I went camping over the weekend–a yearly canoe trip that my roommate last summer invited me on. We drove up to Alexander Valley on Friday night, canoed down the Russian River on Saturday, and hung out at a winery (and played Bocci Ball) on Sunday. Despite the title, I actually did a pretty good job of sunscreen application–meaning I’m not suffering too bad.

Last night, Diana took the train home. I met her in Mountain View and we wandered around looking for a place to eat. We ended up going to a place called Cafe Baklava. I love Mediterranean food, so I was pretty excited. The service was pretty slow and apathetic. We ordered two appetizers. The Cevizli Peynir was a kind of mush of feta, walnuts, and spices. It was kind of tangy, but not really that spectacular. The Sigara Boregi was a plate full of fried mussels–with a kind of horseradish dipping sauce. These were pretty awesome. For main courses, we ordered Manti–which was a sort of ravioli covered in yogurt. The sauce, again, was a little tangy. The little raviolis were tasty…but it didn’t feel like a dinner. I think they would work better as an appetizer or a snack than as a main dish. We had planned on just getting two appetizers and one main dish, but at the last minute I decided to also order the special–which turned out to be a wise choice.

The special that night was char-grilled Trout (one of my favorite fish). They cooked the whole fish in-skin, then peeled back the skin on one side when they served it (along with grilled veggies & rice). The skin was all charred black, but the meat was perfect–making the outer skin look like sort of a black bowl. We ate the meat on one side of the spine, and then easily plucked the whole spine out and finished off the other side. I was really impressed with how fresh and tasty the trout was–this actually seems like something my YiaYia might prepare. So, overall, the dishes we ordered were about 50/50…that is to say, two good, two bad. The two “bad” ones, though, weren’t really bad so much as just not very exciting. The two “good” ones, though, were excellent, and I would go back for them–too bad the best one was a daily special.