a nice weekend, where both the win and the fail was epic

for a couple of weeks now i've wanted to spend a weekend in calistoga, with the express purpose of having a mud bath. for whatever reason it didn't happen 2 weekends ago. it happened this past weekend.

golden haven is the place to go for a couples mud bath, which is what i wanted. sadly, by the time i called to make the hotel res (friday afternoon, ahem) their hotel was booked. no problem, we stayed at doc wilkinson's down the road. that turned out to be a better choice (for location, at least).

we found out that doc wilkinson's AC unit is pretty lame, and we were hot all night, but the upside is that we were smack in the midst of calistoga's downtown.

now, usually when i'm in the 707, we have wine, and lots of it. but this time around we were visiting for the mud bath, and the mud bath was all i had planned. so we winged it. we walked around pleasant downtown st. helena, we checked in to our hotel, we walked in the meditation stones in the middle of the dirt lot (whilst locals stared on with disapproval from the laudromat), we enjoyed a very nice cup of tea (well, hops had some steamed milk, but when i enjoy something, i'm in a good mood, which i presume she enjoys, thus we enjoyed the tea) at the local coffee roaster. we made a reservation for dinner at jole, and decided that the staff at the adjoining hotel is so nice, we maybe ought to stay there next time, even though it looks a hell of a lot more expensive than the "hasn't changed since 1954 and that's the whole point" dr. wilkinson's.

back at the hotel we soaked in the 3 pools of different temperatures. i'm not sure if it was mineral water but it was relaxing. i learned that my cowboy hat floats when i'm trying to dunk myself, and sinks afterwards. hops claimed the water would ruin the straw, but it seems okay now. well, except that it's too tight. that may have been the water, or maybe i need a closer haircut.

dinner at jole was better than the last time. last time it was "good, maybe not great". this time it was "great, maybe not excellent". they worked around hops eating impediment, though in doing they decided to bring her all white wines, which she did not favor. i explained that over the last 2 years i have trained her to appreciate fine red wine, since i pick the wines we drink based on how well they will go with steak, with no regard for whatever tofu or salad or green bean she's having on any particular night. thus, she gets a lot of wine that pairs great with steak, and poorly with tuna, tofu, tomato, or beans.

anyhow, she had some bean stuff that went well with white wine. i kept my distance (except when she made me try a cucumber, and it spoiled my palate). the outstanding star of the entire meal was the chicken fried quail with greens and waffle. it was a smaller portion because i'd gotten a tasting menu. i've finally had chicken and waffles, yes, twice in fact: once as a fish waffle, and once at a hoity-toity restaurant in napa county. ha!

also exceptional was the calistoga zinfandel that they paired with my foie gras.

by the time dessert rolled around i was wishing i'd not gotten dessert. i am deeply ashamed to say that i left port in my dessert glass. the food was great, the staff was great, and the pairings (as long as you're not vegetarian) were great. we walked around calistoga, including the creepy part of town, and went back to the hotel with joie de vivre in our hearts.

i feel it's worth mentioning: if you're ever in calistoga, avoid the flat iron grill. we abide by this rule evermore.

the next morning we went to cafe saraforinia, on account of it looked good. well, looks can be deceiving. i got the simple breakfast of eggs, bacon, and pancakes, with coffee. the coffee was the worst i've ever had, farmer bro's (which is bad to begin with) that had undergone some sort of unspeakable torture to become a vile thing that made me glad i had decided to do one of my "quit coffee for a while" stunts. this was to be my last weening cup, and it helped tremendously that it was so awful. it helped not a bit that it cost $2.25 a cup. the bacon was lackluster at best, the pancakes lacked structural integrity, and the eggs were okay. the atmosphere reminded me of louisa's place in SLO, only without the decent coffee, good food, cool mornings, and cute waitresses.

after breakfast we walked across the street to the roaster and hops obtained a nice cup of coffee for about half the cost of the crap we'd just had.

we arrived at golden haven for the first mudbath of the day in our room. that is to say, the tub we were using had not seen a bare ass that day before we got into it. this is good, i guess, but unfortunately the water in the shower was flaky, and couldn't decide whether to be hot or cold. in our past visits to golden haven, we didn't have this problem, but we visited in the afternoon, so perhaps this is significant. anyhow, we left golden haven exceptionally relaxed, which was the entire point.

for reasons that seem dumb in retrospect, instead of heading south to have lunch at the excellent st. helena "cook", we headed north, toward geyserville, to encounter The Great Unknown, neither of us having been that way before. After a while we ended up stuck in construction traffic (on a sunday, argh). the lunching hour was bearing down upon us with quickness, and in desperation, i said, "hey i've heard of healdsburg, let's go there". so we did. the reason i'd heard of it was that some brewery i like is headquartered there, though i could not recall which one.

upon arrival, we found out: bear republic. they had a brewpub there and i decided instead of going there, since we had such a great meal the previous night at jole, why not go to Dry Creek Kitchen and have a similar, wine-centric, fancy-food meal?

well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

the staff were earnest but inexperienced and awkwardly goofy. this i can easily countenance, since it's basically like looking in a mirror.

they had this ridiculous conceit of the bread, however, which was irritating at first and became maddening later, as our meal was delayed past all reasonable delays. instead of putting bread on the table, tehy had it on a plate which a waiter would periodically bring around to teh tables. "our bread today is sourdough, whole wheat, and italian ciabatta", the waiter would say, with the breathless, exalted nuance of someone who hadn't ever been to jack in the box and had a sandwich made with those breads.

now, that would have been mildly irritating only, except, as i mentioned, our food was extraordinarily delayed, and the waiter came with bread to us exactly once and no more. so we had no bread to keep us occupied whilst waiting for our overhyped food.

the food was indeed overhyped. whereas the chicken-fried quail at jole was exceptionally good, with an incredible sauce, the "HOUSE MADE BEEF MORTADELLA 'REUBEN'" was lackluster and overly bready. not bad, per se, just not on par with the creative and delicious food i was expecting.

that, even, could be forgiven. what cannot be forgiven is that they did not bring me the wine i ordered. not only that, they put someone else's glass on our table, then, quickly realizing their mistake, removed it with an "oh sorry".

finally, the final insult: when they brought me my change of 12 bucks, they gave me a 10 and two ones. a nice 20% tip would have been around 7 or 8 bucks (it would have been more had i been charged for wine, i suppose), but apparently they believed they deserved either a $1, $2, $10, or $12 tip. normally my rule is to reward such poor change-making with a low tip. in this case, that'd be 2 bucks. but i had more change in my wallet, so they lucked out.

perhaps waiters think i'm a jerk. in general, i am much more likely to overtip than undertip, i think. but these guys seemingly went out of their way to piss us off. perhaps if we'd not had such an excellent meal the night before, we'd have felt differently.

on the way out of healdsburg we stopped at the very enticingly named hungarian trinket shop. well, it turned out to be little more than a paprika vendor, selling brands that i can get in my local grocery. bummer. i'm sure the shopkeep is a wonderful person, but we found nothing of interest there.

in short, calistoga rules, healdsburg drools.