Posted June 15th, 2004 by Michelle

I was just sitting here, minding my own business, staring absently at my computer screen when my contact fell out of my left eye. Just fell right out and plopped onto my keyboard. Yeesh.

But, dear readership, that is not the story I’m here to tell.

I had dinner at Calistoga Ranch last night, which is the brand-spanking new resort here in the Napa Valley, owned and operated by the folks who brought us the ever-awesome Auberge. This is going to be a treatise, a treatment, a rare, detailed description of What Can Go Wrong When No One Is At the Wheel. Or, Very Sucky Expensive Dinner.

I should have known when we pulled off the Silverado Trail onto a little sweet back road, only to see “Calistoga Ranch” and an arrow crudely spray-painted onto a plank resting at the base of a dwindling tree. Jon and I looked at each other and said, “Mmmm. Classy.” We drove up into the parking lot where two lonely cars looked over a man-made ravine. A sign said “Wait here for attendant”. So we did. And then we finally got out of the car and went up to the reception area and talked to a woman who had been looking out the window at us for some time. She fetched a valet, who showed up with a golf cart to drive us up into the main body of the resort.

And it was beautiful. Rustic, smelling of both fresh cut wood and woods, trees and flowers. Each “unit”, or hotel room, is a freestanding building sharing no walls. After a seven minute drive we were dropped off at the restaurant. The valet cheerfully took our $5 tip. We found our friends and embarked on the best part of the evening- a tour of the rooms and spa. It was incredible. The bedrooms in each unit are separated from the living space so if you have friends over to your room, they aren’t actually in your sleeping space. Everything was marble, brick, wood and copper, hot tubs in the decks below the stars, Egyptian cotton spreads, beautifully detailed furniture. The spa was outrageous- particularly the couples massage room- and the two-person outdoor granite tubs and copper showers inspired fantasies galore.

But then we had to go back to eat dinner.

Our reservation was at 7:30, and we probably didn’t sit down until 8:30. We sat on the deck overlooking a huge man-made pond, complete with ducks and swans and vigorously healthy population of mosquitoes. Lucky for everyone else I was there; the mosquitoes ate more of me than I did of my dinner. We took turns looking over the wine list, and I was told to order the first bottle. I chose a steely, racy Chablis, since I don’t drink it very often. I then passed along the list and we started discussing the menu. A full twenty minutes later, the bartender comes over with the bottle of wine and presents it to one of my friends, a man, at the far end of the table. He looks at it, and then says, “Oh, they ordered that down there,” gesturing towards us. So the bartender walks over to my friend Jon and presents the bottle to him. “She ordered it,” says Jon, pointing to me. I can’t help it. I’ve got a gimlet in me already, and I’m pissed. “You really shouldn’t assume,” I said to the bartender, who is also a friend and who was responsible for getting us this reservation where only members are supposed to eat. “Just because I’m blonde and goofy looking, don’t always present to the men. Man, you know who is at this table!” I’m trying to laugh while I say this.

He finally shows me the bottle, then circles around to the other side of Jon, and pours Jon a taste. At this point, I’m defeated. Jon scoots the glass over to me, I swirl it, put it down and say, “It’s too warm.” And it was. It was actually room temperature, and “room” meaning a hot night outside. The bartender looks at me, nods, and then pours Jon a full glass. “Wait, uh, too warm to drink at all right now!” I say, and the bartender looks at me, and then leaves to go put the bottle in the fridge, leaving the very full glass of warm Chablis on the table.

The night only got worse.

We didn’t get to drink the Chablis for at least another 45 minutes. And our food took so long it became funny. It was well after 10 PM when we actually got our first salad course, and close to midnight before we saw dessert menus. My bedtime these days is 10:30 or so, so I was getting truly sleepy at the table. The salmon course was excellent, but ANYTHING is excellent if you are made to wait long enough for it. We even started to tire of each other, taking long trips to the loo or away to make phone calls.

And here’s the thing: there were four other tables at the restaurant. “Tables” meaning tables with someone sitting at them. What do they do when the place is full? Or will it ever be? It was remarkably, laughably bad from start to finish (except for the salmon- oh, my, the salmon) and when we got the many-hundred-dollar check (paid for by the best friend a girl could ask for), it only confirmed what I’ve always known: SERVICE SUCKS IN NAPA VALLEY. Don’t come here looking for world-class dinners, even though it’s a world-class setting with a few world-class wines. You do NOT get what you pay for in this town. If hard-working American citizens are going to drop hundreds of dollars on a MEAL rather than, oh I don’t know, donating it to a homeless shelter or something a little more worthwhile, then it better be a transcendent experience. Clearly we are lucky as hell to even spend 5 bucks on dinner (which is about what I could have afforded last night) but last night was a waste of time and resources.

That’s the end of my rant. Back to my regularly scheduled diatribes about men, President Bush, foreign policy, garden management, etc.