{"id":541,"date":"2011-10-25T15:28:01","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T15:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.leilappetit.com\/blog\/?p=541"},"modified":"2011-10-25T15:28:01","modified_gmt":"2011-10-25T15:28:01","slug":"calistoga-restaurant-review-for-bite-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/?p=541","title":{"rendered":"Calistoga Restaurant – Review for Bite Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2018Smoky bacon crisps\u2019. The Silver Fox and I are comparing flavour notes on a particularly lush Old Vines Zinfandel, \u2018The Predator\u2019. We\u2019re in the upstairs tasting room at Calistoga,\u00a0\u00a0 a little late evening sun pushing through the windows makes this a pretty good simile for the California that this restaurant and sister wine shop are devoted to. We\u2019re here to try the Senatorial Package (\u00a336 per person), which sounds a lot more serious than it is. Al, the affable wine guy is taking us on a tour of five West-coast beauties, before we head down to dinner in the restaurant.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly from the winners of Speciality Restaurant of the Year<\/em> (Scottish Restaurant Awards), dinner was about bright flavours, delicate presentation, yet thankfully not in LA-style size zero portions!<\/p>\n

\u00a0It happened to be the fella\u2019s birthday, so politeness allowed him first pickings. He started with pork, apple and tarragon ravioli. The light little dumplings, with a satay-like sweet peanut pesto gave a nod to Asian flavours. My warm salad of shiitake mushrooms and asparagus was well cooked, but perhaps lacked a touch of zing or sweetness in the dressing.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

For his main, Mister had a plate-spanning T-bone steak that would have satisfied any rancher. Medium-cut and cooked, it came with an aromatic peppercorn and brandy sauce, and crisp skinny fries. I tucked into the perfect grilled tuna fillet, plenty of seasoning and colour on the outside, and a still-translucent centre. The side of red rice and crunchy pepper salsa brought together a dish that was clean on the palate.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

Desserts were a little bit naughtier, and quite superb with it. Birthday boy picked the blueberry parfait, which came with a scoop of vanilla cream and a curly tuille biscuit. The concentration from the berries was deep and perfumey. I chose the seasonal \u2018apple 3ree ways\u2019, a trio with smooth apple parfait, dainty little cherry apples, and crumble with a whopping hunk of a biscuit as topping. Oh, and I confess to adding in the optional scoop of sticky Oreo cookie ice cream. Both dishes were pretty enough to be cookbook cover worthy.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

Wine tasting and dinner packages from \u00a331 a person, three-course dinner \u00a323.50, and only a \u00a35 mark-up on the retail prices of their wines. Argument of Pinot- versus- Merlot is optional!<\/p>\n

\n

\"Calistoga<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u2018Smoky bacon crisps\u2019. The Silver Fox and I are comparing flavour notes on a particularly lush Old Vines Zinfandel, \u2018The Predator\u2019. We\u2019re in the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":542,"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions\/542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}