Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
California Trip Report, Part 1: Haven't done any gardening lately so I thought I would memorialize our recent trip to California. We went to a lot of places we had never been, but might like to return to.
The flight out: jetBlue provided pretty good service, but the seats are just as tiny as any other cattle car flight. Their DirectTV service was kind of neat and definitely different. We loved the Terra Blues potato chips though.
Santa Clara area: First order of business was finding lunch, since one of jetBlue's selling points is that they won't serve you bad food - they won't serve you any real food, just packaged snacks. Using chowhound.com, I compiled a list of places we might want to try. Unforturnately, I didn't write down all the addresses, so we had to go online to find the location of Chaat Paradise. This is in the back corner of a strip shopping center. We just picked out a selection of snacks/appetizers. I thought they were good, but not great. DH said they were pretty authentic.
We then went shopping at Nordstrom Rack (DH wanted a pair of shoes) and later drove up in the mountains to the west a short distance. Dinner was at Khanh's, a Vietnamese restaurant that we chose from the phone book. The setting was nice and the service was friendly, and we were very enthusiastic when we got our appetizer of summer rolls and spring rolls, but the entrees seemed very light on the seasoning. Everything was impeccably fresh though.
Monday: DH went to his class and I went out for lunch and shopping at the strip mall behind the hotel. I discovered a new kind of TJ Maxx store, called TJ Maxx 'n' More. This is very different from the TJ Maxx stores we have here - it was clean and organized and well-lit and contained things you might actually want to buy - with a large selection of housewares. Lunch was at World Wrapps, which I thought was pretty good for fast food. Dinner was at Penang Village, another chowhound recommendation. We don't know all that much about Malaysian food, so maybe we ordered wrong. The Roti Canai (sp?) appetizer was great, the curry sauce with it was fantastic. But the noodle dish and the fish curry were just OK. Portion size on the fish curry was huge - we could not imagine finishing it.
Tuesday: DH went to his class and I went to IHOP. It happened to be attached to the hotel and I didn't feel like walking back to the strip mall.
Then we drove up to Napa Valley. Checked into the Mount View Hotel in Calistoga, but I didn't feel like getting in the car to go back down the valley for dinner. Wappo Bar was recommended to us, but was closed on Tuesdays. So we read through the menu notebook at the hotel and settled on the All Seasons Cafe. The soup - pureed corn with white truffle oil - was great. The bread was mediocre. Main courses seemed competent, but just OK. I had Steak Frites, which seems to appear on every menu there now. DH had a lamb dish that sat around a while after cooking (not served hot). The wine recommended by the waiter turned out to be very good - Quivira Zinfandel. Dessert was a chocolate cake sort of thing. OK, but not great.
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