Another Year

Today is my 38th birthday. There....I typed it.

Hubby and I, along with 12 members of his family drove up to Sonoma today to try a Portuguese restaurant I had heard of but not tried yet. I had joined their email list last year and had read about a promotion they had during the winter called Sopa Sundays. The best way to describe them is from their website - 'Sopas is a classic Portuguese dish served at Festas throughout California. It consists of roasted beef and braised cabbage accompanied with crusty bread moistened with a beef-mint broth.' Hubby's mom (and hubby) make sopas a couple of times a year (minus the cabbage). We call it Soggy Bread.....but very yummy!

I had received an email saying that today was the last day that they were serving sopas for the season and I forwarded it to my mother-in-law. Hubby's parents take us out to dinner on our birthdays and she suggested we give this restaurant a try. She then thought it would be a fun idea to invite other members of the family in the area who like sopas. We sent out an email to everyone and got the large response. I let people know that this was not a party for me - we just wanted to try out the restaurant and their sopas.

Here is the chef's interpretation of Sopas:

I strayed from the group and ordered a favorite from my past -

BACALHAU à GOMES de Sá

-a Traditional baked casserole of North Atlantic salt cod, potatoes, onions and olives

And this is our group outside the restaurant:

The verdict on the sopas was 'thumbs up' from everyone who ate them. I had a bite of hubby's and enjoyed it. We had appetizers before the meal of linguica and blood sausage. The verdict is still out for me on the blood sausage though. We also ordered desserts to share after the meal. They offer dessert 'trios'. The "trio" we ordered to share had miniature malasadas, rice pudding, and a pumpkin spice cake.

Hubby and I will definitely return. The drive was beautiful, even though it rained all the way up there. We will have to plan to go in August or September during the grape harvest, so we can see the vineyards along the way in full grape mode.