COMING UP NEXT...

We'll get around to providing more info on these restaurants as we get the time, but here are some quick summaries of the other restaurants and other food-related places that we've been to in the last few years. It's a little depressing listing all of these places out as it reminds us how long it will be to write the reviews up. :-(  It also reminds us of how much money we've spent going to all of these places. :-X  On the other hand, there is research (and re-research) to be done! :-)

Napa Valley restaurants we've been to but haven't written up (yet)

• Bardessono - Italian name, Irish chef, new restaurant in the very swanky bardessono resort. Another farm-fresh theme. Tasting menu felt like it was cooked well, but it didn't hang together as much as you'd like. Felt like there were morels in every second course.
  
• Bounty Hunter - More of a wine tasting area than a restaurant. The wine selection and wine programs are extensive, and the small menu seems built more to accompany the wine than vice-versa.
  
• Celadon - Global comfort food is how owner, Greg Cole, puts it (also owns Cole's Chop House). It has a mix of influences. I've read some quotes say something along the lines of "You can keep your French Laundry, we have Celadon", but that's a real stretch. The food is solid though.
  
• Napa Chinese restaurants - Non-European based food is a real weakpoint for the Valley as a whole. Peking Garden is probably the best in the lot as a medium end Chinese restaurant. I would kill for some San Francisco or Oakland level of Chinese, but demographics in Napa probably won't support it. Mini-Garden is actually interesting in that the cook/owner is more creative with stuff like his crispy chicken or duck and some tasty clear broth soups (the owner/cook did some work at Yank Sing). There's China Light in downtown Napa which is around the same level. Wah-sing in south Napa on Imola. 
• Etoile / Domaine Chandon - Domaine Chandon primarily does champagne, and this is the accompanying restaurant. Gorgeous exterior and interior, but our 7(?) course tasting menu was underwhelming for the price. However, I did get the pleasure of having the best Kobe beef ever which I'll think fondly of on my deathbed.
• Farmstead - Focus on higher-end country food which is an interesting dimension. Makes it feel like you're eating more on the farm even with some country-esque informal clothing styles from the staff. I liked the food actually although a little pricey.
  
• French Laundry - Yes, we went. Yes, it was expensive. Yes, it was stunning and everybody should be this pampered once in their life. No, we won't be doing this again until we leave Napa (see "Yes, it was expensive.")
  
• Fume - Mostly food involving...well...smoke (wood oven, smoked, grilled, etc.) billed as the "American Bistro". Meat lovers type of place.
  
• La Taquiza - Another taco shop, but it's tacos are definitely lighter than what you would find elsewhere. Serves Baja-style fish tacos too which you miss if you're used to them in SoCal.
  
• Normal pizza places in Napa - I'm excluding Azzurro or Pizzeria Tra Vigne from this group. Let's say you just want a normal takeout pizza for a football game or something. What do you order? Filipi's and Fazzerati's are lower on our lists with their heavy cheese, heavy sauce, bready crusts even though they are busy. Mary's Pizza Shack is definitely a step ahead of those two, and you can get a nice bit of garlic cheese bread to go with the meal. The city of Napa favorite is probably Papa Joe's which we like maybe a bit more than Mary's. Our favorite is probably La Prima Pizza which we think has better ingredients and a crunchier crust than the others. It's relatively new in the city of Napa (although it has older St. Helena and Calistoga locations) and has had a bit of a harder time getting noticed which is too bad.
  
• Siena / Meritage Resort Well, maybe they hadn't worked out the kinks yet, but it seemed like fairly lackluster food. Maybe one of those restaurants that just preys on the unknowing tourists in the hotel. Keep on meaning to go back and give them another shot.
  
• Terra - A veteran restaurant in St. Helena that we've only been to recently. For us, it's definitely a keeper. The food is elegant and nicely presented. Small seating area though so get a reservation.
  
• Tra Vigne - First experience there was very forgettable, and it took us a while to go back. Everybody has an off day. Our second visit was much more memorable.  Hearty country Italian food.  Tra Vigne is probably one of the best Italian restaurants in the area if you look at the whole package.
• Villa Corona - Villa Corona is definitely a step up from the normal Mexican restaurants in the area, and it has a steady stream of customers despite the higher prices. The flavors are fresh and strong. I think there's room for a high-end Mexican place in Napa; my wife disagrees.  The music gets a little loud at times, and you have to not mind eating with pictures of Jesus and the Pope staring down at you. 
  

Restaurants that're on the "to do" list

• Chanterelle
• FlatIron Grill
  
• Genova Delicatessen and Ravioli Factor
• Meadowood, The Grill
• Napa Valley Wine Train
• And a bunch of other ones in Calistoga...
  

Napa Valley bakeries and sweets

• Annette's Chocolates - In downtown Napa. Chocolates, ice-cream, and some tasty chocolate wine sauces .
  
• Model Bakery - Pretty nice bakery based in St. Helena. A new one just opened in the Oxbow Public Market in Napa
  
• Sweetie Pies - Popular place for cakes, cookies, and other baked goods. They also serve breakfasts and light lunches.  In the same shopping center as the General Store, Angele, and Celadon. The cookies are great, especially their "AnZac" cookies, but we find the cakes to be way too sweet and heavy. We usually take one bite of a cake and then scrape off all the overly-sweet frosting. Unfortunately, this seems to be the only pastry shop in town since Sweet Finale closed down.
  

• Sweet Finale (RIP) - This was our favorite pastry place in Napa. Those pastries were like little works of art, and they were delicious too. They tended to go on the lighter side rather than heavy butter and sugar. The owner decided to call it quits and move on even though my impression was that business was decent enough. We cried.
• Woodhouse Chocolates - In St. Helena. Expensive pieces of chocolate like $1.75 for a small piece of gourmet chocolates with different flavors and combinations. I wrinkled my nose at this when I first saw it as the cost / benefit ratio didn't look great. But OMG, those things are ridiculously delicious. And I'm not even a chocolate person.  My wife is, and she resents having to share with me when we get chocolates from there. 
  

Napa Valley Foodstuffs

• Dean and DeLuca (St. Helena)- Mind-blowing cheese section. Extensive wine section. A variety of higher-end foodstuffs. Ah...and really, really pricey. On a side note, we bought this bottled truffle from there once to herald our arrival to the region. We kept on saving it as we figured out how to use it...and then forgot about it and had to toss it when we found it...about a year later. :-(
  
• Farmer's Market (Napa) - Tue and Sat. from spring to fall. Tuesday is the better, larger one to go to. Stuff yourself stupid with seasonal fruits. Buying some fresh, seasonal vegetables for cooking. Some folksy live music in the background.
  
• Chef's Market (Napa) - Friday evenings. Kind of like the Farmer's Market comes downtown but add some local restaurant and foodstuff stores opening up booths to showcase their wares. But they're changing the time of these as the local businesses complained too much that the Chef's Market actually hurt their business on what should be a busy day for them. That's too bad as the city turnout is usually pretty good.
  
• Oxbow Public Market (Napa) - Ok. So, the city of Napa wants more tourism dollars. Let's face it. Yountville, St. Helena, Calistoga, etc. are all much nicer places than downtown Napa, which is where most tourists often end up by accident because they confuse the city of Napa with the Napa Valley pictured on their travel brochures ("is that the County jail?"). So, the Oxbow market is like a high-end tourist trap, but it's worth going to. Specialty shops, Fatted Calf Charcuterie (or deli, in case you were too embarrassed to ask) Taylor's Refresher, yummy ice cream, specialty meats from the Five-dot Ranch (to paraphrase the brochure, "our cows practically do the Conga into the slaughterhouse!"), Rotisario rotisserie, tea shop, cheese shop, spice shop, etc. They have an offshoot of the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchants in SF, which recently got some good press in the NY Times.  It's like the downtown that the city of Napa wishes they had but don't. So, they created the Oxbow market instead. Purists will probably find it too commercial, but I think it will work. Having it right next to the Copia and the Farmer's Market will work out well come the nicer months. 
  
• Vallergas (Napa)- A simpler, smaller supermarket that used to have 3 stores and is now down to 1 as the demographics have changed and the chain supermarkets moved in. Lovely cheese, meat, and fruit selection, great sandwiches, friendly staff, etc. We try to shop there as much as possible and acknowledge that we're probably paying 15-20% more to keep them around. But with Whole Foods moving in not too far away, I don't see how they're going to survive. Amusingly, we have shopped at each of their 3 locations and migrated to each successive one as they went under. I guess we're the Angels of Mercantile Death.
  
• Trader Joe's (Napa) - We have one; it's crowded just like every Trader Joe's is. To be honest, we've never understood the appeal of Trader Joe's in terms of how fanatical the customer base is. Yes, their pre-packaged foods are pretty good as pre-packaged foods go. But it's still pre-packaged food. Whole Foods moved in next door so it will be very interesting to see how TJ does. Their fan base might be strong enough to resist.
  
• Whole Foods (Napa) - We've been to a few Whole Foods over 15+ years, back even when they were only in Texas (funny, that such a tree-hugging company would start in Texas of all places). It's been interesting to see how the concept has changed. It used to have a very beatnik vibe. This was our first glimpse of the most modern version. Now, it's basically like a culinary Wal-Mart for people with money. Almost everything is organic or sustainably farmed. They go on and on about buying locally, but the irony of it is that they'll probably kill all the smaller, high-end shops (like Vallergas) in the area who probably can't compete with Whole Foods's purchasing power and sheer selection.  That being said, Whole Foods has a pretty good wine section and great cheese and meat sections as well.  They offer cooking classes and they have a pretty well-stocked pre-prepared food section if you want to run in and get something for dinner for the family. The parking in this area (BarbersQ is here, Target is here, Trader Joe's is here) sucks as the Whole Foods crowd comes in. When I first heard that one was opening nearby, I was resigned to the fact that we'd end up as regular customers after the last Vallergas store goes under. Of course, overwhelmed with all of the culinary goodness Whole Foods brings, we didn't even wait for Vallergas to roll over to become regulars. *blush*

Napa Valley Restaurants that closed before we could write something up...

• Budo (RIP) - Ill-fated attempt to bring high-end fusion Asian cuisine to the center of the city of Napa. The food was good, but the prices were too high for the area fir the time. It was quickly replaced with Cuvee.
• La Boucane (RIP) - Unabashedly heavy French-style of food. No longer here as the chef decided he'd been around long enough and wanted to do other things. Near the end, it was basically just him manning the whole restaurant which meant the wait times were pretty long, but he was so damn funny and irreverent you didn't care. I wish I could've eaten here a few more times.
• First Squeeze Cafe and Juice Bar - Good little place to go for a nice lunch sandwich in downtown Napa. Breakfast sandwiches are good too. Bistro Sabor took its place.
• Zare (RIP)- This was a more Mediterranean type of restaurant which had a terrible location and visibility out on 29. I thought overall the food was ok especially as we are dying for a good Greek restaurant and this was somewhat close. But I think it stayed too close to the Napa Valley style of cuisine. Closed in the summer of 2007.
• Pere Jeanty (RIP) - Phillippe Jeanty tried a less formal and less French version of Bistro Jeanty, more of a steakhouse.  But that didn't work out too well. We ate there once and it was ok. I hear it was relabeled as PJ Steak and then shut down.
  
• Posticino (RIP) - Yet another Italian restaurant that didn't make it. Note: don't open another Italian restaurant in Napa unless you offer something orgasmic. Food quality had its ups and downs and they didn't have enough time to iron it out. The other problem is that the location doesn't get a lot of foot traffic. Bleaux Magnolia took its place. 
• La Strada (RIP) - Yet another Italian restaurant in downtown Napa. Tried to go after the lower end of the nicer restaurants, but it was hard for them to stand out in such a competitive and common style. Replaced by Carpe Diem.
• Locos Tex Mex Grill (RIP) - They say Tex Mex, but there's a lot of Napa Valley influences in here. Chips and salsa are pretty good and some nice dishes there like the shrimp burrito and some real misses like a BBQ beef burrito which has way too much sweet BBQ sauce in it to come even close to a burrito.
  
• NV (RIP) - Former Dean and DeLuca guy(?) tried his hand at a more hip, cosmo restaurant. Lovely name on different levels. Bar did ok; restaurant had more trouble. I liked what it was attempting to do with the food, but that is a hard location to do well in for upscale food. The building is just too large which increases the fixed cost of the place, and downtown Napa is pretty lame so getting the Beautiful People to consistently stop by in enough numbers to keep it going is tough. ZinsValley is now there.