Last night we went to The French Laundry, which was amazing. The food was great, and the service was impeccable but the best part of the evening was the company. Alex, Claire, Joy, me and David. We left shortly after the babysitter arrived and took the short walk to the restaurant. We were a bit early, so walked a bit through the garden across the street. Here is a picture of David and Alex before we went into the restaurant.
We were still a bit early, so we sat in the courtyard waiting for the table to be ready. David and Alex were both disappointed that they didn’t have cocktails, and we said we would wait until we were seated to order wine. I perused the wine list while we waited, and it was pretty daunting – both the size of the list and the size of the prices! But I knew that before, I looked at it online, and was amazed at the $18K bottle of Sauterne. That is a little obscene, but I am sure there were also higher priced bottles.
Anyway, after looking the list over, I had some wines in mind for dinner. We were taken to our table, which was on the ground floor, tucked away in the corner, and the first thing David said was “bad”. Unfortunately, he had the seat facing the corner, and didn’t have a view of the room, but there was not way, really to move him around to the other side. That was the last time he uttered the word “bad” for the evening. It was absolutely perfect for the rest of the evening!
The whole dinner took about three hours, and we all chose the chef’s tasting menu. The only other choice was the tasting of vegetables, which I am sure was nice, but. . . David said his favorite item was the Alaskan King Crab “Boudin”, I liked the one with the longest name, Applewood Smoked Bacon-Wrapped Elysian Fields Farm Lamb. I liked the Bacon and Elysian Fields. Bacon, because it is bacon, and Elysian Fields because of Streetcar Named Desire. So for wine, I wanted to stay local, and David likes a Riesling, so ordered a bottle of the Stoney Hill Riesling to start. It was a great choice, if I do say so myself, especially since I have no idea what I am doing. About half way through, when that bottle was done, we wanted to switch to red, and saw a Pinot Noir that looked good and was in our price range, so I asked for the Ancien, Carneros. The sommelier said that they had sold the two bottles that night and asked if I wanted him to suggest something. I said yes, and expected him to try to up-sell, but he absolutely understood what price point we were looking at and offered three bottles that fit the bill. I ordered the Wind Gap Pinot Noir, and it was also excellent.
Anyway, we walked home from the restaurant at around midnight, and all crept into our beds for a nice sleep. This morning we got up and went for coffee at the Coffee Caboose, and then Alex and Claire gave Joy a ride to the the airport and went home. We relaxed for the day, and I made a more rustic dinner tonight than the one we had last night, watched Dexter, True Blood and then read a bit of Paris Reborn.