Ever since moving down to southern CA in 2024, we haven’t been back up to the Sacramento area. We really missed the food and decided to make a trek up to our old stomping grounds (both Sacramento as well as the Napa Valley area, another favorite place to visit when we lived up there) in early 2026. After living in the Sac region for so long, we had some “go to” places that we wanted to hit up.

After landing at SMF and collecting our rental vehicle, we made our way over to Davis to have some lunch before the drive out to Sonoma. The first restaurant to check off our list was Mikuni Sushi. While it is now a chain with 10 locations, it is still quite good and relatively affordable sushi and other Japanese fare. Knowing that our dinner that night may be somewhat heavier, we ordered accordingly and had some sashimi, rolls and nigiri

After lunch, we walked over to Pachamama to grab some caffeine for the slightly over an hour drive to Sonoma. They had some seasonal drinks and I had one that was like a “Fireside mocha,” which was quite tasty. Also the toasted marshmallow was a nice touch.

Our room at the boutique B&B in Sonoma (Inn at Sonoma) was ready early so by the time we arrived we could check in. I had stayed at one of their sister properties (funny enough the parent company is called Four Sisters) while working down in southern California. This place was just a few blocks from Sonoma Plaza.

We had a little bit of time to kill before dinner and decided to do a little bit of a hike at the Sonoma Overlook Trail (I had discovered it when I was researching a bit of the area to see where I could run – fit in a run later in the trip). The trail had a slight incline and took about 40 minutes of casual meandering to get up to the top. At the top we spotted a family of deer that were grazing and of course keeping an eye on us. Before heading out to dinner, we partook in the B&B’s free wine and cheese hour