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The Vineyard Restaurant NewsletterJune 2010 |
What’s New at the Vineyard
FIG FEAST RETURNS TO THE VINEYARDOn Saturday August 7, 2010 the California Fig Advisory Board will host its annual Fig Feast here at The Vineyard Restaurant. The original Fig Dinner was held here in 2001 as part of a promotion with the Cal Fig Board and Ferrari Carano winery. We did one here in 2002 as well. We are excited to have it here again. The menu and ticket info will be available at www.californiafigs.com, or by calling their office at 559-243-8600. We are not selling tickets for the dinner, so please call or visit them. By the way, we expect this dinner to sell out the entire restaurant that night, so we will not be open to walk-in business on August the 7th. NEW WINES And of course our own Parking Lot Red just gets better. Come in and enjoy any of these great local wines. NEW MENU ITEMSNone yet. We will be putting summer items on the menu, when summer gets here. This cool weather has been beautiful, but it has slowed down the figs and other fruits by a couple of weeks. So, look for some new items such as Figs wrapped with Pancetta, and Fettuccine with Pesto and our Summer Vegetable Sandwich in a couple of weeks. OTHER RESTAURANTSPeople often ask me where else I eat. We love to eat out as well as cook at home, but some of our favorite restaurants in Fresno are Trellio (www.trellio.com) for special dinners and a great wine list. We usually eat some variety of Asian food. For sushi we go to Edoya or Sano Sushi on Blackstone and El Paso. If you like Vietnamese food, and I do, I think that May’s Café on Fresno St and Clinton is great. My other favorite Asian restaurant in Fresno is Mangosteen, in the shopping center on the southwest corner of Fresno Street and Shaw Avenue. Mangosteen does not have a beer and wine license, but they are happy to let you bring your own. We enjoy going to the Madera Valley Inn coffee shop for their excellent breakfast. WE WILL BE CLOSED ON MEMORIAL DAYWe will also be closed July 3, 4 and 5 as we are every year. This year will be special because on July 3rd, we will all be attending the wedding of our bartender Joel, who will be marrying Mo Robinson. Mo works here too once and a while. ROAD WORK Someday this summer, the road work on the Highway 99 overpass will finally be finished. The overpass will be widened to 4 lanes, and getting to the restaurant from Fresno and south 99 should be much easier. They have been working on it for almost a year now, and we are anxious for completion.
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There are more and more new and interesting wines from our local wineries. J Wulf Cellars Viognier is maybe the best white wine I have tasted from this area. Steve Schaffer’s Moody Press newest releases of Zinfandel and Merlot are also very good. We have a new wine from Fresno County called Cinco Rojos. It is a delicious blend of 5 red varietals. One of the most interesting wines is a Nebbiolo, grown by Jim Erickson and made by his brother-in-law Chuck Treatch of Treatch Cellars. Nebbiolo is a grape originally from the hills of Piedmonte, Italy, a much cooler region than here. The full-flavored, balanced wine they have made from local grapes is a revelation. It belies its light color and delivers a lot of punch.
