Rum Fire: Kauai

Let's see...it appears that I have not written a restaurant blog since October in Centralia, Washington. That is not to say that I have not been dining at excellent restaurants, both casual and upscale since then...quite the contrary. I sampled near all Tom Douglas' restaurants in Seattle (my favorites were Dahlia Lounge and Palace Kitchen), I have had outstanding food in Portland and other Pacific Northwest cities, but I have been a bit busy.

You see, I have moved to Kauai, and now I live on an island. And though I have had some outstanding food thus far, I was torn on whether to blog about dining establishments here on my new island home...
But last week I decided to move forward...and what I have decided is that I will only do reviews that are positive, restaurants that I would recommend to others, restaurants that I intend on frequenting myself.

My dining experience last week was nothing short of stellar. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Rum Fire.

Let me start my saying that I am a Concierge at a major hotel on the North Shore of the island. And upon occasion, we are invited to restaurants to 'sample' their cuisine so we in turn then recommend the restaurant to our hotel guests. My evening started like this...walking into the Sheraton Kauai in Poipu and looking for the restaurant...I had heard some buzz and anticipation around the opening, as there is a Rum Fire in Waikiki which is a very hip and cool spot...but that is Waikiki. Surely Kauai would not be able to create and produce such an establishment. The entrance to Rum Fire is shown in the picture above...hmm...enticing, alluring, but this is Kauai.

Walk in to the restaurant...what to look at first? The spectacular and overly large hip and cool bar? The spacious dining area? The open kitchen? Or beyond all of that to the 270 degree panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean?! So I walk in and we sit at the bar...swanky. That is the word that comes to mind, and I do not use that word lightly. There is a minimum criteria for swanky, and it has absolutely been met. Oh yes, I am starting to feel happy, for I have have not felt the swag of swanky for a while...

But all the swanky in the world cannot persuade me to like a restaurant...for at the end of the day, I love good food. I am willing to pay for good food, I am willing to consume lots of calories for good food, but my total pet peeve is wasting money or calories on food that is not outstanding.

Leanne Kamekona, Executive Chef. She runs the kitchen here, this is her dining experience. She is a lovely woman, whom I had the privilege of meeting when I was there, and her vision and creation of this menu is brilliant. The small plate menu is profuse, so it is conducive to ordering lots of pupus to share. We started that night with three different flatbreads, seared ahi, beef and Japanese pear. Ribs, sliders, shrimp lumpia, and three different mini tacos, ahi poke, spicy beef and shrimp ceviche. Abundant and absolutely amazing, all of them! Tastes that are so different, yet so compatible. My favorites were the ahi flatbread, shrimp lumpia and ribs...to die for.

Truthfully, I easily could have stopped eating at this point. However, we all ordered entrees as well. I ordered the Hawaiian Paella, a beautiful and elegant dish of chayote rice, Kauai prawns, a local fish, portuguese sausage and fresh corn and tomato. Fresh and delicious. I had colleagues who ordered the Bacon and Beet Salad, Crab Crusted Opah and Kona Kampachi Nishime. All dishes looked amazing, all dishes presented artfully...oh wait, there is still dessert...

Dessert came in waves as well...my favorites were the S'Mores, served in a little glass pot,  and Taro Malasadas with a fresh local honey. The other desserts looked wonderful, but I did not possibly have room for even a bite.

I am happy to have resurrected my restaurant blog. But I am happy to have had such a worthy and fine restaurant to make my island restaurant debut. Rum Fire. Go there. You will be pleased on every level.

La Tarasca: Centralia, Washington

Living in California nearly my entire life, one would think that I would have had regular access to authentic and delicious Mexican food. Not necessarily the case, especially given the number of chain restaurants and 'tex-mex' type options that have become so popular over the past 20 years or so. Imagine my surprise then, when on our travels in the Pacific Northwest that we stumble upon an authentic Mexican restaurant in the middle of Washington State, right off of I-5. La Tarasca is in Centralia, Washington, literally a block off of I-5 in between Portland and Seattle. Run by the Ayala family, this is a small restaurant, no frills, but totally authentic and homemade food from the Michoacan region of Mexico. We had been here once before and had a terrific meal, but so often the second visit to a restaurant isn't near as good as the first. Much to our total pleasure, we were equally pleased and charmed by this restaurant. The service is gracious and genuine and the food is amazing.

First off, they do not serve chips and salsa. Instead, you are brought a small bowl of pickled carrots. I ordered for lunch a taco adobada and a carnitas tostada. Both were outstanding! The adobada was a stewed meat in a braised tomato salsa and the carnitas is their restaurant speciality. Coupled with a Negro Modelo, this was a perfectly satisfying lunch stop.

Then we took home pork tamales to try later, and they were equally amazing. All homemade, the masa was so fresh and moist, and the homemade corn tortillas were unlike any tortillas I have ever had. There is no doubt lard in this cooking, but I suppose that is part of what makes it taste so authentic and homemade. Definitely worth the effort to plan this stop if you ever find yourself in this neck of the world. You will not be sorry.

Peg's Glorified Ham and Eggs: Reno, Nevada

So I have ignored this blog for quite some time now...not because I have not been going to restaurants, but because I didn't quite have the time to report on all my dining experiences. Well I have some time now, and I had a dining experience that reminded me why I love restaurants and dining out so much. Breakfast. Breakfast in Reno. I usually don't enjoy going out for breakfast, because quite frankly, it isn't usually exciting or worth talking about. And I would rather have my own eggs scrambled in coconut oil with fresh italian parsley on a weekend than just about anything else...but this breakfast at Peg's Glorified Ham and Eggs is just about as good breakfast can get. Saturday morning and over a half an hour wait...is it going to be as good as we remembered it to be? I am extremely hungry after my 3 plus hour drive to Reno and really looking forward to a good meal. Finally seated, what to order? Well let us just start by saying that I enjoy any breakfast that has salsa...makes it feel much more like a lunch:) So I will order the scrambled eggs with chile relleno this morning. It comes with corn tortillas, fresh homemade salsa, a fresh cabbage slaw and the most crispy and yummy hashed browns ever. If I am going to consume this many calories at breakfast, it had better be good...and yes, it was that good. The kind of breakfast that makes you not need to eat lunch but still feel good right after you eat it. This is one of our favorite breakfast places ever...when in Reno, you must go to Peg's!

Hog Island Oyster Company, SF Ferry building

We finally decided to take a day and took Bart into the city...Ferry building fantasticness!! A Sunday morning...we open the place up- thank goodness, because if we hadn't had waited in line, we would not have gotten outdoor seating! 2 dozen oysters....yummo! 1 dozen hog island sweet water, 1 dozen kusshi (from British Columbia)....and then, OMG.......people, the grilled cheese sandwich!! I cannot even describe the three cheese combination here....let's start with amazing Acme bread...this sandwich is on the "top 40 " sandwich list....yes, I know why. Wait...have I told you about the view and seating? View of the bay and the Bay bridge..outstanding outdoor seating! Oh, then there is the clam chowder.....on the 7 x 7 must eat list...yes, must eat.

Bouchon, Yountville, Ca

Oh boy....very behind on my updates, BUT, here I go, starting with today...I am working backwards- lunch at Bouchon....we end up here because I was checking the 2010 Michelin guide and noticed that Martini House was no longer on "the list." So we decided to try Bouchon again, as we weren't that impressed on our last visit, and they maintained their Michelin star rating....hmmmm. So where do I start? First off, we did not have reservations and were told that it would be a 20 minute wait....no problem! We did not have a res.....but we were not asked if we wanted to be seated outside.....after a few minutes, we asked if there was a wait outside, and the gal said, "no! We will seat you right away!" Ummm, it was only about 75 degrees outside.....I am not sure why those tables are not offerred as seating?! I guess she assumed that because all the other elder non-heat tolerant patrons did not want outdoor seating, that we would not want outdoor patio dining either. Wrong. We were seated immediately....bottle of Sancerre, Frank ordered the Bibb lettuce salad and I had the watercress and endive salad. Delicious. Then we shared the ham and cheese/with poached egg sandwich, quite delicious, and a sauteed gnocchi....all very good, but certainly not worthy of Michelin star rating for food or service. Service was amateurish, they kept asking if we were done with our frites (which were quite good and came with the sandwich), but other than that, were not Michelin caliber servers. They are getting their star rating because this is a Thomas Keller restaurant....a shame, because we much have preferred Bottega and Bistro Jeanty, both left off the list this year. I will choose one of these other restaurants next time we are in Yountville.

Bistro Jeanty, Yountville

One of our mainstay restaurants in the Napa Valley, this is a place that we frequent regularly. This is a lovely French Bistro in the heart of Yountville, a food lover's paradise, home to French Laundry, Bottega, Redd, Bouchon and other great restaurants. Over the weekend we went to Domaine Carneros for a champagne pickup and we ended up here for lunch again....but this time, I was here to try the Cassoulet. I have heard rave reviews of the cassoulet for years now, but have always shied away because of my fear of the duck confit. Having gotten over that fear, I was ready to venture this dish.....BUT, they had taken it off the menu just days before we showed up. It will not be back until the fall. So what to order now?? So we shared the smoked trout and potato salad...delicious. I always get the mussels, which are delicious, but I was here today to try something new. So against every last natural instinct in my body, and totally only because my brother had raved about it several times, I ordered the quiche and butter lettuce salad for lunch. Quiche. In a restaurant. What was I thinking?? Emmentheler cheese and ham. Quiche redefined....ham redefined.....who knew this was what quiche was supposed to taste like? Noone told me before.....AMAZING. DELICIOUS. Yes, quiche in a restaurant. Yes, I will order it again. And it did not stop there....rum raisin bread pudding for dessert....I am hungry just thinking about it! This is why we always go back. One of my favorite restaurants!

Wood Tavern, Oakland

Last weekend, Frank and I wanted to go out to lunch...but we wanted a good meal. So we decided to go through the Caldecott tunnel over to the border of Berkeley and Oakland on College Avenue....right across the street from College Avenue liquors (I am a Cal Alum) to Wood Tavern. I first went here with my friend from college, Ardith, who suggested that we meet there to have dinner (I hadn't seen her in almost 15 years). She lives in Marin, I live in Danville, this was a midpoint. Since then, Frank and I have been twice, never disappointed. We started with a cheese plate with Explorateur, a french triple cream cows milk cheese.....$4. What a great deal. Wonderful artisan bread from La Farine, a bakery next door.....great start to an amazing meal. Then we shared an asparagus salad....fantastic. Served with frisee, diced egg, couscous, chives and a hint of truffle vinaigrette....best, most creative salad I have had in a long time. Then we shared the Hot Pastrami sandwich.....wait, a melt-in-your-mouth hot pastrami sandwich, the best I have ever had.....and we also shared the fresh rigatoni with a braised pork sugo, with chili flakes, garlic and fresh parsley. What a treat!! This is a cozy, neighborhood restaurant with fresh and delicious homestyle food. One of my favorites in a long time!