Calistoga is foodie friendly

I love to cook and I love to eat well and try to eat healthy as well. All of these are easy to do in Calistoga.

After enjoying the mineral spring hot tub at our hotel, (the very relaxing and pleasant Calistoga Village Inn & Spa with 3 mineral pools), I took my wife out for a nice Valentine's dinner in Calistoga. We first drove up and down the length of the main street Lincoln Avenue to see what looked good. As we had no reservation booked, we decided to walk our way from the edge of town, and after not finding a table at the first two restaurants we stopped at, we found the charming Parisian style bistro All Seasons Bistro, where we had no trouble getting a nice table.

Their menu is full of wonderful fresh food, so we could have picked almost anything, but we decided to split these (my wife and I often split meals as we don't like to overeat):

Salad with Organic Mache, Roasted Beets, Shaved Marinated Fennel, Feta Cheese, Blood Orange Vinaigrette ($8) Everything was fresh and crisp and the beets and blood oranges were the perfect taste complements to the feta and mache.

a bowl of Rich Lobster Bisque with Drizzle of Truffle Oil ($8)
This was too die for, creamy and lobstery. Good with the french bread they served.

Port Glazed Duck Breast with Currant~Maitake Rice, Roasted Root Vegetables, Duck Demi-Glace ($21). We chose to have this medium rare, and it was cookbook perfect. I have cooked duck so I know how difficult this is . Randi did not like the fruit (quince?) that came with it, but I loved the perfurmy flavor it added (so I ate hers).

My wife had been sick so she opted not to have wine, but I guess when in Napa...
I first chose a Napa Riesling, but alas they were all out that day, so I went with a glass of Pinot Gris (nice!)

I suffer from hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), which seems to be brought on by my consuming sugar, so I tend to avoid desert, but we decided we had to try their Crispy meringues layered with fresh kiwi, lemon cream, raspberry sauce ($7). The meringues were light and crispy, the kiwi was sweet-tart and the lemon cream was pure heaven. All that with a nice cappuchino, a very nice finish. Unfortunately the sugar made me sleepy (a symptom of my syndrome). We around a bit to see if any live bands were playing but not much was happening this Saturday so we went back to enjoy the enormous full length Jacuzzi tub in our room.

The next day, we drove to a late breakfast (we had some trouble with the heater in our room which kept Randi from sleeping well, but we fixed the problem the next night). We stopped in a nice mexican place called Miguels, very authentic for some heuvos rancheros for her and a chilauiles. I had never had this but it was like scrambled eggs with tortilla chips cooked in it with salsa roja, Mexican cheese, sour cream and guacamole. To give it even more flavor and heft, it was accompanied by strips of marinated grilled steak and fried cubed potatoes. Yummy.
Randi and I would usually split breakfast as well, but I guess I was hungrier as we ate breakfast a bit later. So she had enough left over for breakfast the next day (V-day). I decided I had to get a few groceries on the way back (the very foodie oriented Cal Mart filled the bill nicely). I got some nice organic Napa Olive oil (very reasonable at $11 a liter) and slice pumpernickel bread and naturally some bottled Calistoga water, and a bunch of tart green grapes.

After poking around some of the cool (but pricey) clothing shops and the gallery which was located in 4 old railway cars, we went back to enjoy more soaking in the natural mineral bath at our spa. For dinner, we opted to walk into town, and went to the venerable Brannan's Grill, which was across the street from the All Seasons Bistro. The have a great bar (and we walked) so we enjoyed a lemon drop and a rastini (?). Loved the lemon drop! Together with a couple of Hog Island oysters on the half shell ($3 each) with Meyer lemon granita and micro cilantro, we were off to a good start. This place a nice dark wood atmosphere and very friendly, but sharp wait staff. We again split a spinach & beet salad which was accented with pistachios, goat's milk feta and lemon honey vinagrette. And we had the special, black cod with shitake mushrooms and black rice and roasted vegetables. Yummy. And topped it off with the fabulous molten chocolate cake (a can't miss if you love chocolate like we do!)