Travelzoo Special at John Ash

A few months ago, Travelzoo offered a 3-course dinner for 2 with wine pairing at John Ash & Co. for $75. It thought it was a pretty good deal and purchased a voucher.

 

The dining room is beautiful and overlooks the vineyards.

 

Amuse bouche--pears with goat cheese and rosemary. The pears with goat cheese were nice and smooth but the rough rosemary leaves detracted. 

Delicious corn muffin with a hint of jalapeno and whole grain bread.

 

Alma Tierra Farms organic baby lettuces with strawberries, Redwood Hill chevre and lemon poppy seed vinaigrette.

 

Dungeness crab fritters with Waldorf salad and jalapeno aioli. This was actually quite good and the Waldorf salad was delicious. The first course was served with Ferrari-Carano Bella Luce from Sonoma County 2011.

 

Wild Pacific king salmon with fennel pollen and puree, crispy fennel, pan-seared herbed polenta and vanilla creme fraiche. This was served with Ferrari-Carano Chardonnay from Sonoma County 2010. I'm not a Chardonnay fan but this was quite delicious. It was not buttery and didn't have an oak flavor.

 

Grilled Devil's Gulch Ranch pork chop with Sonoma succotash, whipped sweet potatoes, grilled Dry Creek peach and pork sherry reduction served with Ferrari-Carano Siena from sonoma County 2009. The pork chop was very tender and moist.

 

There was only 1 option for dessert--orange scented fromage blanc cheesecake with oatmeal cookie crust, orange sorbet and blackberry compote served with  Ferrari-Carano El Dorado Gold from Dry Creek Valley 2007. The orange sorbet was like frozen orange juice, as my sister-in-law described it. It was light and delicious. The tuile was buttery. The cheesecake was actually fairly light and had a nice orange flavor.

For $75 for 2, this was a decent meal. If we didn't have the vouchers, the dinner value was $169 for 2. It definitely was not a $169 meal. I still prefer Thursday night dinner at Flavors--much better tasting and for a lot less money.

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