Thursday, July 7, 2016

The Weekend Gourmet Dines Out for July...Featuring Napa Flats Wood-Fired Kitchen #WGDinesOut

This month's featured restaurant for The Weekend Dines Out is Napa Flats Wood-Fired Kitchen. Napa Flats serves up refreshing cocktails and delicious California-inspired cuisine at its locations in San Antonio, Austin, College Station, and Tulsa. We were recently invited to Napa Flats to check out their newly remodeled and expanded Bar Napa and try some of their signature menu items. When we arrived, we were warmly greeted by the friendly staff and shown to the large bar area -- which featured soothing tones, high tables, and tons of natural light from multiple large windows. My friend and I looked over the extensive cocktail menu and worked with the manager to select some delicious food pairings. The first cocktail from the bar was the spicy Road Runner Tini. It featured Absolut Texas (vodka infused with cucumber and Serrano pepper), orange-scented Grand Marnier, jalapeno-infused tequila, agave for a touch of sweetness, and lime juice. This is Napa Flats' version of a Mexican martini. It was potent and spicy!
This cocktail paired perfectly with a simple asparagus flatbread and their creative Arugula Beet Salad. This salad features peppery arugula, roasted beets, mandarin oranges, pears, purple onion, pecans, and goat cheese. It's tossed with a tangy orange-red wine vinaigrette. This salad had so many great flavors and textures going on. Our meal was off to a great start! The next pairings sent to our table included a fun white wine flight, another salad, a refreshing tuna appetizer -- and an amazing chicken sandwich.
The white wine flight is a perfect way to try small servings of four different white wine varieties. The white wines paired perfectly with the Tomato Caprese Salad and Sesame Crusted Tuna. The caprese featured housemade fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, prosciutto, basil and a balsamic glaze. The salty, smoky prosciutto was a very nice addition to the traditional caprese. The seared sesame-crusted tuna was served with Asian ginger sauce. 

Quite simply, Napa Flats' Chicken Sandwich is the best chicken sandwich I've had at any restaurant anywhere. The chicken breast is marinated in buttermilk for 9 hours, then it's fried in a lightly crispy breading. It comes topped with a tangy Napa slaw and Cajun mayo -- with a side of housemade potato chips. It's basically the perfect sandwich! Our final pairing featured a new cocktail, a flatbread, and a sweet dessert duo.
The elegant Lavender Prosecco cocktail features bubbly Prosecco, lavender simple syrup, and a lime twist. It's refreshing and so fun! It paired nicely with the vibrant flavors of the Chicken-Pesto Flatbread. For our desserts, we sampled Chef Zachery's  Creme Brulee and Peach Cobbler topped with Salted Caramel Gelato. Both desserts tasted great, but we were partial to the cobbler. It was made with Texas peaches and topped with Napa Flats' made-in-house silky gelato. The salted caramel flavor worked perfectly with the sweet-tart peaches. With that, our meal was complete.

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Napa Flats is a great place to come for a bite to eat -- and Bar Napa is a happening place to enjoy Happy Hour drink and food specials! The staff is very friendly and helpful, and the food is excellent. I love that dressings, cheeses, and desserts are made in house. You can really taste the difference in the food that comes from the kitchen. If you find you're too full for dessert after your meal, no problem! They have a display case near the entrance that's full of house-made pastries you can take home to enjoy later. They even offer an outdoor walk-up window that serves Napa Flats' delicious, creamy house-made gelato to go. For my local readers, the San Antonio Napa Flats location is on the feeder of Loop 1604 at Blanco. 

Dessert: Napa Flats provided The Weekend Gourmet complimentary food and cocktails to facilitate this post. All opinions stated are solely my own.

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