This was a year filled with extraordinary food and beverage adventures.  It was difficult to narrow down a “Best of the Best” list, but here are my picks for 2011:

Best Overall Coffee Experience: Roasting beans and doing a comparative tasting with Scott Miller, owner of Ogeechee River Coffee Company, Savannah, Georgia.

Best new chocolate confection chef: Chris Kollar of Kollar Chocolates in Yountville, California.  Especially love his passion fruit, coconut and peanut butter chocolates.

Best foraging adventure on a farm: La Petraia in Radda in Chianti, Italy, with owner and chef, Susan McKenna Grant.  Foraging was followed by a cooking class and lunch that featured our foraged ingredients!

Best wine harvest experience: Goosecross Cellars, Napa, California. Was such a learning experience to follow Winemaker Geoff Gorsuch during the pressing and crushing of the grapes for their Viognier wine.

Best new chocolate bar: Askinosie Chocolate, Springfield, Missouri.  I absolutely adore their new single-origin bar made with cacao beans from Honduras.

Best organic olive oil discovery: Castelas’ Biologique Olive Oil, Les Baux de Provence, France.  Grassy, aromatic, spicy and delicious.  This is a perfect finishing oil.

Best dish using brussel sprouts: Bottega Restaurant, Napa Valley, California.  Their new crispy brussel sprout salad is phenomenal.  I was upset that they took their shaved brussel sprout salad off the menu but this new salad is truly superior – so full of flavor and crunch!

Best new diner: The Fremont Diner in Sonoma, California.  Farm-to-table, Southern-inspired dishes such as BBQ pork sandwich, collard greens and housemade biscuits.

Best sugar discovery: Wasanban from Shikoku, Japan.  Wasanban is a very fine-grained sugar that is made from a thin sugar cane plant grown in Shikoku.  A friend in Japan sent it to me.  I have been using it to sprinkle on dessert crepes and cookies and to sweeten tea.  I love its delicate texture and sweet flavor.

Best affogato (gelato with a shot of espresso): Poggio in Sausalito, California.  They dress their affogatos up with slices of toasted almonds and candied orange peel.  Exquisite!

Best caramels: Jacques Genin in Paris, France.  These caramels melt in your mouth and dance on your tongue.  The flavors are rich and the texture is perfect.

Best wine education experience: Les Printemps de Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, France.  Was there in April for a tasting of grenache wines from several different soil types and microclimates within the Chateauneuf-du-Pape appellation.

Best new artisanal salt: Jacobsen Hand-Harvested Pure Sea Salt from Netarts Bay, Oregon.  This salt has a wonderful crunch and a bright, clean flavor.  Excellent finishing salt.

Best hamburger in San Francisco: 4505 Meats, San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.  Haven’t tried every hamburger in town yet, but this was my favorite of the ones that I tried this year.

Looking forward to discovering what new “Bests” 2012 will bring!

Note: Top photo taken by Oliver Seidel and Nicky Stich of deliciousdays.com.

I am always looking for new food adventures, and I had many great ones throughout the year.  Here is a list of my top 10 food or food-related discoveries of 2009 (in no particular order):

(1) the red pepper velvet cake at Dirt Candy in NYC
(2) the skillet bacon jam from Skillet Street Food in Seattle
(3) the pechiole al tartufo (truffled wild peaches) from Conti Foods in Florence, Italy
(4) the professional cheese knife from Claudine Vigier of La Fromagerie du Comtat in Provence
(5) the amazing tasting menu and setting at La Petraia, a restored working organic farm and agriturismo in Tuscany
(6) the chilaquiles from Primavera at the Saturday morning SF Ferry Plaza Farmers Market
(7) Cibreo Restaurant in Florence, Italy
(8) The Nibble Bar from Askinosie chocolate, made in Springfield, Missouri using cacao beans from Ecuador
(9) the brussels sprout salad at Bottega Restaurant in Napa Valley
(10) three crushed dried chili peppers from Whole Spice in Oxbow Market in Napa – chili aleppo, chili marash and chili urfa

We recently had lunch at the newly-opened Bottega Restaurant in Napa Valley.  It was a Friday afternoon, and Michael Chiarello, executive chef/owner, was there greeting guests, sitting down with folks, cooking in the kitchen, and generally appearing to have a great time.  He seemed so proud of his new restaurant and so welcoming of his guests.

One of the dishes that we so lovingly remembered from his TraVigne days, the soft polenta with the wild game-balsamic sauce, was once again on his menu.  This time, it had the twist of being served under glass, but it was the same intense, savory, sweet, earthy delicious flavor that we remembered.   We shared a number of dishes, including the rabbit sugo, gnocchi in an intense tomato sauce, burrata with artichokes two ways and the polenta dish.  Flavors were fresh, intense and memorable.  We topped the meal off with a warm polenta cake that was scented with rosemary.  

One of the best finds of the day was the 2006 Chiarello Family “Bambino” Cabernet Sauvignon wine.   It was earthy with hints of vanilla, blackberry jam and ripe dark cherries.  It was very drinkable (and quite enjoyable), although still young. 

The restaurant is in the old Vintage 1870’s building (now V Marketplace) in Yountville.  I fell in love with the outdoor “living room” with the fireplace and big sofas with red, orange and gold pillows. 

The restaurant is open for lunch during the winter months from Thursday through Sunday and for dinner Sunday through Saturday. 

Bottega Napa Valley
6525 Washington Street
Yountville, CA  94599
707-945-1050
http://www.botteganapavalley.com/

FARM Restaurant at the Carneros Inn in Napa Valley is worth a visit. I recently had occasion to dine there with some of my guests from Canada.   When we stepped out of the car, I was immediately drawn to FARM’s huge outdoor living room.  This open-air room is filled with large overstuffed sofas and chairs and has high ceiling fans.  It is adjacent to a big outdoor bocci court.  What a great place to relax for a few minutes before moving into the restaurant! 

The restaurant itself is casual but elegant with tea green walls, dark furnishings and beautiful lighting fixtures.  Chef de Cuisine, Christophe Gerard from France’s Loire Valley, trained at the famed three-star Michelin restaurant, Taillevent.  The menu features items that are mostly produced within 150 miles of the restaurant.  The wine list is extensive, featuring wines within a wide range of prices.  We started out with a salad of organic field greens with walnut vinaigrette, organic tuna carpaccio with roasted golden beets, and chilled white corn soup with peekytoe crab.   Our main courses were pan-seared flounder with creamed nettles, dayboat scallops with organic sunchoke puree and oven-roasted lamb sirloin with basil jus.  For dessert, we chose a passion fruit and pineapple parfait and a lemon tart with citrus fruits and orange sorbet. 

The service was very friendly and knowledgeable, adding to the pleasure of this marvelous dining experience. 

FARM at the Carneros Inn
4048 Sonoma Highway
Napa, CA 
Telephone: 707-299-4880
http://www.thecarnerosinn.com/thecarnerosinn/restaurant_farm.aspx

I recently visited one of my old favorite restaurants, The Martini House, with some of my guests from Canada.  I was pleased to find that the restaurant is still cozy and inviting, that the staff is still very friendly and that the food is still amazing.  We chose the mushroom tasting menu with the wine pairings.

We started off with a carpaccio of king trumpet mushrooms, shaved celery, radishes, parmesan cheese and mushroom chips with a Meyer lemon aioli.   This was beautifully paired with L’Uvaggio di Giacomo Vermentino, Lodi, California, 2006. 

Our next course was sake-mirin braised matsutake in mushroom tea with duck and burdock root wontons, ginger and new onions.  That was served with a nice riesling – Hexamer “Meddersheimer Rheingraffenberg” Riesling, Kabinett, Nahe, Germany, 2006.

That was followed by a whole roasted Hen of the Woods mushroom, creamed leek vol-au-vent and horseradish potato puree with a beurre rouge sauce.  This dish was absolutely fantastic!  It was paired with Ladera “Lone Canyon” Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, 2000. 

To finish off the meal, we had candy cap bread pudding with currants and golden raisins with maple sugar anglaise (yes, this contained mushrooms, too).  It was exquisite.   This was paired with L’Uvaggio di Giacomo “iL Ponte” Vin Santo, California.

The mushroom menu was a real treat (although it is difficult to stray from the exquisite slow-cooked short ribs that are so popular here)!

The Martini House
1245 Spring Street @ Oak
St. Helena, CA  94574
(707) 963-2233
www.martinihouse.com

You cannot imagine my pleasure in discovering BarBersQ restaurant! I miss really good Southern-style barbeque, and I absolutely love the food at BarBersQ!

On my first visit, I tried the Vande Rose Memphis Pulled Pork Sandwich. The pork was absolutely exquisite – very lean, tender and deliciously smokey! And the sandwich was huge. It was served on a very soft bun with their barbeque sauce (yum) and coleslaw. I also tried their Painted Hills Chipotle-Braised Short Rib Sandwich (this was research, after all). This sandwich was also served on a nice, soft bun with chopped romaine, horseradish sauce and coleslaw. The meat was so tender and delicious without the fat that you normally find with short ribs.

And, of course, I had to try their collard greens (delicious) and ridgecut cornbread (excellent, too), as well as their wonderful baked beans from Rancho Gordo.

They also feature such menu items as Grilled Porterhouse Pork Chop, Long Meadow Ranch Grass-fed Flat Iron Steak, Baby Back or St. Louis Ribs, BerbersQ Chicken, as well as their BarbersQ Chili. I love the fact that they have grass-fed beef, free-range chicken and local items on their menu.

I had the opportunity, as well, to meet Chef Stephen Barber, a native of Kentucky, who got his start at City Grocery Restaurant in Oxford, Mississippi. Barber then opened Cameron Diaz’s restaurant, Bambu, in Miami. He worked for several years at Mecca in San Francisco before opening up BarbersQ in Napa.

If you love fine food and have a thing for Southern-style barbeque and the trimmings that go with it, you must give BarbersQ a try! They have a very nice wine selection, as well.

BarbersQ Restaurant
3900 D Bel Aire Plaza
Napa, CA 94558
(707) 224-6600
www.barbersQ.com (Website is currently under construction. )

My husband and I were treated to dinner at Ad Hoc Restaurant in Napa Valley by our friends, Dennis and Lara. Ad Hoc is the newest creation of Chef Thomas Keller of French Laundry fame. However, with Ad Hoc, Keller has a totally different style and focus. He serves one prix fixe menu of American-style food nightly, and it is served family-style.

Almost immediately upon opening (only a few months back), Ad Hoc was a big success. It is easy to see why. Our meal was absolutely delicious! And the atmosphere was relaxed and easy. The super-friendly waiters even wear jeans and work shirts – no formal attire in sight!

We started our meal with a salad of fresh baby winter greens, smoked duck, black olives, pickled red onions and a sherry vinaigrette dressing. The flavors were so fresh and vivid!

Our main course was truly a knock-out. We had braised beef short ribs that were unlike any that I had ever tasted. For starters, they had been cooked slowly for 48 hours! Then all fat and bone had been removed. We were left with lean slices of the most tender, mouthwatering beef ever! This was served with a puree of mashed Yukon gold potatoes and parsnips. Our side dish was roasted Brussels sprouts and carrots in a butter sauce. (And we were offered “seconds” if anyone was still hungry!)

Next, we had a beautiful cheese course. The cheese was Capriole Farms’ Wabash Cannonball from Indiana. This is a goat’s milk cheese which has a delicate ash and mold rind. It was served with candied pecans and house-made conserved Fuji apples.

Our dessert was quite decadent – a warm brownie cake with burnt caramel sauce and Chantilly. Delicious – and I can hardly wait to go back!

Call early for reservations!

Ad Hoc Restaurant
6476 Washington Street
Yountville, CA 94599
(707) 944-2487

My friend, Stephanie, and I recently tried Press in St. Helena. Press is co-owned by Leslie Rudd, who also owns Dean & Deluca and Rudd Vineyards. I was expecting the restaurant to be a little stuffy, but I was dead wrong! It is beautifully done inside – warm, welcoming and comfortable. From our waiter, Charles, to the restaurant manager, Stefan, to the chef, Keith Luce – we were made to feel very welcome. We started with a lovely shrimp appetizer, which was followed by grilled bluenose bass with shrimp in an onion broth. We also tried the moulard duck breast, which had an incredible fig sauce. For dessert, we chose the poundcake with Meyer lemon sorbet and also the mint chocolate chip ice cream. What a treat that mint chocolate chip ice cream was – the mint was fresh from the garden and the taste was exquisite! Check out their website: www.presssthelena.com . I can hardly wait to return!

My friend Lara and I recently tried Go Fish in the town of St. Helena in the Napa Valley. It is a new restaurant from Cindy Pawlcyn (who also owns Mustards in Yountville and Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen in St. Helena). As soon as we walked in, we fell in love with the decor. The beautiful blues reminded us of the sea and we loved the pattern of the blue fish on the back of the barstools at the Sushi bar. In the main restaurant, there were booths (with comfortable back cushions) as well as tables. And even though we were there for lunch mid-week, the place was packed!

The menu was exceptional – but there were so many choices that sounded terrific. It was really hard to choose. We finally decided on the hot and bubbly crab dip, the salt crusted crispy prawns with sweet and sour sauce, the miso marinated cod with shitake broth and one of the daily fish choices, crab legs with a ginger butter. Each selection was unbelievably fresh and excellent. We could not stop talking about how great everything was! And then, to top it off, we simply could not resist their roasted banana rum ice cream sandwich with housemade banana bread and almond toffee. It was exquisite!

In fact, I liked this restaurant so much that my husband and I went back there a couple of weeks later to see if the quality was the same. Believe me, it was! From the mushroom confit appetizer to the miso marinated cod (I simply could not leave there without having it again!), to the wood-roasted tuna with the fresh tomatillo salsa – it was all excellent! And this time, we had to have both the banana rum ice cream sandwich AND the dessert special of housemade chocolate gelato with roasted hazelnuts, hazelnut torte and a sumptuous caramel sauce. I highly recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Napa Valley!

Go Fish
641 Main Street
St. Helena, CA 94574
gofishrestaurant.net
(707) 963-0700

The French Laundry
6640 Washington Street
Yountville, CA 94599
707-944-2380
www.frenchlaundry.com

I have been to The French Laundry a few times now. The food is exquisite and the service is very good. It is definitely a “special occasion” restaurant and worth a visit if you can get in (no, unfortunately, I don’t have any good tips for getting in). It is quite expensive but very special. My husband and I both agreed that the first visit was “over the top” but the next couple of visits paled slightly in comparison. Nothing to do with the food itself, but it just didn’t seem as unique anymore. The truffled risotto is unbelievable. They have quite an extensive wine list – the first time I tried viognier was at The French Laundry.