Vanilla Pod restaurant, Poplar Grove

On Wednesday in the middle of our week at Naramata each year, we go to a winery for lunch.  We have been to a couple of different ones over the years, this year we decided to try a new restaurant that had just opened. The Vanilla Pod situated at Poplar Grove Winery.

The winery moved to its new spectacular location and beautifully simple building last year, and the Vanilla Pod restaurant moved from Summerland very recently.  We got a large table outside on the extensive deck, which fortunatly was shaded by a large canopy as it was a warm sunny day.

There was a large dark cloud threatening to disturb our alfresco lunch, but for some reason it turned south and we avoided the storm that it undoubtly was carrying.

To start Connie, Nancy and I chose a garbanzo bean salad to share.

This was light and tasty with the beans and tossed with a little spinach, onion, tomato and fresh herbs.  The dressing was light and did not overwhelm the fresh ingredients.

Lake Breeze winery - Naramata bench

I have been going to Naramata every summer for about 24 years, and though the village itself has not changed much, the surrounding area has.  When we first started coming, there were a couple of wineries and the remainder of the area was devoted to growing fruit trees, peaches, cherries or apples. It is now reversed, there are ever more wineries and vineyards and fewer and fewer orchards.

One of the wineries that has been there for a few years now Lake Breeze, has branched out in to serving food on the deck. So this Wednesday when finally the weather had turned sunny and warm we decided to go there for lunch.

The patio was full and we were lucky to get a seat with out a reservation.  We had tasted the wines a couple of days before and therefore new that they would be good, and as you are eating right at the winery the wines are not much more that buying them from the wine store.

Two people ordered the cold roast chicken salad.

Though I did not get to try this they both said it was delicious and the salad did not look like it had too much dressing on it and there were some lovely looking berries on it.