3 posts tagged “friends”
So you're probably wondering at this point: okay, you've thrown massive amounts of cocky talk and food pr0n in our general direction for us to know you had a hell of a swell weekend in Napa Valley (French Laundry, Bouchon, BarBersQ) and San Francisco (supperclub). What the heck was the special occasion?
Right, right, so you're probably not actually asking or wondering about this. :) But let me show you anyway!
A good friend of mine had a conference in San Francisco the last week of January, and decided to troll OpenTable.com exactly two months and one day before her trip to see if she could book some coveted French Laundry reservations. She succeeded - somehow! - and since her sister had a timeshare at Vino Bello in Napa Valley, they decided to make a nice big trip out of it and invite us along for the spendy thrill of a ride. That's enough of a reason to visit our Toronto friends, so on Saturday we hurled a weekend bag into the boyfriend's Prius and drove up to Napa Valley!
We got off to a rocky start - the resort is located in some mysterious nowhere land (it looked like a corporate park) and our Prius's navigational system could not find it at all. We ended up having to pull up Google Maps on our mobile phones and visually comparing it to the car's map.
But, for my first time in Napa, I couldn't have stayed at a better resort! I have a mental checklist of what makes a hotel/resort room/suite "awesome" - on that list are things like a jetted whirlpool tub, spacious marble bathroom, fancy shower heads, fireplaces, large balconies, separate sitting areas, fancy king-sized beds with canopies and pillowtop mattresses, wall-mounted LCD TVs, kitchenettes, washer/dryers, and of course, FREEBIES - that extra something to make you feel like you're truly on vacation. Vino Bello hit every single item on that checklist, AND threw in a complementary bottle of tasty red wine for each room. I'd expect any other hotel to offer the cheapest wine they can buy in bulk, so I am happy to say that this bottle tasted neither bad nor cheap, and that we all enjoyed it very much.
Wth the timeshare arrangement and all, my perception of price here is probably very skewed. Suffice it to say, it was pleasantly inexpensive - and thank goodness, because The French Laundry was not.
We got a divided suite with a shared front door - inside the front door there were two separate, secondary front doors, each keycarded, for maximum privacy. Our room was a mini studio, with a kitchenette and spacious bathroom. Their one bedroom was one of the most phenomenal suites I've ever seen, with a fireplace in a plush sitting room, full kitchen and breakfast bar, an expansive balcony overlooking the pool, a humongous, canopied king size bed, in-room jacuzzi tub, and huge marble bathroom. To our amusement, the extra-large shower stall sported a total of five shower heads; one primary rainforest showerhead, and four mini ones on the wall that you could point in any direction. To slightly less of our amusement, it took each of us an embarrassing amount of time to figure out how to turn the damn thing on.
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As a spa junkie, I also have nothing but good things to say about Spa Terra, which is located within Vino Bello/Meritage Resort's impressive wine cave. The facilities are a bit more modest compared to some other full-service spas (as in saunas and steam rooms, not happy endings) that you can find around the SF Bay Area. They had a hot tub and a very nice sitting/relaxing room, nice showers and a full locker room, but not much else that I could see. For the full experience of indulgence, I would definitely recommend shelling out the extra cash for some pampering at any Las Vegas hotel on the strip, or Burke Williams in Santana Row (San Jose, CA) or Kabuki Springs (Japantown, San Francisco, CA).
But I do have to mention that the 50 min. deep tissue massage I got was one of the best I've ever had...and I've had quite a lot of massages. I'm pretty hard on my body, partially because I enjoy being athletic and partially because I'm in denial about getting older and creakier...so between physical therapy and rolling around on the ground on tennis balls, a nice deep massage to loosen up sore and tired muscles is a frequent must-have in my life.
Overall:
Unfortunately, it was pretty wet weather for a weekend in Napa. We were sprinkled on during our morning at Bouchon Bakery, and completely drenched while trying to tour a vineyard. But it was luxurious, beautiful, and a flat-out awesome place to chill at during the day, and to crash in after my fooding adventures at The French Laundry and Bouchon Bakery rendered me nearly comatose.
So, while I'm not saying I'd pass up a timeshare in Aruba or Cancun for it, I'm glad that Vino Bello was one of the most enjoyable timeshare/resorts that I've had the pleasure of staying at!
I am a huge fan of Dine About Town as an idea. It gives people an opportunity to sample some of the best restaurants San Francisco has to offer - and usually, it's a three course, pre-fixe menu consisting of some of their most well-known dishes. I noticed that Crustacean had their soft spring rolls and famous garlic noodles (alas, I did not make it to Crustacean during Dine About Town), and Ruth's Chris had choices between a 12-oz. ribeye, 6-oz. sirloin and stuffed chicken - all of which I'm sure are good (and from personal experience, the ribeye is amazing).
Unfortunately, I think Dine About Town creates a lot of strain for the staff and chefs of their respective restaurants, as they get a lot more people coming in for lunch and dinner and probably have to make some sacrifices in order to reduce wait times for everyone. This is somewhat the reputation that preceded supperclub in San Francisco when I went during DaT in January. Ordinarily, supperclub is a fairly pricey, 5-course pre-fixe experience - $60-80 average a head. I won't presume to guess how busy they are on a typical night, but during Dine About Town, it was absolutely packed and unpleasantly crowded, and there were only three courses served. As a result, the whole experience - though original, exotic and quirky - felt like it was dragging on a little (We all shared the semi-joking opinion that it would've been a whole lot more fun if we were all high.)
The fun part about supperclub was that it felt very exclusive and exotic, as the 'club' in 'supperclub' suggests. The lobby is alive, plush, exciting and sexy, and so are the bartenders. Unfortunately, waiting for seating (they seat you all at once in the main "dining hall") with the other bazillion patrons feels rather like cows being herded towards their enclosure.
The main dining room is fantastic. bold, cold and white, with splashes of silky red cloth across the walls and ceiling. It's an open two-level single room, filled with snazzy lights and beating club music, with white platform beds and large white pillows extending along three walls. They serve your food over a span of three-ish hours, so it's nice to be lounging/reclining/lying down during the slightly boring down-time in between.
The first course was a salad. it was quite a decent portion, served on a rather strangely long dish, with mystery bits (carrots? beets? nuts? hey, it was dark!) topped with bleu cheese, wonton crunchies, and a tangy vinaigrette. I was pleasantly surprised that I liked the bleu cheese. It tasted like feta. Er...maybe it was feta?
Apparently the second course was kobe beef, complemented by a mix of what Yelpers say was polenta and/or ratatouille. This was probably my favorite course of the night. I've had kobe beef once before in my life, but unfortunately they came in the form of raw medallions I had to grill myself, so I probably messed it up.
Supperclub's kobe beef was 95% delicious, melt-in-your-mouth, grade-A quality beef; and 5% sort of rubbery chewy weirdness. I guess my quest for the real mind-blowing kobe beef experience continues.
The brownie and ice cream dessert was served in a silver dogbowl and refused to be photogenic - something about a dogbowl just renders it visually unappetizing, maybe. Entree-wise, it was tasty, but a little boring.
I have strangely low blood pressure, so after a meal I tend to crash hard into a food coma unless I remain active. Large platform beds and lounge pillows are not conducive to activity, so by the end of dessert I was wanting to lie down and nap. There was just so much downtime between each dish, and we didn't feel like racking up a huge drink tab, so by the end of the night hanging out at someone's place with wine and cheese sounded a lot more fun. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy supperclub's overall awesome concept of eating in bed, but three hours of it is definitely more than enough.
If I had come with just my boyfriend for a romantic experience, we probably would have gotten bored or irritated sooner - but luckily I came with a large group, which prompted them to seat us in a semi-secluded corner instead of along the wall, shoulder-to-shoulder with people on both sides. Seven of us is more than enough to make for endless lively conversation, so we had a fantastic time overall.
Would I go again? Once, perhaps, on a non Dine About Town night just to see what it's like - because I think it was definitely watered-down for the cheaper masses. But if I ever have a guest from out-of-town that wants a quirky SF experience, I'd probably just head over to AsiaSF!
W00t! I'm in Napa Valley for the first time ever!
Three guys at the table next to us started to take interest in our constant yammer about setting up macro shots and taking pictures of every dish that came out way. Eventually they struck up conversation with Jen, and lo and behold, the guy was the OWNER of the restaurant we were sitting in. His name was Jean (spelling?) and he was a very nice guy who was very interested in what we thought of the place (and very curious of our gorillapods on our cameras). We ended up spending two hours eating, chatting, and taking pictures. Jean gave Jen a long list of wineries and restaurants he recommended, with Jen fervently taking notes. We're definitely gonna be running out of meals before meal ideas, but we'll make the best of our time here!! Here's hoping that the rest of this trip is as cool and promising as the start!
Full Flickr set here - will update as the days progress!
