California Love: The Food

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and weekend! Steve and I spent our first married Thanksgiving stuffing ourselves and hanging out with members of my family. I love the holidays!

My last honeymoon recap is of the amazing food we ate while in Napa and San Francisco. We loved the food so much, we took pictures of almost everything we ate. Our routine at most restaurants we dined at was to take a second to admire the food, snap a few "macro" pictures with our point-and-shoot digital camera, and then dig in. I made collages with the photos from our favorite restaurants, so click each image to see it larger.

Our first night in Napa, we drove over to Mustards Grill.
First we shared an appetizer of onion rings (middle photo). I got their famous Mongolian pork chop with sweet & sour red cabbage, house-made mustard and mashed potatoes. Steve had the half-slab barbecued baby back ribs with apple-golden raisin slaw, and cheddar-jalapeno corn stix. Yum!

Remember the Napa Valley Wine Train lunch I told you about? What I didn't share was the tasty three course meal we ate as we rode down Wine Country...

We tried flour-less yam ravioli stuffed with goat cheese with grape relish, grilled shrimp with scallop ceviche in a Lobster jus, creamy tomato soup, beet carpaccio salad, grilled lamp chop and their fish special of the day. For dessert we had creme brulee and an apple tart. Everything was so delicious.

That night, we checked out Celadon in downtown Napa.

We had their pork belly and watermelon appetizer, followed by barbecued chicken and a specialty fish dish (I can't remember the name of it) that Steve was obsessed with. We got another fruit tart for dessert. What can I say? We love our fruity desserts!

After visiting wineries in Sonoma, we went to the girl + the fig, which serves American comfort food. Check out their bathrooms (first photo) - they use Barbie and Ken to designate lady and gentleman!

We shared a fig and arugula salad (not pictured). Then Steve got grilled flat iron steak with truffled mac & cheese. I got the sauteed flounder filet with artichoke hearts, chanterelle mushrooms and basil aioli. See that middle bottom photo with the champagne? It was actually gifted to us by this sweet older couple next to us who we struck up a conversation with. They had been married for 30 years and were also visiting from the east coast. After they had paid their bill and left, our waitress let us know that they had bought us champagne to toast. It was so sweet of them!

Our last night in Napa, we ate at famous Morimoto. We didn't have a reservation so we sat at the bar, which was fun because our bartender (also named Steve) was really cool.

Since we were tired of wine at this point, we had tasty Asian-inspired cocktails. For our appetizer we had rock shrimp tempura. Then I got the duck duck goose, which was duck cooked four ways. Steve got the whole roasted lobster. Everything was amazing. For dessert, we had the doughnuts which came with 6 dipping sauces and sugars. Drool...

Having never been to California, Steve and I had never had the chance to try the deliciousness that is In-N-Out Burger. So one day in San Francisco, we had lunch there.

It was definitely worth the trip! Though I noticed that their french fries seem to have not one drop of grease, unlike fries from places on the east coast. They were still yummy but I thought it was funny how "healthy" they tasted. After we ate there, we found out that they have a secret menu that native Californians know about. Next time...

Another night in San Fran, we went to Farallon, a fancy seafood restaurant with fun underwater-themed decor. It was actually recommended from the lovely couple we met at girl + the fig in Sonoma. We had wanted to go to Gary Danko's (thanks for the recommendation, Party Planner Gal!) but we couldn't get a reservation, so this was a nice alternative.
We decided to try their tasting menu, so our waiter brought us out five different courses, including crab, scallops, steak and chocolate mousse for dessert. We loved everything.

The most interesting restaurant experience we had was at Benu. Steve had looked this place up ahead of time because he wanted to check out a restaurant that specialized in food gastronomy.
We had their 10-course tasting menu, which included such delicacies as thousand-year-old quail egg. At first, I was a little weirded out by what they served (a couple of courses early on included gelatinous meat...not my thing) but once they started bringing out food I recognized, I was practically licking my plate clean. It was so delicious, the presentations were impressive and the service was impeccable. I felt like we were judges on Top Chef. I also liked that they took my lactose intolerance into consideration and modified my courses that included dairy so I could eat them.

Our waitress was so nice; she showed us the kitchen after our meal and we took a photo with the chef. We had such a lovely time at this place and the experience of eating there made it totally worth the expensive price tag!

Another day for lunch, we checked out The Slanted Door, a popular Vietnamese restaurant on the water.
We got the vietnamese crêpe to start, and then shared the caramelized tiger prawns and rice noodle stir-fry. Everything hit the spot.

The last restaurant we visited, Fog City Diner, was recommended by our college friend L who lives in the Bay Area. We went on our last day, right before we caught a cab to the airport to head home.
L told us to try the onion rings, which we did, and they didn't disappoint! Then Steve got the pulled pork sandwich and I got a cheeseburger with mushrooms and avocado. I love how you can get avocado on everything in California.

So that's just a *taste* of what we ate while in California. Eating was definitely our favorite thing to do during our honeymoon. And with that, I end our honeymoon recaps! If you've made it to this point, thanks for reading. :)

Catch up!
California Love: The Wineries
California Love: Wine Country Sights
California Love: San Francisco

*All photos in this post are personal photos