Hotel

Gaige House
Back in November, Jetsetter was running a Cyber Monday deal for $75 off any available property. We still hadn’t figured out where to stay in San Francisco, but when this hotel popped up, I knew a trip to Sonoma was in our future! The booking included a full hot breakfast, wifi, free off-street parking and a wine reception in the evenings. The hostess was very nice and helpful with dinner suggestions and the room, as you can see from the photos below, was quite stunning.

Although we were located in a room facing the road, it was very quiet at night and I really liked being able to walk to several good restaurants in town. The inn provided guests with flashlights as there aren’t any street lights and we definitely recommend walking down the road parallel to Arnold Drive to get the restaurant area and avoid the cars driving on a dark road.

Hyatt Regency SFO
Eric wanted to take advantage of an club lounge upgrade we needed to use, so we booked this hotel because of an early morning flight to begin our journey back to NC. After a day of wine tasting and driving around, we decided to eat the variety of snacks available in the lounge and skip going out for dinner. There was a good selection of samosas, bread, crudités and soft drinks to choose from. Then we repacked our luggage and chilled out with some TV in the room.

our view of the atrium

Food & Beer

After a long overnight flight from Hong Kong, we breezed through customs (thank you Global Entry), collected our bags and got our rental car without incident. After checking into the hotel, I was famished so I dragged Eric out to a late lunch at Russian River Brewing where we split a surprisingly tasty meatball sub sandwich. Eric was in sour heaven with the Supplication but I went the maltier route with the Mortification. Because we were there, we also got the $1 tasters of the Consecration, Rejection, and Blonde.

At this point, Eric’s brain was shutting down, so I drove us back to the hotel for a quick nap before one late wine tasting and happy hour at the hotel. After chatting with a few other guests and enjoying a glass of wine, we walked to Fig Cafe on very dark back road (see hotel note above). The restaurant was crazy busy, so the service was a little slow but the food was very good and there’s no corkage fee, so we enjoyed a bottle we picked up at Kunde earlier that afternoon.

On Friday the friendly guys at Wellington Vineyards tipped us off to a small brewery in Sonoma called Sonoma Springs Brewing. We browsed the choices beforehand and they looked promising, so we stopped in for a pint. Eric really wanted to try their sour but it wasn’t tapped, so he settled for the Kolsch. Most of the other options were too light or too hoppy but thankfully they had just enough left of the malty Octopotomus to let me try. The tasting room is very laid back with a bring your own food, have a beer and hang out feel. We even had a Boston Terrier eyeing us after we opened a bag of spicy poppadoms that we picked up in Singapore.