Ever since the Napa Rose restaurant opened at the Grand Californian in 2001 I think most of us have heard how wonderful it is. Hard to believe, but up until a few weeks ago Lee and I had never tried it – it was one of those things we always planned to do. Since it’s only open for dinner, and we so rarely stay up there so that we have the opportunity to dress up a bit for dinner (you’ll want to wear something a little nicer than park attire!), we’d just never gotten around to doing it.

You’ll definitely want to make Priority Seating in advance to dine at Napa Rose – we had a 7:45 time, and were seated within a few minutes, but walk-ins were told they had nothing available for the rest of the evening.

The restaurant has a very open, but comfortable, feel to it, and it’s actually relatively quiet. The furnishings and decorations combine the classic Craftsman style with a very modern-looking bar and kitchen area

Our server was Steven, and he was really excellent. He was knowledgeable and helpful and not at all stuffy or snooty – always ready with wine recommendations that took into consideration what we told him about our likes and dislikes. He was quite generous with the wine, too…but I’m getting ahead of myself. 🙂

The Napa Rose menu changes several times a year, but the four-course Vintner’s Table tasting menu changes weekly, depending on what the freshest ingredients are for that particular week. We opted to order off of the regular menu, which you can find HERE if you’re playing along from home.

For our first course, we decided to share the California Endive and Forelli Pear Salad. As you can see below it was quite beautifully presented, and included the largest dried cranberries I’ve ever seen, as well as candied walnuts and blue cheese, with a cider vinaigrette. To “pear” with the salad and the appetizer plate we selected, Steven recommended the Forstmeister Geltz Zillikin 2004 Reisling. (A German wine, in case you couldn’t tell! 🙂 ) That was really excellent – just a little sweet and very refreshing. Steven decided there wasn’t enough left in the bottle for another glass and left the bottle for us to finish – I think he underestimated a bit because we each got another half glass out of it. 🙂

Steven also brought us a basket of bread – four different kinds! There was a ciabatta-style bread, a classic sourdough, an olive bread and a crispy flatbread. And Vermont butter to go with it, which really WAS different than normal butter. It was all delicious…I had to really restrain myself to keep from filling up on the bread. Sigh.

Our next appetizer was really interesting – The Sizzling Beach Rock. It was served in a Japanese-style Bento box. In the center was some white gravel, with a fist-sized black beach rock in the middle. A hot beach rock, as it turned out – one of the shrimp was sizzling on it when it was served. All of the food was already cooked, but Steven told us we could put the individual pieces on the rock if we wanted to brown it a little more. There were two garlic-seared shrimp served over a delicious black bean “soup”, two soy-glazed spare ribs served over udon noodles, and, our favorite, two lemon grass chicken skewers served over kimchee. (They called it kimchee, but I think the only relation it has to kimchee is that both are made of cabbage. This was more like a cole slaw with vinegar dressing.)

After all that we still hadn’t gotten to the entrees yet! I had the Cashew Crusted “Tai Snapper” with a large tempura-fried shrimp served over fried Himalayan red rice with pineapple and tangierine-coconut vinaigrette. Oh my…the fish was so moist, with a nice delicate flavor. It was two good-sized pieces also. Steven recommended the Laura Aschero Pigato 2005. And how could I turn down a wine named “Laura?” 🙂 It was fine, and paired nicely with the fish, but I enjoyed the riesling a lot more.

Lee ordered the Colorado Lamb Double Chop, which came with sweet potato raviolis. Underneath the lamb chop there were pieces of braised lamb shoulder and kale, in a Petit Syrah jus. The lamb was excellent, but I thought the sweet potato raviolis were even better – they would make a nice entree all by themselves! Steven had two wine recommendations, and eventually he and Lee decided on the Andrew Murray 2006 Syrah, and Lee enjoyed that. Towards the end of the dinner he also brought Lee about a half glass of the other wine and he was able to compare the two side-by-side.

Steven suggested a side for Lee, and recommended, of all things, the Brussels Sprouts. Lee said he didn’t like them, but Steven told him that the Napa Rose Chef doesn’t like them either, but has come up with this way of doing them which makes them really good. They are shredded like hashed browns and sauteed with garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese and chili flakes. They actually were pretty good, but they still tasted “green”. Lee enjoyed them, but it was a very large serving, and with all of the other food he couldn’t eat very much of them.

Unfortunately when it came time for dessert I was too full, which was very disappointing since there were two chocolate desserts I was interested in trying – the signature Scharffen Berger Chocolate Velvet Pate, and the Valrhona Chocolate Truffle Cake. Sigh. But Steven came to my rescue – he brought me a small Napa Rose box containing four different truffles that I could eat later. And I enjoyed them after I got home.

Lee managed to find room for the Warm California Strawberry-Coconut Crisp. He really enjoyed the strawberry-coconut flavor combination.

It was really an incredible dinner and a wonderful experience – we had a really good time. Dinner was a relaxed affair – we were there for over two hours. While it wasn’t something I’d want to do for every meal it would be a great way to celebrate some kind of occasion. We’ll definitely return!