I had the pleasure to dine at the cutest restaurant a couple weeks ago. It is a sustainable restaurant called Harvest Moon Cafe, located in the beautiful wine country of Sonoma, California. There were 14 of us total, celebrating a dear friend’s bachelorette party. After a full day of wine tasting, this meal was exactly what we needed. Our group enjoyed a lovely evening on the restaurant’s patio with fantastic food and wine. Every dish was delicious, flavorful, and just SO fresh. All the desserts were homemade as well. I also want to commend on the great and friendly service we received. It’s usually difficult to get good service with a big group but they did an outstanding job.
Harvest Moon Cafe is located in downtown Sonoma, right across the street from a park and the City Hall. Definitely make reservation and request outdoor seating.
Harvest Moon Cafe
487 1st St W, Sonoma, CA
(707) 933-8160 ·
The menu changes daily, but here are pictures of what we enjoyed.
below // Local halibut crudo with shaved fennel salad, avocado, pickled enoki mushrooms and Kaffir lime vinaigrette. YUMMMMMM!
below // Hummus with marinated beets, pine nuts, mint, sesame seeds, sumac and herbed flat bread. Sumac has recently become a new favorite spice. It’s common in Middle Eastern cuisine, adds a tart and lemony taste.
below // Deep-fried salt cod fritters and Hama Hama oysters with cabbage slaw and spicy red pepper aioli. This was so incredibly good! The slaw was perfect to balance out the saltiness and the richness from the fritters.
below // Grilled Liberty Farm duck breast with herbed farro, grilled asparagus and black currant sauce. This was my entree and I gobbled it up in no time. The duck was so tender and perfectly cooked. The farro was a great accompaniment to the protein.
below // Seared Hawaiian Ono with steamed quinoa, swiss chard, harissa, charmoula, and saffron broth. A very well seasoned dish without going overboard. I love seeing the rise of popularity of quinoa and farro in restaurants!
below // a single espresso. Oh, something I’ve learned recently (and slightly irrelevant) – Have you heard of a ristretto shot? It’s also known as a short shot. Since the addition of a semi-automatic espresso machine to my kitchen, I’ve been learning how to pull the perfect shot of espresso. A ristretto uses finer grind, and is about 3/4 oz (versus a single shot is roughly 1 ounce.) It’s said that a ristretto shot is creamier, sweeter, and bolder than a single shot, I drank a loooot of it when I visited Italy.
below // A fruit crisp made with peaches and cherries, a scoop of Amaretto ice cream on top. It just tasted so fresh and light, not the typical crisp that’s thick and too syrupy. I usually opt for rich chocolate desserts, but I have to say, this crisp from HMC is one of the best fruit crisp I’ve ever had, and should be dubbed THE perfect summer dessert.
below // I forgot to take a picture of the dessert menu, but this was a peanut butter and chocolate brownie, sinfully delicious!
below // An upside down chocolate cake with cherries. Cherries, cherries, cherries!!! Cherries and peaches are two of my favorite fruits but I’ve developed allergies to both of them in their fresh form, so you can imagine how happy I was to be able to enjoy cooked ones that taste just as good as fresh ones!)
Also, the sorbet of the day was cherry. I can’t stress enough how fresh everything tasted. The tartness of the cherries really shined through! (We were also guessing that there is red wine present in the sorbet. Bonus?!)
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Here are a few other places we visited on the same day that are worth checking out.
Chateau St. Jean
8555 Sonoma Hwy, Kenwood, CA 95452
Chateau St. Jean was first known for their white wine. In 1999 they were awarded “wine of the year” for its Cabernet Sauvignon.
With a beautiful ground, one can enjoy a nice stroll with a glass of wine in hand. Climb up to the tower for a panoramic view of the valley. We took advantage of the Pizza and Pinot music series which is going on all summer long. $20 gets you a glass of wine of your choice and made-to-order gourmet wood-fired pizza. Due to our large group size, we had to wait quite a while for our food…But the staff was nice enough to bring us a few complimentary pizzas to make up for the wait!
Kunde Family Estate
9825 Sonoma Hwy Kenwood, CA 95452
This place offers some great wine! We sat outside under umbrellas, ordered a few bottles of wine and enjoyed the beautiful surroundings. I particularly liked the Red Dirt Red, and the 2010 Sweet Leslie (dessert wine, pictured above.) For a romantic date, make reservation for the mountain top tasting ($40), to enjoy wine while overlooking the stunning view of the estate.
Envolve Winery
27 E Napa St Ste A Sonoma, CA 95476
So our bride-to-be is a huge fan of the show Bachelor/Bachelorette. If you are a fanatic as well, you would know that Envolve Winery is co-owned by Ben Flajnik. Anyway, we made a pit stop here to try the wine and relax before dinner but little did we know that Ben was actually working at the tasting room that day. My friend was so star-struck and of course we got a picture of them two together.
Most of the group had enough wine by this time so only about half of us wanted to do a tasting. We all got the Epilogue tasting, which is a tasting of 3 wine from the Epilogue series. I particularly liked the Bordeaux Blend. Okay we liked it a lot so we purchased a bottle and finished it while we were there. (Some of us are big winos!)
I’d love to return and try more varieties of wine from Envolve. The winery is located in downtown Sonoma, in the “Vine Alley” which is a part of the Sonoma Court Shops. The Vine Alley has a cluster of wine tasting rooms, looks like a fun place to check out in the future.
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I’ll end this post with a picture of our sweet ride of the day – A party bus! It was great to use the two-hour drive time to catch up with everyone over some champagne, lots of snacks and some fun games!
Homemade cake pops, made by the sister of the Bride-to-be!
What a fun and relaxing day in the Wine Country. I’ve always wanted to explore more of Sonoma (instead of the usual trips to Napa.) If you have any Sonoma favorites and must-sees, please let me know!
