Napa 5 Last Dinner in Napa and Going Home

We'd been looking forward to tonight's food adventure at Press since Dave made the reservation. They have two menus, a 7 course pairing chef’s tasting menu and a 4 course menu where you choose your plates. We went with the 4 course menu, and the first wonderful thing is that our waiter Vince (who’d only been at Press for about a month – “we’ll learn together,” he said) was able to do ½ glass wine pairings for Dave.

For the first course, I had a fluke crudo which was really delicious, perfectly balanced and beautiful, but Dave’s “chips and dip” of deep-fried salmon skin “chips” and an avocado kosho dip was off the charts spectacular. The salmon skin was seasoned with something totally yummy, and the artichoke dip got more interesting as we ate it. Second course for me was the best beef tartare I’ve ever eaten, served with little orbs of deep-fried naan that were a perfect complement. Dave’s gnudi in parmesan broth were like puffy cheese matzo balls in the best way imaginable, little balls of perfection in an amazingly tasty broth with thin shavings of Burgundian truffles on top. All of these dishes were quite small portions, enough to share (we swapped plates ½ way through) but not enough to get tired of.

And then the mains came, and the perfect evening crashed to a halt. My steak, recommended by Vince, was undercooked, oversized, and, frankly, boring. It came with a tasty bite of eggplant and a sticky, too-sweet sauce. It would have been disappointing even if Dave hadn’t had a perfectly sized and seasoned steak in his tasting menu at Goose and Gander. Dave’s black cod was better, perfectly cooked and very tasty, but again not the fascinating, I-need-another-bite kind of delightful exploration of the first two courses.

I know you’re dying to know about dessert; Dave had a cheese “plate” that was more like a salad, very interesting but not totally successful. I had a chocolate crème with an orange semifreddo that lived up to the first two courses – it was spot on delicious.

The service was wonderful, with plates and silverware and glasses of wine appearing and disappearing. A similar ballet to the night before at Don Giovanni’s, except here the server-to-customer ration was much smaller. The restaurant is very pretty and comfortable and ¾ of the food was fabulous. Would we go again? Still wondering.

Wednesday

Since we’re doing the drive home in two 6 hour days (give or take), we had time to go for a hike (about 3 miles) this morning in the Napa-Bothe State Park. We paid our $10 day use fee (yes, it’s in Napa) and headed toward the top of Coyote Peak. We are usually goal oriented hikers but in this case we knew we were going to have to turn back early to be on the road by 10-ish, so we ended up only going about ½ way up the trail – we stopped when it got steep for the second time. We came back through the campsite, which is really wonderful and reservable, including some yurts and cabins. Wine and wine tasting in Napa have gotten so expensive, we’re not sure if we’ll come again, but if we do a yurt or cabin at Napa-Bothe is a real possibility.

We ate breakfast and got packed up and were on the road by 10:10. We used the Rachel Method of stopping every 45 minutes or so, and got to Yreka about 4. We are staying at the Best Western Miner’s Inn, which is the first hotel we ever stayed at with Josh and is also where the phrase “Is the baby happy? Is the baby safe? Then don’t bother the baby” comes from. I found Strings Italian Café within easy walking distance of the hotel and we had a very satisfactory dinner. When we got there the restaurant looked completely empty, but it turns out there are two rooms you can’t see from the street and it was the happenin’ place to be in Yreka, which also has some art galleries and is a more interesting place than we thought.

It got very cold overnight – frost on the car – but a satisfactory night at the Best Western and a relatively easy drive home with the now usual number of stops, including lunch at Plank Town. A couple things to remember are that the dirty salad at Plank Town is delicious; get the roasted garlic vinaigrette on the side. The nachos are good but not worth having again. And I-5 stops being curvy at Cottage Grove.