Jim & Jamie’s Adventures In Napa

Our new Innkeeper, Mercedes, encouraged to try Cook’s in St. Helena as she thought it was a great value for flavor, freshness, and price.  Heading up valley for a 30-minute drive, we were awed once again by the beauty of Napa Valley, the grapes beginning to grow, the vineyards waking up with new life, and the lovely hillsides that framed it all so nicely.  Arriving in St. Helena we found the restaurant along Main Street and were happy to see how small, intimate, and inviting it was.  Sitting down at table we opened the menu and found, to our delight, that everything looked tempting.  You know what I mean, don’t you?  Sometimes you go to a restaurant and you see some standards, and one or two things look inviting.  This menu took the standards of Italian cooking and added a California Fresh (using local, fresh, seasonal ingredients) twist.  The calamari we ordered was lightly battered and fried so that you could taste the light seasoning and still taste the calamari.  Simple greens with a housemade vinaigrette came next for Jamie, and a roasted beet salad for me.  Yummy!  Because I had such a hard time deciding, I asked if I could have a taste of the Bolognese Sauce (the prime indicator for me of how good the Italian food is: if you can’t do that right, then you shouldn’t be cooking Italian!), and they gladly provided a small dish on the side with my bread.  I sopped up every last bit and was loathe to share with Jamie because I wanted to be greedy and hoard it for myself.  (I did share…a little).  My main course was Rissoto with a homemade sausage and Jamie ordered the seafood stew with fresh clams, shrimp, scallops, and calamari.  Both dishes were great!  You could taste how fresh, clean, and pure the flavors were in the food.  Not too complex, but with enough flavor to keep you engaged.  Sometimes chefs (including myself) try to add too much complexity to a dish- it is flavorful, to be sure, but hard to distinguish what is in the dish and you can lose interest in how everything fits together.  With the food from Cook’s, the flavors really stood out, as did the freshness of the ingredients.  My comment to Jamie: “There was a purity and freshness about the food that I really enjoyed.”  We definitely enjoyed ourselves and will return.

We read that the new smoker was up and running and decided it was time to try the Bounty Hunter in downtown Napa.  Walking up First Street from the Inn, the restaurant is only a fifteen minute walk.  The ambience is very casual, with tables and bar stools throughout the space, with a few booths available.  Because it also a wine tasting room, their wine selection is incredible.  Perusing the menu the Beer Can Chicken and the Full Rack of Ribs struck our fancy, as well the starter Caesar Salad for both of us.  We enjoyed a Beringer 02 Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon with the meal which was a very rich addition to our very down-home meal.   The Beer Can Chicken is funny in presentation as it comes on a stand that surrounds the Beer Can so it looks like it is sitting up on the plate.  With a carving knife in hand Jamie stared at the chicken and the chicken stared him down.  Not knowing how to carve it himself he handed me the knife and fork and I took it apart in less than three minutes.  (My culinary instructor would tell me I’m slow as we were supposed to be able to carve a whole chicken into pieces in less than one minute while in school, and I had practiced for weeks to achieve that goal- I must have carved 30-40 chickens in a single week; the practice was going to pay off when we had to clean over 300 chickens for a big event being held at the Culinary Academy)(Anyway, back to the food….)  The Chicken was well worth the carving: moist and delicious it was a great meal.  The ribs were just as good, falling off the bone as I pulled them apart.  If you are into finger-licking food, this is a great place to go for ribs and chicken.  As an added warning: don’t wear white to the meal; you’ll be wearing some of your sauce, I guarantee, as I did walking out of the restaurant.