Zachary Jacques - Placerville
	Spiedini - Walnut Creek (updated)
	Restaurant Lulu - San Francisco
	Uncle Yu's - Lafayette
	Rose Pistola - San Francisco
	Bistro Don Giovanni - Napa
	Mustards Grill - Napa
	Le Côte-Rôtie - Ampuis, France
	Slanted Door - San Francisco
	Tastings - Healdsburg (Sonoma Valley)
Tastings (Healdsburg, CA)-The restaurants up heah in Wine Country have not worn well on me: bad, tourist-oriented wine lists, menus that are nice but non-distinctive (does EVERYONE have to do Mediterranean-California cuisine?), boiler-room ambiance, and a certain snootiness in demeanor. Tastings is a welcome antidote. Unprepossesing on the exterior (it used to be a Mexican fast-food stand), the inside reminds me of the little restaurants in the South of France and the Rhône Valley. The first thing to strike the Geek is the imaginative wine by the glass program; I don't know many places in Sonoma Valley that would have a Savennieres on the list, much less by the glass. The list is moderately sized, but features lots of imaginative and food-friendly stuff, like Heidi Schrock's fine Furmint, a nice little smattering of Loires, and obscure but excellent California wines like Mick Unti's Syrah and Zinfandel. Similarly, the menu seems to borrow the best of Napa/Sonoma restaurant style and firmly directs it toward France. Easily the best deal is the 5 course Tastings menu, which can be ordered with matching wines; without wine, it's under $50. Our last meal there a few nights ago came at the peak of tomato season. A caprese with salad featured two kinds of heirloom varieties, a good local mozzarella, and organic basil and greens. I need to watch how this chef does his Farmer's Market shopping; the tomatoes were unbelievable, sweet and intense with low acidity. Our carnivores raved about the seared foie gras with melon, the grilled Day Boat scallops, the lamb, and the Porterhouse steak. I delighted in home-made gnocchi with grilled oyster mushrooms, grilled corn in a garlic sauce, Blue Lake beans with goat cheese, grilled corn served on a puddle of an intense garlic sauce, and eggplant in pureed red bell-pepper sauce (a very l'Oiseau-like dish). The service can't really seem to decide if it's formal or informal, but it's always excellent and totally free of attitude. Think of a bunch of 25-year-olds trying to do a Michelin-rank place; lots of enthusiasm, imagination, and heart making up for some lack of experience. There aren't many places that make both my wife and me happy- this is one, and is a contender for Best Restaurant in Sonoma County. Very Highly Recommended SY (8/01) Zachary Jacques (Placerville, CA)- We visited this restaurant, tucked in the Eldorado Hills southeast of Placerville, after our day of tasting at Sierra Vista. Holding a Wine Spectator award for their wine list, in addition to being recommended by the MacCreadys, we were curious to see what the place had to offer. The wine list, although not a tome full of classified first growth verticals, is well thought out with plenty of excellent values to pique one's interest. Local wines are, of course, its strength. Markup is a modest, intelligent, 40-50% above retail. Glassware is cheap but quite serviceable with several different sizes and shapes. Before even looking at a menu, we knew that this was going to be an enjoyable evening. A bottle of '95 Bredif Vouvray ($30) went quite well with JD's onion and leek tart appetizer and Stuart's salad with goat cheese croutons. Stuart had some kind of mixed veggie thing for a main course while JD sensibly tucked into a plate of roasted red deer with a green peppercorn sauce. Both went very well with the bottle of '91 Sierra Vista Syrah that John MacCready had given us. The cheese plate was decent, if not very imaginative. The sliced Granvenstein apple that accompanied the cheese was crisp and sweet. Dinner for two including the tax, tip and a $30 bottle of wine ran $55 per person. Three Michelin Stars? Not even one. But if you're in the area and you want an enjoyable, low key evening with good food and a good, well priced wine list, by all means give it a try. Recommended. JD (12/98) Up
Spiedini (Walnut Creek) - This has become the restaurant-of-choice for The Stupids. Chef Charles Downing (along with his exceptional long-time sous chefs like Victor and Manny) has a style that hits our sweet-spot: strong, direct flavors with fine balance and focus, emphasis on top-quality ingredients. He's a master at pairing tastes and textures so that the dish is in harmony, rather than a war between superpowers. Charles refers to himself as a French chef stuck in a Northern Italian kitchen, but at it's essence, the style is purely Northern California. And he's MANIC about fresh, in-season, perfectly-grown produce. And wild mushrooms. Our kinda guy. House specialties are grilled meats, though adventurous vegetarians making themselves known as such are unbelievably well cared-for. Regular features include crab-cakes with crisp sweet-potato strings and caviar, torte di cippoline on frisee with candied pecans, pheasant agnolotti, chateaubriand of lamb, seared Sonoma foie gras, bruschetta with seasonal fruit and Bellweather Farms cheese, and filet mignon. Most of the best items are seasonal- December and January were GREAT for truffles, November had some pan-roasted hedgehog mushroomss and chanterelles, spring brings the racks of grilled pencil-thin asparagus... If they've got Humboldt Fog cheese in, Charles makes perhaps the best dessert I've ever had, a thick slice of Humboldt Fog topped with thin-sliced fruit (depending on the season, it might be figs, apples, or pears), drizzled with orange-blossom honey. Paired with a Sauternes... Oh. My. God. What an inspired dish! The wine list is short and decent with a markup that hovers around twice retail. Corkage is a reasonable $10 per bottle last time we checked, though they seem to waive that for regulars. The service at Spiedini is very good. The staff is attentive and always pleasant. For the most part, they're interested in good wine, so please offer a taste if you bring your own. It will be appreciated. Dinner without wine will run around $40-60 per person for a three - course dinner. If you put yourself in the chef's hands and ask him to dazzle you, it will run a bit more, but you'll have one of the most memorable meals of your life. phone 925-939-2100. Ultra-Highly recommended. SY/JD (2/01) Update (8/02): All good things must come to an end. Charles Downing has left Spiedini. I expect that the food will remain good under the new kitchen regime, but the sort of creativity and precision that marked Downing's cooking will be sorely missed. Stay tuned to this site- when Downing lands somewhere else, we'll let you know where. Update (8/07): Charles Downing has decided to retire from professional cooking. This is a real loss for the food world- Downing is a guy with real talent and vision, and was getting better and better. We wish him our very best in his new career; he's a terrific guy. Up
Restaurant Lulu (San Francisco) - Restaurant Lulu is the restaurant that started the "South of Market" food craze. Started by Chef Reed Heron, it is a big, noisy, warehouse (literally) that serves food family style in a fun, noisy atmosphere. Unfortunately, Lulu's popularity has resulted in a "cattle car" attitude by the staff. One of the policies that has been in effect for years at Lulu's is that they will not seat you until the entire party has arrived. This can lead to the group standing around waiting for the last person to arrive. Unless you want to stand in the crowded small bar area, the only place to stand is outside or right in the traffic pattern. It certainly does not lend itself to an enjoyable start to the evening. We usually bring our own wine. Why? Because we have cellars with good wines that normally don't appear on wine lists. We consider it a compliment to the restaurant that we want to drink our wines with their food. Interestingly enough, many restaurants consider it an insult that someone would bring their own wine. Restaurant Lulu seems to fall into that category. The other problem that we have consistently run into at Lulu's is that they are understaffed. Water glasses remained empty and a request for mineral water had to be made twice. Once the food is on the table don't expect to see your waiter for while. That out of the way, let's talk about the food. The strength in Lulu's menu is the appetizers. The best of the group is the "iron skillet mussels." Fresh mussels are dropped into a hot iron skillet over high heat and cooked until they open. They are then seasoned with salt and pepper and are brought to the table with clarified butter. Simple and magnificent. On the vegetarian side, the roasted beet salad and the thin crust pizza with fresh chanterelles were excellent. Main courses can be inconsistent. I had roasted squab with a honey glaze. Although good, it was somewhat overcooked and difficult to eat. The salad of arugula, roasted fingerling potatoes and chanterelles that came on the plate with the squab was outstanding though. All in all, if you're willing to accept the cattle car type of service, Restaurant Lulu is still a place where you can get a good meal. Expect to pay $50-60 per person for a three course meal without wine. Recommended. JD (1/99) Up
Uncle Yu's - Located in Lafayette (with a second location in San Ramon) Uncle Yu's has been around for years and is known as the best spot in Contra Costa County for high quality Chinese food. On top of that, it has an excellent, eclectic wine list that is reasonably priced. Seven people, all with their own idea of which Chinese dishes are best, had smiles of anticipation when they saw the menu selections. We started with a flaming pu pu platter, vegetarian potstickers and deepfried lobster. The pu pu platter is the best I've had, with the eggrolls crisp and hot, the beef on a stick cooked just enough that a couple of minutes on the minature hibachi was enough to heat it up and give it a very nice grilled note, the fried wantons crisp and far from greasy, and damned big prawns with just enough breading to give them crunch. The lobster was the most intriguing appetizer, coming deepfried in the same batter as the prawns with the addition of garlic powder. The only hitch was that the garlic was a little too much. The dipping sauces added complexity of flavor without being overpowering. The next course we ordered had such dishes as deep-fried calamari in a hot and sweet sauce. My wife, who doesn't like squid, gushed over this one. Very intense stuff. Crispy prawns with walnuts came with a pile of perfectly done prawns on one side of the plate and the carmelized walnuts on the other side. The sweet white sauce was served seperately, so you could add just as much as you wanted. I can't even remember the other dishes after these two but they were equally impressive. One of the things that suprised me about the wine list was that 40% of it was red. The final round of dishes showed me why they were there. The saute'ed beef tenderloin and the beef chow fun would have both gone nicely with many of the reds on the list. Wine service was quite competent and the glassware, although far from Riedel, worked quite well for the pile of tall skinny white wines that we worked our way through. We started with two glasses apiece. The staff set an additional round of glasses close by, so that we could start with fresh glasses for each pairing. Given this, they still gave us a 30% discount on corkage. The wine list is quite good, featuring some fine Burgundies, Alsace, and Loire. Given the outstanding food quality, the good wine list and the extremely competent service, we highly recommend Uncle Yu's to anyone with a hankering for Chinese "haute cusine." Prices are a little higher than your normal chinese place but oh, so very worth it. We ate like pigs and still snuck out with dinner only costing us $40 apiece. This is including a 25% tip. Highly recommended. JD (2/99) Up
Rose Pistola - They hate parties over six people. Hate 'em. We waited an hour for our reserved table for eight. An hour. This isn't the first time we've encountered this phenomena. Why is this? Rose Pistola only has two table that can accommodate a party of eight. If you're fortunate enough to have a smaller group, expect your wait for a reserved table only to be about 20-30 minutes. Hmm, what shall we do while we wait? I know, let's stand in the only place big enough for eight people to stand around waiting for a table, the main entry. What, we're in the way? Okay, we'll move to the bar where we can stand in an even smaller area and get in even more peoples way. BY THE WAY, THIS RESTAURANT IS ALSO VERY LOUD. Why do we put up with this "gosh, I sure feel self-conscious standing here in everybody's way" feeling we get every time we come here? Could it be the service which is good, sometimes excellent (especially when it comes to the wine service)? No. Could it be the ambiance? You know, the kind of ambiance that requires earplugs to avoid permanent damage to ones hearing. NO. Could it be the food? Yeah, that's it, the food. Recommended. JD (2/99) Up
Bistro Don Giovanni (Napa) - Given that this is in Napa, you expect that it will be too crowded, deafeningly noisy, and have great food. Don Giovanni's is too crowded, deafeningly noisy, and has great food. The wine list is pretty good, not great, but there are a few standouts: Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc, Gary Farrell pinot noir, the usual set of blatantly overpriced Napa cabernets... Given the 2.5x retail pricing, the $15 corkage starts looking pretty reasonable. As a practical matter, the last two times I've been there, they waived one corkage fee for each bottle I ordered off the list, so that's not a bad compromise. Our favorite dishes: a warm spinach salad with wild mushrooms, grilled pear salad with pecans and frisee, and (most especially) pasta with porcini, shaved reggiano parmesan, and white truffle oil. This is a flat-out GREAT pasta dish, and I say this as someone who finds 99% of restaurant pasta boooooooring. If you like European-style pizza, thin crust and smoky-roasted in a wood-burning oven, DG's is quite a good example, though the Margerita version could use a touch more basil. My dining companions raved about a wild-mushroom risotto topped with seared scallops; it was rich enough that no-one joined the clean-plate club. Pricing is moderate for the area, that is, a touch below Mustards, Brix, Tra Vigne, et al. Recommended. SY (3/99) Up
Mustards (Napa) - Oh, no, not another review of this place! Since everybody and his brother has spilled pints of ink about it already, we won't repeat the verbiage other than to say, "The best goddam onion rings on the planet." Highly Recommended. SY (3/99) Up Le Côte-Rôtie (Ampuis, France) - If you visit the Rhône, this is worth a detour. Chef Manuel Viron and wife Laurence have set up a lovely little restaurant on the main drag of Ampuis, heart of the Côte-Rôtie appellation. As the name would indicate, it specializes in regional food and wines. The menu is somewhat small, but well-calculated. For this year's St-Vincent's weekend menu (Jan '01), the feature dinner was a 180FF three course dinner, with a slight extra charge if you want truffles. Yeah, like they have to ask. One of the dishes, a veloute of green lentils of Puy with a Rasteau reduction, black truffles, grilled country bread, and a poached egg, was a particular stunner. It not only silenced our rollicking minyan, it ended with ten bowls wiped as molecularly clean as the inside of a cokehead's bindle. A dish of amazing depth and subtlety. A nice little "dessert" consisting of St-Marcellin rounds sandwiching thinly-sliced truffles, then given a quick bake was ridiculously good, and a perfect way to finish our wines, chosen off a well-crafted list. Features for this dinner were Pierre Gaillard's '99 Condrieu, '98 J-M Stephan Côte-Rôtie Vielles Vignes, and '98 Ogier Côte-Rôtie. We somehow squeezed in a few more bottles, including Gaillard's brilliant '98 St-Joseph blanc "Cuminaille." Manuel is talented, friendly, and a real wine buff. The latter really shows in his cellar and on his list. Laurence handles maitresse d'everything with an extreme sensitivity to people's moods and expectations. Great sense of humor. This place is a killer, worth a detour if you're in Lyon, worth a couple evenings if you're in Ampuis and are enamored of Rhône wine. Very Highly Recommended. SY (2/01) Update (8/02) The Virons have shut the restaurant down. That's the bad news. The good news is that they'll shortly be up and running at a bigger, fancier spot in Lyon's Gerland district. The new name: Maison Borie. Catch this star on its way up. In the meantime, read my story about my last meal there. Up Slanted Door (San Francisco): Nominally a Vietnamese restaurant, but with a lot of international influence. The food is incredible: beautifully conceived, well-spiced, top-quality ingredients, and exceptionally wine-friendly. And the last is a VERY good thing- SD has one of the very best wine lists in the Bay Area, good enough (and priced well enough) that we generally don't BYOB. The strength is Germany, Austria (nine Gruner Veltliners on the list!), and Loire. Sparkling poulsard?!? When we have brought our own, we've usually been comped corkage when we order a lot of bottles off their list. Service is informal and excellent. If I had to pick the best restaurant in the Bay Area, purely on the basis of the food and wine, this would be it. Highly Recommended. SY (2/01)

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