Santa Ynez Valley: Ballard Inn and Restaurant review - great package
We took advantage of the Ballard Inn and Restaurant website dinner package which includes room, wine and appetizer happy hour, $100 dinner credit and breakfast and enjoyed it throughly. The Ballard Inn is located in the very tiny town of Ballard in the Santa Ynez Valley near Los Olivos and Solvang. it is a perfectly located, quiet and charming hotel with a legendary evening dining room.
Appetizers late afternoon consisted of several local wine selections, cheeses, crackers and various savory samplings held in the hotel fireplace lounge with cosy homelike seatings. Room and amenities were lovely. Coffee was always available in the lounge and fresh lemonade was served on the spacious wrap-around porch when sitting on the rocking chairs enjoying the front rose garden or coming back from a hike around the block to look at the one-room school house still in operation.
We had stopped in Solvang first on our way up there for the requisite walk-up window abelskievers which are always better looking than tasting since I come from Danish heritage and grew up on the real things, but this is one of our indulgent rituals when we head up to this area so we sit eat and people watch always when we visit.
For dinner I had the foie gras appetizer with grilled peach and a reduction sauce (perfect) and DH had the sesame ceaser salad in an unusual presentation and fulsome with anchovy, also perfect. We both had the duck breast with sweet potato mash, and braised swiss chard and again a reduction sauce. (perfect).
Next on to perfect desserts: DH had the chocolate dessert ala mode and I had the blueberry panna cotta with candied almond pieces. Portion size was ideal, ingredient treatment first rate with complex flavor/texture combinations that wholly intrigued and satisfied. This is a dinner experience worthy of a special trip. Cookies on the bed at turn-down and cookies also available at the front desk.
Dinner easily used our $100 credit but mainly it was the bottle of wine that drove the total price up as nothing was under $50 plus. We had a Star Lane 2006 Cabernet - quite lovely, but lacking a complex finish.
Breakfast was merely ordinary and could use the same attentions dinner offered, but I sensed this was an operation of the hotel staff and not the dinner crew. Standard breakfast items somewhat indifferently prepared. Nothing special, but filling and adequate. Bacon, eggs, meat and toast combinations. Waffles and oatmeal with a side board buffet with cold cereals and yogurt. Fresh cut fruit but no fruit juices as we recall.
While in this area, be sure to check out the peach and strawberry stands on Alamo Pintado Road just a mile down the road from the turnoff to the Ballard Inn and Restaurant.
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The Ballard Inn & Restaurant
2436 Baseline Ave, Solvang, CA 93463
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re: macdog
The old Ballard Store restaurant which was really the grand-daddy of them all up here is a closed empty shadow of it former self while the new kid on the block that stole all the thunder deservedly is the Ballard Inn restaurant.
There is a left over name sign "Nuuovo" on the old Ballard Store place directly across the street, but never knew what, why or when it closed down. At least, they keep the rose garden landscaping up so it remains a pleasant view from the Ballard Inn when sitting on the porch sipping their complimentary delicious lemonade. Or who knows, maybe it is the Ballard Inn itself that keeps it looking good.
Not sure that little town can support two out of the way premium restaurants but the old Ballard Store carries a lot of dining memories for me from way back too. (However, none of them particularly good cuisine wise, but setting and ambiance always got top rating)
Maybe a good place for a new "wine ghetto" for the surrounding wineries? But I know nothing about the wine marketing business so who knows what would work in that vacant but well-established spot. I do remember dining in the downstairs wine cellar so it has some of the wine basics already.
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The Ballard Inn & Restaurant
2436 Baseline Ave, Solvang, CA 93463
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