Calistoga - Hydro Bar and Grill
Our recent romantic week in the Napa Valley yielded unlimited pleasure in terms of exquisite wine and cuisine. We tasted our way from Napa, up valley to St. Helena and Calistoga, eating at the finest restaurants and loving every minute of it. Others have written about these places...Brannen's...Greystone...but it was a very simple, inexpensive place that truly captured our hearts, both for the atmosphere and for the food.
Hydro Bar and Grill is a casual little place located on a corner of Calistoga's main street. They often have live music, primarily folk or jazz.:
The interior is bare bones, stripped down to the original brick with hip lighting fixtures, groupings of mirrors on the walls and carved wooden sculpture hanging from the ceiling:
The place is known as a microbrewery and had a nice selection of regional wines, ales and beer:
...but it was the FOOD that made us want to return again and again. What an unexpected delight!
I began our first meal there with their Cucumber Grape Gazpacho.
Light, cold and refreshing, it was an unusual-yet-perfect blend of grape leaves and fresh organic cukes with ample amounts of cayenne for heat and a touch of cream to add balance and extend that smooth creamy texture. It was topped with chopped candied almonds that added a little crunch when stirred into the body of the soup:
Soup was followed by a perfect salad...sweet, sour, crunchy, creamy, crisp:
It consisted of a mix of organic greens tossed with candied walnuts, shredded red and golden beets, a smattering of bleu cheese and a blueberry rice vinegar dressing. Mmmm!
I ordered the citrus ravioli special. While not impressed with the initial (ordinary looking) presentation, the burst of citrus goodness that came with each bite was anything but mundane. The sauce was orange-based and had lemon and orange zest racing through a river of hot tomato goodness. Each ravioli was stuffed with ricotta, coarse ground black peppercorns and more of the citrus zest. Wow! The sensations that filled my skull with each bite felt like I was on a roller coaster, dipping high with the tangy orange and lemon and falling into a fun-filled heat of pepper and herbs. The flavors in this dish were perfectly balanced, but ones that are impossible to fully describe!
For dessert, I went with the Berry Mint Crisp. I was disappointed by that little blob of whipped cream on top. It would have been fine without it.
The house-made vanilla bean ice cream was bold and rich. The flaky oat and coconut topping was delicious, with just a hint of sweetness and cinnamon. Inside was a bubbling hot pot of olalaberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries. One would think that the flavors would compete with one another, but surprisingly, they did not. This was a delicious dessert that left a fresh, minty aftertaste!
While this last picture doesn't exactly represent food, I still have to post it. Some odd atmospheric conditions caused the sky to turn these incredible colors as we were driving back to Napa from Calistoga and I went nuts with my camera, snapping in a rapid-fire succession to try to capture as many shots as I could. Turquoise, pink, purple, yellow came the rolling clouds. If I didn't know better, I would think this shot had been enhanced via Photoshop, but the sky changed from minute-to-minute in a way I had never before witnessed. It was miraculous, wonderful and represents the bliss I felt after the meal. If you haven't had a chance to tour this part of the country, please make a point of doing so. You won't forget it. You won't regret it.
