Vaga winter tasting menu

Vaga meal for our 2023 

Getting ready for the meal and excited

Situated ourself for the excitement at the pass 

This is an unusual opportunity. Encinitas opened a new resort a couple of years ago call Alila and i remember a lot of controversy as it's a huge resort that a lot of people are worried it will spoil the coast line and destabilize the bluffs. And I remember them showcasing a chef that time for Vaga restaurant in the resort Claudette Zepada. 

Fast forward 2 years later and I saw her again on Iron Chef legend competing. She's kind of bad ass and I was interested to try her food. But realized that she is only doing a consulting chef job at Vaga these days.  

Claudette doing her rounds after the meal

This winter, I saw that she is doing a winter tasting menu during winter solstice. So Bill and I decide to do today as our 2023 anniversary and year end dinner. I think they are trying to get their Michelin star as all the servers are trying to coordinate serving which is no easy feat for a 10 to 20 pax table. 

Ready, get set, serve! 

The menu for the night is quite interesting. As she's Mexican, there's some twist to the dishes to bring in a Mexican influence and she incorporated heat in almost every dish. 

Menu for the night

On our arrival, they served a complimentary cocktail while waiting for all guests to arrive. The cocktail was smoked in a cochon and was named "when the fog rolls in" 

I don't recognize half the ingredients in the cocktail (yellow chartreuse, laphroaig, blue chartreuse, blue spiralina and seaweed simple syrup).. What's interesting is they put in verde mezcal that's really strong and smoky and a definitely tribute to the Mexican twist. Traditionally mezcal is served either before with orange or after a meal so I guess she's going for the before =) 

Complimentary cocktail

Side note: The property is really beautiful at Encinitas. 

Restaurant all setup waiting for diners 

The restaurant has a great view of the ocean except that it was dark by the time dinner starts as it's winter. And we caught some cool glimpses of thunder in the ocean as SD had a winter storm. 

 

First course is snack =) There's a cracker with scallop sashimi style, a celery root on a stick and crab/avocado with bread with some kind of seeds dressing. Good start and we particularly enjoyed the scallop cracker. I don't particularly care for the root as it seems a little flat on the taste. 

Amuse-bouche course

This is the true first course in the menu. She started with a twist on aguachile. Typically aguachile is served like a cerviche with fresh chopped cucumbers and barely marinated fish/shrimp in lime juice. In this case she did a very thick sauce that's almost like a mole and it has heat that builds. The yellowtail is really fresh and the shaved fennel is very good. What throws me off is I feel like the heat of this dish did not compliment the wine and was too strong for it. And the yellowtail ended up not being featured as the sauce is too overpowering. 

First course

The 2nd course is a very successful salad. She has a habanero vinaigrette that also build the heat over the dish. It has shaved winter vegetables like carrots, radicchio and was able to balance the bitterness of vegetable with that dressing. There's some kind of treatment to the capers that they got crunchy and salty on the top that went well with the dish too. The wine pairing is good too as the salad and wine complimented each other. 

2nd course

They served the house milk bread roll to tie the time for cooking the seabass. That's a very good bread roll with a honey syrup brushed on top. I think this bread roll is a staple in the restaurant as I saw them prepping a bunch at the end of the night for the next day. 

Milk bread rolls

The 3rd course is my favorite course with seabass. The cook on the bass is perfect. And the grapefruit on the top was able to go very well with the seasoning on the fish and the farro is well cooked. It's almost a play on rice and fish in asian style except the farro is an interesting twist. This is the only dish that I didn't find heat. The wine was a pinot that I find didn't quite match the fish. But itself it's a good wine. 

3rd course

3rd course showing the farro

The 4th course is our least favourite course as the beef is overcooked. But the potatoes are well executed and serrano pepper added a lot of flavor on top of the green goddess sauce. If the beef was more rare, this would be a great dish to finish the meal. The wine for this course is our favorite. I would hunt down this petit syrah when I have time

4th course

They served the dessert with an expresso martini that is also more of a Mexican twist. The dessert is stunning with the coconut makrut with a lime filling semifreddo. The semifreddo basically a ice cream/mousse with a lime filling in the middle. The coconut makrut is a cake layer on the bottom and they sprinkled with macadamia crumble and poppy seed. Very good dessert. My only thought is I think they perfumed the makrut with coconut essence instead of real coconut based on my taste buds (I could be wrong) and that's slightly off putting for me. Otherwise it's a great dessert. 

dessert course