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If you seek restaurant specials, a delicious carbohydrate fantasy or adventures with new cuisines, then look forward to the 2025 Taste Tri-Valley Restaurant Week next February.
Visit Tri-Valley, the regional destination marketing group, has hosted Taste since 2020. New special events and merchants augmented the mission to attract guests and heighten awareness of the local food and drink scene. This year businesses at the fourth Taste Tri-Valley Restaurant Week from Feb. 23 to March 3 presented fluffy souffle pancakes, Nepalese dumplings, two-for-one tastings at wineries and much more.
There were two ways to whet your appetite for Taste. One option was by registering in advance for “Restaurant Week Events” on the Visit Tri-Valley website. Requiring reservations, these special experiences included two charity events, the opening dinner and closing brunch, plus five other events.
The other option for learning about Taste was the list of participating restaurants and wineries on the website, but the list was a tease. Descriptions of the offers were only listed on the free Taste pass which required signup on the website. After receiving the link to the pass on your phone, details on the offers went live on the Taste start date.
Sorting through the 173 “redemptions” (aka offers, discounts or prix fixe meals) from the 55 restaurants, 15 wineries and three beer pubs was a delectable puzzle. In the end, I explored several new, unusual and value-driven opportunities.
I attended the opening event, a grand, four-course dinner at the LB Steak location in City Center Bishop Ranch in San Ramon. I looked forward to the beef entree prepared by in-house celebrity chefs Roland Passot and Romero Miraflore, plus outstanding dishes from Francis X. Hogan of Sabio on Main in Pleasanton, Daniel Massie of Wente Vineyards in Livermore and Rodney Worth of The Peasant and The Pear in Danville.
Beyond the first-rate food, it was heartwarming to see support from the event sponsors and community leaders for the Taste charity beneficiary, Sunflower Hill, a Tri-Valley nonprofit that co-develops affordable housing and opportunities for people with developmental disabilities.
The event also highlighted the teamwork required to enable residents and visitors to feast on the Taste opportunities. The title sponsor for Taste was Fremont Bank, represented at the opening event by senior vice president Don Merak who told me, “If people ask how we fuel innovation in the Tri-Valley, many say with fusion from Lawrence Livermore National Lab. I say, we innovate with food.”
New Tri-Valley places to dine
A key reason to join Taste is discovering new dining spots. Denica’s Real Food Kitchen is so new to Pleasanton the sign isn’t up yet. The 25-year-old Denica’s in Dublin and those in Livermore and Castro Valley are known for jumbo-sized cinnamon buns and large portions of breakfast and brunch specialties.
Opened in December, the Pleasanton locale features new dishes such as breakfast carbonara with pasta and two poached eggs and my recent selection, the high-carbohydrate, nearly two-inch-high soufflé pancakes accompanied by a welcomed sprinkle of fresh fruit and a fanciful but over-the-top gob of whipped cream.
The Taste redemption — a free cookie — was taken home.
Tides restaurant has spawned new seafood lovers in Danville since opening in August. The green and turquoise walls, plants and clam shell-shaped lamps over the bar lend a tropical air to the sister restaurant of Forbes Mill Steakhouse, also in Danville and a Taste participant.
Owner Ron Garald told me his Forbes customers encouraged him to open a fish-centric place.
Tides’ Taste prix fixe dinner featured their bestsellers: crabcake and Chilean sea bass. My friend and I liked the coconut panna cotta that looked like a pretty, sea gastropod (snail) crawling across the plate with slivers of coconut “antennae” on top.
Three blocks from Tides is a much-newer restaurant, Isola Osteria, featuring the food of Sicily.
“We opened in early February and about 10% of our guests dining during Taste used the pass,” said owner Angelo Davo, who offered a prix fixe dinner with an antipasto and four main options from ravioli porcini to grilled whole branzino.
Another new restaurant introduced me to a cuisine on my foods-to-try bucket list. Urban Momo has served Nepalese food at the Pacific Food Hall in Pleasanton’s Pacific Pearl shopping center since mid-February.
Nepal is situated between China and India, and the restaurant’s menu includes familiar dishes from both cuisines. Gaining traction in the food world, Nepalese momos are Chinese-style steamed dumplings served with sauces based on tangy-spicy timur, a Himalayan pepper.
Armed with a 20% Taste discount and a hunger for Nepalese specialties, I ordered an Everest-sized lunch of momos, “gobi chili” cauliflower stir fry and Nepali fried rice.
Value-driven experiences
Taste redemptions enabled several high-value food and wine experiences.
Chef-owner Worth offered a $29 three-course prix fixe lunch or dinner at The Peasant and The Pear, one of his three restaurants in Danville. While I waited for my takeout Taste special, Worth told me, “I chose chicken piccata because it is recognizable and popular with guests.” A savory blue cheese and glazed walnut spinach salad and decadent chocolate cake accompanied the meal. Worth mentioned that nearly 20% of sales were due to Taste redemptions.
Retail stores also brought Taste offerings to the table. Prima Vini Wine Merchants in Dublin now has a wine bar, and the pass redemption was an exclusive Italian wine flight. (But the store’s listing was not categorized on the Taste pass under either the “Restaurant” or “Winery” filter.)
Known for its large cheese selection in Livermore, The Cheese Parlor was listed on the “Restaurant” filter with a discount on their meal-sized cheese or charcuterie plates.
Livermore wine tastings
Many Livermore wineries such as Retzlaff Vineyards offered two-for-one tasting redemptions.
With a five-wine tasting, Retzlaff drew a crowd on a sunny Sunday on their tasting lawn. Surrounded by the winery’s organic vineyards yet only one mile from the city’s downtown, the bucolic scene reminded me of the area’s rural roots.
An advantage of Taste winery visits is the opportunity to spot the winemaker and taste small production wines. At Longevity Winery, I met winemaker Philip Long, Jr., the son of founders Phil and Debra Long. The tasting at Longevity stood out with a pour of six wines for only $20 including the popular Rosé of Pinot Grigio and the small lot Rosé of Petite Sirah, which is only available at the winery.
Dining with beer and food
This year three beer pubs joined Taste. McKay’s Taphouse & Beer Garden in Pleasanton offered two redemptions, but I visited McKay’s during a Livermore Wine Trolley special restaurant tour event.
As I sipped my Faction Red Ale, I devoured the warm pretzel bites with housemade sweet red ale mustard and two savory flatbreads. I assumed the panini triangle was filled with cheese but was pleasantly surprised by a thick layer of mac ‘n cheese.
The Hop Yard American Alehouse & Grill in Pleasanton is under its third ownership since opening in 1993. But server Gabby Alfonso told me regulars from the early days stop by, and hamburgers remain the signature dish.
I ordered the Taste lunch for $19: Tomato-basil soup with extra parmesan and turkey club on whole wheat bread with fries. The bacon was crispy, the turkey freshly sliced and the portions huge. The dinner special of braised short ribs in a red wine reduction also looked appetizing. The broad beer selection on tap satisfied me and my beer-loving friend.
The “Fizz, Food and Fun” brunch was a special charity event at Las Positas Vineyards in Livermore last Sunday (March 3). Winemaker and general manager Brent Amos, the recent “White Sweepstakes Winner” at the prestigious San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, chatted with guests as they dined on chef Curt Pipes’ tapas while sampling wines from their five-tier wine tower.
If you seek more culinary experiences or art and culture happenings, check The Vibe, the new one-stop events platform, from Visit Tri-Valley.
More fun special events
As in previous years, Taste offered additional special events that required signup on the Visit Tri-Valley website. Repeat events included the popular food tours with Livermore Wine Trolley, the Beer vs. Wine Dinner at Bottletaps, Pleasanton, and the Wine & Cheese Pairing dinner at Page Mill Winery. New special event participants included Wood Family Vineyards’ Wine Tapas and Music and Meet the Winemakers at Concannon Vineyard in Livermore.
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