Sonoma 2013 - Lunch at Sunflower Caffe

My desktop where all my pictures are stored has broken and is being fixed right now. Working on a laptop in front of the TV has been very distracting. It is also an ergonomic nightmare. My desktop will be fine, the fix seems easy, but of course when it first broke, I immediately daydreamt about the possible new computers I could get. A Mac was in consideration for its sleek modern look - this had nothing to do with the functionality of the computer at all. Luckily I had uploaded some photos for posts I never wrote and Sunflower Caffe in Sonoma was one of these posts. There's something about wrapping up my Sonoma blog series with Morimoto Napa that made writing about a small caffe seem pointless but everything in Sonoma is delicious and it is all worth some attention.

Downtown Sonoma reminds me of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, the fictional setting of Gilmore Girls. It has one square park in the middle, surrounded by small shops and restaurants and that's it. Downtown does not even have one New York sized block's worth of businesses.

Sunflower Caffe is right next to El Dorado Kitchen and was almost the meal that replaced The Girl and the Fig when we were turned off by her long wait. It seemed small and quaint, and being a Caffe, we almost dismissed it for only serving beverages. However, there was a lovely outdoor seating area in the back that made dining there feel much like having Sunday high noon tea.

($6) Sonoma Sunrise smoothie - banana, peach, mango, orange juice, yogurt. Made with real fruit, said the menu. This is probably true. It tasted very fresh but the orange juice made the smoothie slightly on the sour side. Still a good drink nonethless.

I forget the name and price of this salad. It had arugula, pears, apple, and avocado with a balsamic dressing and pistachios. The salad was good. A salad with no meat is really nothing to write home about though.

Throughout our meals, Phil and I discuss which one of us chose the better dish. There is usually a winner, never a tie, sometimes a draw. In a relationship a draw is also called a "one of us is wrong and doesn't want to back down while the other is right but doesn't want to upset his wife so we agree to disagree." On this day, Phil's dish had so spectacularly upstaged mine that I voluntarily declared him winner. Behold, the smoked duck breast sandwich.

($14) Sunflower's signature sandwich, and quite rightly. Smoked duck breast served warm in a split bagguette, carmelized onions, melted gruyere, mayonnaise, Dijon and dressed organic greens. The menu says "No variations, Don't ask." I am going to agree. It was perfect as it was and you shouldn't mess with perfection. The smoked duck breast is so good and a bit salty but then you have melty cheese on a really great bagguette to balance it. This was my first smoked breast sandwich and I give it three thumbs up!

(forgot the price) A trip to wine country is not complete without a charcuterie and fromage platter and we were really craving one. The Girl and the Fig was our best shot at getting a decent one but we were so full from our other food at the time. Well, this plate of toasted bread and proscuitto wrapped cheese soaked in some marinated olive oil is not it. I guess you can say our trip to wine country is still not complete, 7 months later because I still have not had a decent charcuterie and fromage platter. Everything on this plate was good except the marinade on the cheese and that alone was enough to ruin the dish. The toast however, man this place makes good bread. We had bread in all 3 of our dishes.

On the count of 3, pretend you love your overpriced, underportioned, weird marinated cheese and meat bites! I pretty much still look the same 7 months later. The hair is about 1/3 shorter. I need a reinvention.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

Sunflower Caffe is good. You should defnitely go for lunch and enjoy the outdoor seating. The ambiance of places like this are much better for lunch. I would recommend everything I ate and anything similar to it except that cheese platter. Read the menu carefully, just because it says there is bread, a cheese, and a cured meat, does not mean it's a charcuterie and fromage platter and you shouldn't expect it. Otherwise, great service, decent prices, nice atmosphere.

Sunflower Caffe on Yelp

In other news, I was trying to redesign my blog to fix some problems like the ads not working and the sizing of certain posts. I decided just to remove the ads temporarily. I was also trying to install this widget as a fixed aspect of my blog and I couldn't do it. So here, enjoy my Instagram photos and remember to follow me for a photo a day.