Napa Trip 2015 - Ad Hoc - Yountville

Thomas Keller is one of America's greatest chefs at the time. He's best known for The French Laundry in Yountville. For those not willing spend the money or can't get in, we can taste a bit of Keller's work at Ad Hoc or Addendum also in Yountville.

Ad Hoc is extremely crowded and popular or at least it was on a Saturday night and the reservation rules are strict. Your entire party must be present and there is only a 15 minute grace period for being tardy before the reservation is dropped. The meal is served family style and the menu is not announced until the day of. For $52 per person, we were served the following dishes.

Caesar salad with kale, tomatoes, fried capers, anchovies, and fried croutons. This salad sounds so simple yet it was so delicious and difficult to replicate exactly. The produce is fresh. The anchovy filets were of good quality. The fried capers were crunchy and salty. I think the dressing must be housemade. But those croutons though, so buttery and crunchy. There's also plenty to share amongst 10 people. I tried to make this at home and it wasn't the same even though I had all the ingredients right but the quality of my ingredients was subpar to Ad Hoc's.

Every element in the steak with potatoes, corn, and spinach dish was cooked perfectly. Perfect level of doneness for the meat. Perfect crunch on the potatoes. Perfect wilt on the spinach. It was just a tad plain for me. It's a large quantity though but there's only so much steak and potatoes I can eat at one time.

This crab mac and cheese was perfection. It cost an extra $21 to the table. Big macaroni pieces, melty cheeses, bread crumbs and crab pieces. 

I was really disappointed by this course of cheese, toast, and chopped olives because it was only just that. I don't really know what the point is here of slowing the pace of the meal at the end right before dessert. I would have preferred that we have the option to break apart the pre-fixe menu and eliminate this cheese dish for a lower total cost. I really didn't care for this, especially after already eating the main course. It wasn't even a very impressive type of cheese.

Cold chocolate cupcakes for the dessert. They were good but I wasn't wowed.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

In the end, all I remember is the salad and the crab mac and cheese which we had to pay extra for. $52 per person for this quantity of food is good but nothing else about Ad Hoc is worth it. If you went all the way to Napa, went through the trouble of making a reservation somewhere for dinner, anticipating a nice fancy meal, do all of that work for another place that will be more worth it. Everything was edible, everything was good, but what a big over-hype. Maybe it's over-hyped because many people eat here thinking it's their way in to a taste of French Laundry because it's by the same chef. 

Morimoto Napa + Bouchon Bakery - Napa and Yountville

Do you know which is my favorite cooking show? Not Top Chef and nothing with Gordon Ramsay -- it's Iron Chef America. And I enjoy the episodes with Chef Morimoto the most. His food has been on my "To Eat List" for ages. Finally the man I married, after almost 7 years of this relationship, agreed to take me to Morimoto Napa! It's about time...

($16) Morimoto bone marrow - roasted bone marrow with teriyaki sauce. There were teriyaki flavored piece of onion on top of the marrow which was then breaded and roasted, I think.

This was quite delicious but so fatty and the bones were much larger than expected. About 7" long and 2.5" wide. This was my first time having roasted bone marrow and I was really expecting the red bloody kind that you spread on pieces of crostini. This was the clear and fatty kind? We were told the kitchen sent us two orders by mistake, no wonder there was a whole lot of bone marrow to go around. Teriyaki onions and bread crumbs...mm yumbs.

($28) Toro tartare - That's one pricey appetizer! This is really the coolest tartare I've ever had. Well worth the experience. Raw toro is chopped and molded into the clear rectangular form,and served on ice. Using tiny metal spatulas, we would scrape some toro, and dip it in any or a combo of any of the sauces in the wooden block. From left to right:

1) nori - the best sauce. Tastes like seasoned seaweed

2) fresh wasabi

3) sour cream - I didn't really care for this.

4) chives

5) avocado - 3 to 5 are like a salad

6) rice crispy balls

The best combination is 1 with 6

($32) Morimoto style chirashi - 10 to 12 different fish and vegetables over rice. Super good. Fresh fish and lots of it. The rice wasn't even needed. It's like someone handing you a magical bowl of sashimi cubes. Phil ordered this, he's a simple man.

($28) Sea urchin carbonara lunch set - If I'm going to dine at one of my culinary idols' restaurants, I'm going to order something mind-blowingly complex and expect to be mind-blown. I am not a simple woman, BUT bonus points for me ordering a cheaper dish than Phil. Ah, she is not a gold digger afterall...=)

I was really happy with my lunch set. 

Top right: The sea urchin carbonara was creamy and savory. It's made with some type of udon noodles with bits of uni in the sauce and of course look at that big fat mother piece of uni on top. mm I love uni. Bottom right: Bonito and pomegranate seeds on a salad with pink daikon?!?! Yes, please! 

Top left: Nigiri and tuna rolls, can't go wrong.

Bottom left: I gave most of my tempura to Phil. I'm not a huge fan of tempura in general. In exchange I mooched off a bunch of his sashimi pieces. Happy wife, happy life.

($1) gummy candy - The front of the restaurant had a candy section where we bought this gummy candy with a toasted grain of rice inside. I really thought this was an insect larvae and we bought it for this reason. It was disappointing to be told it's just a grain of rice. Ugh just a ginger ale-like gummy candy.

Left: angel wings

Right: incomplete mustache

Well if non-insect larvae gummy candy and gingerbread mustaches weren't enough for dessert, we hopped on over to the famous Bouchon Bakery to buy 9 macarons the size of Phil's palm ($3.75/each). Don't worry, we didn't eat all these, they were for family.

...and I do consider myself to be part of my family. Told you they were big. Too sweet for me though. Pistachio and raspberry are the best but I want them to be reduced to one fifth the size and price -- sounds fair.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
Morimoto Napa:
Service and food were great. I actually thought the prices were pretty fair given Morimoto's fame. Lunch put us at around $104 total pre-tax and tip and I was stuffed. But again, this is more than twice the usual budget for lunch so you judge for yourself if this is up your alley. I would recommend Morimoto Napa. I should write a suggestion to him to make candies with insect larvae inside. I was extremely let down by the lack of its existence, as you can tell.

Bouchon Bakery: Macaron review only

I would say only get these if you're already nearby and if you really love macarons. I was not nearby and I do not love macarons, so it was just a so-so experience.

Morimoto Napa on Yelp
Bounchon Bakery on Yelp