Utopia Summer Wine Dinner

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Utopia , www.utopiarestaurant.net, hosted a summer wine dinner tonight. At $39 this was the bargain of the year. Yes it was only 4 courses and 3 wines but for the price you could not go wrong. You could have multiple pours if you wanted to do so.

We started out with a "Seafood Ceviche" , grilled calamari, shrimp, scallop in a fresh tomato, cilantro oilve oil sauce. Pared with 2007 Dry Creek, Clarksburg, Dry Chenin Blanc. This was a very good pairing. Everything melded nicely.

Next was "Baby Arugula Salad", arugula, fresh mango, roasted walnuts and goat cheese in a aged balsamic vinaigrette dressing. Decent salad but not enough dressing on it. Paired with a 2007 Folonari, Pinot Grigio.

Main course was a choice of duck or lamb. I asked the waiter to bring what was the rarest. Both proteins I like rare so it didn't make any difference to me. He brought the "Roasted Duck Breast" with cranberry cream sauce. It was barely pink inside, over cooked for my taste. He offered to exchange it but I declined. This is my basic complaint about Utopia is that they have a tendency to overcook lamb and duck. Toby got the lamb chop and it was too rare for her. Guess it just wasn't my night. This course was paired with a 2005 Fieldstone, Alexander Valley, Merlot. A good pairing.

Dessert was "Homemade Bread Pudding" with vanilla ice cream. Quite nice.

Bob Ballard was the "wine guy" tonight. He is not a rep but is very knowledgeable about wines. At least they were not really pushing the sale of wine. Bob also happens to be my optometrist.