The Restaurant at Wente Vineyards

Last week, The Restaurant at Wente Vineyards catered lunch for the staff at Ted’s work. He came home talking about how delicious everything was, which pretty much made me want some of that for myself. I know, greedy, huh? Well, Ted tends to spoil me and my tendencies, so on Saturday, while Maya was enjoying herself at her BFF’s birthday party/sleepover, he took me there for dinner.

Since the birthday party started at 4:00, we had really early reservations, so we were the first folks there. I don’t think they were technically open yet, actually, because they had us wait in the bar area for a few minutes while they attended to whatever last minute details they needed to attend to. OK by me, we had a drink in the bar, and enjoyed ourselves there for a few. Then they called us into the restaurant. It’s a long room, with light colored walls, plenty of flowers, and of course, big bottles of wine used for decoration. What do you expect at a vineyard? The waitress was professional and friendly, and seemed to know the menu very well. Turns out they change the menu twice a day. Wow. I thought about that, and I decided (Like that? How I just decide how things are, and that’s how they are? Nice, huh?) that they probably have their standard menu items, like their steak, pork chop, and duck. Thinks that aren’t too difficult to get any time of year. Then, they probably find out what is available from local growers, and build the rest of the menu around those items.

Ted said that folks at his work were going ga-ga for the pork chop, so I decided to have that. I started with a salad of lettuces topped with an intriguing sounding cheese, Lamb Chopper. Well, it’s from Cypress Grove, so I had to try it, right? It was delicious and smooth, and the perfect match for the vinaigrette on the salad. Ted started with the Caesar salad, which he said was delicious. My pork chop was huge, it was double cut, and applewood smoked. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a smoked pork chop before. The result was delicious, somewhere between ham and bacon. It was served with roasted Asian pears, which were yummy, and I wish there had been more of them. Ted wanted a lamb dish, but sadly there weren’t any on the menu, so instead he opted for the mesquite grilled filet of beef, which was tender and flavorful. Soooo good. So we had a nice time, watching the restaurant start to fill up as it got closer to 6:00, enjoying our food and each other’s company. I thought I was full, but then they brought out the dessert menu.

I’m not usually a big dessert person. I enjoy them, but if I’m full, I don’t really need to have any. And often, I’ll just consider that second glass of wine as my dessert. But their menu intrigued me to the point that I had to try something. What, you may ask, was so tempting that I couldn’t say no? It was a caramelized pineapple tarte tatin with vanilla ice cream. Oh.My.God. SOOO good. The puff pastry was so light and buttery and flaky, the pineapple was juicy and sweet and caramelized, the ice cream was really, really good vanilla ice cream. I ate every single bite. Ted went for the apple bread pudding, which had yummy apples in it, and was served with a heavy cream that had just a touch of orange zest in it, adding a delicious depth of flavor.

Overall, it was a worthwhile and memorable meal. If you ever find yourself looking for a swanky place to go to dinner in Livermore (of all places), don’t hesitate to check out The Restaurant at the vineyards. The view is pretty nice, too. 😉