HITS AND a big miss ON THE NORTH COAST

Went up to Mendocino for a little end of the year quiet. Me and the D have a secret spot that I could tell you about if you ask nice...outdoor hot tub, chipmunks and deer outside the window, fireplace and lots of cozy nooks. A few things about the food up there...bad news first. The $125, seven course, New Year's Eve dinner at the Heritage House off Highway 1, was one of the biggest letdowns in 2006.

"Everything from soup to nuts" was wrong D said, and that's putting it nicely. We thought we were on Punk'd or something, only we're not celebrities, so it just turned out to be some good old hilarious reality! There was grit in the scallops, cold oxtail ravioli, disastrous pepper ice cream, and so on and so forth.
Did I mention it took over THREE HOURS? You do the math. I am not lying when I tell you that our waiter ended our evening by saying "thank you two for sticking through it." Whew.
Onwards and upwards in 2007!

The GOOD news:
Breakfast at the MacCallum House, an historic landmark built in 1882 as a wedding gift to one lucky bride-to-be. Dad, are you reading this? Buffalo hash with sage hollandaise, wild chanterelle omelet with Vella jack cheese (from Sonoma), local huckleberries...

Then we rolled up to a guy selling barbecue in the parking lot of the Navarro General Store off Highway 128. Potentially sketchy yes, but the baby back ribs turned out to be a fine meal.

Bakery props go to the Garden Bakery on Albion Street in Mendo, where we scored the house zucchini bread wrapped in saran wrap like mom would do, an expertly sticky cinnamon roll, and a cheese and blackberry danish. The kind of stuff you want to find in a sleepy coastal town when your goals are reading, snacking, drinking tea and napping. Party time.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!