In Sonoma, you have to check out the Sonoma Cheese Factory, located on the main square. They do sandwiches, packaged salads, wines, gelatos and don’t miss the outdoor grill. I still dream about the steak tacos... Most of the wineries have picnic areas, so it’s a good idea to stop in here before heading out to taste some wines.
For dinner, I can recommend Carneros. Their food was exactly how I imagined food in Sonoma would be after many years of reading about all the fabulous restaurants out there. It was also a refreshing change from Boston, where the general concept seems to be that quality comes from either a. serving huge portions, or b. charging a lot. Also highly recommended was The General’s Daughter although we did not personally try it. We did not have the budget or the foresight to check out the world-famous French Laundry (you need to book a few months in advance), but we weren’t feeling too left out. We also enjoyed a very good Japanese meal in downtown Santa Rosa at Jo Jo Restaurant and Sushi Bar, and had some good pizza at Mary's Pizza Shack (no arugula salad on this one). Since we were traveling with our almost 5-year old daughter, going out all the time can become a bit of a chore, so we also enjoyed a few meals from the local Whole Foods.
We stayed at the Sonoma Valley Inn, which is a Best Western property. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting a lot given my past experience with Best Western, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Unlike large hotel chains (such as Westin, which I must confess is my default choice if available) they have _a_ property manager, who takes a personal interest in your stay and sincerely wants to make sure you have everything you need. Our daughter came down with some sort of stomach ailment which required a very late-night bedding change, and while big luxury chains would likely have provided the same service that night, it’s not likely they’d check up on you the next morning to make sure everyone was feeling well and you didn’t need anything else. The personal touch was definitely welcome. The hotel itself was nice and felt clean, which isn’t something you can always expect from some of the motel chains (I’m sure we’ve all learned from CSI that hotel bedspreads are covered in all manner of dried bodily fluids, but it’s the TV remote you really want to watch out for).
I went in expecting some Americanization (after all our condo was “just down the highway from Costco”). We spent the first night in San Jose del Cabo, which is a much more charming town than Cabo San Lucas. I picked the absolute cheapest hotel I could find on the internet that had a room available for one night. We began to get a bit worried when the shuttle from the airport told us they couldn’t make it down the street and they’d have to drop us off a couple blocks away, but it turned out to be an excellent choice.
The El Encanto Inn is at the edge of an estuary and only a couple blocks away from the town square. We found an excellent patisserie (the French Riviera) that had fabulous croissants, in addition to a huge range of breads and desserts. Definitely worth a drive to San Jose for.
In general, restaurant meals are shockingly expensive, and disappointingly mediocre. One place we called told us entrées started at $60 and another advertised lunches starting from $60. I honestly expected that I’d be able to find some Mexican food, but other than some really bad examples of American-Mexican. We were really looking for a place where the locals ate. We did find one such place in Todos Santos, about 90 minutes driving from Cabo. It was a little stand off the main street serving burritos and tacos and the only people eating there seemed to be locals. The fact that the staff didn’t speak a word of English was also a good sign. The food was very cheap ($1.25 - $2.50) and pretty good. I’d say quality-wise it’s probably the equivalent to the local roast beef shops we have all over the north shore here in Boston. Not gourmet, but really tasty and inexpensive.
It seems as though most of the area is geared to separating the tourists from their money, by providing something slightly exotic, but not too threatening. As a result, the downtown is dominated by American chains -- Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, Johnny Rockets, etc. Lest you think I’m some sort of snob that would see progress halted so I can tour the area as if it’s some sort of museum, that’s not the case at all. I actually enjoyed the Costco and WalMart (the latter being much nicer than what I’ve got at home), which both definitely catered to the Mexican population (when is the last time you saw nopales in a major grocery store?), but it’s a bit depressing to think that while they are still charging the same prices as in the U.S., the average wage of a construction worker (building a multi-million dollar house) is about $8,000 annually (admittedly, my source of information is a developer building houses there, but if anything I’d have expected him to inflate the cost of labour). In effect, what you’ve got in Cabo San Lucas is an alcohol-fueled Disneyland version of Mexico.
One item I do need to highlight are the Mexican popsicles, known as paletas. They are delicious and available all over the place.
To my mind, if you’re after some Latin culture and good food, Miami is a far better choice, with the added advantage that the place isn’t completely geared to the college party-crowd. There are also better choices in Mexico, and I’ll research those for a future post.
