UBUNTU, NAPA

Ok, I know you hear it from me all the time, but I've been really busy and it's been hard to keep up with the blog posts. I make up for this by doing a whole bunch on posts at once, so just get used to it- my busy schedule isn't going to be changing any time soon.

So about a month ago, my parents came up to Napa with their friends for the weekend. They initially were just planning on coming down to have dinner with us at some point, but then my dad decided he wanted to go golfing- and he needed my car. So Tom and I had to go up to Napa, give my dad my car and then spend the rest of the day driving my mom and her friends around. So to make the trip worth it, I made sure that I made reservations at a restaurant that I've wanted to eat out for some time, Ubuntu.

You may have heard of Ubuntu, because it's gotten amazing reviews since it opened at last year. It's the restaurant with yoga studio on top, well known for it's take on vegetarian cuisine. In fact, Frank Bruni called it the second best new restaurant in the U.S. this year. I was able to get us an early reservation, right when the place opened, so when we first arrived, the place was basically empty. Here's a shot of the interior.

Being a yoga studio, it had a zen-like feel, but I liked the high ceilings, stone walls and big windows. The restaurant is big into sharing, so I did the ordering for the table, starting with a number of small starters, continuing with entrees and then finishing with some desserts.

For the small starters, we got a number of dishes:

Lavender dusted marcona almonds (though I didn't really taste the lavender)

Polenta fries (I liked the red pepper coulis it was served with)

And my favorite of the three starters, fresh veggies pickled in white wine. I like the sweet/sour/crunchiness of this dish.

Next up, I ordered two salads:

This is a beet salad with red quinoa. I liked the colorful presentation a lot. Plus, I'd never had red quinoa before- it was quite tasty and had a much better texture than the quinoa I make at home. It was much springier and I hope to find it and try to cook it myself at home. I also like the texture of the avocados along with the beets.
We also ordered a second salad, which I'm surprised that I didn't photograph because my mom's friend liked it so much that we ended up ordering two of them. It was a green salad made with a bunch of different baby greens and it also had strawberries it in. It was pretty tasty, since the greens that they chose were so flaorful and I did like it quite a bit.

And then I ordered three larger plates, which really weren't all that big, but along with everything else, it ended up being just enough. The first dish was a farro dish with peas. Again, it's a really lovely presentation, and I thought it was pretty good.
My favorite dish of all, though, was this mushroom pizza with an egg on top. You might think the egg sounds kinda crazy, but it tasted great when you cut the runny yolk and it gets all over the pizza. Plus, the mushrooms were super fresh and just very nicely done.
Lastly, we ordered their signature cauliflower dish, which is basically a mini cast iron pot filled with cauliflower in many different ways- making all different tastes and textures. Frank Bruni raved about this dish, but it wasn't my favorite thing. I guess having all those textures and flavors in one pot caused them all to just get lumped together. So even though it tasted good, I didn't find it as amazing as people have said it is.
We finished our meals with two shared desserts (no photos of that). Overall, I did like Ubuntu, but I won't be running back there any time soon. I found the food quite yummy, but was it amazing enough for a second visit? Not for me. I do like vegetarian stuff, but I guess I like more simple things, and maybe Ubuntu was just too innovative for me.