Potpourri of Tastings... Any winery starts with a vision. No doubt, no one starts out to make undrinkable plonk with a tasting room that resembles uncle Joe’s rec room. Unfortunately it happens. Thankfully, not too often in Napa and Sonoma. Especially so at Sonoma’s Ram’s Gate Winery. Only in biz since the fall of 2011, [...]
Tasting Tour .... While Santa Rosa took it in the teeth in the recent fires, it’s important to remember that a lot of Sonoma counties were relatively untouched, including much of Santa Rosa. Let wine lovers know it’s perfectly safe and welcomed abundantly to come back and taste some Sonoma wineries. In that vein, the [...]
Simple & Complex.... For a guy who loves restaurants and bars, it’s kind of ironic that the Insider has never given more than a cursory thumb through most cookbooks. While the pics often make me drool, I have never been tempted to buy one. Why? While I can grill a pretty mean rare steak and a not [...]
Enchantment ... The Insider has always been a little ambivalent about traveling to see the world’s natural wonders and nature itself. It’s not that I’m immune or can’t appreciate the glories of a sunset, sunrise, forest, mountain, beach etc. Any time I’ve ventured north to Vancouver in the early spring for Vancouver’s excellent wine fest, I’ve always [...]
Charlie Palmer shows a new steak way ... Charlie Palmer is cool. Any chef who has got wine fairies going up to snag a precious bottle of wine at Auerole in Vegas which I’ve experienced, has gotta be cool. Plus, his Pinot and Pig party in Healdsburg is always a blast. So when the Insider got an invite to attend the new [...]
Napa Welcomes You... The Insider is all about promoting Napa and Sonoma. In the wake of the wildfires, it’s imperative to let people know, even though the fires were devastating, most of Napa and Sonoma counties weren’t affected by the fires thanks to the awesome First Responders's actions. So the Insider set out to do a day tour of each area to [...]
Best of both worlds... It never fails. Everyone is enthused about going to a Japanese place and sharing some plates, but inevitably someone squawks, “I can’t eat raw fish.” “You got it,” Napa’s Eiko’s GM Allison Hallum, laughs. “ It was the vision of my father and his biz partner Makurma to create a restaurant that combined Roy’s grilled food [...]
Authentic Japanese Dining and Decor ... The Insider loves Asian culture and food. Not so much the music. As Anthony Bourdain wrote, “Jeesuuss. Sounds like a cat being tortured. “ It was cool to sit down with Kenzo Napa restaurant’s GM Tomonori Iwao before their dinner rush. Tomonori was a modest and soft spoken gentleman from [...]
Angèle Earns Its Raves ... In my time of writing about the Napa/Sonoma food scene, chefs keep saying they like eating at Angèle if they’re going to dine out. So if chefs are digging it so much, the Insider, already a big fan of classic French cuisine, had to check it out. The Insider enjoyed [...]
Up, Up and Away... If you live in Napa Valley you’re inevitably going to see some hot air balloons passing over you in the sky. The experience looked so inviting the Insider couldn't resist contacting Napa Valley Aloft and since the Insider had done a bungy jump, white water rafted, scuba dived, etc…he was totally [...]
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