Sonoma County Restaurants: Underwood Bistro

There was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle last week about the Underwood Bar and Bistro in Graton.  The article was all about what a great place it is for dinner and for late night munchies and particularly mentioned the great cocktails and wines.

I agree that the Underwood Café is a great place to go, but I would add that it is just as good, if not better, to go there for lunch.  It’s especially good if you’ve been in West County wine tasting (West County is the part of Sonoma County that is west of US 101).  The lunch tapas menu is great!  I’m particularly in love with the tuna tartare.  It is a truly delicious dish and is also available on the dinner tapas menu, but it is such a great dish to have with a glass of champagne, viognier or chardonnay at lunch time on the back patio.  Oh, and you can also get it to take out if you want to have it at home.

However, tuna tartare is not the only yummy thing on the menu.  Both the regular lunch menu and the dinner menu have oysters on the half shell though not all are local.  There are oysters available from Drakes Bay, Point Reyes and Hog Island but there are also oysters from Washington and Canada, which may not suit locavores.  The Moroccan lamb sandwich on the lunch menu is excellent as are the grilled mushrooms with polenta if you want to go vegan.  There’s also quite a selection of cheeses on both lunch and dinner menus.  For dinner, in addition to several meat and poultry dishes, there is an excellent Catalan fish stew and very tasty ravioli.

The wine list is heavily loaded with wines from Sonoma vineyards and Sonoma County sparkling wines are well-represented, particularly Iron Horse, which is just up the road from Graton.  There are some good Napa wines and a few European wines as well, especially European bubblies.

Anyway, a great place to eat and don’t forget to go for lunch, especially on a warm, sunny day.

~ by bubblytrail on February 4, 2008.