Ziplining in Costa Rica

Twice in the past couple of weeks we've gone up to Lands of Love -- oddly, an Israeli-run resort on the slopes of Arenal volcano.  Katy's gone ziplining twice (once with niece Olivia and once with Mike, Deb and Kyle Kunzer).  Paul only went once (he was a bit afraid the first time and took a pass).  Both days ended with truly excellent meals at the restaurant -- Israeli falafel, hummus, tahini, and pita.  Here are some photos to prove we really did it:

Convivial -- 3 Stars

We had the pleasure of dining last night at Convivial -- a relatively new (2 year old) restaurant in the Shaw neighborhood.  It was the second time we had gone and the first time for our friends Bob & Lisa.

The experience was good enough that it was worth reporting.  I start with the end -- Katy is lactose intolerant and none of the deserts on the menu were lactose-free.  So ... the chef made her a desert.   It was a vacheron (sp?) with berries and it was made from scratch just for her.  I liked my key lime pie better but the effort that went into creating a single desert for someone who needed it was so remarkable that even if the rest of the food had been "blah" I would have fallen in love.

And the rest of the food was NOT at all "blah."  We started with a nibble -- traditional latkes (potato pancakes) in small bite sized pieces, topped with vinegared celery root and cured lamb.  Tiny bites of perfection.  Small appetizer plates were next -- my burrata was sublime and the dijonaised leeks (that's them in the picture) that Katy had were just wonderful, but I think the winner was Bob's fish sticks (yes, fish sticks) made from snakehead fish.  Talk about turning a silks purse (snakehead are an invasive species) into a sow's ear.  Though I will speak highly as well of the roasted cauliflower that Lisa had -- light on the palate.

Main courses were just a fantastic.  Katy's trout literally melted in your mouth.  My lamb merguez was wonderfully fresh and spicy on a bed of hummus.  Lisa's guinea fowl was cooked to perfection but Bob "won" again with fried chicken (yes, fried chicken) prepared as coq a vin style.  To top it off, we had the Tablas Creek, "Patelin de Tablas" off the wine list to make a really wonderful meal complete.

We want very much to go back when the weather is nice -- the outdoor patio looks great for summer.  And the vibe of the place was just right -- young folks from the Shaw neighborhood, but the noise level was not too high.  We give it 3 stars.

A Sonoma Adventure

We've been to lots of places in California to drink wine.  We've done wineries in Santa Barbara, Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo, and Napa.  Somehow along the way we had just missed Sonoma -- and it was time to change all that.






The trip did not start off terribly well.  Indeed, it was a misery.  The 90 mile or so trip from SFO to Sonoma took us 3 1/2 hours.  Traffic across the Golden Gate and up 101 was insanely bad.  Adding to our unhappiness, when we arrived at our B&B (Auberge on the Vineyards) we were ... displeased.  Both of us thought the room smelled as though some animal had come in to piss inside.  Not a great end to a long day.  [To be fair, however, to the Auberge, it had great views and our breakfasts were very fine -- but that didn't quite make up for the accommodations -- we slept with the windows open for a reason.


Happily, the rest of the trip was much better.  The wine and the food were interesting and different.  Herewith a report.

Let's start with the wine.  To understand Sonoma you have to know that it is really a great deal larger and more diverse in climate than Napa.  We stayed in Cloverdale at the far north end, and the distance south to Santa Rosa at the bottom is more or less 45 miles.  Lots of micro climates around.  By way of example, Knights Valley, in the south, gets fog up from the Bay every morning -- the wines there are fuller and more fruity because of the water content.  Similarly, Alexander Valley in the north is a big wide valley with a flat floor -- again creating richer, wetter wines.  By contrast on the west side of 101 over the ridge is Dry Valley -- and as the name suggests it is much hotter and drier and the wines are hence more concentrated -- the fruits get sharper (think blackberry instead of cherry). 

The other big difference from Napa is that, at least in our perception, Sonoma is a lot less corporate.  Many more small vineyards with oddities of style.  Many fewer of the very large wine tasting rooms where the people are herded along like cattle.  Much more attention to detail in the wine making (at least that is our sense).  But also a LOT harder to wrap your hands around -- in two days we barely scratched the surface because the wine making is so diffuse and spread out physically and so varied stylistically.

We began our first day in Sky Pine Vineyards – which styles itself as the highest (in altitude!!) Bordeaux blending vineyard in the Alexander Valley.  The owners, Tim and Kandy, are a hoot.  Tim is a lawyer who has no filter – he will say just about anything that crosses his mind – including, for example, trash talking other vineyards in the area.  They served us a vertical of Cab Franc (2010, 11, 13 and 14) that really showed how variable the wines could be season to season based on weather, etc.  We found the 2013 particularly rich and well-rounded with a bit more depth than the other years.  All, however, were quite good and who could dislike a wine whose name is “BobDog” (after their dog … yes, named Bob).

Our next stop was a bit disappointing.  The J.K Rickards vineyard was nice enough and the tasting room was professional if a bit antiseptic.  The wines, however, were only so-so.  We did find two that were worth mentioning --- a 2014 Zinfandel that had nice fruit and notes of chocolate; and the 2014 Petite Syrah that was inky rich in color and taste – and had the distinction of being made with a  wild yeast.  Overall, nice to stop at but no miracles.

The surprise/winner of the day was a collective tasting room in Geyserville.  Geyserville is a small (two road) town off of 101.  Several dozen of the very small boutique wineries in the Alexander Valley have gotten together and started a place known as “Locals” (of course – what a perfect name) where they don’t charge a tasting fee and have an unusual variety of things to try.  If you can’t find something new here then you are far more sophisticated than we were. For us, the really odd discovery was the Sargentino grape – a rare Italian varietal (we were told) that was being cultivated by the Dernier-Hadal winery.  How do we know this?  Well, the person doing the pouring was Mr. Dernier – we had the pleasure of his hosted tasting of several of his varietals.  In addition to the Sargentino, his Petite Syrah was stellar – complex fruits with a certain sharpness that we found appealing.  And we also found a really fantastic Cabernet Sauvignon from Pendleton that we brought home with us.

One fun fact about Locals – they have a club.  They will send you two (or 6) randomly selected bottles from their dozen or so consortium members every quarter.  Our sons don’t know it yet, but their birthdays are coming early this year.

Sunday saw us go in a different direction – to the Dry Creek Valley.  Hoping to recreate the magic of the day before we stopped at a roadside collective tasting room known as “Family.”  Here we didn’t have vintner to chat with but we did have two servers and nobody else in the room for the entire time we were there.  Needless to say, they were happy to pour and keep on pouring and we spent a boozy 90 minutes with them. 

Happily, it wasn’t just about the alcohol – we found a couple of other small gems.  Again, none of these are available in DC, or frankly anywhere other than this one tasting club.  But they do ship .. .so … we ordered some.  Winners in this category – a 2015 Viognier from Philip Staley that had some wonderful fruit; and a 2014 Vino Tinto that mixed Grenache, Carinena, Mataro and Tempranillo), also from Staley; the 2014 Pinot Noir and the 2012 Merlot both from Mietz Cellars (HT: Steve V for the suggestion); and our favorite in the group, the meritage “Comet” from Dashe Cellars.  This last one had a particularly earthy tone to it that brought out much of the dry and dark side of the wine.

The other joy of the day was finding Thumbprint Cellars.  Once again, we lucked in and found the owner, Scott (that's him to the right), at home and he spent a long while pouring for us. Thumbprint has a tasting room in down town Healdsburg, but it has no grapes of its own.  Instead, Scott takes his grapes from other places, and just makes really really good wine.  His 2012 Petite Sirah uses grapes from Smith Ranch and came out of the bottle nearly black.  I tasted blueberry, cherry and a bit of dirt or dust.  We also loved the 2013 Carignane from Angeli Vineyards – berrys with a spice and floral riff that was wonderful.  Katy loved the 2014 Viognier and Paul was partial as well to the 2013 Cabernet Franc (which even had a whiff of sage to it, I think).  To all this add the story of the cellar and the name (an accident) and you get a great time with good wine and good company (and also live acoustic guitar music).

Our food experience was almost as good as the wine (if that is possible).  We began with a coffee shop – we took a long walk into Cloverdale each morning and found Plank – the artisanal coffee shop – waiting for us at the end.  Well brewed coffee with a barrista flair if that is what you want.

We had three very nice dinners while in town.  The first was at the Healdsburg SHED – essentially an organic food store with cooking gear and a kitchen.  It’s the type of place that a bouquet of fresh herbs and spices sits on the counter top and the kitchen staff picks from it to garnish as the plates get prepared.  The appetizers were great – Paul had an heirloom beet salad and Katy had roasted carrots with dates.  The mains were a little less perfect – Katy’s duck was just too dry.  But the wine list was pleasant and we had a nice glass.

Our second night was at Café Lucia also in Healdsburg.  Lucia is a Portuguese restaurant so, of course, we went in that direction.  There were several good, unusual Portuguese wines available in 3 oz pours (at least to us – we’d never heard of them) so we had fun trying out a bunch of new tastes with new vintners and grapes.  It was actually a welcome change from the heavier fruityier California wines we’d been drinking all day.  And Paul’s Linguisa sausage was …. Just perfect.

The star dinner, however, was at Willi’s Wine Bar (HT: Reg B).  We started with a flight of bubbly of which the Iron Horse Russian Cuvee was the best (crisp and fruity but with a “tang”).  We followed with tastes of the Malat Grunier Vetliner from Austria and the Black Kite Pinot Noir from California.  The Black Kite, in particular, stood up to the spice of the meal surprisingly well.  The two food highlights were a Curried Crab Taco and Lamb Tartare.  We had great seats outdoors and it was a great way to end the trip.

Monday on the way back to the working world was magical.  We left very early (6 AM) with Plank coffee in our hands.  And Mr. Waze detoured us through the wetlands at the north of the bay to Vallejo and then across the Napa River and down south on the outer loop 660.  With fog rolling in and wildlife flying it was quite saddening to leave Sonoma behind.  We expect to go back though.

Living the Pura Vida

This winter is our first full winter in our new home in Atenas, Costa Rica.  The locals have a phrase for life in this part of paradise -- Pura Vida.  And that's what we have.  It's quiet here -- which is just what we need to get away from the chaos of Washington (especially this year).  But we've had plenty of visitors as well -- our friends Nancy and Rita and Jan and Sandra. Paul's brother Jim, and nephew Dustin.  Ahead are most of the Kunzer clan .... all of whom we get to share this slice of heaven with.

Here are a few pictures -- from Poas volcano, from La Paz waterfall park, from Jaco beach, our new cats, Luke & Leia, and a panorama of our home.  Enjoy:

 

Dinner at The Retreat

 We went to dinner last night with our good friends Jeanne & Bob who are down here in Atenas from Ohio on their annual winter visit (in case you can't guess, that's them in the middle photo).   Together we went last night to a place called "The Retreat" which is a spa, hotel, yoga retreat and restaurant all rolled into one.  It's been under new management for the past 11 months and this is the first time we've gone -- why we waited so long is a mystery!

The view, obviously, was magnificent.  That's the sunset over the Pacific Ocean in the top, with the

 sun reflection in the pool creating a fascinating vista.  At the bottom is the same view about 20 minutes later after they had thrown 3 glowing, floating balls into the pool to create more wah.  We have GOT to get us some of those for the house!

Dinner lived up to the vista.  The food is all organic and all "healthy," though not aggressively so.  No dairy; no real fat; etc.  We started with some bocas (which is Costa Rican for tapas) that included a great lentil ceviche. After that, we went on to the soups -- Paul had

a tomato & rosemary (!) soup, while Katy had a pureed broccoli.   The main course was sea bass with a great coconut sauce accompanied by freshly cooked chard.  Desert was a very small chocolate mousse that just was perfect -- all of it accompanied by a nice Argentine malbec.

To eat well in Costa Rica we usually have to go down to San Jose or Escazu.  Atenas, where we live, is not renowned for "fine dining" but the Retreat is different and special -- a very good restaurant less than 15 minutes from the house.  We'll be back (and Katy plans to try the spa for a facial soon too!).

Music at the Philharmonic

Last Friday we had the grand opportunity to go to New York City and listen to the Philharmonic.  As many of you know, Paul's father was a subscriber to the Philharmonic beginning in the 1950s.  When he got old, he passed the tickets on to Paul, and we get to go to a couple of concerts a year.  [The rest we sell at cost to friends -- if any of you are interested, let us know.]

This year we had the opportunity to go and hear one of the most magnificent concerts we've ever had a chance to listen to -- Tchaikovsky and Dvorak. 

The concert started with Lisa Batiashvili, playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto.  This is the concerto that is so hard that when Tchaikovsky created it the first violinist he asked to play it, Auer, said "no way ... that's impossible."  Well ... it isn't impossible but it is damn difficult.  We'd never heard it before -- either live or on a record -- and the loss was ours.  For 35 minutes Batiashvili played her heart out, with power, grace and beauty.  She eared the standing ovation and the 4 curtain calls she got, for sure.

After intermission, the orchestra played Dvorak's New World Symphony.  That we'd heard before, of course, but never like this -- live in New York by the orchestra that premiered the piece more than 100 years ago.  The power of the horns; the vibrancy of the timpani -- this was just about as pure a joy as you could imagine.  It seemed less "complex" than the violin concerto, but in some ways our familiarity made it purer and more fun.

Add to all this a pleasant train ride up and back and lunch with Paul's brother, Jim, on a beautiful sunny Fall day and it is hard to imagine that anything could be more perfect.  Sometimes we wonder if keeping the tickets is worth it.  On day's like last Friday we don't wonder ... but we marvel at our good fortune instead.

Rose's Luxury

In 2015 a new restaurant opened on Capitol Hill -- Rose's Luxury.  Bon Appetit said it was the best new restaurant in the entire country. They don't take reservations, so the only way to get in is to stand in line and wait.  When they open the doors at 5 PM you can either sit right down, or ask to be put in the second seating and texted when the seats open up.

Katy and I went to Rose's once before on a day that Katy just happened to be wandering by.  Yesterday we went for the second time.  We figured that on a hot day in August the line would be shorter and we could get in.  We were right and it was worth the trip.

Like we did the first time, we chose to sit at the bar looking right into the kitchen.  Half of the fun of the day is just watching the team work.  There were more than 8 people squeezed into the kitchen working like clockwork.  Almost nothing in the way of haste or disarray.  That's Wendy, on of the lead chefs, in the center making one of our dishes.

Meanwhile, the food was just fantastic.  We've had one friend who didn't like it when they went, but everyone else we know has raved -- and so do we.  We started with a small plate of Pork Sausage, Habanero, Peanuts and Lychee that was just an awesome bang of flavor.  The Catfish came next with a great green tomato relish and a saffron aoli that was smooth to the taste.  The Bucatini in a sungold tomato sauce tasted fresh and smooth in a way that red sauce does not.  And the Brisket at the end -- well, it was as tender as we've ever eaten.  Paul loved it; Katy (who doesn't like brisket at all) was even moderately appreciative.  The homemade slaw and horseradish that it came with were as fresh as you could imagine.  And we finished off with a fresh coconut milk ice cream.

The most amazing thing though, was the price.  We bought a Vouvray Chenin Blanc bottle for $60.  Total price for the meal with tax was just $159.50.  Put another way, three small courses and a large family style meat plate, along with desert cost less than $100 -- and we got the view as well.

We'll be back -- and it is worth the trip if you can find the time.