On the Road Eats: Redd

For the food-focused, a visit to San Francisco should include a side trip to Napa Valley if time allows. My Napa experience was centered in Yountville. The town is small  and though the "downtown" is just a small strip along Washington Street, it's disproportionately filled with great restaurants, the most famous being The French Laundry. There's also a branch of Thomas Keller's Bouchon. While I wasn't lucky enough to count myself as a diner at The French Laundry, my dining companion and I stumbled upon a wonderful lunch place called Redd. The menu lent itself well to making a meal out of several appetizers.

The crispy calamari was a huge portion tossed with a little bit of parsley. It was filling and delicious.

The shrimp salad with shredded butter lettuce and tomatoes was fresh — the produce really does taste better there. There were several pieces of shrimp, large and perfectly cooked.

I really enjoyed the glazed pork belly, with apple purée, burdock and soy caramel. It was just slightly sweet, which paired well with the meat.

We were given a complimentary prosciutto pizza with fontina, arugula and shaved parmesan that was good, but we preferred everything we had ordered over it.

For dessert, the vanilla bean bread pudding with strawberries, yuzu puree and strawberry ice cream was the kind of dessert that makes you want to lick the plate and disappeared very quickly.

Though this meal had been unplanned, I couldn't have been more pleased with our lunch and was happy we stumbled upon it.