Starlight Wine Bar and Restaurant

After spending the late afternoon watching former Doobie Brother Michael McDonald perform at Rodney Strong Vineyard in Healdsburg, Jamie W. and I decided to saunter back to Sebastopol for dinner. Even knowing what a fool believes, we had no idea what to expect with the Starlight Wine Bar but immediately felt the vintage vibe the minute we walked into the Gravenstein Station which has been repurposed into a series of tourist-​centric shops and cafes (photo:
). The Starlight is actually a WWII-​era Pullman railroad car refashioned into one of those high-​end dining cars you would see in a movie like «Murder on the Orient Express» (photo:
). I was halfway expecting Hercule Poirot to come out and accuse me of murdering the American industrialist in his sleep. J’accuse!
While we both thought the period details were clever and evocative, the space felt a bit claustrophobic. We lucked out and got the table for four near the service bar, which appeared to be the most spacious dining area in the car. The menu was rather on the mundane side, classic American dishes not all that creatively executed from what we could tell from the descriptions (photo:
). We decided to start with the $ 12 Grilled Romaine Salad, which took one heart of romaine intact, charred it and topped it with bits of bacon lardons, blue cheese, shaved red onions, and croutons, all of it drizzled with a roasted tomato vinaigrette (photo:
). Sounded promising, but the flavors just didn’t gel for us with the vinaigrette the most disappointing element.
For his entrée, Jamie was quite underwhelmed by the $ 16 Gumbo, a bowl of New Orleans-​style stew with shrimp, chicken and andouille sausage that lacked real kick (photo:
). Mine was more predictable but better since there was less margin for error. It was the $ 13.50 self-​dubbed Starlight Burger, a half-​pound patty of Niman Ranch ground beef grilled to medium-​rare with a bun smeared with creole aioli and dressed with lettuce, tomato, shaved red onions, and melted Provolone cheese. It came with quite a pile of fries that I happily shared with Jamie (photo:
). The burger was easily the best item we ordered and also the least adventurous. Perhaps the adventure comes when the murderer is revealed to be… uhhhh (at which point I was stabbed by a pearl-​handle dagger… but by whom, Monsieur Poirot?).
FOOD — 3 stars… bland leading the bland on this slow-​moving train
AMBIANCE — 3.5 stars… quite evocative of a mid-​century cross-​country dining experience probably in some Preston Sturges movie (photo:
)
SERVICE — 2.5 stars… sorry but I found the service here rather smug
TOTAL –3 stars… this Starlight Express feels a bit derailed

We made reservations via Open Table. Arrived and were promptly seated at one of the high tables. Wait staff was very friendly and answered all questions about the menu. I had the bone in T Bone Steak & fries. It was a little thin but tasted really good. Seems a bit odd that they had Hunts Catchup rather than Hinze 57 for the fries tho. Just saying. Wife had Crab Cake (1) and was good. Also Potato, cheddar cheese & bacon soup. Interesting restaurant and décor.
We will be back to check out more of the menu.

The interior is somewhat interesting, but even after making reservations we were only allowed to sit at a bar style table. The funny part was that no one came to claim the other tables, very strange.
The food menu is a bit dated, kind of like the interior, but its still possible to make it good. However, I thought the food was just ok and wasnt worth the price. Im not sure what this place is trying to be.

Great food, special setting, best service-don’t miss it!
Ron Foster

The atmosphere here is great: re-​done dining car from a train. (On the few long trips I’ve traveled aboard a train, I would’ve been ecstatic to have such a nice dining car!)
We were lucky to have arrived here for an early dinner midweek, so not having a reservation didn’t preclude us from enjoying this place today.
The server welcomed us inside and seated us, letting us have a moment to peruse the menu before informing us of the daily specials.
We opted for the smoked pork chop served with a hash of Brussels sprouts and sweet potato piled atop a crusted crab pancake. and the barbecued shrimp and fried oysters served with polenta w/​Worcestershire sauce.
For wine to accompany the meal, we chose small 2 oz pours of a local pinot noir and a viognier. (We had a long way to drive home, and larger pours might’ve made the drive home hard to stay awake for the duration.)
The food was nicely prepared and served! Both dishes were wonderful. So much so, that we ~had~ to share bits off of each other’s plate.
The server checked on us to make sure our water glasses were refilled and to see how we were enjoying the meal.
Overall, I have to say that the good service matched with the warm, inviting décor & atmosphere, and the well-​prepared entrees pretty much guaranteed a «We’ll be back.» reaction from both of us, for this place was a very pleasant discovery.

Burger #175: Charming & Dense
Trying to find good spots to eat in Northern California is like bowling without the bumpers up. Sure you can find it if you’re good, but it’s not like in LA where you’re bound to find something no matter which way you go.
My only major annoyance of the night, which was shared by my whole family, was that we based our trip to Starlight on many menu items listed on their website. Once we were there and had the print version, we realized that all our top picks were not available. Now I don’t expect a small business to keep a daily menu updated on their website, but the fact that literally every great sounding dish that we wanted to try wasn’t there was a little bothersome. That set back didn’t stop us from ordering up a storm though.
To start, I had the mac and cheese; It had a nice crispy topping and mildly gooey filling. The pasta was a tad over cooked and overall it could have used some zing, but I enjoyed it.
My mom and wife shared a beet and goat cheese salad and it was really good! It’s hard to have a failure when you put crispy fried goat cheese balls on a plate with anything.
I ordered the burger, medium-​rare, with their self-​proclaimed «best onion rings ever.» The bun was nice and not anything too wild to take away from the beef. I don’t know why I didn’t order cheese, an oversight on my part, which ended up making the burger on the uninteresting side. The main issue was the beef grind was too fine and the meat too tightly packed, making a dense bite.
The beef was cooked pretty close to perfect but due to the grind and packing, the meat wasn’t as juicy as it should have been and could have used more seasoning.
Overall we enjoyed our meal. The service was great and the interior is really unique; basically a train car shoved halfway inside another building. Not the best burger, but most everything else I tried was pretty good.

This place is just a touch off. The food tastes OK. The service is attentive. But not a single thing went off without a hitch. Just a lack of refinement which you would expect for the price. Really, the word that keeps popping up is chintzy.
First, they were breaking in a new waitress, which made the whole exchange a bit pressured. Once she wasn’t under the gun, everything was smoother.
Second, the silverware (along with the menus and tables and just about everything else) were cheap. I don’t really care. I love all sort of establishments, but when it doesn’t pierce the food it’s an issue.
Third, every dish was presented in a way that was absolutely ridiculous. I didn’t expect the grilled romaine it to be cut in half and served in the slenderest plates with said silverware. Good luck eating that before it gets all over the table. Then the BBQ Shrimp in a cast iron pan. The shrimps were ridiculously tasty though continued to cook in their searing hot skillet and ended up overcooking them. And then the deconstructed chicken pot pie. Why deconstruct it? It seemed like they just made the filling and plopped a puff pastry on top. If you remove the pastry of a pot pie, then you need to adjust the recipe because so it’s not to watery.
I don’t mind good plating, but this was some mutated version of what someone thought was nice dining with out thinking through how it would actually be eaten. Really the food wasn’t bad, just poorly realized.