Tra Vigne, St. Helena, Napa Valley - A Delicious Dinner

The last restaurant where we dined during our stay in the Napa Valley was Tra Vigne (http://travignerestaurant.com/tv.html) in St. Helena. The meal was very nice.

Tra Vigne, which means "Among the Vines" was fairly large and was only about one third full. It had a neat-looking bar.

Inside Tra Vigne

Chef Michael Chiarello, the owner of Bottega, where we had dined the previous evening, had formerly worked at Tra Vigne.

We were seated at a table for two. Our waitress was a blonde woman named Cheryl.

My wife started with Forni Brown Gardens Organic Lettuces Salad for $9. In addition to the lettuces, it had Spring Mountain Pears, candied walnuts, gorgonzola cheese, and red wine vinaigrette. It had lots of pears. She enjoyed it very much.

My first course was Mozzarella Cheese "Al Minuto" on grilled bruschetta for $14. The cheese was house-made that day. I added heirloom tomatoes for an extra $7. The melted cheese was put on four large slices of bread. The tomatoes were served separately. The bruschetta with cheese was tasty, but the best part was the heirloom tomatoes. They were incredibly delicious. I thought that one piece of bruschetta was a bit burned. I did not like its taste. My wife thought it was fine. The bruschetta portions were large enough that this dish could easily have been shared among four people.

The lady who served our meal (not the waitress) had an unenthusiastic, monotone voice. She said words like "enjoy" in a way that sounded robotic.

My wife's entrée was butternut squash ravioli with toasted sage brown butter, amaretti cookie crumbs, and parmesan for $18. She loved the dish and said that one great thing about it was that she could distinctly taste the ingredients with which the ravioli was filled.

My entrée was Maltagliati Verde - herb-infused, house-made pasta with Pozzi Ranch lamb and sangiovese wine sugo for $16. It was delicious. I was a bit put off by the olive green color of the pasta, but that was my problem, not any defect in the dish. The name of this pasta - maltagliati - means, "badly cut." It derives its name from the fact that it is made with scraps left over from making other pasta.

Our wine was a 2007 Benessere sangiovese from St. Helena for $58. It was very nice. It did not taste like a Tuscan sangiovese.

For dessert, we both had the butterscotch panna cotta with sea salt caramel, crème frâiche, and rosemary, accompanied by hazlenut cookies for $9. It was terrific.

We finished with espresso - a single for my wife for $3.25 and a double for me for $4. The espresso was delicious - much better than the miniscule serving we'd had at Bottega the previous evening.