Napa and Sonoma Wine Tasting: Mustard's Grill (4.63)

http://www.mustardsgrill.com/

Open: Open 7 days per week for lunch and dinner.

Reservation required? No, but recommended

Last barlinwine.com visit: 2011

Directions:

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The Meal:

After driving past Mustard's for years every time we visited Napa and always hearing great reviews on the place, we finally decided to book a table. Mustard's is know for serving "honest American fare with worldly sophistication." Chef Cyndi Pawlcyn opened Mustard's Grill in 1983, naming it for the mustard flowers that bloom in the vineyards in springtime. Apparently, mustard seeds help to nourish the soil to help the grapes grow. Chef Pawlcyn was an early advocate of using organic and locally grown ingredients and has an organic garden adjacent to Mustard's that provides the restaurant with 20% of its produce year round. Guests often enjoy strolling through the gardens prior to sitting down for dinner.

The restaurant itself is a small gray building with a peaked roof. Inside the place is brimming with natural light, complemented by the black and white checkered marble floor with yellow accents all around. They boast an extensive wine list of local favorites and many wines by the glass for those who, like us, drank too much during the day to layer another bottle of wine on top. The menu is full of fresh salads and comfort food. They make a daily seafood tostada and a daily fish and multiple other items from their wood burning grill and oven.

We arrived and were greeted by our server, a round and loud spoken man -- think Cam from Modern Family -- who knew the menu inside and out having worked at the restaurant for 19 years. When we asked for a description of an entree he would describe it from the bottom up, gesturing frequently with his hands. First, there is a layer of this and on top of that a layer of this and drizzled on top (with gesture of drizzling) with such and such sauce. With his help we each started out with a glass of white wine and an order of the ahi tuna crackers. Our waiter let us know the order included only 3 crackers and offered to add a 4th. Knowing we would have had Doodlegeddon over that 3rd cracker, we took him up on his suggestion and were glad we did. The thin triangular sesame crackers are made in house and were layered with raw ahi tuna and wasabi and soy glaze. Yum.

We moved on to dinner. Greg selected the famous Mongolian Pork Chop with sweet & sour red cabbage and housemade mustard (the most ordered dish at Mustard's). With some guidance from our server I ordered the house special fish - a pacific salmon over a creamed corn base. We chose well! The pork was moist with a delicious mustard sauce. The salmon with the corn was fresh and delicious. I never order restaurant salmon as it is never as good as my dad's grilled salmon with lemon caper butter sauce but this was a treat! With our main course we shared a Pinot flight and enjoyed choosing our favorite.

In addition to their every day menu, Mustard's does have a Thursday Pour-Off Pair-Off Dinner Series which features special dishes paired with local wines by the glass that you typically only see by the bottle. You can do one dish or many, each set at a fixed price for the entree and for the wine. We were there on a Thursday and after many nights of heavy eating decided not to do this but might need to come back on another Thursday. Mustard's will definitely become a regular stop on our Napa restaurant circuit. We left there for around $150 with two glasses of wine and a wine flight, one shared appetizer and two entrees. Nothing in Napa is cheap so compared to other places, this is quite fairly priced for the quality. For the price, it was our favorite meal of the trip.

Recommended food:All of the things mentioned were really delicious. The Mongolian Pork Chop was among the best dishes Greg had the entire trip, and the salmon special was also great. We heard dessert is also amazing but were too full to try it.

Ratings (out of 5):