Krik's Picks

I first started writing about the restaurants we visited in northern California several months ago, after returning from the second of our two trips. I wrote that my wife’s favorite meal was at La Mar on the Embarcadero. My favorite was at a reliable standby, actually not too far from the Embarcadero. We’ve dined at Kokkari Estiatorio on previous visits to San Francisco. (Click here to read my first review.) When we travel to The City, it’s always a dilemma. Do we revisit a fantastic restaurant like Kokkari? Or do we sample some of the other fabulous restaurants? The best decision is to do a little of both. And since it had been quite a while since our last visit to Kokkari, we didn’t have to think about it long to decide it was time for a return. There are so many delicious choices on Kokkari’s menu that it’s hard for two people to narrow it down to just a few items. So this time,we took a slightly different approach. We started out with a couple of appetizers (mezethes). One...

Ok, so let’s rewind now to October. Linda and I spent a weekend in the Sonoma Valley wine country. We stayed at the Inn at Occidental , a very comfortable and accommodating bed and breakfast in the tiny village of Occidental. When we made our reservation, we asked to proprietors for a recommendation for dinner, and they suggested Bistro des Copains . They made a reservation for us. So on our first night in town, we strolled the 2 blocks from the Inn to the Bistro. What a delight it was. The ambiance is very casual and relaxed. The Bistro has a great menu. Lots of options for either a light meal (salads, soups, pizza), entrees, or a prix fixe dinner. We skipped the starter and just had entrees. My wife's steak fritte was delicious; the frittes were amazing. I had duck, and it was fabulous. One of the most memorable things about the Bistro – it’s a great way to enjoy local wine. If you’ve spent a day visiting wineries in the area, they offer a special price on corkage fee for S...

Oh dear. It’s been a whole month since my last post. Sorry, but a lot’s happened since then. I still haven’t finished blogging about some of the restaurants my wife and I visited in October and November in northern California. I will still finish those posts. (Fortunately, I have fairly good notes so can write reliable reviews.) I really intended to do a lot of that during New Years weekend. But work consumed much of the time. You may recall that Congress struggled all weekend to try to prevent the fiscal cliff from disrupting the economy. There were some very significant ag provisions that were under consideration. So while I wasn’t in the office, I was connected the whole weekend in an effort (ultimately a vain effort) to get a new farm bill included in the fiscal cliff package. So, not only did I fail to get my blog updated before the end of the year, I also failed to achieve the legislative outcome that I wanted. Sigh. The next couple of posts after this will cover the Califo...