Shin-Kicking the Hostess

I'm an optimistic kind of guy, and EMAF is meant to highlight the fun and special in life when it comes to food and wine. But sometimes I can whine too, right?

Case in point: Recently, my good friend JS and I had a special business/pleasure lunch meeting at the trendy Napa Valley restaurant Tra Vigne (which means "among the vines"), located just south of downtown St. Helena. Again, I'm a positive guy, but I also have very high expectations, especially about a Napa Valley restaurant...at lunch in October...which just happens to be the height of the tourist season. (In other words, if you're a restaurant and you aren't on your A++ game in October, well...fuhgetaboutit.)

First, we were greeted by The Hostess with the Mostest. Now, I think you've run into this creature too. The Hostess with the Mostest is almost always: a female in her early twenties; attractive and yes, great curves (hey--if I didn't look, I'd be dead, right?); and has absolutely NO personality. Twice I tried to engage the Hostess with little comments, just to build a rapport, find out if she was human. Both times I got the same plastered-on smile, nod of the head, and glazed look from the eyes. I almost -- almost -- kicked her in the shins to see if she was, in fact, a real humanoid and not a robot.

So the robot, er hostess, leads us into the restaurant to our table...and we're almost overcome with this terrible sewer-ish smell. WTF? right. The hostess, of course, makes NO mention of this (she obviously can't smell), merely gives us our menus and plods off.

So I'm thirsty, right? So I take a drink of water that's on the table...and almost spit it out! Why? It has that terrible peppery/dishwatery taste from obviously being run through a dishwater. Please. It's the NAPA VALLEY. You have a FAMOUS restaurant. Can't you please provide water that's drinkable?

Anyway, the food itself was actually very good (I had the pizza con fichi e gorgonzola) though our waiter acted throughout the entire meal like he was the brother of the robot, er hostess. (Would it kill you to pretend that you might see us again, I mean, hey, we're not tourists--we're locals).

I was disappointed with Tra Vigne. You might not be. But if you do go, don't expect to actually connect with anyone there other than, perhaps, the unseen chef.