rednikki "Preternaturally Perky" Q.'s Profile

I'm sorry, people think this is EXPENSIVE? Obviously, you are coming from some world I don't live in, or from 1988. My friend and I each got multi-course meals, and we got out for $30-ish.

They have a fabulous multi-dish sampler that I can't recommend enough. Amazingly tasty!

We came for the soft open on their first Saturday night. Arriving at 5:31 pm (one minute after they opened), we assumed it would be empty, but six people had already entered ahead of us.

At first, I said, "Uh-oh". They weren't sure they could get a table for us, and the first bartender we met was aloof, frowny, and unhelpful.

Then a second bartender walked over, named Todd. As soon as we ordered, he praised our choices in wine, and told us he'd have a table for us in a couple of minutes.

Points for this place:
1. Todd is awesome, knows everything there is to know about wine, and can tell you everything you could even think to know about it. But if you aren't interested (like the guy who sat next to us, Joe), he'll be very quick, efficient, and non-chatty.
2. The food! OMG, olives that are the best I've ever tasted. Fried squash blossoms that were luscious. And a chocolate pudding that literally had me sticking my finger into the cup to get the last scraps out.
3. The setup. Somehow, it leads you to chat with the people next to you. We wound up chatting to the man next to us, who stores his wine in the onsite storage facility. He was fascinating, knew more about wine than I'll ever know, and was kind enough to share his Burgundy with us.

The food was amazing, the service was awesome. We were here for a special occasion, and even though it involves that hideous drive across the 5 from Sherman Oaks (I don't know about you, but my Thomas Guide labels everything east of the 5 "Here Be Dragons"), we'll be back, and sooner rather than later.

This isn't The Four Seasons, San Luis Obispo, folks. It's the Madonna Inn. If you want a cookie-cutter, antiseptic room, go somewhere else. If you want someplace that's campy and over the top, but completely sincere in its campiness, the Madonna Inn is for you.

Contrary to what some of the other reviewers have said, despite its age the rooms are very well-maintained. We had no problems with heat, either - it's plenty warm in winter, so long as you operate the convenient room thermostat, located on the wall. Our room, the Cabin Still room, had a stone floor, yet we could walk around barefoot without a problem.

We loved the stone shower (big enough for two!), and had fun with other quirky design elements of the room. The whole point of a place like this is to immerse yourself in the atmosphere, and boy did we!.

The stone walls were great for insulating us from noise from our neighbors. Unfortunately, a sundeck/walkway was directly over our heads, and at points in the night the sound of people walking on it was very distinct. However, it wasn't intolerable.

We loved it and can't wait to go back!

Do you like cheese? Many of the tasting rooms get their cheeses from Vivant Fine Cheese in downtown Paso.

The staff are thrilled to recommend wineries and restaurants for you to eat at while you sample the cheese. They are liberal with their cheese samples. (And the cheese is good, which means you'll probably walk out with several pounds of it.)

Vivant also makes one of the better cups of coffee you'll find in the area.

After reading a previous review, I must preface this by saying: I'm nowhere near 21, and not even a little desperate!

If you're tired of wine, and want something unpretentious, try out The Crooked Kilt. They've still got a pretty deep wine list, but they've also got a lot of great local beers. They do somewhat gourmet spins on pub food, in the best possible sense - my boyfriend's burger was far yummier than the average burger, and my mac and cheese knocked my socks off. There seem to be a lot of locals here, and everyone was friendly and happy to engage in conversation.

Want to nibble from many plates rather than devour one meal? Want to sample some wines without leaving downtown Paso? Vinoteca is your place. Good small-plates menu, great tasting flights, nice ambiance (laid-back but a little swanky), service that is competent without being in-your-face. It'd be a 5 if the prices were a little lower.

We were very disappointed in Panolivo. The least I expect for those prices is real maple syrup (you know, from trees, not from corn byproducts), and they didn't have it. The service was slow and absent-minded; we had to practically beg for coffee refills. Generally lame and overpriced.

If you're looking for a true meal, Artisan in downtown Paso fed us one of the best meals we've ever eaten. Not only was the food good - and all local! - but the service was friendly and enthusiastic. We were there on Valentine's Day, and despite the fact that they were swamped, our server still helped me sneak-attack my other half with a Valentine's Day card. The clientele is very diverse. I saw middle-aged couples, older men with their trophy wives, and young couples that were possibly still in high school. Go with a big appetite, or share entrees so you can try a little of everything (including dessert, which I very much wish we'd had, but we could not possibly eat another bite). Make a reservation!

My office gets Fritto Misto brought to the office all the time, and as catering food goes, it's fairly tasty.

I went with a friend last week. The ambiance of the restaurant is cool, although (as we discovered) it gets insanely noisy once it's just half full.

I ordered chicken piccata; it's my favorite dish, and I wanted to see how they did it. To me, piccata is all about the balance between the lemon, the white wine and the capers. Their chicken piccata probably only met a lemon in passing at a party, and the closest it ever got to white wine was when it was sitting across the table from my friend's glass of chardonnay. Instead, it was hip-deep in a warm butter bath - about a pound of butter, as far as I can tell. The sprinkling of capers on the top was the only vestige of its piccata-ness. It was tasty (how could anything bathed in butter not be?) but it sure wasn't chicken piccata.

While the food here is tasty, it's not what they say it is on the menu, and I can't hack that level of fat. I'll probably go back sometime...and have a salad.

I can't believe it's closing!

Back when I was a poor twenty-something, I came here when I wanted a special night out. (I'd go to El Pollo Rico otherwise.) It was the one place that allowed me to have a good meal, with table service and ambience, on a limited budget. The staff never sneered at my gothitude. I've wanted to go back for several years, but lived too far away.

I hear it declined in its old age, as things tend to do. Alas.