Two Great Meals

So, I went to San Francisco and Napa Valley last weekend and had two of the best meals I've ever had-from beginning to end. The first was at Chez Panisse. Yes, it's known as a food mecca, started the whole fresh American food revolution, blah blah blah. And I'd been there before and had a great meal, so I was looking forward to it-but this was so much better than the last time, even without the sour cherry crisp with vanilla ice cream. It started with the salad of grapefruit and avocado. The grapefruit were sliced thinly and placed flat on the plate with slices of avocado covering them-and a citrus dressing shone on top. Apparently this doesn't sound good to everyone but it was amazing-the grapefruit was sweet and tart with a little fiber while the avocado was rich and smooth-which was cut just enough by the dressing and the grapefruit to meld together perfectly. My friend D had a salad with egg and anchovy-I had a bite and it was quite good-and not too salty-I'm not fond of anchovies. For my entree I had hand-cut pasta with Bolognese sauce and it was amazing. The pasta was al dente, the sauce was rich and tender-and there were spring peas which were a little crunchy that cut the richness of the sauce just enough-D kept eating it instead of her halibut (which was very good if a tad boring, at least to me. However, it was a very tender piece of fish). Dessert was Meyer lemon ice cream with strawberries and biscotti and it was good from the first bite to the last. It was tart, sweet and crunchy all in one bite. It may not have been the sour cherry crisp with vanilla ice cream (that D and I still talk about) but it was a worthy successor. My only quibble was that it was a VERY hot day, especially for SF-it was about 85 in the city and 95 down in Silicon Valley and there was no ice water. I know it's the French style to serve tepid water (hello, I thought this was the home of the AMERICAN food revolution) but it was hot-and they had ice cream for crying out loud-it's not like they didn't have any frozen water. Luckily the cava I was drinking (sparkling wine from Spain) was ice cold and fizzy so all in all it was great.
The next meal (the next day) took place in Napa at Ubuntu and had to be the best meal ever-rivaling even Gary Danko (the previous winner) in terms of food and service-it was incredible. Yes, it's entirely vegetarian but you never even thought of meat because everything was flavorful and amazing.
1) First course was soup of fresh peas in a bouillon made from their shells. The peas were barely cooked and still crunchy-and with some crushed macadamia nuts and a little white chocolate it was wonderful-crunchy, nutty and flavorful.
2) Ravioli with braised fennel, strawberry sofrito and homemade ricotta.
This was the course that forced me to slow down and enjoy every bite because it was so good. The strawberry sofrito (yes, I know what sofrito is and how it's made-call and ask the chef why he called it that)was not sweet it was actually meaty. And the fennel was braised with garlic and onion which deepened that flavor of everything-along with the richness of the ricotta.

3) The cauliflower in a cast iron pot. This is what they're known for, and honestly it was the weakest of the bunch-but only because everything else was so good. The cauliflower was cooked until smooth-almost a paste and you spread it on toast. It was very good with nice cauliflower flavor but a little bland.But it was made up for by the

4) Fried egg on smoky grits. They don't tell you the egg is still whole and then rolled in something crunchy (panko?) and then fried -so the outside is crunchy and the inner yolk is still liquid. It was an impressive feat of showmanship-and at a time when I was not very hungry, I still ate it all because it was so good.

Dessert was strawberry ice cream with warm slices of brioche, followed by vegan choclate chip cookies (D did not wasnt to try them, but I did and made her try them because they were so good-although I suspect that if you ate them when they had cooled they would not be so special) and vegan caramels which were wonderful but I felt I would explode at that point. We drank D's favorite chardonnay (Rombauer) which was excellent and finished with a glass of fizzy wine (you can't call it Champagne it it's made in California). All in all-amazing.
I read some great books too-more on that later.