Mustard's

10/6/2009
Napa Valley, CA: 7399 St Helena Highway - (707) 944-2424
Rating (1-10): 9
Price: High End

"Napa Soul"
Mustard’s is the kind of place that makes you want to love it, as soon as you walk in the door. To be sure, the restaurant’s reputation precedes itself, so it has an advantage because you’re already primed and ready to have an experience you’ll really enjoy. But at the same time, it's also extremely difficult to deliver on such expectations. Mustard’s succeeds, and almost effortlessly, it seems. This “truckstop deluxe” Napa institution is good for any occasion and offers an appetizing, fun, inventive menu to challenge the palette and deliver good old home cooking satisfaction at a fair price.

Mustard’s sits on the busy thoroughfare, Highway 29, neighbors with various wineries between Napa and St. Helena. Next to the restaurant is its garden, which is the source for the restaurant’s goods and which you are free to explore. It is these surroundings and Chef Cindy Pawlcyn’s laid back and playful sensibilities that define this restaurant. Long before organic/local became the hip new fad, Mustard’s was living it. Here you’ll find top notch cooking driven by the environment, not overfussed but maybe with a couple curveballs.

The salad is a statement: just a pile of dressed leaves, with no fixins or toppings (except a lady bug that we spotted). It’s almost as if to say, “Here it is, there’s nothing we need to do to it because it’s already just the way it should be.” The leaves are crunchy, vibrant greens and yellows with a bitter bite. It’s not going to blow your mind but there’s something to be said for a salad that can stand alone, without dried fruits, toasted nuts, cheese, and fifteen vegetables tossed in a complicated vinaigrette.

The tamales are served with a green lime sauce and trumpet mushrooms. Tamales always sound delicious to me but they certainly don’t always come out that way; often it’s the texture or pasty, plastic look or perhaps just the non-corn flavor of the corn. In my view, what’s appealing about tamales is that they concentrate the awesomeness of corn: texture, sweetness, flavor. You should feel like you just at 6 ears of corn in only a candy bar-sized portion. Mustard’s tamales do just that and their saltiness is balanced by the sauce’s acidity and crunch pine nuts. The earthy mushrooms reinforce each satisfying bite.

The Mongolian pork chop is among the most popular entrees at Mustard’s and deservedly so. It's the best pork chop I have ever had. The chop comes out looking just about as any piece of meat could be, with grill marks and a carmelized sheen, dabbed with the house-made Dijon mustard. The pork sits next to pickled cabbage and a hefty portion of buttery, garlicky mashed potatoes. The meat is incredibly juicy and flavorful, the mustard is nice and sweet, and the sides alone would satisfy me for a meal. If there was anything I could change about this dish it would be…nothing.

The pumpkin ravioli entrée was on its first day on tour, a preview for the fall season. It’s a pleasing dish to look at – big plump ravioli topped with cubed butternuts squash, nuts, an array of mushrooms, greens, and a broth. If you love hearty, fall vegetables – squash, pumpkin, mushrooms – this is one you’ll want to try. Dip your bread in the broth as you’re finishing up. The dish was a little undersalted but otherwise, quite satisfying.

In terms of ambiance, it’s pretty much what you’d expect – friendly, unpretentious, professional. A smiling bartender offered to take a picture when we were looking for someone to help us out. Our server talked excitedly about the dishes. The atmosphere was boisterous but controlled and the playlist was fun. White tablecloths and crisp white server uniforms add just a bit of that formal touch. In every sense of the word, Mustard’s demonstrates good taste.

If you’re visiting the Napa Valley, it’s likely you’re going to get a long list of “must-go” recommendations from friends. Mustard’s will probably be on pretty much everyone’s list – there’s good reason for it. It truly is a must go.

Cyrus

10/5/2009
Healdsburg, CA: 29 North Street - (707) 433-3311
Rating (1-10): 10
Price Range: Break the Bank

"A True All-Star"
There are some restaurants that are perhaps beyond this writer's humble critiquing abilities. Cyrus is one of them. This restaurant performs at a high level both in the cooking and the service delivery - with great attention to detail, warmth and friendliness, and utterly delicious food. Be prepared for a top notch type dining experience: swarms of dining room attendants, small, delicately put together plates, formal wear, and carts of lots of expensive stuff (cheese, champagne, desserts, etc). Though this type of dining experience is inevitably a bit stiff, this is a place where it's relatively comfortable. If you want a lavish, pampered experience, Cyrus is a strong recommendation for a date, family dinner, or other type of celebration - at a price tag that you can adjust to your liking.

At Cyrus you have a choice between a couple of tasting menus - the 8-course and the 5-course, and a vegetarian option for both. There are also wine pairing options and cheese courses as well as a champagne cart to kick off the meal. What's nice is that you're not under pressure to do one thing or the other. The server was refreshingly honest, not pushy in any way. When I asked about the vegetarian menu, he said, "Well, it will be delicious, but for me? I need meat." I totally agreed and I'm glad he helped me right my ship. Our dinner selection was the 5-course non-vegetarian menu - except we were also allowed to substitute a corresponding vegetarian selection if we so pleased. In essence, you can craft your own tasting menu if you want; this is a highly accommodating feature that allows guests to explore the menu.

The meal begins with some canapes and amuse bouches which alone could be a great appetizer. The peach, greens, and cream does exactly what it's meant to do: get your hunger going, excite the taste buds and your anticipation. What follows is a parade of entirely distinct courses, each with highly concentrated flavors and pleasing texture. The portions look small but turn out to be just right: They leave you wanting a little bit more but doesn't allow you to get full or sick of it at any point. Our plates ranged from lightly seared hamachi to stuffed fried squash blossoms filled with incredible eggplant and garlic filling to fatty roasted duck to intense mushroom risotto to big fat scallops to lamb tenderloin to foie gras to desserts plates with at least 5 components including, if you're lucky, chocolate filled doughnuts. Pulling off a menu of this breadth and complexity is more difficult to execute that almost any one of the guests can comprehend. But like a superior athlete, they just make it look easy.

What you see in these dishes are meticulously constructed components presented with flare and disciplined creativity. It's not the silly kind of "throw everything you can at it and hope for the best" style creativity - far from it. A large scallop is seared and sits in a pool of ginger-shiso broth, adding a unique feature to what my otherwise be a commoditized dish; it's also one of several items with a distinctly Japanese accent. The mushrooms risotto packs an intense mushroom-ness as such a risotto should, but with strong chive foam and subtle chestnut flavor. The roasted duck is just simply delicious and comes with a slightly greasy but homey potato cake. The lamb roulade is perfectly cooked disks of pink lamb meat which is nice to look at; oddly there was one flavor to every part of this dish which was overwhelmingly strong and heavyhanded - like a dish with too much cumin. Overall, for a lineup of dishes of this complexity, these were artfully plated and impressively executed.

The service is very well-informed, professional, courteous, and warm. They're also the size of a small army and all over every detail. What's nice is that, even though this is a markedly upscale experience, the restaurant retains the warmth and down to Earth vibe of the wine country. As a party on the younger side, we were treated accordingly, with a little more of a relaxed feel without being condescending. We never felt pressure. We were allowed to have no worries and nothing out of our immediate grasp.

All of this comes at a bit over $100, which is about as low as you can go for an experience like this and expect the restaurant to stay in business. In any line of work, I can appreciate commitment to excellence and performance to match. A number rating on a place like Cyrus is essentially meaningless - I loved it and to me, it was an all-star performance. There's no need to focus on a rank or number or grade or star or comparison on it. Doing so would only distract from the enjoyment of it. At the end of your meal, you have a selection of as many house made treats as you want - chocolates, caramels, lollipops and a brownie packaged with a gold label that reads: "Tomorrow??" That's probably the right call since you're going to be really full but also because you'll maybe be able to savor the experience for another day.

Ad Hoc

10/4/2009
Yountville, CA: 6476 Washington St - (707) 944-2487
Rating (1-10): 9
Price: High End

"Luxury in Sweatpants"
Ad Hoc is an inviting, casual neighborhood spot serving ultra-satisfying four-course set meals using French Laundry ingredients at about $50 per person. If that doesn't sound awesome, I don't know what does. This is a restaurant everyone can love, many can afford (at least on vacation), and all would appreciate. Ad Hoc can serve as your casual meal or your fancy meal - regardless it might be some of the best food you will have in the Napa Valley.

Comfort is the name of the game here and it begins with the entry to the restaurant, which features a nice open space, free of tables or any other obstacles to crowd you as you wait. You might grab a drink at the bar or just wait near the front, but you won't feel cramped, rushed, or harried either way. The decor is clean and simple, and the hard wood colors give a nice warm feeling to the room. The service is also pleasant and friendly, clearly trained to keep things laid-back; this is high class food but they remove the pretense from the experience. Unfortunately, the server was a bit strong on the upsell, which always rubs me the wrong way, as if to make us feel bad about not spending more.

Ad Hoc offers a set menu that changes each night except certain nights, which are designated for a special dish, such as Monday night fried chicken. On our visit, the offering was a salad with ham, pasta with cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, and beef short ribs, a cheese course and a banana split for dessert. The salad was probably the best I have ever had - certainly the most memorable. Maybe it's just me but I find it difficult to describe the taste of leaves. But these were crisp and bursting with flavor that one might associate with green things. Thin sliced ham was the perfect salty complement to the acidic dressing, which lightly coated the lettuce. This was a rare case where the dressing supported the greens, and not the other way around.

The main course featured large cubes of beef short ribs along with flat pasta served in a saute pan with roasted vegetables and crispy, salty bread crumbs over top. Often, slow-cooked meats are cooked to a consistency that renders a knife unnecessary because the meat is pulverized to shreds by extensive exposure to low heat; it's good, no doubt, but you're losing a little bit of the character and flavor of the ingredient by trying to make it so tender. For example, pulled pork often tastes more like the sauce that it's mixed in rather than actual pork. At Ad Hoc, the beef short rib tastes very much like beef and maybe as a result, they don't even need sauce. The consistency is distinctly meaty and they don't in fact just melt in your mouth; though they were tender and gave way with ease to fork and knife, they retained a bit of toughness as a reminder that this, afterall, meat not pudding.

The accompanying pasta was covered thinly in oil but had no real sauce. Again, this allowed for the ingredients to be showcased and not masked: the tart sweetness of the tomatoes; the earthy cauliflower; the crunch of the breadcrumbs (which were a salty substitute for cheese, as one astute observer remarked); and of course the pasta along with the chunks of beef. The dish was extremely good, satisfying, healthy, unfussy, period.

Many in the area mentioned that Ad Hoc was their favorite restaurant. I'd be hard pressed to find a better value and I'd consider it a matter of course to include this in at least one Napa visit.