Nick and I traveled to Petaluma and Point Reyes this weekend and had some really great food. There's so much that I can only provide a snapshot of each restaurant so that this post doesn't go on forever!

Up first was Sea Modern Thai, which is located conveniently next to the hotel we stayed at, the Metro. We ate a late lunch there, sharing a pan-seared scallop appetizer (don't they look delicious?) and each having entrees that come with rice and a small organic salad with roasted peanut vinaigrette. Nick had the angel eggplant with chicken (pictured) and I had the curried grilled prawns.

Everything was delicious and service was great. The Thai waitress even had to deal with slightly racist and condescending remarks from the two men in the table next to us, with questions like "If I told you you would live 10 years longer here in the US, would you still want to go back to Thailand? WHY wouldn't you want to stay here?" and "See that's why you don't want to live here; you don't have a boyfriend." I was so mad, but she handled it very nicely.
For dinner we ate at
Le Bistro, which is the same name of the restaurant we liked in Hawaii. Here it was a tiny restaurant, with only nine tables and everything cooked by the chef/owner himself. The food was so delicious, Nick and I ate until we couldn't move. He had the soup of the day, a creamy tomato and red bell pepper soup, and almost licked the plate. I had the bistro salad with tiny diced veggies and a dijon vinaigrette.

For our entrees I had the parmesan-crusted prawns in a champagne butter sauce (sorry for the blurry photo; lighting was dim). It was so good despite the fact that I had prawns earlier for lunch. Nick continued his lamb trend and got the grilled lamb tenderloin. The vegetables that came with our entrees were great and so were the potatoes! Dessert for Nick was a flourless chocolate cake and they brewed decaf coffee just for me.

The next day we traveled to Point Reyes and ate at Drake's Beach Cafe, which is right on the beach. I was sad we didn't get to eat there for the fancier dinner, but lunch was casual and good. Their clam chowder was delicious, and my veggie quesadilla was huge and stuffed with roasted peppers, onions, and wild mushrooms. Nick liked his chicken sausage sandwich, but it wasn't that special.

Saturday night's dinner was on the main drag in Petaluma at
Central Market. It houses a big open kitchen and we played our version of the Ratatouille game: "Which one is the chef? The sous chef?" Imagine our surprise when the head chef, Tony, comes to talk to us and to pour wine and water for other tables, and even serve them their food!

I had the chicory salad, which was okay, and Nick had the chorizo buns with housemade vegetable pickles. For our entrees I got the scallops (no surprise there) with a fall vegetable hash and some broccoli di ciccio on the side. Nick got the seared Angus hanger steak with a mushroom-leef bread pudding. We both agreed we really liked out entrees. The broccoli reminded me of Chinese broccoli at a Chinese restaurant, though.

After dinner I approached the chef and asked him to sign the day's menu for us. He was so excited to have been asked, let me tell you. He even handed me his business card with his cell phone number and email on it.
Brunch the next day was had at the Tea Room Cafe. It's order at the counter, fend for your own table, and bus your own table kind of place. That's fine, but it got kind of wonky when people didn't know the system. I chose the baked eggs with ham, spinach, and pesto, with a soy decaf latte, and Nick got a traditional eggs Benedict with ham.

Food was pretty and delicious, and my latte was served to me in a bowl. How weird is that? Okay, maybe not so weird, but I had never had it that way before.
All in all it was a great food-filled trip! I'm too lazy to list all their contact info and hours here, but it's easily searchable on Google and yelp!