff that you find freeze dried in a diy noodle bowl. I didn't take a picture of it, but here's Eric perfect reaction to what this dish felt like:

For the main course Eric had Red Curry with chicken:

And I had their Pad Thai with Shrimp, Tofu and Chicken:

As far as looks go, it all looked very appealing. But Eric described his dish as neither red, nor curry. And mine was bland as can be with a really dry taste. During the whole dish I felt as though it was missing something, and it wasn't until I took leftovers to work the next day (when you're poor, bad leftovers are still food) that I realized it was missing lemon grass. So I added the juice of a lemon and it was a whole lot better. Honestly, Eric made better pad thai from a box a few days before. Lesson of the meal, if I want pad thai i'll go to whole foods and buy a box for $2.99 and have Eric cook it for me.

Wine-athon

As stated in the previous blog. Courtney and Johnny came to visit us in Napa. We started off at Signorello's for wine tasting and margherita pizzas. Afterwards we went to the 47th annual Wine Library tasting. Where, other than some of the people working the event, we were the only people there of our age group.

Group photo in the parking lot.
The tasting took place on the greens at Silverado Resort, where people were still finishing off their games when we got there. Beautiful place though.
More glasses for our pitiful collection, by Napa standards.
Yes, we wore name tags. And those popcorn buckets were actually for spitting out and dumping wine.
Those cheese and crackers saved the event from becoming a scene, and I don't mean by us.
We voted Johnny as the first person to be kicked out based on skin color and his shirt. Votes were taken before walking into the event.
Learning about wine.
This was at about 5:40. The event started at 5. I'm actually very surprised that no one threw up.

Jason, Eric, and Yesenia.

Leaving the event. General consensus was that it wasn't worth 80$, or event the 60$ if you signed up in advance. 25-30$ a person would have been more reasonable, but that's also probably why there wasn't anyone else in our age range there. We were full of wine, cheese, and water by this point. About an hour later we were also full with tacos from Tacos Michoacan. For me, Duckhorn Winery was my favorite. I will have to go to their winery soon and do a tasting.

Low Rider is a Little Higher

Today was the annual Main Street Reunion Car Show in Downtown Napa (FREE!). The event was organized by Napa Valley Cruisers and the Napa Downtown Association. From what i've read the event was a regular for five years and then took a five year break, coming back in 2008. I haven't been to a car show in years. The last one I went to was in Barrio Hollywood in Tucson a few years ago. The car show today was about 3 times the size but lacking the family atmosphere that Tucson seems to bring. This car show was much more about the cars than about grabbing some food and hanging out with the neighborhood. I managed to take both my film and digital cameras. The photos that follow are all digital, i'll upload the film ones after I get the roll developed.

Main street bridge. Appearances can be deceiving, I first thought that it was just going to be the bridge and maybe a street or two. I ended up walking around downtown for an hour looking at cars.

^Ana this car reminded me of you. I could feel your essence in this ride. ^

We had a Buick Skylark almost exactly like this one growing up. Convertible and the exact same color. Just a different year. I dedicate this picture to my dad.

The front end of the Skylark. The front and back ends are the main differences from the one we had. RIP Aros' Skylark.

Jesse- I thought of you when I took this picture. Not because you're a floozie who would get down at a drive-thru.

This car had the looks of having one of those car-wrap decals on it. Not the coolest thing I saw, but definitely interesting. (We also had a VW van when I was very little)

Hands down my favorite car in the show. It was beautiful, minus the rims. They didn't emit the same feeling as the rest of this gorgeous car.

These people belonged to the era. Hey Adan, do you think this Elvis has had plastic surgery?

It's so HOT it needs two fans!

I miss my '66 hardtop Mustang. Very much like this one except mine had a black top. Which I have come to find, isn't very common. Most i've seen are the unibody type. One day, I will have a beautiful car again.

The original smart-car? I'm unsure about how any normal sized person could fit into it.

If it means saving a hotrod, then this liberal supports this statement.

And so concludes the Main Street Car Show! Most of these pictures are sub-par, but i'm excited to see how the film versions turn out. Tomorrow Eric's sister and her boyfriend come into town. Pizza and wine time a Signorello's after work (Cost-$35 for pizza and wine tasting). Tomorrow evening there is a Wine Event at Calistoga Ranch. Eric was gifted 4 free tickets (each costs $80), so we will be heading down there for another wine adventure.