An Evening in Napa

When you live in Marin County Napa is an easy and quick getaway place for a relaxing weekend. It’s only a 30 minute drive to the vineyards, wineries and winding roads.

Disclaimer: I am not a wine connoisseur, in fact I rarely drink wine but this weekend I practiced the principle of when in Rome… when in Napa, I drink wine.

The original plan for this weekend was to rent a tandem bicycle and peddle around Napa with our friends.

The rain changed our plans.

Instead we went to our friend’s house, had a glass of wine in front of the fire place and headed to the nearby town of St. Helena for dinner at a|k|a Bistro.  a|k|a Bistro is a hip and fun place with original items on the menu.

Dinner started off with a glass of Marc Murray Ranch Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. I approved. As I said in the disclaimer I am not a big wine drinker so I’m not going to be using any of those fluffy terms to describe the wine. I either like it or I don’t.

Our friends told us we HAD to try the Crispy Portabella Fries with Truffle Aioli, so we did. They were SO good. You have GOT to try them too!

I had the pan seared salmon on top of mashed potatoes and autumn vegetables. I LOVE mashed potatoes so pretty much any dish served with mashed potatoes makes me happy. The salmon and the veggies were tasty too.

What I like about a|k|a is that they specialize in farm fresh food.

After dinner we strolled down the street to Cameo Cinema, an old small town theatre owned by solopreneur Cathy Buck. One night it’s a movie theater, another night a concert hall. This night was a concert with classical guitarist named Joe Galambos who was playing a Robert Ruck guitar. (My personal favorite guitars are Wolverton guitars – but I’m biased and that is a story for another day.) The music Joe Galambos played was beautiful and he’s very talented. The theater was also very cool, it has double love seat style theater chairs so you can snuggle up with your honey during the show.

We spent the night at our friend’s house in Napa. The next day we… to be continued.

This is half of the game hen and autumn vegetable dish my friends ordered. They shared.

This is what Celia ordered. I think it was short ribs and fries. The fries were delicious. (I snuck a few.)