Bouchon

For all my foodie friends, rest assured that dinner at Bouchon lived up to its hype. The word bouchon refers to a style of restaurant in Lyons, France that heavily emphasizes meats and the fattiest way to prepare them, like the duck breast speacial steeped in duck jus with a sauce made from rendered duck fat. But fear not, I managed to squeak by with a cast-iron pot of mussels in saffron-infused broth and Bouchon’s signature steak frites. Listen, I’m not a French fry freak; my vices tend to be less starchy and more bubbly, but those spuds were on fire. So, so good.

The wine consumption at dinner was surprisingly light, although we did manage to choke down the two bottles of Cava procured after tumbling out of the limo at the wine shop toward the end of the wine tours yesterday.

After an idyllic slumber on a super fluffy bed in the 40-degree night, it’s off to breakfast soon to lay down another base for the Saturday wine tours. Our livers will be getting quite a soaking as we take in 4 more of Napa’s finest, including Quixote and Stag’s Leap, and hopefully Peju as well.

I’ll let ya know how it turns out, and will report unbiasedly about who can hang and who needs a nap in the limo before it’s all said and done. Based on yesterday’s performance, I’d put my money on Jill & Keith as the frontrunners for hanging tough and draining every last drop, but I’ll be nipping at their heels. My stomach is empty, my system is cleansed with espresso & Evian, and I’m ready to taste. As long as Jill doesn’t hurt herself trying to moonwalk to “Billie Jean” that is. One of the most comedic moments of yesterday’s outstanding day was her “moonwalking” and her beloved telling her she wasn’t moonwalking but just walking backwards. Maybe you had to have been there, but it was uproariously funny, and we were all laughing about it well into the night. Had nothing to do with the wine, either.