We had been working our tails off since mid December and throughout the holidays, and it was time for us to take a little breather. This weekend, we headed up to Napa with Margie and Jim for a little wine tasting, fine dining, and an adventure in the African safari (next entry).
The weather threatened to rain all day Saturday, but surprisingly the rain never came. We got a chance to go around Napa without having to dig out the rain gear.
For dinner, we made reservations at “FARM”, located at the luxurious Carneros Inn. (On a side note, given the potential bad weather, we thought there may had been cancellations at The French Laundry – no such luck.) Nevertheless, the dining experience at FARM was wonderful. The ambiance of the restaurant was modern, colorful, and stylish. The food was fantastic – but I’ll stop there. Peggy and her friends are starting another blog to chat about all of our dining experiences/reviews and all the cooking parties they plan to organize to try out recipes from various (famous) cookbooks. So, I’ll leave the food review to them and crosslink later.
That evening, we stayed at Railway Inn in Yountville. These were converted from the original railway cars and the interior was cozy. The only drawback was the noise from the AC/heater unit – woke us up a few times throughout the night. 
The next morning, we grabbed breakfast and coffee at Bouchon Bakery across the street from the Railway Inn, but before I had a chance to take a picture, a bite was already missing from the fresh, warm croissant. It was that tempting! Afterwards, we wandered our way over to The French Laundry. While it was only 9:00AM, we could already see a lot of people working feverishly in the kitchen (through the back windows). Across the street from the restaurant was a garden of vegetation – we saw chefs from The French Laundry coming out to the field to fetch the freshest ingredients. One of these days, we’ll make it there…
by jay
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