Lodi is for Lovers

 

I've been to Guantonio's in Lodi twice, and I'm a super fan. I'm not alone! Me and smiller went on Saturday to celebrate V-Day. The restaurant opens at 5:00, we arrived at 5:10 and our wait was an hour to be seated (outside, near a heater). I would advise, you either need to get there at 445, or come around 7 and you won't have much of a wait. Definitely 530 or 6 is a bad time to arrive. 

Waiting is not too bad, because you can get an excellent brew or bottle of wine and stand at tables outside (also by heaters). Folks tend to chat amongst the tables. It's very friendly. We heard another table from Sacramento who was really making friends, and we talked to a Lodi couple about restaurants they like in Sac. We got a tip from those locals that the Lodi Airport cafe (only open M-F for lunch and Sunday brunch) has really good food. The motto is "eat. fly. skydive." but I would def subtract "skydive" due to the safety record of that skydiving business.

We were seated slightly after 6, which is not late to eat so it was fine. We got a bottle of an Italian red blend. The owner seems to come out to open every bottle and discuss it, so that's a pro tip if you want to give compliments to the chef.

Guantonio's has a very exciting menu. I will often look at a menu and feel pretty meh about everything, but because of the creativity of the app menu at Guad's, I usually want to get just about everything. This time we chose a deep-fried hardboiled egg. It has a breadcrumb shell and was served with house-made chive mayo and topped with trout roe. That's honey on the plate! Crazy! Nick G. loves honey, if you get his pie "Nick-style" it's a roni pie with ricotta and hot honey.

I love a winter salad! So if I see some pretty-ass chicory on a salad I WILL be ordering it. This one had yuzu AND grapefruit AND crunchies (in the form of peanuts) AND miso AND dukkah and like a true salad master (sadly rare) it all came together to make this salad off the chain. My only note: maybe pistachios instead of peanuts? I should not be giving a genius notes tho.

 On to the pie. It had Olympia Provisions mortadella. It just goes to show how hard charcuterie is that some of the best can't be found any closer that Portland (there's Molinari for closer), but anyway I really should be eating more mortadella (doctor's orders) so this was a natural to choose. Also, hot peppers. The pizza is quite good, it lacked a crunch or crisp or chewy factor, not talking middle sog, but edge crust, which was a little more crust than I need. It's so hard to write about pizza, as I found when I briefly worked for Slice (RIP to that website). There are many pizza styles in the world, but  my partiality to Masullo's pizzas colors my perception of this type, which I won't really call Neopolitan but I guess wood-fired.

We even got dessert, which we never do, but eff it, it's Valentine's Day. Buffalo milk vanilla and salted caramel soft serve.  We saw a lot of takeout orders leaving with "Noni's canoli" so those are probably good. I think his dad and mom were working the kitchen, so perhaps Noni was there. 

Later that night we went to Dancing Fox Winery, which has a very interesting beer list, and then in the morning we went to Charro's Birriera, which I had clocked the day prior.

You know I'm gonna get stoked when I order birria and they ask me if I want goat or beef. The answer will always be G.O.A.T.

OMG so good.

Here's a taco made from my soup.

Smiller got a birria taco and a quesabirria taco, so his breakfast was ridiculously cheap, got a little bowl of consomme too.

My check was expensive because I got the full soup and a Michelada too! Hair of the dog for the wine and beer at Guad's the night before

Conclusion: Lodi is rad (in some ways!)