On the Road Eats: Bottega

Yountville restaurants are all about the star power. It's almost impossible to avoid it. And so my dining companion and I ended up at Bottega, which belongs to Food Network star Michael Chiarello, for lunch.

The food was pretty good, though I imagine that in a few months I won't remember what I ate there. The service was memorable — because it was terrible, slow and inept. It started with our having to ask for our drinks twice before they finally arrived.

We began the meal with the shaved artichoke salad with Parmigiano Reggiano. The artichokes were served two ways, braised in lemon olive oil and fried. It was tasty and showcased, once again, the terrific produce of the area.

But after eating this appetizer, the waitress informed us that the kitchen didn't have the main course we had ordered. We're not sure why she waited that long to tell us this and why she didn't immediately bring a menu so we could choose a replacement dish. When she finally gave us a menu, she didn't return to take our new order for quite some time. 

For a second appetizer, we had the green egg and ham olive oil-poached Delta asparagus. It came with a crispy soft-boiled egg, prosciutto bits and Cambazola crema. The coating on the egg was a bit too thick and the fried taste overwhelmed it. The asparagus was fresh, though I wish it had been crunchier.

Our second choice main course was the black pepper bucatini alla carbonara with soft cooked local hen egg, parmigiano crema, shaved asparagus and guanciale. It seems we chose dishes with repeating ingredients. But this was the tastiest of the bunch. I love the dense chewiness of bucatini and this carbonara was flavorful and rich.

Though we didn't order dessert, we did ask to look at a menu. The waitress returned to our table to ask us about dessert without having ever brought the menu. Because of the slowness and the back and forth with our server, the meal took a couple of hours. Thankfully, we weren't in any hurry, but we also won't be in any hurry to return.