Nicole and I were up in Santa Rosa looking at furniture, because that’s pretty much all we do now, so I had the idea of checking out one of Guy Fieri’s restaurants. For those of you who don’t know Guy Fieri, he was the winner of the second season of The Next Food Network Star and will have a new show called “Guy’s Big Bite”, that debuts on June 25.
The menu is great. Almost everything sounds good. The food is unique and interesting without being froofy (or pricey). I didn’t see any ragout, compote, concasse, confit, reductions, or demi-glace on the menu.
After cocktails, we started with one of Guy’s signature dishes, Rhode Island Calamari. He puts a different spin on fried calamari by serving it in a mildy spicy sauce with pepperoncini in a bread bowl and plating it on a dish that looks like standard issue from the United Federation of Planets. Fantastic.
Then Nicole had the Tequila Turkey Fettucine and I had Chipotle Pasta with shrimp and cajun sausage and a really good chipotle-barbeque sauce. Both were very, very good.
We finished with a slice of apple pie with delicious vanilla ice cream and a wonderful strawberry cheesecake. Both were excellent and had the nice touch of being served on chilled metal plates.
In short, we loved this place. My only complaint is that it’s in Santa Rosa which makes it too far to go on a whim. Sigh.
It’s great to hear about his restaurants. Not sure when I would get the chance to try them out as I am down in Texas but had heard that they were great. Am on a bbq cook-off team called “Goody Girls” and our team met Guido (that’s how we know him) out in Tennessee back at the Jack Daniels Cook-Off in 2004. Ever since then he’s come down to Houston to hang out with our team during the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo’s Championship BBQ Cook-Off. He’s a great guy with tons of personality and he always ends up cooking something special for the team members. We were all so excited when he won The Next Food Network Star.