Sonoma and Napa are known for lots of great restaurants all over the region and many people come to Sonoma Square to get their eats on. It's convenient and has a bunch of great options in 1 block. Luckily our house was only 5 minutes away from the square and we were able to get a dinner reservation for 9 people at 7:30 on a Friday night. That would never happen in NYC! El Dorado is the epitome of California dining. It's bright, sunny, and has a great outdoor space. We even got our own cabana outside which was so nice. As you can imagine the clientele in Sonoma overall is a bit high brow and older and it was no different here. It was a very refined yet relaxed atmosphere.
The menu has a variety of classic American dishes - some salads, pastas and steaks. Since our table was so big, we kind of split the table up into 2 sections. I was sitting with Jen, Jenn and Krush and we opted to start with the beet salad ($13) and tuna tartare ($15) and then we all had a massive carb craving so we created our own pasta tasting menu - seafood paella ($32), spring vegetable risotto ($24), fettuccine ($22), and ravioli ($22). The beet salad was fantastic and fresh and served with horseradish puree, grapefruit, fennel, arugula, orange, yogurt and pistachios. There were a ton of beets in there and could have almost been a meal in itself. The tuna was also very fresh and delicious, it was served with avocado mousse, super intense wasabi salmon roe, and wonton chips.
Next came the line up of pasta. I started with the spring vegetable risotto which had peas, asparagus, king mushrooms, lemon, spinach pesto, parmesan and a touch of truffle oil. Sounds great, right? It could have been a really fabulous dish but it was incredibly salty. I was sad that the salt was so overpowering because I couldn't really taste all the delicious sounding vegetables in there. The texture of the risotto was pretty good - not too watery and not too undercooked. Meanwhile, the fettuccine didn't have enough salt in it. It was served with a lamb bolognese, mushrooms, peas, parmesan and breadcrumbs. This also had a lot of potential except I could have used more seasoning on it. Perhaps I should have just mixed the two dishes together? Next I tried the ravioli which was filled with lemon and ricotta and served with marinara sauce. I'll be honest and say that while I love lemon, I don't love it in my pasta. I just prefer a more hearty/meatier flavor with my pasta. But given that, it was a nice homemade pasta and unlike many places where if you order ravioli they only give you like 3 pieces, this was a very large and filling dish. Lastly I tried the paella which had shrimp, mussels, clams, scallop, fish, chicken, chorizo, and crispy saffron rice. It's basically everything I love to eat in 1 sizzling plate. While some people like their paella rice super crunchy, I don't, I like it a bit softer and it was a bit too hard for me here. But I did love all the seafood and meat flavor together in this dish and it was also an enormous portion, enough for 2 people.
Of course we had to end the night with lots of dessert, especially since it was a belated birthday for our friend Amy. We got the drunken sundae ($10), upside down banana cake ($10) and the chocolate caramel tart ($10). Of the 3, the upside down banana cake was my favorite - it was a moist cake/bread like dessert covered with salted caramel and lemon ice cream. It was rich from the cake but refreshing from the ice cream. I then ended the night with a mind blowing scotch trio of Glenfiddich, Oban and Lagavulin ($30) - I might have died a bit because they were all really great high quality scotches, 2 of which I had never had before but had always wanted to try. At $30, this is actually an incredible deal to try all three of them.
Overall, it was a nice dinner with fabulous friends. I was kind of expecting a bit more with the food and thought each of the pastas had definite room for improvement, but if you put the wine, scotches, decor and service together with the food, you have a pretty solid outing. Considering all the food and drink we had, the price of the experience was well worth it. Total bill: $84/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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