37 Things: Road Trip

Now when I put down "Road Trip" on my list of 37 Things I Want to do Before I Turn 38, I didn't have anywhere specific in mind. As we just got back in February from a trip to the Middle East, I knew we weren't going to go on any other fancy trip any time soon.

But my good friend lives in Walla Walla and when we heard one of our favorite wineries was hosting a wine dinner at the Fat Duck Inn, very spontaneously, we decided to go visit her last weekend. It was a 5 hour drive getting out there on Friday. Between one of my contacts popping out of my eye while I was driving and then a giant one lane backup over the pass, we were more than a little tired and hungry and cranky once we rolled into town.

But Walla Walla is not a town to stay hungry in for long. (Or thirsty for that matter.) The above photo and the two below were taken at Brasserie Four, a delightful little French restaurant on Main Street that serves up generous, elegant portions and has some of the most reasonably priced wine that I have ever seen in a restaurant.
Their service can be a tad slow, but what else do we have to do on a lazy, sunny Saturday? Hanging out and drinking Rose and chatting is not such a bad thing. My Croque Madame was fantastic!
After lunch we hopped into a few wineries downtown for tasting and then to an antique mall for me to look for some cool tins to cut up. To finish the afternoon, we went to Longshadows and the photo below is just a glimpse; I am going to post a longer bit about this place later.

We ended the evening at the Fat Duck with the Otis Kenyon dinner where we drank way too much delicious wine and ate some really fantastic food.

This is a pear eclair with prosciutto.

And here is wild Alaska Salmon with pea shoots and sorrel and radishes.
Everyone had a great time.

The cheese plate was my favorite. That is a "shot" of cheese fondue with a pretzel. Also included was a mini croque monsieur, a stuffed date, candied pecans and in front is an "apple gastrique"--a fancy name for an apple infused gelatin. That apple gastrique was actually my very favorite item of the night. If you took a tiny bite of it with a pecan, it would just melt on your tongue and was refreshing and flavorful.

Our hoard of wine to take home with us. Don't worry, this wasn't all for us. We bought a lot for some friends of ours too!

I was very tired when we came home the next day and spent most of the afternoon lying on the couch and reading the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy. More on Walla Walla tomorrow!