Puerto Vallarta - March Mexico Trip

Just returned from a week off in Mexico - was a wonderful, relaxing, sun-filled vacation south of the border. C and I packed up on a cold, snowy Chicago morning and headed to a family vacation in Puerta Vallarta. No one in the family (aside from a college spring break trip for Hil) had visited before - so it was a great place to explore and relax for the 6 of us. We spent the week at the Westin, in the Marina district, and ate our way through the breakfast and lunch menus (go for the Muesli, and the Veggie and Fish sandwiches).

After doing some general restaurant searching, we started with a list...and we ate our way through it and then some. Outlined are the highlights:

Super Green Salad, Salmon Zaradorado, & Dessert Delux @ Cafe Des Artistes

Margaritas, Asparagus salad, Grilled Sea Bass, & Beef Carpaccio @ Trio

Chile-rubbed Sea Bass, Tuna Sashimi, Veggie Symphony, & Pomegranate martinis @ La Palapa

Cuatro salsas, Margaritas, Chipotle-Tequila linguini & to-die-for Chile Relleno's @ Los Xitomates

Fish tacos (grilled and fried), the guacamole, and the authenticity @ Sayulita Fish Taco's

After the week, we still weren't sick of guacamole, tortilla chips, or margaritas...but it was nice to come home to a cheesy, "American" pizza on Saturday night (complete with a cuddly pup). Thanks to my parents for organizing and funding an amazing warm-weather-family-trip. Love you! S&C

the girl & the fig

As far as challenging meals go, we've had our fair share: bad servers, messy menus, incorrect orders, allergies (eggplant is my "allergy"), strange table placement, aggressive food runners, out of stock wine orders, late mise en place. You name it. We can now add "food poisoning" to the list...NOT from The Girl & the Fig, but from the restaurant the evening before. The challenge for us was that we had been so looking forward to this vacation, this specific town, this specific meal, that one of us having food poisoning was quite possibly the worst dining challenge yet.

How can you visit an acclaimed, adorable, farm-to-table restaurant in the midst of your food-and-wine-centric vacation and not order anything? Let me tell you - you eat a lot of bread. Thankfully the bread is lovely.

C is a wonderful companion and dolefully accompanied me in his time of pain - my mother called it heroism - and we called ahead to ask about the daily menu and the more bland possibilities for his recovering stomach (Side note: asking a hostess for bland items at a renowned restaurant is not a call I'd like to make, but I digress). We were seated on their gorgeous, plant and ivy covered patio, between a fire pit and glowing lanterns. Totally cozy, neighborhood vibe, shiny, happy people.

With a French focus on wine (Rhone-alone) and cheese, it was a tough restaurant to have a man down. I ended up ordering the Arugula and Fig salad (how could you not?) followed by the Pan Roasted Black Cod. Both were well-executed, light and summery, incredibly fresh dishes - I truly could eat the black cod time and time again, especially in warm weather, as it was the essence of an Indian Summer: fresh corn, crunchy cabbage, tender fingerlings, made more earthy with black truffle oil and the hearty skin on fillet of the fish. Sigh...so good.

Highly recommend it, whether for lunch or dinner. Try to keep your dinner company healthy, though, the fromage looks divine...

Coopers - town 101

I'm going to go ahead and NOT mention the fact that I haven't written anything all summer. I figure that it's obvious (hello, sidebar) and after the long, not-so-summer that we've had here in Chicago, I'd like to just move on. Okay?

So, take two: C and I went to Napa and San Francisco last month. We have been trying to get out there for the past few years and finally it worked out. I have a LOT of food and vino stories, but think this one is appropriate for this time of year, namely, harvest time.

Any wine drinker (and most common folk) know that wine is generally aged in barrels. C and I understand the intricacies of the different types of barrels to an extent - we know we like a little oak in our pinot noir, a stainless steel barreled, crisp sauvingnon. What we did not know was manipulating the barrel was a) an uncommon practice or that b) it would have such an amazing output. We learned all about barrels, coopers, the forests of France and more at Del Dotto Vineyard. We elected to kick off our vacation here and splurged on the Cave and Barrel Tasting at their St Helena estate. We ended up with a private tour and a very informative and well-sipped tour guide (I spit/poured more than he did and I was quite tipsy). After an hour of thief poured wine and some of the best cabernets I've ever tasted, we got to this barrel (pic above): 2007 St Helena Block 1, 6 oaks French Selection Cabernet Sauvignon.

Commonly, all oak barrels are either French or domestic (Missouri/Ozarks) and are better known for being "lightly, medium, or heavily" toasted, with each level lending certain characteristics to the wine. Wine makers don't usually disclose the type of oak, though more modern vineyards will let you know since the flavor profiles can so vastly differ. I know this is a lot of info, but bear with me... Del Dotto, not only tells you the type of oak used for aging, they can tell you the forest and the location WITHIN the forest where these trees were pulled from. That was impressive - for instance, "Troncais, center" and you the consumer will know that the center trees are the purest and will affect your wine in a very subtle way. To take it even further, they have petitioned their individual cooper to experiment with alternate woods, grooves in the barrel staves, different forest ranges, etc. All at the price of nearly $2500 each, plus the risk of the wine in that barrel (approximately 30 cases) - all in all, it's an expensive experiment. I applaud their innovation and Mr. Del Dotto's quest to do something different and "mix it up" in Napa and the industry.

The barrel pictured was a patented mix of SIX types of French Oak, one from each of the major harvest areas. The wine was a bold cabernet, medium tannins and very, very smooth finish. Priced @ $125 we could hardly escape with the barrel....although we wanted to try. Sadly, our tour guide wasn't as inebriated as we'd hoped.

Highly recommend a visit to the vineyard - it's small, family owned, accommodating and the cave tour is one-of-a-kind.

Chi-town

Chicago is Fast Company's City of the Year!

How cool is that? Excited for my trip this weekend...

Newport News

Spent a few days in Newport this weekend, drove down on July 4th to America's "first resort". While we weren't totally psyched for the forecast (gray, rainy, humid), we wanted to walk around, be by the sea, eat al fresco, and watch a great fireworks show. Check, check, check, and check.

We found a room at the Jailhouse Inn - a perfect location for wandering Thames Street. We started our day out with a lucky find (a parking meter w/ 45 minutes already in it, score) and wandered down to the water. The sun was breaking through the clouds, people were out and holiday happy, we found two seats at the bar and ordered a beer. Ah, summer. 20 minutes later we were slurping chowder (my family's favorite) at the Black Pearl and sunning ourselves, another beer down.

After an envious walk along the harbor, we window shopped our way up and down Thames street, scouting for our next meal. There are quite a few really cute boutiques there - more than I remember. Not just bikini's and sweatshirts anymore. I also found myself nostalgic and remembering all the summer's I've spent in Newport...between trips with my mother and my father's mother, I have really seen and enjoyed it all. Having this be our last summer living w/in driving distance to Newport, it was just sad to think I might not be there again for a while.

Anyway, if you haven't been, I would strongly suggest it. It's not overpriced, it's family and couple friendly, there are great bars with live music and pubs if you want something more low-key - the restaurants are random. My favorites for solid food options and consistency are below:
- The Black Pearl
- 22 Bowen's
- The Red Parrot
- The Brick Alley Pub
- Christie's
- The Chanler at Cliff Walk
I've also heard great things about: Flo's Clamshack, Cafe Zelda, and Castle Hill Inn. A quick plug for the most lovely, efficient Starbucks, too.

Hope you had a lovely 4th of July!

Las Vegas Trip Report

So, a few weeks ago (yes, I'm delinquent) I went to Las Vegas with my mother for a little mother/daughter adventure. Here's a quick rundown of where and what we ate, along with recommendations for how to increase your winnings by 189%.

Spago - Caesar's Palace in The Forum Shops (dinner)

This one is a mom favorite, I think because it's in the Forum, she's been there, and it's all food she knows. We started with crispy calamari, with a spicy remoulade sauce for dipping. Quite good and not overly fried. For dinner, I had a seared halibut fillet over jasmine rice and sauteed bok choy. It was topped with fried Thai chilis and those were a little bite of hot, salty goodness.

My mom just wanted a salad, so she ordered the Italian Chopped Salad - think provolone, salami, chicken, veggies - and cleaned her plate. Another noteworthy thing would be the bread basket...though you don't actually get one, they came around quite frequently and offered us grissini sticks and foccacia served with a goat cheese puree.

Strip Burger (lunch)

Newcomer to the Fashion Show mall, Strip Burger is housed on the corner near Cafe Ba Ba Reeba and has an outdoor patio. It was SO hot that we ate inside and froze. Either way, we enjoyed the fries and our food. My mom elected to get another chopped salad (more veggies this time) and I went with the California Chicken sandwich (mmm, pepperjack and avocado) which was delicious. I'm super bummed we didn't get shakes because EVERYONE else did and it made me jealous. But, seriously, those are so filling and I need C to be there to polish it off.

Enoteca San Marco (Dinner) - The Venetian

After a rocky start (late seating, triple sat waiter) we sat down at a great table on the "patio" in St. Mark's Square. We were sorta starved seeing it had been about 7 hours since lunch and we'd had a few drinks...there was a special appetizer salad that sounded amazing (and proved to be quite delicious) with fresh ricotta, fava beans, asparagus and radishes. It was the most fresh, Spring appetizer I could've asked for...especially during the heat wave. We followed this up with a braised pork belly ragu with fresh pasta and herbs. Definitely heavier than the previous dish, but it was so tender and tasty, I didn't care. I kept getting these savory/sweet bites, like there was some sort of brown sugar or carmelization that happened there. Yum.

We also went to perennial favorite Nobu (Hard Rock Hotel) which was amazing as always and we had a flirty waiter who made us tipsy and delighted. After we left, we decided that we should gamble. Roulette - no dice (like, literally and figuratively). Blackjack - lost again (x 2). Then we thought, let's stick to slots. Having never seen a 2 cent slot machine, we threw a $1 in.

ONE HOUR LATER...yup, still at the same machine. It was SO entertaining and we were so proud of our accomplishment (tell me you wouldn't be totally hyped if YOU got a 189% return on investment) that we sat and drank beer and laughed at all the cheap skates around us playing 2 cent slots. It was great - highly recommended.

So, as my mother kept announcing to everyone we talked to...this was our first trip of many :)

Viva Las Vegas.