CANVAZ road trip day 3: visiting Colgin and Araujo

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After padding our stomachs with simple breakfast at the hotel, we set off for our day in Napa an hour early.  Smooth traffic into and out of San Francisco meant that we arrived in the valley an hour before our first appointment.  So we spent a few minutes strolling Main Street in St. Helena and enjoying the sunny and warm weather.

We had good directions from the winery and navigation help from Google Maps, so we showed up at the gates of IX Estate for our visit to Colgin Cellars.  I've been a fan of Ann Colgin and her wines for a long time, and after meeting her and Joe a couple of times in Asia, I'm glad I finally made it here.

CANVAZ road trip day 2: 3 meals from 3 continents

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I woke up this morning after some broken sleep, and my friend Ducky very kindly drove us around to get some breakfast.  Neighbor Bakehouse apparently serves up some really good pastries, so I picked up a couple of items and brought them back to her place.

Their butter croissant was pretty good, but what really bowled me over was their everything croissant.  Imagine an "everything bagel"... except that it comes with layers of flaky pastry... and buttery goodness.  Take the butter croissant and add sesame seeds, poppy seeds, toasted onions... and add what seemed to be cream cheese on the inside of the croissant.  So freakin' good!  Those onions really pack a punch!  I wished I had bought 2 more of these...

CANVAZ road trip day 1: 80s music season

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After much trials and tribulations, an entire day of missed flights, airport diversions, and long immigration lines, I finally arrived in San Francisco about 8 hours later than originally scheduled.  I missed the opportunity to check out a food truck or a taqueria for lunch, but that didn't matter.  Upon arriving at my friend's apartment some 15 minutes before dinner time, I took a very quick shower while she helpfully ironed my crumpled dress shirt (something which she doesn't even do for her own clothes!).  After a short walk of a few blocks, I eventually arrived at my destination about 20 minutes late.

There was absolutely no way that I was going to miss dinner at Saison.  This was the first restaurant I booked when I started planning my trip just a month ago, and would certainly be the culinary apex of my entire trip.  This was the reason I re-routed my itinerary to arrive in LAX and connect to a domestic flight, instead of taking the next available flight to SFO... because I would have missed this dinner otherwise.  And I was so grateful that I took the 8:30 p.m. seating!

We were led to a table facing the kitchen, where my friend Ducky and I were seated side-by-side... rather intimately.  One of our neighbors looked vaguely familiar and we kinda figured he was a famous musician of some sort.  At the end of the evening, we found out that it was actually Kirk Hammett - the guitarist for Metallica.  What a soft-spoken gentlemen he turned out to be.

After checking our dietary restrictions, we were told that there would be about 15 courses coming our way.  We were both pretty hungry by now, and eagerly awaited for the food to arrive.

But my string of bad luck seemed to have continued even in San Francisco.  As I was going through my usual routine of setting white balance for my camera, something weird seemed to be happening.  Many of the pictures had dark shadows across part or even all of the frame, and it seemed to occur mostly when the camera was pointed at a downward angle.  I was never able to properly set white balance, and was pretty much frustrated the whole evening trying to get in a decent shot of each dish.

Summer surprise

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It's finally my turn to host my MNSC dinner.  The schedule this year has been somewhat jumbled up, and thanks to scheduling conflicts that often happen over summer, it was finally happening more than 2 months after my birthday.

I was scratching my head a little while trying to find a suitable venue.  The venue for my tasting last year - The Principal - has closed due to skyrocketing rent.  I had wanted to host my tasting at my favorite new restaurant in town, but gave up on the idea when the restaurant couldn't provide enough wine glasses.  This drove me to explore choices located in 5-star hotels, because they generally don't have problems providing a large number of wine glasses.

Someone had recently gone to Summer Palace (夏宮) at the Island Shangri-La and commented that food had improved.  Frankly, I had never cared to dine here.  The place was always crowded - and incredibly noisy - at lunch, and the food was never anything outstanding.  When one has a choice between dining here and at Golden Leaf (金葉庭) at the Conrad Hong Kong just a stone's throw away, it's always been a no-brainer.  Which made it even more puzzling that the Rubberman has chosen to give this place two macarons ever since their very first edition for Hong Kong and Macau in 2009...

Every single one of the boys asked me why I had chosen this place for tonight.  None of us have been here for the last few years, and FourSquare reminded me that my last "check-in" here was more than 3 years ago while lunching with Ann Colgin.  These days the restaurant is well-known to be frequented by Mainland Chinese customers - especially since the hotel itself is popular with this demographic - and a quick scan across the dining room seem to confirm this popular belief.

But hey, they didn't blink when I told them upfront that I was doing a wine dinner and needed lots of glasses and decanters.  They also didn't seem to have any issues when I showed up with the wines yesterday, and explained to them I needed some of the wines decanted a full hour before the restaurant actually opened its doors... so other than the issue of only providing Bordeaux-style glasses for red wines, this place seemed to fit my requirements.

I showed up promptly as the restaurant opened its doors at 6:30 p.m. and was led to our private room at the back of the restaurant.  I should have been relieved at the sight of all the wine glasses and decanters on the side, but I became nervous immediately.  After years of staying away, I had completely forgotten that the signature "Shangri-La smell" filled the entire hotel - even in the restaurant.  This would most definitely have an impact on our ability to taste wines, and I could see the boys slamming me to picking such a poor venue.  Thankfully, that never came to pass.

Baked stuffed crab shell (焗釀鮮蟹蓋) - I've always loved stuffed crab shells, and I wanted to see how these stacked up.

Burg and Cali double toast

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A friend was hosting a blind tasting dinner tonight with fellow wine lovers, and the theme involved everyone bringing pairs.  Seeing that there would be way too much wine at the table, my friend very kindly invited me as his "plus one" in lieu of his wife - giving me a chance to taste some interesting wines and adding another body to soak up the excess wine...

It's been a few years since I was last at Wagyu Kaiseki Den.  Well... it used to be my venue of choice for kaiseki in this town, but I kinda stopped going ever since Tenku RyuGin (天空龍吟) opened.  This was a good opportunity to revisit.

Starters (前菜):

1. Grilled hamo conger-pike, matsutake mushroom (鱧 松茸 焼浸し 菊菜) - the seasonal pike conger (鱧) was lightly grilled and which, together with matsutake mushrooms, perilla flowers, and some yuzu, made for a very fragrant start.