Sunnyvale Downtown Wine & Food Stroll

I saw a banner for the Sunnyvale Downtown Wine & Food Stroll, so we bought tickets and made plans to go to that. It was on a Saturday afternoon, and we arrived just a little bit before the event began.

Check-in was pretty straight-forward... you gave your ticket (after filling out the back for a raffle), they checked your ID, they banded your wrist, and gave you a totebag and souvenir wine glass. In your bag you had (among other things) a card that listed 20 downtown business, each giving one or more pours of wine from Californian wineries. Many places offered multiple pours, and one even had you taste five different sakes! 

We had a lot of interesting things, like almond champagne from JFJ. Honestly, it'd be difficult to talk about the wines we tried at each place, as we didn't take notes, and only took a few business cards. I do remember that we had some great wine from Kirigin Cellars, and my personal favorite was from Clos du Bois.

A half dozen or so of the restaurants downtown also had out free appetizers, which gave us a chance to try some bites from places we haven't been as well. Rubio's offered some wonderful Mexican food, so we're definitely planning to try them out soon!

Zuzu

We headed into downtown Napa for tapas. Intriguingly, Zuzu was set-up like a Spanish place, had Spanish decorations and Spanish words, but the food was Mediterranean. And overpriced. And not that great. We got three dishes and called it a day. Jonathan ordered an olive plate (which had like six types of olives), and I ordered an onion soup with goat cheese. We shared queso frito, which is pan-fried manchego cheese with poblano chiles (which was the horribly overpriced item when you only get two pieces). We also shared a glass of a dessert wine, which was even too sweet for me, so it was disappointing. Overall, the entire experience was disappointing.

Japanese Tapas

Tapas, for those who may not know, are like appetizers. Very common in Spain and similar cultures. There's a great tapas place in Orlando (Cafe Tu Tu Tango), and although we've only been once, we know a lot about tapas in culture thanks to one of our Spanish teachers in high school. She incorporated a lot about living in Spain and Costa Rica into the course, and we even know the hand gesture for "check, please," LoL. So when Kathy suggested we go for Japanese tapas, Jonathan and I were on board!

We drove into Cupertino (about ten minutes away from the apartment) and in the back of a plaza was GocHi, a Japanese Fusion tapas place. GocHi is short for "gochisou," meaning "treat or delicious hearty meal." It was packed for 8:30pm on a Wednesday night, and we waited a few minutes for a table. At first I was very excited, as many of the tables are a more traditional (sit on the floor" style, where shoes are removed and placed in a cubby before entering the seating area. However, we were given a "standard" table, one side was a bench against the wall and the other was chairs.

We ordered five dishes and split them all.

• First out was one of the daily specials (I don't remember the name), which was deep-friend salmon with potato cream and tartar sauce, described as a croquette, but served like a roll as sushi. I didn't care for it, tasted too much like tempura (which I loathe). The potato cream was tasty, but as a whole I wouldn't order it again. Both Jonathan and Kathy enjoyed it.
  
• Then came the Sake Cream Cheese Miso Fushion Pizza. It had salmon and roe, scallions and cheese. It also had mushrooms which were not listed in the menu. I only had one piece, I just couldn't stomach it. The crust was light and crispy and the cheese was delicious and not oily, but it was large roe (probably about a centimeter in diameter), and it grossed me out. I tried eating around it, but I also didn't really care for salmon on pizza. I'd go as far as to say that I wish the salmon was smoked instead of baked, it might have helped. The other two liked it, but JB also pushed off the roe.
  
• The shiromaguro tataki came after that, which was seared albacore in garlic oil with little chips of garlic. The garlic chips were not very flavorful, but the albacore was pretty good. (Tataki means seared on the outside and raw in the middle). We probably ate this dish the quickest.
  
• Then was the duck steaks in a sweet, thick brown sauce. They were my favorite dish of the evening, and I thought the sauce was great. The meat was a little fatty for duck, but half of the slices were gristle-free. Jonathan didn't like the duck but thought the sauce was good.
  
• Last was a vermicelli noodle dish with cod (although none of us could taste it) and seaweed. With some cayenne pepper sprinkled on it, it was good. Otherwise it was a bit flavorless. It wasn't anything special, but it was recommended by the server, and nothing worth complaining about.
  

Overall, it was an interesting place, and the menu is very extensive. However, I don't think I'm very likely to return. Tapas are not a cheap meal anywhere, so they need to be delicious in my opinion.