Alexander Vally Bar

By biteclub


Mild-mannered wine tasting room and produce garden by day, retro-underground bar by night. Nestled deep in the heart of the Alexander Valley, the Medlock Ames tasting room and Alexander Valley Bar are flip sides of the same 100-year-old saloon.

Dayside, the multi-use green building is a sun-drenched spot for tasting the artisan wines of this valley start-up. Fresh, pickled and canned produce from the carefully plotted onsite garden patch and already-popular winery gardens will be available for purchase in the tasting room and on weekly market days. Come quittin’ time, the dimly lit back bar throws open its doors as a saloon.

Hey, it takes a lot of beer to make wine, right? Paying homage to its colorful years as a rough-and-tumbling local watering hole, the space is a mash-up of Victorian parlor chic and modern cocktail den. Think punched-tin ceiling, distressed recycled wood and a plush banquette for lounging away the hours.  Stroll out to the porch and survey the valley on warm evenings — or just warmed up by a nice seasonal cocktail.

Tasting Room open 10am to 5pm daily,  431-8845; bar open at 5pm daily. 3487 Alexander Valley Road, Healdsburg, 431.1904.

Bastille Day 2011

By biteclub

Where to find some great Bastille-Day treats.

Costeaux Bakery: The biggest Bastille day festivities are always at Costeaux Bakery in Healdsburg. From 7am to 4pm, the downtown restaurant is awash in pommes frites, escargot, desserts, kids’ Eiffel Tower cookie decorating, and more than a few rolling heads (aka bread boules) and guillotine-sliced baguettes. Keep a sharp eye out for Marie Antoinette and some saucy can-can dancers. 417 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg.

La Gare: After two week of vacation, the iconic Railroad Square restaurant reopens July 13.  In honor of Bastille day La Gare will feature a $29 four course special for the whole week as well a new summer Lobster salad. 208 Wilson Street, Santa Rosa, 528-4355.

Chloe’s: Bastille Crepe menu available all week (July 11-16) includes crepe jambon Gruyere with roasted mushrooms, Parisian macaron and a glass of wine for $15.95. Celebrate on Saturday, July 16 from 11am to 6pm with a special celebration at the restaurant that includes singer Deborah Kuhl crooning French tunes.

Bistro 29: Three course prix-fixe includes a “fruit de mer” plat eof oysters, prawns and calamari or charcuterie board; beef daube or sauteed salmon and for dessert, a sponge cake with mascarpone cream. $59 per person, includes a glass of champagne. Add $34 pp for wine pairings. 546-2929 for reservations.

Rendez Vous Bistro:$29 three-course pre fixe menu, and a special drink of the day that salutes France.

French Garden: If you’re watching your francs, the bistro offers a prix fixe meal of
authentic boeuf bourguignon, slices of French baguette, and a glass of house Burgundy, for $17.89 (hint, the year of the French revolution was 1789).  In the dining room, Chef Patrick Quillec serves a three-course ($35 pp) or five-course ($52 pp) French-themed dinner including chilled carrot ginger soup, rabbit pate, coq au vin, and raspberry Napoleon. Optional wine pairing $20. In the bar, French Garden Restaurant bartender Ian Kenealy makes Le Guillotine (Absinthe, Dan’s strawberries, lemon, chamomile); La Celebration (Grey Goose vodka, St. Germain, peach, champagne) and The Storming of the Bastille (Cognac, lemon, agave, house made vanilla syrup). 8050 Bodega Avenue in Sebastopol. Reservations are strongly encouraged by calling 824-2030.

Viva La Freestone Bastille Day Celebration: French cuisine by French Garden’s Patrick Quillec and wines from Graton Ridge Cellars, music and cedar-enzyme foot baths. Access to meditation gardens, tours and new hammock field is included. $25 per person.

Fun Facts from Chloe’s~

1- When the King and Queen were overthrown, the new leaders of France wanted everything to be different – including the calendar and the time. So they created a whole new calendar and a whole new way of telling time. They changed the days of the week from seven to ten. Each day was divided into ten hours. Each hour had 100 minutes and each minute had 100 seconds. Obviously, this time change did not last.

2- The King’s breakfast before he went hunting consisted of four chops, a chicken, six eggs poached in meat juice, a cut of ham and a bottle and a half of champagne

3- Marie Antoinette was considered such a woman of fashion, that once when she was at the opera, eight women were injured pushing others out of the way to see what she was wearing: three had their feet crushed, two had ribs broken and three had their arms dislocated. (Sounds like the Oscars)

Mamma Pig | Windsor

By biteclub
Barbecue at Mamma Pig in Windsor

Barbecue at Mamma Pig in Windsor
CLOSED

Follow the scent of sweet porky smoke to the transformed digs of Matthew and Bryan Bousquet. The former owners haute French eatery Mirepoix traded in their Michelin star for a counter-service barbecue joint that had a line out the door opening week. The couple both have roots in the south and know their way around a brisket, sweet tea, hush puppies (or hush piggies as they call them) and molasses pit beans and bacon. For dessert, check out the brown sugar pound cake or chocolate pig on a stick. There are still plenty of Wine Country twists (like a burger with duck liver, and a sweet Sonoma Zinfandel barbecue sauce), but Mamma Pig’s is strictly a beer, bacon, and burger kind of spot where all the kin are welcome.

Best bets: Thinly-sliced brsket is a must-have ($8.75 for a sandwich with slaw and Hush Piggies). Fried bits of corny goodness, Mamma’s got the lock on their version of the hush puppy, called the Hush Piggie. Order a side for yourself ($5.00), because what you don’t eat reheats just fine in the oven later. Pig on a Stick (pork belly) is for serious porcine admirers, but worth sharing (%.75). There’s a pie of the day made fresh each day, along with special kid-sized meals.

Outdoor picnic tables are a premium, though there are a handful of tables inside. Beer from Moonlight Brewing Co. on tap.

Mamma Pig, 275 Windsor River Road, Windsor, 838-7447.

Go Fish Shuttering, becoming Brassica

By biteclub

Cindy Pawlcyn’s Go Fish restaurant in St. Helena will close by late August, morphing into Brassica, another Pawlcyn venture focused on Mediterranean food.

It’s not exactly a shocker. Many noted the irony of Pawlcyn becoming the poster girl for the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program — the Bible sustainably sourced seafood — while hawking sushi. “It was important for me to transition from a purely seafood-centric menu as an advocate for (the aquarium’s) Seafood Watch program, supporting sustainably sourced seafood,” Pawlcyn said.

In the last few weeks, sushi has been removed from the menu and the restaurant will introduce some preview dishes from the Mediterranean menu. The restaurant will undergo a brief revamp before reopening in late August.

Pawlcyn also operates Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen in St. Helena and Mustard’s Grill in Rutherford. She is Partner Chef at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Moustache Bakery to open

By biteclub


What’s cooler than a cupcake? Moustaches, of course. Combine the two and you’re pushing the needle toward cultural zeitgeist. Add salted caramel and Nutella and there’s a full on stampede of fixed-geared bikes and ironic glasses headed your way.

Which is to say that Moustache Bakery, set to open later this summer in Healdsburg, isn’t the usual cinnamon roll and croissant sort of spot. Homegrown twenty-somethings Christian Sullberg and Ozzy Jimenez are planning a new school patisserie at 381 Healdsburg Avenue hawking sweet “American classics with character.”

What exactly does that mean? The menu’s still browning a bit in the oven, but what they can tell BiteClub is that they plan on relying on plenty of produce from nearby farms and wineries, for example using Dry Creek Zin in their red velvet and carrots from nearby farms for their carrot cake. Other treats include Mason Jar cupcakes, brownies and milk, macarons and banana cake with Nutella frosting. So far, so good: Tasty and trendy.

The Healdsburg and Piner High grads have been in the baking industry since attending SRJC.  “We’re two guys…born and raised in Sonoma County trying to do what we love — bake,” said Christian. “Not every business needs to be born from the East Coast or LA or even San Francisco to be successful in our tiny close-knit town,” he added.

Stay tuned for more details.
Moustache Bakery, 381 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg

Blue Label at the Belvedere closing

By biteclub

The Blue Label Crew
The Blue Label Crew

All good things must come to an end. But so soon?

Blue Label at the Belvedere — both evening and cafe service — are closing. The evening service, managed by Superburger’s Bill Cordell, has shuttered and the cafe service, run by the former Humble Pie Crew, will shut down on July 17.

It’s a serious bummer. Because Bill’s haute burgers were off the hook. And it’s no secret that BiteClub’s a die-hard fan of Miriam Donaldson and her baking prowess. Plus, the space was just so, well, strangely welcoming and perfect. After a strong opening, a series of changes (Donaldson and her team moving to cafe service and Cordell recently changing the focus of the menu to burgers) created some confusion for diners but the fan based seemed to be growing.

Cordell said the restaurant had a great run and was a lot of fun, but it was a good time for him to move on to other things.

Donaldson seemed upbeat in an email to BiteClub, saying “Don’t know what we are up to next…maybe take it easy for a bit. But I really miss cooking dinner and so does Josh. So maybe if a perfect tiny little space becomes available and we are able to find the start up cash we’ll give it another whirl.”

 

Santi Space Rising From Ashes?

By biteclub
Chef Doug Richey, copyright Heather Irwin, BiteClubEats.com
Chef Doug Richey, copyright Heather Irwin, BiteClubEats.com
Chef Douglas Richey

You can’t keep a good chef down. At least not for long.

Seems that there may be a new tenant moving into the Fountaingrove restaurant space vacated by Santi. And don’t be surprised to see some familiar faces in the kitchen.

Though the venture is pretty hush hush right now, Chef Douglas Richey spoke to BiteClub from South Carolina and confirmed that he’s working on a new project with several Bay Area restaurant investors. Richey, who had been named executive chef at Santi just months before the sudden closure, wasn’t ready to hang up his toque just yet, and quickly got to work on a new project.

As to the concept, Richey is keeping mum, but it’s no secret that he’s spent the last several weeks eating his way through some of the best — and worst — restaurants from Savannah to Memphis. A possible link? Hmmmm.

“I’m building my secret weapons. This new restaurant is going to have everything to do with real food. It’s all about family and creating community. And far from esoteric food,” he told BiteClub.

There’s no opening date set, but Richey said he and his investors plan to get the concept completely solid before swinging open the doors. “Five seconds after we get it perfect, we’ll open the doors,” he said.

 

Addendum: New Ad Hoc To Go opens

By biteclub

Move over French Laundry, Thomas Keller’s going take-out?

The latest venture by the King Keller is literally in his backyard, serving up Ad Hoc’s famous buttermilk fried chicken and barbecue from a walk-up window. First-come, first-served, it’s lunch in a box with two sides (we had corn succotash and potato salad) for $16.50 Thursday through Saturday from 11am to 2pm. TK was dining on the patio himself on our first visit, seeming well-pleased while construction workers, locals and a handful of eager foodies made a bee-line for the upscale-downscale grub. Don’t miss dessert, a Creamsicle-style ice cream cup.

Addendum @ Ad Hoc: 6476 Washington St., Yountville
Orders can be placed while in queue or over the phone for pick up from 11:00am-2:00pm by calling 707.944.1565 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday only.

 

Pliny wins again

By biteclub

Russian River Brewing has won Beer of the Year from readers of American Homebrewers Association Magazine, Zymurgy. It’s a three-peat for the brewery’s Pliny the Elder, a double IPA.

The award, according to Russian River Brewing’s Michael Deas, is significant within the brewing industry because it’s a people’s choice vote among “people who care a lot about beer.”

“All the beers on the list with us are amazing,” Deas said.

A total of 433 breweries and 1,306 beers were represented in the 2011 poll. Other Northern California breweries on the list included Chico’s Sierra Nevada, Ft. Bragg’s North Coast Brewing (Old Rasputin, 18th place), San Francisco’s Anchor Steam and Healdsburg’s Bear Republic (Racer 5, 29th place). Russian River Brewing’s Blind Pig IPA took 43rd place.

The magazine also ranked the breweries based on the total votes received by each of their beers. Russian River ranked fifth, followed by Petaluma’s Lagunitas (ranked #12); and Bear Republic Brewing in Healdsburg (#24).

Deas said he credits brewmaster Vinnie Cilurzo with Russian River’s continued success in the beer world. “He’s the most meticulous and humble guy you’ll ever meet. Everything has to come out the right way every time with him.”

“We’re proud of our beer and proud to be a part of the Santa Rosa economy,” said Deas.

Pliny the Elder is on tap throughout the year at Russian River Brewpub (725 4th Street, Santa Rosa). The brewery’s triple IPA, Pliny the Younger, is released just once a year in February.

Big Bottom Market to open

By biteclub

Okay Snicker McSnickerstein. Let’s get this out of the way: The name of the forthcoming Big Bottom Market in Guerneville refers to the river town’s 1860’s moniker as “The Big Bottom”. As in an alluvial flood plain. Not your granny’s gadunkadunk in the trunk.

But owners Crista Luedtke (boon eat+drink, boon hotel) and Michael Volpatt (of PR firm Larkin Volpatt) aren’t exactly shying away from the cheeky double entendre. “When we heard it we just though it was fun. It’s definitely got a lot of people talking,” said Volpatt.

Opening in mid-July, this small-town market isn’t you usual cigs, beer and Slim Jim kind of joint. Instead,  it’s a gourmet general store focused on artisanal food wine and micro brews for the beach-bound and picnic-set. In addition to deli items and prepared foods, Big Bottom Market will also sell its own blend of red wine, Sonoma County olive oil and sea salt. The duo hopes to expand the operation in Sonoma County and possibly Palm Springs.

But that’s not what’s got my attention. “Visitors to the market can also anticipate getting their hands on one of the best biscuits ever tasted. In the words of the market partners, ‘The biscuit is the new cupcake and ours are off the hook delicious.‘” Plus the promise of a decor that’s “lumberjack chic.”

Akin to Jimtown Store owner Carrie Brown, Crista has already proved her food mettle at boon eat + drink, a simple eatery that embodies everything I love most about Sonoma County — unfussy, fresh and wildly creative dishes that taste as good as they look.

Stay tuned for more details. The location is set to be 16228 Main St. in downtown Guerneville.